The Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) - Local religious leaders will join together Sunday for the premiere of a musical liturgy dedicated to Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Daniel Gross wrote the piece in tribute to his late grandmother, Masha Gross, the only member of her immediate family to survive the Holocaust.

The composition is called "I Believe: A Shoah Requiem." It features the voices of a Holocaust survivor and a range of religious leaders and choirs.

It'll be performed at Orchestra Hall in Detroit on Sunday.

FLINT, Mich. (AP) - U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee has returned from a trip to Afghanistan, the freshman's first official overseas travel as a member of Congress.

The Flint Township Democrat says the country is headed in the right direction with its own forces stepping up to provide security.

Kildee traveled to Afghanistan as part of a three-member delegation. He got back on Saturday.

HOPKINS, Mich. (AP) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture says Michigan has dropped from 7th to 9th in honey production.

According to the agency, 2012 honey production in the state fell 8.5 percent from the year before. Yields from Michigan's 76,000 colonies producing honey averaged 57 pounds in 2012, compared with 64 pounds the previous year.

State apiary inspector Mike Hansen says beekeepers are participating in a survey this month to get a clearer picture of what's going on with Michigan's bee population.

DETROIT (AP) - The closings of three air traffic control towers in Michigan are among 149 nationwide that will be delayed.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it needs more time to deal with legal challenges to the closures announced because of government-wide spending cuts.

The planned tower shutdowns include those at W.K. Kellogg Airport in Battle Creek, Coleman A. Young in Detroit and Sawyer International in Marquette County's Sands Township.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - The drive to fix Michigan's roads is centered on winning support from lawmakers for at least $1.2 billion a year in additional taxes and fees.

But hardly any attention is being paid to how that cash should be divvied up.

Gov. Rick Snyder wants the bulk of new revenue to go to a new fund that would pass along additional dollars to road agencies. Yet few specifics about how the money would be distributed have been released since his budget was unveiled two months ago.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Some Michigan residents saw lower heating bills this winter because of reduced natural gas prices and milder temperatures.

The Michigan Public Service Commission announced Friday that households that use natural gas for heating received lower heating bills. Nearly 80 percent of all Michigan households use natural gas to heat their homes.

The Michigan Supreme Court says it will consider the legality of a city's zoning ordinance that prohibits the use, manufacture or cultivation of medical marijuana.

The court issued an order Wednesday agreeing to hear an appeal filed by the city of Wyoming in the Grand Rapids area. Justices want to know if the zoning ordinance is superseded by Michigan's 2008 voter-approved medical marijuana law.

Significantly, the court also plans to consider if the state law is pre-empted by a federal law that makes marijuana use illegal.

PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) - The lawyer for a man charged in a series of shootings on and off Interstate 96 in Michigan says his client will undergo an independent psychiatric examination.

Attorney Doug Mulkoff told Oakland County Circuit Judge Denise Langford Morris on Thursday that he was in the process of arranging the evaluation for Raulie Casteel.

Langford Morris approved a request for a pre-trial date, now set for May 30.

Casteel faces 60 charges, including attempted murder, linked to shootings in Commerce Township and Wixom.

Two dozen random shootings occurred last fall in a four-county area. One man was hurt.

In a separate but related case, the Michigan attorney general's office is prosecuting Casteel on terrorism and other charges in Livingston County.

Defense attorneys say Casteel is married with no criminal history.

Today U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds denied Bobby Ferguson's request that he be released on bond while he awaits sentencing.

Ferguson was convicted alongside former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on multiple felony counts including racketeering.

Edmunds said he might be a flight risk.

More from the Associated Press:

Federal prosecutors opposed the request from Ferguson. His lawyer had argued that Ferguson wasn't a flight risk or danger to the public...

Edmunds last month denied a request from Kilpatrick to be released on bond while he awaits sentencing.

The Detroit Free Press has reported that family members and friends have offered up their homes as collateral to ensure Ferguson would show up for his sentencing hearing.

Apparently, Edmunds was not convinced.

DETROIT (AP) - A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by five Macomb County residents against the Detroit Institute of Arts over admission fees to a special exhibition.

Macomb County Circuit Court Judge John C. Foster ruled Wednesday the residents didn't have standing to sue and said the cultural institution didn't violate the Michigan Consumer Protection Act.

The residents who sued say they're considering more legal options.

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. (AP) - The Soaring Eagle Casino is planning a new website that won't take bets for money unless Congress changes restrictions on online gambling.

The casino's marketing director Raul Venegas tells the Morning Sun of Mount Pleasant that the website will be for marketing and fun.

Venegas says the casino has "no intentions to offer real money gaming online, but people can play for free."

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - The Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled that a long-running lawsuit can continue that challenges the system of appointing lawyers for criminal defendants who can't afford them.

In a 2-1 decision released Wednesday, the court says a lower judge was OK to reject the state's contention that the case shouldn't be granted class-action status.

The suit says the rights of poor people have been violated because of the paltry pay for court-appointed lawyers.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - A state report says physical hazards remain in the former copper mining region of Michigan's western Upper Peninsula.

The Michigan Department of Community Health says Tuesday it has finished two reports about public health conditions in and around the Torch Lake Superfund site in Houghton County and Keweenaw County.

The site was polluted with waste rock during mining operations from the 1890s to 1960s.The reports include responses to questions raised during a public comment period last year.

One describes physical hazards remaining from mining activities and recommends removing them or restricting access.

The other deals with potential chemical exposure from municipal and private drinking water. It says municipal water is safe and meets applicable standards and regulations, but there isn't enough information about chemical levels in some private wells.

ROMULUS, Mich. (AP) - Authorities evacuated the smaller of two terminals at Detroit Metropolitan Airport for about two hours and detained one person as a bomb squad responded to a suspicious item at a security checkpoint.

The airport says the item was found at a Transportation Security Administration screening checkpoint at 5:50 a.m. at the airport's North Terminal in Romulus. The check-in lobby was shut down.

The bomb squad left the terminal with the item, which had been in an X-ray machine, and travelers were allowed to return about 8:20 a.m.

FLINT, Mich. (AP) - A newspaper's analysis says that many vacant Flint buildings that caught fire since 2008 ended up burning multiple times.

The Flint Journal reports Monday that of the 1,631 suspicious fires at vacant buildings in the city from 2008 to 2012, more than a quarter involved structures that burned multiple times. In all, 416 structures caught fire multiple times during the period.

The report comes as Flint deals with a high rate of fires that's stretched thin the fire department.