News

The campaign to add LGBTQ protections to Michigan’s civil rights law has appealed a court decision that stalled the petition drive. The Fair and Equal Michigan campaign filed its paperwork Monday with the state Court of Appeals.

The Associated Press says President Joe Biden will reinstate Obama-era fuel efficiency rules to address climate change.

But environmentalists say those standards - which the Trump administration scrapped  - are not enough. 

Natural populations of oil-degrading bacteria could help to clean up freshwater rivers and lakes after spills from pipelines and trains, researchers have found after experiments that simulated spills in a Canadian lake.

A temporary switch is on tap for Flint’s drinking water source.

The pipeline that brings water to Flint from the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) is in need of some valve repairs. So the city of Flint will be transitioning to its back up water source, the Genesee County Drain Commission (GCDC).

A controversy over elected officials in a small mid-Michigan county giving themselves hazard pay bonuses from federal COVID-19 relief funds is the subject of a meeting Sunday.

Shiawassee County is located between Lansing and Flint.

The Michigan Court of Appeals has returned a case to a lower court for a closer look at the level of risk during an organized hunting event.
 

The case from Alpena County pits a father against a son, who lost two fingers as the result of an accident during what’s called a “European-style” pheasant hunt.

According to the appeals court opinion, this type of hunt involves several two-person blinds arranged in a circle around a tower. Pheasants are released into the air from the tower and the hunters try to shoot as many as they can until they’re called off.  

Update: 07/30/2021 at 4:40 p.m.

Michigan State University will join the University of Michigan in requiring COVID-19 vaccines for students, staff and faculty on campus this fall.

President Samuel Stanley Jr. announced Friday that all students and employees must be fully vaccinated by August 31 if they plan to be on campus this fall. There are a few medical and religious exemptions. The announcement comes days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated masking and testing guidelines nationwide to combat the delta variant.

I'm on vacation this week. Prudently applying mosquito spray as necessary. Hope you're getting to enjoy some time off, too!

The Dearborn primary ballot is unusually crowded this year, with seven candidates vying to be the city’s next mayor. 

Mayors in Dearborn have historically been long-tenured; the city has had just seven since 1929. The current Mayor, John O'Reilly Jr, announced that he would not seek re-election earlier this year. 

The Ingham County Prosecutors office will no longer charge people for crimes where the evidence comes from so-called "pretext stops," if the stops are not related to public safety.

An example of a pretext stop is when an officer pulls over a driver - often a driver of color - for a minor infraction like something hanging from the rearview mirror and then tries to find evidence of a more serious crime.

The new policy is similar to one instituted by Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit  in January.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer said Thursday that more help is on the way for victims of the June 26 storm that led to major flooding in and around Detroit.

The flooding swamped basements, totaled cars, and caused other damage. Whitmer said she moved quickly to declare it a disaster, which eventually led to a federal disaster declaration—and aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Whitmer said at least 30,000 people have signed up for federal disaster assistance so far.

Proposal P will be decided by the voters of Detroit.

The Michigan Supreme Court is upholding the placement of the ballot question to adopt a new city charter.

According to the state Supreme Court, the Detroit Charter Revision Commission is allowed to submit its proposals without Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s approval. Whitmer rejected the charter earlier this year.

The Great Lakes Water Authority’s board of directors accepted CEO Sue McCormick’s resignation on Wednesday.

McCormick and the southeast Michigan regional water utility have been under fire since heavy rains caused major flooding in and around Detroit on June 26. That flooding was exacerbated by problems at a pumping station on Detroit’s east side.

Updated at 1:00 p.m. on July 29, 2021

The City of Dearborn will offer sample ballots in Arabic at all polling sites for the primary election next week, following appeals from local and national advocacy organizations.

“We pushed hard,” said Nada Al-Hanooti of Emgage Michigan, a Muslim-American advocacy organization who said she met with Dearborn City Clerk last week to discuss the need for Arabic-language election materials in the city where nearly half of residents are of Arab origin.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer has toured much of the state this week to build support for using American Rescue Plan funds for affordable housing.

Whitmer’s stops included Detroit, Jackson, and Kalamazoo. She’s hoping to win legislative approval to commit $100 million from the federal government for housing.

She says that could leverage another $380 million dollars in private sector investment.

“Right now, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to give thousands of Michiganders a safe place to call home,” she said at the Detroit event.

Under revised guidance released by the CDC Tuesday, residents in six Michigan counties should resume wearing masks indoors, even if they’re fully vaccinated.

A Detroit city councilman has been charged with conspiracy to commit bribery and accused of accepting $1,000 from an undercover law enforcement agent.

Andre Spivey was named late Tuesday in an indictment filed in federal court in Detroit.

The indictment says the bribe allegedly was accepted on October 26, 2018.

Federal prosecutors and attorneys for an armed anti-government militia continue to lay groundwork for a trial set for later this year.

The group of mostly-Michigan men, the so-called Wolverine Watchmen, are accused of plotting last year to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The defense has indicated it will show jurors that the plot never would have happened, had FBI informants not drawn the militia members in.

The ACLU of Michigan is asking state regulators to examine a Catholic health system’s policy of not providing tubal ligations.

The ACLU filed the complaint with the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) against Ascension.  It’s on behalf of a pregnant woman whose doctor, affiliated with Ascension Providence Hospital in Southfield, advised her to get a tubal ligation in conjunction with a planned C-section.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer says she’s not about to announce new mask mandates in Michigan.

That’s despite new guidance from the CDC that people should mask up while indoors in areas that are COVID-19 hotspots.

Whitmer says she’s very concerned about how variants may develop, but she thinks there are better options right now than new state orders.

The number of new COVID-19 infections in Michigan continues to rise.  

Over the past four days the state has averaged 441 new cases, nearly triple the amount in late June.

Most of the new infections - and nearly all hospitalizations - are among unvaccinated people.

Chief Medical Executive Doctor Joneigh Khaldun says the increase in cases is not due to any one cause,  but several.