The U.S. House has approved a bill with $42 billion for restaurants and $13 billion for a hard-hit industries program that would help small businesses that weren’t eligible for restaurant aid.
Author: Michigan Advance
The bipartisan $5 billion Building Michigan Together Plan is a major first step in addressing the state’s housing crisis. The funding, mostly from Michigan’s federal American Rescue Plan Act money, addresses a number of housing needs in underserved communities and both urban and rural areas.
A U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee panel last Thursday examined why thousands of books, predominantly written by marginalized authors, have been banned from public schools, and the impact of those actions on students and teachers.
Gary Street writes, “A single one-eighth–inch hole in the pipeline will release, within 19 minutes, propane equivalent to 345 pounds of TNT. What will this do to the pipeline, the tunnel, nearby residences, and any vessels traveling above? It will be an environmental and economic disaster. Even worse, there likely will be fatalities.”
Democrats blamed the oil industry, Republicans blamed President Joe Biden and oil executives blamed global market forces at a U.S. House hearing Wednesday on how to reverse a dramatic increase in gas prices.
U.S. Rep. Fred Upton (R-St. Joseph) announced Tuesday that he will retire from Congress at the end of his current term.
A recent report by the Lansing-based Michigan League for Public Policy (MLPP) hones in on ways to achieve housing justice for older adults and people with disabilities, as Michigan continues to top the charts as one of the fastest-aging states in the nation.
The U.S. Senate advanced Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic Supreme Court nomination in a 53-47 procedural vote Monday evening, hours after the Judiciary Committee deadlocked along party lines.
A pair of Michigan burial sites are among the new National Park Service’s 16 listings to the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.
“Central Michigan University has long been known for giving low-income, middle-class and first-generation college students the opportunity to earn a four-year degree and lead a fruitful life. But the Mt. Pleasant university, like many other higher-education institutions across the country, is facing hard times.”
“With this plan, we’re building on our work to improve our roads, water, and high-speed internet,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Wednesday. “I’m particularly proud of the fact that this plan makes the single largest investment in Michigan history in our state and local parks, empowering hundreds of local economies.”
Julie Cassidy writes, “Michigan has suffered from a crisis-level shortage of affordable homes for years and housing programs have been underfunded for decades, but our policy choices in this brief moment will have an impact for generations. By focusing these unprecedented federal resources and our political will on safer, accessible, and inclusive housing for people with disabilities and older adults, we will ensure that all individuals and families are valued.”
Calvin University LGBTQ+ alumni are rallying now to call on the university to end their anti-gay policies and to help raise money to better support current LGBTQ+ students at Calvin.
By April 2020, 792,669 households with 1,498,658 family members received more than $234 million in food assistance. That’s an increase of nearly 164,000 households and $97 million from February 2020, just two months prior.
A Republican candidate for the Michigan House of Representatives announced that, if elected, he would introduce legislation modeled on a Florida measure known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill
The U.S. Department of the Interior is expected to begin releasing information next month from its investigation into federal boarding schools and their impact on Native American communities.
A $2.5 billion tax relief plan put forward by the Republican-led Legislature drew out the veto pen Friday from Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who said it would “blow a recurring, multi-billion-dollar hole in basic state government functions from public safety to potholes.
House Democrats reintroduced legislation Thursday to expand protections for Michigan’s freshwater supply and close a loophole in state law allowing corporations to bottle Michigan’s water and ship it elsewhere.