On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved for emergency use the first COVID-19 vaccine in the United States. The vaccine from Pfizer and German partner BioNTech began shipping from Kalamazoo across the country over the weekend.
Category Archive: News
Shan & Hogey discuss their pod experience in 2020, as well as what they look forward to in 2021. This episode features an interview with Alek Haak-Frost, Executive Editor of the Watershed Voice, and also the first annual M.A.N.D.I. Awards are given out to our favorite moments in 2020.
Glen Oaks Community College reached out to media organizations Friday evening to announce this project is “back on hold.” The college had received word in early December from the state budget office that it was recommitting and recommending approval of capital outlay requests for several Michigan colleges including a $7.3 million Glen Oaks project. The plan calls for the total renovation of the north side of campus including the library, technical labs, art studio, business classrooms, restrooms, and replacement of the bowed exterior walls.
The small Michigan regulatory panel charged with deciding whether to let Canadian oil company Enbridge build a tunnel-encased pipeline under the Mackinac Straits is shifting gears, announcing Wednesday that it has ordered a rehearing for Enbridge’s application now that the company’s 1953 easement has been revoked by the state.
A 54-year-old Sherwood man died as the result of a two-vehicle crash in Fawn River Township early Wednesday morning.
Here’s how much politicians’ companies, media corps, lobbyists and more got in COVID-19 relief.
At a work session Monday evening, members of the Three Rivers Board of Education (BOE) and Three Rivers Community Schools (TRCS) administrators weighed options for returning to school following the New Year. After some discussion, the BOE tabled any final decisions on the matter pending a review and clarification of further options by administrators. Further discussion will take place at a special meeting next Monday, December 14, scheduled at 6 p.m. for the purpose of reviewing an annual TRCS budget audit.
Watershed Voice’s Michael Hogoboom writes about his late friend Spencer Minor, who he shared a birthday with and a decades long friendship. Tragically Minor died in a motorcycle accident in 2019, and at the time of his passing, Minor and Hogoboom were collaborating on an art project for downtown Three Rivers. The project quickly evolved into a tribute for Minor, the final form of which was unveiled earlier this month in downtown’s East Alley.
Facing record hospitalizations for COVID-19 infections across the state, Michigan health officials are extending the state’s pandemic control orders for 12 more days.
Local recording artist and producer Mitchie Moore released a new full-length album on November 27. Moore virtually sat down with Watershed Voice this weekend to discuss the album, which he describes as experimental hip-hop/rap, with inspirations from electronic music.
In the 23 years since Douglas S. Shuman shot and killed his parents, he has walked the long road of rehabilitation, turning “emotional impairment” into “emotional growth,” by “digging into the remorse and sorrow” he has carried during his two-plus decades behind bars.
Federal and state officials signed nearly 400 treaties with tribal nations in the 18th and 19th centuries. Threatened by genocidal violence, the tribes signed away much of their land. But they secured promises that they could continue to hunt, fish and gather wild food on the territory they were giving up. In 1836 a treaty was signed in which tribal nations ceded more than a third of the territory that would become Michigan in exchange for the right to hunt and fish on the land in perpetuity. An oil spill from the Line 5 pipeline would destroy the state’s ability to honor that right, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said.
A bipartisan bill package that would revise current laws dealing with low-level crimes, youth crimes and probation passed through the Senate Thursday.
In a resentencing hearing held in St. Joseph County Circuit Court Thursday, Judge Paul Stutesman reduced the minimum sentence of 41-year-old Douglas S. Shuman, who was originally sentenced to two concurrent terms of life in prison and two additional years for a felony firearm conviction, after he shot and killed his parents James and Arunee Shuman in Three Rivers in 1997.
The St. Joseph County Road Commission (SJCRC) reviewed a draft budget for next fiscal year at a regular meeting Wednesday evening. Managing Director John Lindsey presented the draft to commission members with the caveat that they review it thoroughly and offer revisions before the next time they meet for a work session on December 16. The working 2021 draft budget currently includes a rough total of $12.5 million in projected revenues and $13.1 million in projected expenses.
In an email addressed to Zoning Administrator Doug Kuhlman, Nottawa Properties, LLC and Nottawa Gas Company announced Wednesday it is withdrawing its request for a conditional rezoning of a parcel of land along Highway M-60 in Park Township.
More than a dozen U.S. House and Senate members are pushing for a bipartisan coronavirus relief package to aid struggling states and local governments and fund programs such as unemployment and rental assistance that are set to expire later this month. Among them are U.S. Reps. Fred Upton (R-St. Joseph) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly), both members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.
Health officials plead with weary Michiganders to wear masks and social distance, as vaccines are coming.