Michigan’s local governments have until Aug. 12 to request funds from the $1.2 billion National Kroger Settlement on opioid abuse.
The Great Lakes state is expected to receive $42 million over the course of 11 years. Eligible communities, at the city or county level, can apply for the funding to be used toward drug abuse treatment. Agreements are expected to be effective by early fall.
Read More
Students at a Detroit combined virtual school took their online credit recovery courses 20 times faster than the courseware provider suggests in the 2023-24 school year.
According to a public records request filed with Detroit Public Community School District, students took their 11th and 12th-grade English language arts classes in about four hours, while the courseware provider Edgenuity recommends students spend 80 hours on such courses.
Read More
Vice President Kamala Harris has tapped Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., to serve as her running mate, multiple news outlets have reported.
Read More
Michigan Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson this week announced that the state would implement a “panic button” system for the November election permitting election officials to quickly alert law enforcement in the event of a threat.
“I don’t believe this is announced yet, but we will be rolling out a panic button type of communication for every election worker if clerks work with us, to implement it in their particular voting location to be able to text if something occurs,” Benson said Monday.
Read More
Candidates in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race disagree on issues ranging from electric vehicles to crime, but most recently, they’ve clashed over foreign policy.
U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich, is facing former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers. Republicans hope to flip the seat as incumbent Democrat Debbie Stabenow is not running for reelection.
Read More
Michigan has a new way to address its EMT shortage.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a law that would extend temporary EMT and paramedic licenses from 120 days to a year. House Bills 4613 and 4614 were sponsored by state Rep. Dave Prestin, R-Cedar River.
Read More
A poll released Thursday and conducted after President Joe Biden dropped his bid for reelection shows former President Donald Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris in the battleground states Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan, while the former president is tied with the vice president in Wisconsin.
The New Emerson College pollsters found Trump enjoys his greatest lead in Arizona, where they determined 49 percent of voters support him while just 44 percent back Harris.
Read More
Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a bill on Tuesday that outlaws defense lawyers from using a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity as part of their defense argument.
The bill passed the state House in a 56-54 vote, and prohibits people accused of violent crimes from claiming that their alleged victim’s perceived or actual gender identity or orientation caused them to “panic.” Michigan is now the 20th state to pass such a law.
Read More
While Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle frustrated lawmakers Monday with sparse details about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the FBI has disclosed to Congress that the shooter used three encrypted communications apps ostensibly tied to Germany, Brussels and New Zealand and also possessed an arrest photo of an earlier Michigan school shooter, Just the News has confirmed.
In multiple briefings, FBI leaders told lawmakers that the 20-year-old would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks’ primary cell phone has become an important focal point of the probe, including some 14,000 images that were found on it, according to multiple sources familiar with the briefings. The FBI has not issued an update on their findings to the public since July 14.
Read More
President Joe Biden announced in an open letter to Americans on Sunday that he will not accept his party’s nomination for president, and instead will “focus solely” on fulfilling his duties as president for the remainder of his term.
Read More
Former President Donald Trump leads President Biden by 3 points in Michigan and 5 points in Wisconsin, according to the results of a new Emerson College poll.
The poll, conducted July 15-16, surveyed about 1,000 likely voters per swing state. Democrats for the Next Generation sponsored the poll, which has a +/-3% margin of error. It was released Thursday, the final day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Read More
Michigan’s governor, secretary of state and three other officials are facing a lawsuitfiled by the Trump campaign this week over granting some government offices the power to conduct voter registration.
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued an executive order in December meant to designate certain state offices, including the Small Business Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs, to act as voter registration agencies.
Read More
The U.K.-based Economist speculates that Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer could save her party from defeat in November if she replaces “doddering” President Biden on the ticket, by nationalizing her Great Lakes State strategy of “relentless targeting of suburban swing voters with simple messages: abortion rights, jobs and infrastructure.”
Voters might ask this scion of a political family, who acted out her motto “get sh*t done” by shutting down in-store gardening sections and in-state travel to second homes to defeat COVID-19, why she’s allegedly forcing counselors to help mentally fragile children “undergo permanent, life-altering medical procedures that many will come to regret.”
Read More
Four weeks out from Michigan’s Primary Election Day, more than 1.5 million of the state’s voters have requested or received an absentee ballot, breaking records set in 2020.
More than 178,000 of those voters have already submitted a completed ballot.
Read More
Former President Donald Trump announced Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) as his running mate in the 2024 presidential election.
Read More
Gunshots erupted and Donald Trump was pulled to the ground. About a minute later he stood up, raised his fists defiantly, and was removed by Secret Service into a car and taken from the scene.
Read More
Republican members of the House Small Business Committee demanded Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) provide an explanation over working with the U.S. Small Business Administration to allegedly aid President Biden’s reelection campaign.
The letter, sent Monday from committee chairman Roger Williams, R-Texas, and Michigan representatives on the committee, demanded documents from the secretary of state’s office regarding voter registration efforts the federal agency is implementing with the state, Fox News reported.
Read More
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appeared, with good reason, on Democrats’ short-list of possible 2024 presidential nominees following President Biden’s halting June 27 debate performance.
Whitmer is the governor of a battleground state that is essentially a must-win for Biden and GOP challenger Donald Trump, an abortion-rights advocate in a race in which abortion is a key voter issue, and is known for having worked across the aisle during her roughly 14 years in the state legislature.
Read More
Michigan’s process of handling election recounts and fraud allegations has changed, with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signing two controversial bills into law Monday.
Senate bills 603 and 604 modify the requirements for conducting ballot recounts and prosecuting election-related crimes.
Read More
The recently passed Michigan budget would guarantee tuition-free community college for all residents, and expands access to tuition-free preschool.
The tuition-free community college program is paid for by $330 million in taxpayer dollars, an increase of $30 million from last year. The new program gets rid of income caps, so any student can receive free tuition at an in-district community college.
Read More
The Michigan Senate is expected to soon vote on legislation meant individual voting protections in state elections.
A four-bill package would create a state fund to reimburse voter discrimination lawsuit costs, set up an election and voting database and provide help to disabled or non-English speaking voters, among other changes.
Read More
The judge in former President Donald Trump’s hush money case approved a request on Tuesday to push back the former president’s sentencing until Sept. 18.
Read More
Foreign policy is an infrequent subject in U.S. Senate campaigns. In Michigan’s Senate election, however, tough talk on the Chinese Communist Party is growing on the campaign trail.
Michigan, a key swing state in 2024’s general elections, will vote this year to elect a successor to retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. Though the primary election is Aug. 6, the race has crystallized around Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin and former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers – the leading candidates for their parties’ nominations – who have both attacked the CCP with a frequency unusual among this year’s Senate campaigns.
Read More
Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser, must report to prison by Monday after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal on Friday.
Read More
A new Michigan policy could cost Oakland and Macomb county households thousands in higher property taxes.
The Michigan House recently approved House Bill 4177, seeking to subsidize two nonprofit museums run through the Wright and Detroit Historical Societies. Because they likely could not stay open through admission fees and donations alone, Oakland and Macomb County residents would pay up to $200,000 in property taxes over the next 10 years.
Read More
The immigration wave at the southern border is a crisis of national security, and Michigan is not exempt from its effects, a recently retired Border Patrol chief says.
Former Chief Chris Clem, who is visiting Michigan as part of Americans for Prosperity’s “Secure Borders, Secure America” tour, served more than 27 years and under five presidents as a U.S. border patrol agent. He was promoted to Yuma Sector chief in December 2020, right before President Joe Biden took office.
Read More
Estate planning could get a little easier in Michigan if a bill that cleared the Michigan House continues to move forward.
Sponsored by Rep. Doug Wozniak, R-Shelby Township, HB 5110 allows income trusts to convert to unitrusts, and vice versa. A unitrust gives a fixed percentage of the assets to the recipient per year, while an income trust provides a steady stream of income.
Read More
A proposed bill could change the way Michigan votes for president.
House Bill 4156 would enter Michigan into the National Popular Vote Compact, an agreement among participating states to elect the president by national popular vote.
Read More
A Michigan judge partially ruled against Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s lenient guidance on signature verification, following a lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee.
On Wednesday, Michigan Court of Claims Judge Christopher Yates ruled “that the ‘initial presumption’ of validity in signature verification of absentee-ballot applications and envelopes mandated by the December 2023 guidance manual” issued by Benson “is incompatible with the Constitution and laws of the State of Michigan.”
Read More
Former President Donald Trump will speak at the Turning Point Action Conference 2024: The People’s Convention held in Detroit, Michigan this weekend.
The People’s Convention will be held Friday through Sunday at Huntington Place in Detroit.
Read More
by Carly Moran Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gave another $10 million toward the Michigan Semiconductor Talent and Technology for Automotive Research, a private-public partnership that wants to make the Great Lakes State a leader in electric car innovation. The MSTAR initiative was launched a year ago and has developed a portfolio…
Read More
The latest battleground poll reveals that President Trump is still leading Joe Biden in the crucial swing state of Michigan, with exactly five months to go before the November election.
As Breitbart reports, the poll by Mitchell Research shows Trump at 49% to Biden’s 47% in a head-to-head matchup. When the poll includes the three major third-party candidates – independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., independent candidate Cornel West, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein – Trump leads Biden with 46% to 45%. In the five-way poll, 5% support Kennedy, while 1% each choose West and Stein.
Read More
Michigan State University currently has more than 140 employees working on 222 different “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” agenda items.
The salaries for those employees, some of whom work on DEI full-time, totals more than $18 million dollars according to a College Fixanalysis. One of these goals included an “inclusive language” guide that instructed university employees not to say “America” or use Easter and Christmas imagery.
Read More
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced broad goals for affordable Michigan housing yesterday.
At the Mackinac Policy Conference held annually by the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, the governor pushed an increased housing construction goal and low-income household energy financing.
Read More
Michigan Senate Republicans universally signed a letter opposing Attorney General Dana Nessel after she threatened to sue the fossil fuel industry.
Nessel issued a statement earlier this month seeking assistant attorneys to litigate on behalf of the state, saying the industry has knowingly caused the state harm. In response, the senate Republicans described the lawsuit as a mistake.
Read More
With border exposure and natural ports, Michigan Republicans want to change state law to make human smuggling illegal and criminalize harboring and transporting people who are or have entered the country illegally.
There are no state-level criminal penalties for human smuggling.
Read More
The Michigan Department of Transportation will begin four new road repair projects this week in Dickinson, Jackson, Marquette and Ontonagon counties.
The projects are all expected to be completed by the end of the summer, and officials say will support an estimated 2,022 jobs across the state.
Read More
A Michigan state senator tried to take another path to try to return money to school districts that were fined for COVID-19 regulation violations.
Sen. Kevin Daley, R-Lum, offered an amendment Wednesday to the 2025 state school budget to reimburse districts for previously unfair penalties.
Read More
A Michigan lawmaker wants to restore what he calls a hunter with a fur harvester license’s right to hunt coyotes all year.
State Rep. Greg Markkanen, R-Hancock recently introduced House Bill 5721 that he says would give that right back to hunters.
Read More
Michigan House Democrats passed budget bills totaling nearly $81 billion – larger than Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s recommendation.
Republicans in the minority for the first time in 40 years decried the spending proposals as wasteful as Democrats said the budget would invest in all Michiganders.
Read More
The Michigan Supreme Court declined to say whether the government can use drones to spy on people without a warrant.
The unanimous Friday ruling follows a 17-year dispute between residents Todd and Heather Maxon and Long Lake township officials who say the 5-acre residential property is being used as an illegal junkyard.
Read More
The Michigan House approved bills to allow physical therapists to practice in states that have entered a compact.
House Bills 4504 and 4505 aim to enter Michigan into the Physical Therapy Licensure Compact, which allows physical therapists to practice physical therapy in states within the compact without having to be licensed in each state.
Read More
The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency wants taxpayers to foot its $55 million settlement for improperly taking money.
The agency said Tuesday it will seek Legislative approval of $55 million for a settlement fund related to Saunders v Unemployment Ins. Agency et al. on April 25.
Read More
Michigan’s top business group says “we can’t get” to the 100% clean energy standard by 2040 without nuclear energy.
The Michigan Chamber of Commerce, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, bipartisan lawmakers and organized labor support restarting the 800-megawatt Palisades nuclear plant on Lake Michigan’s Eastern shore, expected to return online in 2025.
Read More
The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded Michigan $159 million in solar subsidies for low-income households.
The Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund will be administered through the MI Solar for All program, which aims to increase access to affordable solar energy for eligible families.
Read More
A Catholic priest at a Michigan church resigned from his position following protests over his comments criticizing a gay author who read a book to preschool children.
LGBTQ activists held protests outside St. Joseph the Worker Church in Beal City, north of Lansing, following his remarks.
Read More
Michigan Democrats have regained the House after a Tuesday special election.
The wins give Democrats a 56-54 House majority from the victories of Peter Herzberg and Mai Xiong in the 13th and 25th state House districts.
Read More
A new report found Michigan school districts spent their COVID-19 funds similarly to their general budget, with nearly half spent on employee compensation and benefits.
A Mackinac Center for Public Policy report shows how school districts have spent $2.5 billion of the $6 billion in federal pandemic aid between the 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years.
Read More
Within 20 minutes of convening to hold an impeachment trial of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Democrats in the Senate steamrolled through motions and voted to dismiss the first article of impeachment brought against him.
Shortly thereafter, they dismissed the second article as well, without ever hearing evidence or conducting a trial.
Read More
House Republican Leader Matt Hall asked Michigan’s Office of the Auditor General to audit a Gov. Gretchen Whitmer administration program that offers up to $500 in monthly rent assistance to certain people for up to 12 months.
The letter from Hall, of Richland Township, urged Auditor General Doug Ringler to examine eligibility determination.
Read More