Steve Carmody

A battle is brewing over where the city of Flint will get its tap water.

Last month, the Flint city council voted to join a project to get fresh water from Lake Huron.   Supporters say the project will save the city millions of dollars by replacing its current water source: the city of Detroit.

But the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is asking the state Treasury Department to veto the plan.

Bill Johnson is with the DWSD. He says state officials need to step in to prevent a “water war.”

A plan to close Lansing’s projected five million dollar budget deficit next year may cost some city residents and businesses more than others.

Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero wants the city utility to charge its customers a fee to pay for city streetlights and fire hydrants.   

Right now, Lansing city government pays for the streetlights and fire hydrants out of the city’s general fund. 

Lansing’s mayor wants the city’s utility to charge its customers a fee to pay for the streetlights and fire hydrants to help balance the capitol city’s budget.

The University of Michigan’s allotment of tickets to this weekend’s Final Four basketball games is going quickly.

The last of the more than three thousand tickets might be scooped up by season ticket holders and students by the end of today.

Wolverine fans are not only scrambling for tickets.  They are also looking for places to stay in Atlanta for Saturday’s semi-final game against Syracuse and hopefully Monday’s national championship game.

An equipment malfunction led to a small oil spill into the Grand River in Lansing over the weekend.

The Board of Water and Light admitted today that a malfunctioning piece of equipment at the utility’s Eckert Power Plant Sunday created an oil spill that overflowed the plant’s containment area.  

A utility spokesperson says fewer than 300 gallons of oil seeped into the Grand River.  Oil-collecting booms have been deployed to contain the spill. 

Two people from Michigan are among those sickened in a nationwide E. coli outbreak.

The E. coli outbreak has sickened 24 people in 15 states, including the two in Michigan.

The contamination has been traced to Farm Rich frozen food products including mini pizza slices, mini quesadillas with cheese and chicken, philly cheese steaks

with cheese, and mozzarella bites. The recalled products were sold at Kroger, Spartan Stores and other chain supermarkets.

Governor Rick Snyder is cool to a proposal to roll back Michigan’s new pension tax.

The pension tax was part of a package enacted in 2011 that eliminated the Michigan Business Tax.

A group of five Republican state senators wants to repeal the pension tax and reinstate some homestead property tax credits.

Governor Snyder says the tax on pensions is just a matter of fairness, so that the tax burden falls equally. The governor insists the tax that pensioners are now paying is not too much ask.

There will be one Michigan team playing in the Final Four in next weekend’s NCAA’s men’s basketball tournament. 

The Michigan Wolverines jumped to a double digit lead early in their Elite Eight game against the Florida Gators on Sunday. And they never relinquished their lead. The final score was 79 to 59. 

Michigan is the only Big Ten team to reach the Final Four. Michigan State and Ohio State both lost tournament games over the weekend.

U of M will play the Syracuse Orangemen in one of next Saturday’s national semi-finals in Atlanta.  

Ninety new Michigan State troopers will soon be on the road.

The troopers were officially sworn in today in Lansing.

Governor Rick Snyder told the new troopers they are part of reinventing Michigan, in part by helping those communities hit hard by violent crime.

Christians across Michigan are observing Good Friday.

Observances are taking place in many different places.

Beginning outside the state capitol building, a few hundred members of Lansing’s Christo Rey church followed a group of actors through the streets of the state capitol as they recreated the biblical story of Jesus’ crucifixion.  

Holy week observances conclude on Easter Sunday.

Michigan’s credit rating is getting a boost.

The state of Michigan’s credit rating has taken a bit of a beating in recent years.

But the credit rating agency Moody’s this week revised its opinion of Michigan bonds from ‘stable’ to ‘positive.’

Moody’s is giving the state credit for rebuilding its financial reserves and running structurally balanced budgets. 

A State Treasury spokesman says the hope is the change may help the state get a better rate for an upcoming $200 million school bond issue.  

A new poll shows Michiganders are deeply divided over the state’s new right-to-work law. The law takes effect today.

Under Michigan’s right-to-work law, workers can't be forced to join a union.

Michigan State University’s “State of the State Survey” asked more than a thousand people whether they thought Right to Work would be good for Michigan’s economy.

42.7 percent said it would be good.  41 percent said it would be bad.  16 percent said the right-to-work law would have no effect on Michigan’s economy.

Economist Charles Ballard is the survey’s director. He says right to work supporters tend to be overwhelmingly white, male, non-union conservatives, while opponents tend to be overwhelmingly minority, female, pro-union liberals.

“It doesn’t surprise me that the public is split. I think the public really is split and these survey results are a fairly accurate reflection of that,” says Ballard.

As an economist, Ballard thinks right-to-work will have little effect on Michigan’s economy.

“And on that basis, I’m thinking this issue probably will not go away,” says Ballard.

Michigan is the 24th state to adopt a right-to-work law.

Michigan’s employment picture brightened a bit in February.

The Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget says the state’s jobless rate dipped slightly in February, down one tenth of one percent, to 8.8%.   Michigan's unemployment rate has been declining since last August. 

In real numbers, total employment increased by 15,000 jobs over the month while the number of unemployed declined slightly by 3,000.

A new state law takes effect tomorrow that bans teenage drivers from talking on a cell phone behind the wheel.

“Kelsey’s law” is named for an Upper Peninsula teen who died in a car accident while using her mobile phone in 2010.

Kelsey’s mother, Bonnie Raffaele, lobbied hard for the law.

“Kelsey’s law will undoubtedly save lives,” says Bonnie Raffaele, “We may not know the exact number that it will save, but we know that it will save lives.”

People fighting a proposed wolf hunt in Michigan are celebrating a milestone today.

They delivered a quarter million petition signatures to the Secretary of State’s office this morning.   The petition calls for a statewide vote on the law authorizing the wolf hunt.

Jill Fritz is the director of the Keep Michigan Wolves Protected campaign.    She’s optimistic that state officials will validate enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot.