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Tag Archives: Michigan

Michigan: McManus pushes to end ‘no fault’ divorce

State Senate Michelle McManus (R-Lake Leelanau), a candidate for Michigan Secretary of State, has introduced legislation that would make it harder for people to get divorced.
McManus is the sole sponsor of SB 1127 which would eliminate ‘no fault divorce’ for couples with children or where one member does not consent to the divorce.
Since 1972 Michigan’s “no fault” [...]

Washington Snow Record: Federal Government Shut Down

Even before the latest pummeling, Washington had recorded 45 inches of snow this winter, including two of the heaviest storms ever to batter the city. Wednesday’s storm — with some six inches recorded already, and snow falling at a rate of as much as two inches per hour at mid-morning — is poised to shatter [...]

Michigan to Push Teachers into Retirement

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm wants to push nearly 40,000 veteran teachers into retirement to eliminate their hefty salaries from the state’s 2011 budget. The plan, introduced to state lawmakers last Friday and discussed in her final State of the State speech yesterday, would save an estimated $230 million a year, but it would also leave students with [...]

Granholm’s State of the State : Michigan

Let me be clear: Our world has changed, utterly. The old Michigan economy is gone.
Anyone who believed that Michigan would just naturally rebound without making deep and lasting change had a rendezvous with reality in 2009. The year that just ended was a dividing line — the finale of what Time magazine has called the [...]

Students Create Site for College Journalists Who Want to Talk about the Craft

Two young entrepreneurs have launched an online community where college journalists are sharing ideas on technology, leadership, news judgment and content.
Kelsey A. Schnell and Brandon Martinez built CollegeNewsroom.org in Big Rapids, Mich., the home of Ferris State University.
via Poynter Online – Ask the Recruiter.

Why senators don’t see the clean energy boom

You might not have heard, because almost nobody reported it, but new clean-energy projects attracted more global funding in 2008 than fossil-fuel projects did. For the first time ever, investors put more money in solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower than in fuels that must be burned, according to a U.N. report. And when venture-capital funding [...]

U.P. unemployment increases

New unemployment figures are out and unfortunately it shows a significant increase for Upper Michigan.
In December, the U.P. unemployment rate was 14.5 percent; that’s up from 12.9 percent in November.
All 15 Upper Michigan counties posted jobless rate increases.  Most of the increases were seasonal with job losses in tourism and construction.  But Ontonagon County increased [...]

Michigan plans to delay more than 200 road projects

Michigan’s inability to raise enough money to match federal transportation dollars forced the state’s Transportation Commission Thursday to delay hundreds of road and bridge projects scheduled for the next five years.
The state stands to go from spending roughly $1.4 billion on roads this year with the help of federal stimulus money to around $600 million [...]

Superfast Bullet Trains Are Finally Coming to the U.S.

5 areas of the country have the population and geography to support high-speed rail now. But each route poses unique challenges.
[...]
The US hopes to have high-speed lines operational within the next decade. Sound impossible? It’s not. Other nations have shown the way. In 1990, Spain’s rail network was in even worse shape than America’s: Trains [...]

Future Farming in Detroit or Spectacular Speculation?

Perhaps I spent too much time with developers and real estate people in my architectural career, but Hartz has said it all in Fortune, from his first comment about sopping up excess land and creating scarcity to his last quote about buying a penthouse in New York. This sure sounds like a classic real estate [...]

Investors see farms as way to grow Detroit

The urban agricultural movement has grown nationwide in recent years, as recession-fueled worries prompted people to raise fruits and vegetables to feed their families and perhaps sell at local farmers’ markets.
Large gardens and small farms — usually 10 acres or less — have cropped up in thriving cities such as Berkeley, where land is tough [...]

Put that in your pipe and smoke it

With a philosophy seemingly diametrically opposed to that of elected law enforcement officials in Los Angeles, the attorney general of Colorado, John Suthers (a Republican), has advised the governor of that state that medical marijuana sales should be regulated and taxed like alcohol and tobacco (and not tax- exempt like pharmaceuticals are, as medical cannabis [...]

Pete Hoekstra Leaking Sensitive National Security Information

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow accused Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking minority member on the House Intelligence Committee and current gubernatorial candidate, of leaking sensitive intelligence information to the press. Hoekstra told the Washington Post this week that Maj. Nidal M. Hasan had e-mail conversations with a radical Yemeni cleric, Anwar al-Aulaqi. Maddow excoriated Hoekstra [...]

Michigan’s cannabis college is quite a joint

Med Grow Cannabis College, located in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, is set to graduate its first class of students later this month. Its co-founder and president, Nick Tennant, the 24-year-old son of a General Motors Corp. employee, said he sees a significant opportunity to teach standards and safety in an industry that can eventually [...]

House: Yes to Extreme Anti-Choice Politics, No to Women’s Health and Privacy

The amendment, offered by anti-choice Reps. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Joe Pitts (R-Penn.), was adopted late tonight by a margin of 240-194.
The Stupak-Pitts amendment makes it virtually impossible for private insurance companies that participate in the new system to offer abortion coverage to women. This would have the effect of denying women the right to [...]