The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) reported Wednesday that a total of 446,752 Michiganders have tested positive for COVID-19 and 11,018 have died from the virus — an additional 4,037 cases and 83 deaths since Tuesday.
The unemployment benefits of about 692,000 Michigan workers are in danger of being axed the day after Christmas if Congress does not act, the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) warned this week.
Beaver Lake Hunt Club General Manager Todd Reilly knew the pandemic meant that camaraderie shared during hunting could end in serious sickness and death for club members, especially considering many are older and susceptible to severe COVID-19 cases. As gravely ill patients flooded intensive care units and the death toll rose last spring, the manager knew he needed to protect his members and decided he’d close the facility’s lodge and kitchen this hunting season. While individuals couldn’t gather like they once had, they were still able to hunt there, and Reilly provided electric hookups for those who wanted to forgo a nearby motel room and instead set up a camper.
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.
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Wednesday that it has ordered a rehearing for Enbridge’s application now that the company’s 1953 easement has been revoked by the state.
Here’s how much politicians’ companies, media corps, lobbyists and more got in COVID-19 relief.
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.
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.
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