Tagged: Flint

 Women will compete for Olympic medals in boxing for the first time this summer.    One of the women training hard for a shot at Olympic boxing gold is a teenager from Flint.

Claressa Shields is 16 years old.  And she is scary good in the boxing ring.  

Shields has won 19 amateur fights. 14 times she’s stopped her opponent by knocking them out. 

Flint’s emergency manager is welcoming the governor’s pledge to help with the city’s violent crime problem.  

Governor Snyder promised in Wednesday’s State of the State address to work with Flint, Detroit, Saginaw and Pontiac to address their nationally ranked crime problems. The governor will lay out his plan in March.  

“I’ve asked my police chief and others in our community who are criminal justice professionals to be thinking about how we can best work with the state," says Mike Brown, Flint’s emergency manager.   

Flint’s crime rate has soared as budget deficits have forced city leaders to lay off police officers in recent years.   

Flint police have investigated five murders in the past week. The city set a record for murders in 2010. After peaking at 66 murders in 2010, Flint recorded 55 homicides in 2011, with a sharp decline in the number of murders in the second half of the year.

 A new audit finds the city of Flint is still struggling with millions of dollars of debt.    But the report shows one bright spot for the troubled city.  

It´s hardly a surprise, but a new audit of Flint´s finances confirms the city ended its last fiscal year about 7 million dollars in debt.  The city´s crushing debt was one of the reasons Governor Snyder appointed an emergency manager to fix Flint´s `financial emergency´.