The Michigan Senate passed on Tuesday a new $2.3 billion supplemental funding bill for COVID-19 relief that also contains what Democrats referred to as a “political poison pill.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Monday that Great Start Readiness Program (GSRP), Head Start, adult education and young adult special education classroom teachers are now eligible to receive up to $500 grants under a new expansion of the MI Classroom Heroes COVID-19 grant program.
Rick Haglund writes, "Lee Chatfield did more to advance the cause of diversity, inclusion and equity in Michigan workplaces in the past two weeks than he did in six years as a state lawmaker."
Teacher Justine Galbraith writes, "Who are we to you? If we’re indeed essential, tasked with propping up our entire society: Pay us. Care about our health. Value our LIVES over a few months of your kid’s education. If we’re what we suspect – expendable, disposable – be ready for more of us to walk out the door. Many of us already have one foot out."
In Michigan, the seven Democrats in the U.S. House voted for and all seven Republicans voted against President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package early Saturday, in a rush to both boost COVID-19 vaccine funding and get legislation to the president’s desk before unemployment benefits expire in mid-March. The package, dubbed the American Rescue Plan, passed 219-212.
U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Twp.), who has come out in favor of shutting down the Canadian Line 5 oil pipeline in the Mackinac Straits, has been selected to lead the Senate panel responsible for overseeing the pipeline’s federal regulators.
States struggling to provide enough COVID-19 vaccines are likely just a few days away from a pivotal development in the vaccination race: the availability of a shot that requires only one dose.
The governors of Michigan and Maryland, as well as the mayor of Denver, Colo., debated who gets to control who should oversee new federal transportation money — states or city governments — and how it should be used at a mostly cordial hearing Wednesday with members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
“Discrimination based on hairstyles has long served as a thinly-veiled excuse to discriminate based on race,” Rep. Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) said. “This form of prejudice is a real problem, one that countless men, women and children are forced to face every day.”
For decades, scientists have studied the effects that livestock farms with large animal concentrations in Iowa and other states have on regional water quality, as increasing amounts of waste flow into rivers and groundwater. Now activists and some lawmakers say emergency measures are needed to stop toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie, dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay, and threats to drinking water in rural communities. In some states, lawmakers worry about the future of smaller family farms.
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