A big fight in Lansing over fishing rules on the Great Lakes
by Kelly House (Bridge Michigan) Dana Serafin still hauls in 20,000-pound boatloads of whitefish to supply regional restaurants and markets, but in recent years, the Saginaw Bay fisherman has found it more difficult to fill his orders. Native whitefish, the main livelihood for Serafin and other Great Lakes commercial fishers, have been in decline for […]
Michigan CEOs to GOP: Don’t disenfranchise voters
by Jonathan Oosting, Paula Gardner, Sergio Martínez-Beltrán (Bridge Michigan) Business leaders from some of Michigan’s largest employers on Tuesday urged the state’s Republican-led Legislature to avoid approving any new election laws that would reduce participation or disenfranchise voters. General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Ford CEO Jim Farley and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan CEO Daniel Loepp […]
Homebound seniors in Michigan facing obstacles to COVID vaccines
by Ted Roelofs (Bridge Michigan) In a Grand Rapids home she shares with her mother, Sallie Cooper meets each passing day and week, and wonders. How much time might 96-year-old Lucille Butts have left? And how long will it be until her mother can be vaccinated against COVID-19, to protect her during visits from home […]
Meet the Michigander who’s advising Biden on environmental justice
by Kelly House (Bridge Michigan) Kyle Whyte has long advocated for Native American tribes and other marginalized communities to get a seat at the table with government decision-makers. Now, the University of Michigan professor, who is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, has a role in President Joe Biden’s administration. Whyte, U-M’s George Willis […]
Survey: More than 8 in 10 Michigan teachers are fully vaccinated for COVID
by Ron French (Bridge Michigan) More than eight in 10 Michigan public school educators are fully vaccinated from COVID-19, almost triple the rate of the state’s adults as a whole, according to a survey released last Thursday by the Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teacher union. The high immunization rate among teachers and other […]
Feds fine former Midland dams owner $15 million over safety violations
by Kelly House (Bridge Michigan) Federal regulators have fined the former owner of the failed Midland area dams $15 million for safety violations tied to the disaster, but it’s unclear whether the agency will ever see a cent. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the country’s hydropower-generating dams, announced Thursday it assessed the penalty […]
Halted vaccine was key to reaching hard-to-reach Michigan. Now what?
by Robin Erb (Bridge Michigan) Johnson & Johnson’s COVID vaccine is much like the small and fast player on a field full of behemoths: important not for its size, but for its strategic ability. And as Michigan pushes toward its goal of vaccinating at least 70 percent of adults against the virus, J & J […]
Workers weary, patients angry, as COVID fills Michigan hospitals — again
by Robin Erb, Kristen Jordan Shamus, Detroit Free Press (Bridge Michigan) With an eye on his father’s bloodied face, Barry Jensen began punching numbers into his cell phone from the hospital emergency room. His 90-year-old dad had fallen on a gravel driveway. His glasses were broken. His family worried that his bones might be, too. […]
Rapids return means fish returns
by Taylor Haelterman, Great Lakes Echo (Bridge Magazine) The St. Marys River lost over half of its rapids in the last century, mostly due to artificial structures used for navigation. Restoring one of the rapids is helping diverse fish species recover in the river that connects lakes Superior and Huron, according to a recent study. Varied […]
Students in COVID-weary Michigan schools must take M-STEP, feds say
by Ron French (Bridge Michigan) Michigan students must take the state’s federally-mandated standardized test, the M-STEP, despite the pandemic. Late Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Education informed the Michigan Department of Education that the state’s plea to shelve the test for the year had been denied. As a result, Michigan students, many of whom have […]
