No deal: Senate GOP rejects possible budget compromise
By Jonathan Oosting (Bridge) LANSING — County sheriffs, small schools, local governments, and other groups grappling with state funding cuts will have to wait several more days — or possibly weeks — for Michigan leaders to try and resolve an ongoing budget dispute. Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, on Thursday rejected a potential budget […]
A year after pot became legal, Michigan still months away from retail sales
By Jonathan Oosting (Bridge) LANSING – Retail sales of recreational marijuana may still be months away and confined to select communities, even though Michigan began taking applications for businesses on Friday. The Marijuana Regulatory Agency last week began accepting applications for what is expected to be a lucrative new industry. That’s more than a month […]
Enbridge vows to cover costs in ‘unlikely’ case of Michigan Line 5 rupture
By Jim Malewitz (Bridge) Enbridge is disputing Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s suggestion that state taxpayers “could be left holding the bag” for cleanup costs if the Candadian-based company’s twin Line 5 oil and gas pipelines were to rupture in the Straits of Mackinac. “The bottom line is Enbridge will take full responsibility and pay […]
Attorney General Dana Nessel takes hard line in juvenile inmate rape cases
By Ted Roelofs (Bridge) For more than five years, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette was a brick wall defending the state against allegations that prison officials failed to protect juvenile inmates as young as 14 from being raped and assaulted when they were housed with adult prisoners. Schuette fought the 2013 juvenile inmate lawsuit up and down […]
Measures aim to end ‘surprise billing’ for Michigan medical patients
By Robin Erb (Bridge) In the tense hours at a Grand Rapids emergency room last year — as Lisa Grinzinger struggled to form words and a medical team scrambled to rule out a possible stroke — finances were far from top-of-mind. “I never even thought about it,” said her husband Mike Grinzinger, a retired chief […]
Michigan schools are now average. That’s progress.
By Mike Wilkinson, Ron French (Bridge) Michigan public school students show marked improvement compared to their peers in other states, according to national test results released Wednesday. On the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called “the nation’s report card,” Michigan students were firmly in the middle of the pack in eighth-grade math and reading […]
When residents say ‘no’ to aerial mosquito spraying
By Michael Schulson/Undark (for Bridge) On a Friday afternoon in late September, Kalamazoo County Health Officer Jim Rutherford announced that aircraft would mist much of the county with an insecticidal spray. Intended to kill mosquitoes, the emergency plan quickly turned into a public relations battle. Hundreds of calls and emails — and even some threats […]
The ABCs of CBD: What you should know before buying in Michigan
by Robin Erb (Bridge) SHELBY TOWNSHIP — The shipping boxes arrive several times a week at Mother Earth Natural Health with trial products from suppliers trying to break into Michigan’s flourishing CBD business. Shop owner Arianna Welsh said she turns nearly all of them away, choosing to limit her stock to those oils, gummies, bath […]
Michigan lawmakers want to expand tax break before it’s created a single job
By Jonathan Oosting (Bridge) LANSING — Debate is intensifying over plans to expand a $200 million tax incentive program for big businesses that proponents say has helped Michigan land planned investments, but not yet created a single job. The state has so far committed $168.3 million in future tax captures to five firms under the […]
Costs drop for Michigan Obamacare insurance. But only after crazy increases
By Robin Erb (Bridge) Obamacare insurance enrollment in Michigan opens Friday with good news — premiums costs are down 2.5 percent. But costs still are above the jaw-dropping, double-digit price increase two years ago. “It’s not where we should be, but it’s certainly better than it was,” said Marianne Udow Phillips, executive director of the […]
