I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The owner of the Ambassador Bridge has asked U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Detroit to move to strip any public money for a new international crossing between Michigan and Ontario from the proposed federal budget, the Detroit Free Press reports.
Matty Moroun hopes to build a second bridge span linking southwest Detroit and Windsor. The bridge is the busiest border crossing in North America.
Moroun and his associates have donated more than $64,000 to Kilpatrick since 1998, the Free Press reports.
The new publicly funded span would be constructed in Kilpatrick’s district, likely near Zug Island entering into Detroit’s Del Ray neighborhood, providing a direct highway link between I-75 and Ontario’s Highway 401 and easing the traffic crunch at the Ambassador Bridge which is also located in Kilpatrick’s congressional district, which covers swath of the Detroit River waterfront from the Grosse Pointes through Detroit downriver to Wyandotte.
State and federal officials are hoping that both projects can be built. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who recently met with the Canadian transport minister about how to move forward on the proposed international crossing, told The Detroit News that the second international crossing is a top priority: “It’s a good faith effort on the part of our government and their government to say, ‘We need to build this bridge. We know it will create an enormous number of jobs. We know it will be an economic highway for both Canada and Michigan.’”
Detroit’s two mayoral candidates have split on their support of Moroun’s plans for a new Ambassador Bridge span. Interim Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr. told a recent gathering of the Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce that he is wary of the plan, saying that expanding the Ambassador Bridge complex could have negative effects on the neighborhoods and worsen highway conditions on highways and local streets leading to it. Dave Bing, meanwhile, says that the second bridge would create 3,000 jobs and boost the local economy.
Editor’s Note: This post was updated to clarify certain information.
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