Julianne Pastula, general counsel for Michigan’s new Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (ICRC), said during a meeting Thursday that the current timeline for drawing new district lines is “an untenable situation.”
Author: Michigan Advance
To better support the millions of Michiganders struggling to make ends meet, the state should expand apprenticeship opportunities for inmates while they are incarcerated, end asset tests for food assistance, and increase affordable housing for low-income families and people without housing, among a series of other initiatives, according to a newly released report from the Michigan Poverty Task Force.
A coalition of organizations is calling on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to increase its COVID-19 vaccination efforts for the 33,000 people incarcerated in state prisons.
The 2020 census had a challenging year with the COVID-19 pandemic. Now a delay in census data from the U.S. Census Bureau will likely throw a wrench in the plans of the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (ICRC), which needs the data to draw new legislative and congressional districts.
The Kalamazoo City Commission voted unanimously Monday to withdraw from Southwest Michigan First’s “Council of 100” partnership, before City Commissioner Erin Knott passed a motion to also withdraw $10,000 in annual funding to the agency over former state House Speaker Lee Chatfield’s anti-LGBTQ views. Chatfield was recently named CEO of the Kalamazoo-based economic development agency.
General Motors Company, which has been at the forefront of advanced powertrain research, offers just one fully electric vehicle — the Chevy Bolt. No hydrogen-powered vehicles are on the near horizon. Nevertheless, GM pushed the bar higher last month, surprising the auto industry by saying it plans to sell only “zero-emission” light-duty vehicles by 2035. That’s just 14 years, or little more than two new product cycles away.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told the Michigan Advance Thursday that her Fiscal Year 2022 budget plan will include a provision to end the Michigan sales tax on menstrual products, commonly referred to as the “tampon tax.”
Unconscious bias in medical care and a history of experimentation and exploitation of Blacks for medical knowledge has left many in the Black community questioning everything about the vaccines — from the racial demographics of who has been inoculated already, to whether people of color were studied in the safety and efficacy trials and whether the vaccines even work. State officials hope to ease those concerns and erase racial disparities in COVID vaccination rates.
States will see another increase in the COVID-19 vaccine doses they receive, with the Biden administration announcing Tuesday that the federal government will distribute 11 million doses next week.
Transparency and accountability have been buzzwords on both sides of the aisle in Michigan. Michigan scored an F in the Center for Public Integrity’s 2015 State Integrity Investigation and ranked worst in the country for state government accountability and transparency. Since then, dozens of measures have been introduced, but many haven’t been signed into law.
During their first month in office, members of the 101st Michigan Legislature have introduced 275 bills, and several more resolutions, addressing topics ranging from gun control to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A new trend of favorable COVID-19 metrics in Michigan has led the state to allow youth contact sports to resume, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Thursday.
“Never in a million years could you have told me that there would be a day when I’d be walking through an angry mob with nooses, Confederate flags and folks dancing around in blackface,” Rep. Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) said of the armed protest at the State Capitol on April 30, 2020.
“[…] Can rural economies be saved? We’re living in an increasingly urban world where talent and wealth are concentrating in large metropolitan areas. Rural America is growing older and getter poorer. Various policy efforts on the state and federal levels over the past several decades have not lifted that trend line.”
The state’s decision in November to temporarily ban indoor dining, prohibit in-person classes at high schools and colleges, and implement a variety of other social distancing measures may have saved about 2,800 lives and prevented more than 100,000 COVID-19 cases, University of Michigan School of Public Health researchers announced Thursday.
When the pandemic arrived in Michigan last March, paramedics and other emergency medical technicians braced themselves for an onslaught of calls to bring individuals battling COVID-19 to the hospital. And while there was certainly a flood of COVID-19 patients to some hospitals, mostly in metro Detroit, calls to 911 dropped dramatically across Michigan as out-of-hospital deaths soared. Michiganders, including those facing serious illnesses, were avoiding the medical system.
Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg offered an unapologetic defense of President Joe Biden’s vision for improved transportation and greenhouse gas reductions during a Senate hearing to consider Buttigieg’s nomination for U.S. transportation secretary on Thursday.
The plight of residents in mobile home communities has caught the attention of state and federal lawmakers, who are working to craft legislation that would safeguard the rights of homeowners while helping to keep rents affordable. So far, the results have been mixed.