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As mass shootings climb in the U.S., Michiganders are determined to end the violence
Eighty-four days after three students were shot and killed at Michigan State University, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer began this week as she has done many times before: with an order to lower flags following a mass shooting in the United States. This time, the governor’s order followed the mass shooting in Allen, Texas, where on Saturday […]
New prison reform bills show ‘people are greater than their biggest mistake’
There is one word that surfaces time and again when prison reform advocates talk about the newly introduced Second Look Sentencing Act: hope. The package, made up of state Senate Bills 321–325, was introduced on Wednesday and would allow individuals who are incarcerated in Michigan to petition a judge for a reduction of their sentence […]
As 1M Michiganders face losing Medicaid, Dems vow to fight for health care coverage
Health care for Michiganders and people across the country is under attack by congressional Republicans who are supporting legislation that could end Medicaid coverage for as many as 1 million Michigan residents, Protect Our Care founder and Chair Leslie Dach said during a press call Thursday morning. The Republican-led U.S. House passed the Limit, Save, […]
Do you need another COVID-19 booster? Here’s what to know.
State health officials are encouraging Michiganders to stay up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in April announced new recommendations meant to streamline the vaccine process and ensure individuals are receiving vaccine formulas that can best protect against the ever-mutating virus. The FDA announced April 18 that […]
‘An infusion of joy’: How a Flint pediatrician hopes to improve health and dismantle poverty
Updated, 10: 09 a.m., 4/30/23 Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha often wakes up not to the sound of an alarm clock these days, but from being too “giddy and excited” to sleep. “I literally can’t stop smiling,” Hanna-Attisha said. In Flint, where systemic racism and governmental failures left the Black-majority city to drink lead-contaminated water beginning in […]
Nearly 40% of Michigan households struggled to pay for basic needs during the pandemic, report says
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Kyra O’Guinn had been working as a bartender. As the country was engulfed by sickness, O’Guinn, a Detroit native, watched as the world around her shuttered, including her workplace. It would be months before she was finally able to access unemployment. Then, like families across the country, O’Guinn […]
‘The tentacles of the trauma and grief go everywhere’
Martha Omilian thinks of her life in two chapters: before Maggie died and after Maggie died. Before her daughter, Maggie Wardle, was murdered at the age of 19 by an ex-boyfriend with a hunting rifle, the former psychiatric nurse knew a life in which her daughter adored basketball and golf, was double-majoring in biology and […]
$175M for Gotion project clears Senate Appropriations Committee
A Senate panel on Thursday narrowly approved $175 million in state funds for a $2.36 billion electric vehicle battery factory in Mecosta County that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has called “the biggest ever economic development project in northern Michigan.” But the project has drawn concerns from some Democrats over salaries for the subsidized jobs and criticism […]
Judge denies pro-gun groups’ request to halt Michigan gun reform laws
A Michigan Court of Claims judge on Tuesday denied two pro-gun organizations’ attempts to temporarily bar the state’s new gun reform laws from going into effect. Great Lakes Gun Rights and Michigan Open Carry filed a lawsuit April 13 against the Democratic-led Michigan House and Senate over the gun reform legislation that was introduced in […]
Michigan nurses are leaving their jobs. What will get them to stay?
Nurses in Michigan are exhausted. They were tired long before a global pandemic left them with death constantly at their door, before they were the last person their COVID-stricken patients would ever see in their lifetime. In the years leading up to 2020, they faced a fatigue largely emanating from what nurses have described as […]
Democratic-led House adopts resolution condemning Texas judge’s abortion pill ruling
Michigan Rep. Natalie Price (D-Berkley) wishes her grandmother, known as Grandma Jean, would have had access to mifepristone when she needed an abortion in 1941. But, decades before Roe v. Wade, Price’s grandmother did not have the medication often referred to as the abortion pill. “Her only option was a physically invasive, unhygienic, unsafe, self-administered […]
‘Exhausted’ in the wake of mass shootings, Democratic-led House passes ‘red flag’ legislation
Just hours after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed on Thursday the first set of gun reform bills backed by students, families and communities traumatized by mass shootings at Michigan State University and Oxford High School, as well as other gun violence throughout the state, the Democratic-led House passed more legislation. Those bills would permit a court […]