Fearing more losses, Michigan restaurants hit pause as COVID strikes staff
By Paula Gardner (Bridge Michigan) Exhaustion. Resources stretched thin, just like staffing. Uncertainty. Michigan’s restaurants fighting to get through the pandemic look back on nearly two years of disruption that, if they’ve survived, took them to the brink. Now they’re starting 2022 with not just more of the same: Thanks to record-high cases of coronavirus, their […]
Michigan nursing home staff shortage raises peril, adds to hospital woes
By Robin Erb, Mike Wilkinson (Bridge Michigan) MOUNT CLEMENS—The dining room at the Martha T. Berry Medical Care Facility is empty these days. There is no one to staff it. A few doors down, veteran nurse Nora Kopek administers more than 400 COVID-19 tests a week to residents, staff, guests and vendors — no longer […]
School violence is rising. Michigan’s OK2SAY tipline can help
by Tracie Mauriello, Chalkbeat Detroit (Bridge Michigan) A Michigan student threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend at school. Another posted on social media that he planned to vandalize cars at the prom and would shoot any “snitches.” Police intervened in both cases before harm was done, thanks to the state’s confidential OK2SAY tipline, which logged 3,742 […]
$1B windfall fuels toxic cleanup of Great Lakes, but uphill battle looms
Kelly House, Michigan Environment Watch (Bridge Michigan) Bruce Yinger barely recognizes today’s Detroit River, its aquamarine depths teeming with perch, walleye and bass, as the lifeless waterway that carried the “dirty dishwater” of his youth. Back then, anglers like Yinger, a Wyandotte resident and member of the Downriver Bass Association, knew they should head to the […]
Michigan OKs electricity rate cut to attract automotive battery factories
By Paula Gardner (Bridge Michigan) Michigan’s two largest utility companies now can offer large-scale industrial customers lower rates, a move that proponents say will boost the state’s chances to attract billions of dollars in advanced manufacturing investments. Members of the Michigan Public Service Commission on Wednesday voted unanimously to approve requests that DTE Energy and Consumers Energy made in […]
Michigan teacher: Kids are heroes but something is going to break
by Ron French (Bridge Michigan) It’s been a tough year for Ludington Area Schools’ fifth-grade teacher Ingrid Fournier. She sleeps more. She hikes more. She drinks more. Sometimes, she cries at the wheel of her Toyota RAV 4 as she drives to Foster Elementary in the morning, wondering how many children will be in class […]
Feds authorize ‘game-changer’ anti-COVID pill as omicron hits Michigan
By Robin Erb (Bridge Michigan) With the nation scrambling to blunt the spread of COVID, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave emergency authorization Wednesday to the first pill to fight the virus. The prescription-only treatment, Paxlovid, is a combination of two tablets, nirmatrelvir and ritonavir, which work together to gum up and ultimately stop the virus’ ability […]
Michigan has an obesity problem. That could make COVID even worse
by Ted Roelofs (Bridge Michigan) Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers are learning more about why so many obese people are hospitalized and dying from the coronavirus — and that could have big implications for Michigan. Conventional medical thinking has linked higher COVID-19 deaths among the obese to underlying health conditions like diabetes and […]
10 years of strict teacher evaluations haven’t boosted learning in Michigan
by Ron French (Bridge Michigan) In 2011, Michigan implemented a tough new teacher evaluation system in which educators’ annual job reviews were based partly on the standardized test scores of their students. The plan seemed straight-forward: Reward good teachers, weed out bad ones and Michigan’s moribund learning would improve. A decade later, that experiment is […]
Walleye love perch too much. So Michigan is expanding walleye fishing.
by Zahra Ahmad (Bridge Michigan) The state’s Natural Resource Commission is making walleye season year-round on the Saginaw River in hopes that anglers will help reduce the population of the fish, which has been gorging on yellow perch in Saginaw Bay. The order, which passed last week, opens the Saginaw River for an additional 45 […]
