Free Republic

GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The local nonprofit Mind Meets Music Inc. is the recipient of a four-year, $2 million federal grant to enhance teaching and learning through arts education. U.S. Department of Education awarded a total of $13.4 million to 34 organizations. "We are thrilled, honored and humbled," said Monique Salinas, who founded the program six years ago. "We have a wonderful product that's making a difference in children’s lives. "Music helps academic achievement, helping the brain in unique and wonderful ways." The program consists of two 30-minute sessions per class twice a week in 10 schools -- seven that...

LANSING, MI – There are 10 individuals in Michigan who are being monitored for potential Ebola exposure, according to the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH). “We’re working with the local health departments to monitor, it’s actually 10 individuals now who are at low risk of Ebola right now,” said MDCH spokesperson Jennifer Smith. Low risk means that these people have no known exposure to Ebola, no symptoms and are in generally good health. What makes them a risk at all is they have traveled to regions of Africa where the virus exists. Ebola is a virus that presents with...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)The State of Michigan is ordering a Detroit man to pay tens of thousands of dollars, or go to prison. The reason? He owes back child support for a child that everyone agrees is not his. "I feel like I’m standing in front of a brick wall with nowhere to go," said Carnell Alexander. He says he learned about the paternity case against him during a traffic stop in Detroit in the early 90s. The officer told him he is a deadbeat dad, there was a warrant out for his arrest. “I knew I didn’t have a child, so I...

I live in Wisconsin, which according to Mary Burke Democrat candidate for governor is dead last in the Midwest for job growth. ((Its a flat out lie, Walker has really turned job growth around and says Wisconsin is 4th in the Midwest for job growth. I work a lot in Illinois which according to Illinois Policy and the Illinois GOP is dead last in the country for job growth. This is also advertised on political radio ads. http://www.rebootillinois.com/2014/01/23/uncategorized/brendanbond/illinois-predicted-dead-last-job-growth-2014/5012/ But when I binged it, the GOP Minnesota gubernatorial candidate also says Minnesota is dead last in job growth. http://johnsonforgovernor.org/jeff-johnson-issues-statement-minnesota-dead-last-midwest-private-sector-job-creation/#.VEsGgcai1g2 I thought...

Against the interests of Michiganders, Governor Rick Snyder has signed a bill banning Tesla Motor’s direct-to-consumer automobile sales in the state.The original focus of House Bill 5606 was on determining how franchise-dealership fees are charged. Then, right before the vote, an amendment banning automobile sales directly to consumers was added by State Senator Joe Hune. This backhanded maneuver shielded the amendment from public comment and debate. Passed unanimously in the State Senate and with only one dissenting vote in the House, the “anti-Tesla bill” is an economic loss for Michigan. The state will miss out on tax revenue from sales...

....In the poll, Peters leads Republican candidate Terri Lynn Land 53 percent to 39 percent among registered voters. That spread is roughly in line with the findings from other recent polls....

Teen Roskana Sikorski Backed by Parents She Allegedly Plotted to Kill BY TRACY CONNOR A Michigan couple is standing by their adopted 15-year-old daughter after she allegedly conspired with her older boyfriend to kill them and stabbed her kid brother. Prosecutors have charged Roksana Sikorski as an adult for the Oct. 17 attack, but her parents say she suffers from mental illness and was under the sway of 23-year-old Michael Rivera. "I think she just thought this guy loved her and she wanted to do whatever he told her, and she was very vulnerable and she has a mental disorder...

Prosecutors: Michigan Girl Meant To Kill Family By COREY WILLIAMS PLYMOUTH TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A 15-year-old girl accused of stabbing her younger brother as part of a plot to kill her family so that she could run off with a 23-year-old man appeared in a suburban Detroit courtroom Thursday, where a judge set her bond at $1 million. The girl, who is charged as an adult with assault with intent to murder and conspiracy to commit murder in last Friday's attack, wore a red jail jumpsuit at the hearing, which her parents attended. Michael Rivera, the man she allegedly...

Michigan’s Republican governor signed legislation on Tuesday that officially bans Tesla Motors and any other carmaker from selling directly to consumers in the state. But Rick Snyder, who is seeking re-election next month, maintained in a letter to lawmakers that the bill simply clarified the state’s existing law and that such direct sales already were not legal in Michigan, home to Detroit’s big auto companies. Now, state law requires that Tesla, or other car companies, must sell vehicles through networks of franchised dealers. If the company doesn’t have its own network, the state requires it to sell vehicles through another...

Detroit officials are fuming after two visiting United Nations lawyers scolded the city for cutting off water to delinquent customers and described the shut-offs as a “human rights” violation.

According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of the term “racism” was in 1933, but the practice of racism was well learned by that time. In the United States, slaves were brought to this land by Europeans who thought that the skin color and customs of the African captives made them less than equal to the “civilized” White settlers. That belief system permeated the treatment of Blacks in this country for hundreds of years, and in many ways, has yet to cease. The term is defined by Merriam-Webster as, “a belief that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a...

United Nations human rights experts described Detroit’s mass water shut-offs as “a man-made perfect storm” Monday and called on city officials to restore water to those unable to pay, including those with disabilities or chronic illnesses. Meanwhile, Detroit’s officials said the two lawyers’ actions and conclusions were agenda-driven and not based on “facts” about the city’s progress in helping residents keep or regain service. Leilani Farha and Catarina de Albuquerque, who were in town to observe the effect of water service shut-offs, said they affect the poorest and most vulnerable—and particularly discriminate against Detroit’s majority black population. …

For several years now, I have been honored to be a member of a group known as the Philadelphia Society. The Society of leading conservative intellectuals was formed in 1964 in the wake of the Goldwater defeat. While I would never self-identify as an intellectual, I fall back on what the Sisters of St. Joseph used to tell us in grade school: “There’s two kinds of knowledge: knowing something and knowing where to find it.” You can gain a lot of insights at Society meetings. Here are just a few highlights from the Society’s regional meeting in Grand Rapids last...

The Michigan Legislature has put a bill on Governor Rick Snyder’s desk that would, essentially, kick Tesla Motors Inc. out of the state. The home of Government General Motors, it seems, is still home to big-government coercion and cronyism. The bill, which is awaiting the Gov’s signature, would ban direct sales from a car company (Tesla) to individual consumers. (Coincidentally, this just happens to be Tesla’s business model.) The legislation was put forward because… well, I guess that buying things directly from producers and manufacturers is bad for you, or something.The National Automobile Dealers Association must have been less than...

Before he was alleged to have become a spy for Saddam Hussein's regime, Muthanna Al-Hanooti's charity work and political activism provided him with access to the highest echelons of government. Newsletters collected by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, some published now for the first time, show Al-Hanooti photographed with dignitaries ranging from First Lady Hillary Clinton in 1996 and Vice President Al Gore along with significant members of Congress. That may explain why Iraqi intelligence agents had confidence that Al-Hanooti would be able to persuade Congress to lift economic sanctions against Iraq. A federal indictment unsealed Wednesday accuses him of...

Half of all the Democratic women in the U.S. Senate are featured in a new video voicing their support for Kentucky Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes. The video, released Thursday after first being shown at Grimes’ event with Hillary Clinton Wednesday evening, shows six women in the U.S. Senate saying “Shatter the glass. Break the ceiling. It’s time for Alison!” Of the twelve women in the Senate Democratic caucus, U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Patty Murray (D-WA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) are shown...

Lawyers for Detroit said on Thursday that the city had reached a settlement with its biggest remaining holdout creditor, clearing a significant obstacle from its path out of bankruptcy. The settlement would give the Financial Guaranty Insurance Company the rights to build a hotel, retail and condominium complex on the site of the Joe Louis Arena, a five-acre riverfront site that is now the home of Detroit’s hockey team, the Red Wings. The team had previously announced plans to move to a new arena in a different neighborhood when its lease expires in 2017...

Adam Neuman left the classroom in Michigan to serve in the army in Afghanistan. Michigan high school social studies teacher Adam Neuman was surprised when he saw the $80 deduction on his paycheck from the Brighton Public School District. Then, he was angry. The U.S. Army veteran, who served one tour in Afghanistan, had opted out of the Brighton Education Association and parent organization, the Michigan Education Association, in August, as was his right under the state's 2012 law. He knew he wasn't subject to dues withholding, yet the itemized stub showed the deduction. “I don’t feel that they should...

At the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, several public charter school officials lauded the rising popularity of charter schools across the United States. Kenneth Campbell, president of Louisiana’s Black Alliance for Educational Options, Scott Pearson, executive director of the D.C. public charter school board, and Todd Ziebarth, senior vice president of state advocacy and support for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, spoke at the event. Ziebarth summarized findings from a recent study by his organization, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, on the health of public charter schools in the U.S. Their study, “The Health of the Public...

Startup Alphabet Energy has its first product: what it says is the world’s largest thermoelectric generator. Power plants waste huge amounts of energy as heat—about 40 to 80 percent of the total in the fuel they burn. A new device could reduce that waste, cutting fuel consumption and carbon emissions by as much as 3 percent and saving companies millions of dollars. (Three percent might not seem like much, but for context, air travel accounts for 2 percent of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.) The generator makes use of a novel, highly efficient thermoelectric material discovered recently at the University of...