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A Michigan man is accused of making threats to kill President Trump in a series of phone calls to the U.S. Secret Service.James Anthony Jackson, who has apparent ties to Grand Rapids, is named in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit.The Secret Service said Jackson "spoofed" calls so that incoming calls to federal offices appeared to be from phones other than his.The profanity-laced calls included this statement: "... I'm going to blow Trump's brains out," records said.Matthew Lariviere, a Secret Service special agent in Detroit, filed the complaint alleging Jackson threatened the president.The first "nuisance" call...

A black man has been arrested in connection with a string of racist graffiti incidents at Eastern Michigan University that were protested by students on campus last fall. Eddie Curlin, 29, was arraigned Monday, Oct. 23, in Washtenaw County District Court on three counts of malicious destruction of property, four counts of identity theft and one count of using computers to commit a crime, reports MLive. The charges are related to three incidents of vandalism that appeared to be targeting the black community at EMU. In September 2016, EMU discovered “KKK” and “Leave N***ers” spray painted in red, white, and...

Five teens accused of dropping rocks from an overpass near Flint, Mich. have been identified and charged, and more details have been released about the so-called "prank" that ended up killing a man. Their so-called game took the life of 32-year-old Kenneth White of Mount Morris, Mich., authorities say. White was riding in a van coming home from work when authorities say a 6 lb. rock came crashing through the windshield, killing him. Authorities say the rock was dropped from an overpass at the hands of those five teenagers. The teens have been charged each with one count of second-degree...

Kid Rock is ending months of speculation about a possible Senate bid, saying, “F--- no, I’m not running for Senate.” “Are you f---ing kidding me? Who couldn’t figure that out?” the “All Summer Long” singer said on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show on Tuesday. “I’m releasing a new album. I’m going on tour, too. Are you f---ing shitting me?” he asked Stern. The performer, whose real name is Robert Ritchie, had flirted for months with a possible Republican bid against Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, hawking “Kid Rock for U.S. Senate” T-shirts and criticizing the Democrat, saying Americans were “sick and...

DETROIT — John James emerges with confidence from a former Detroit elementary school that has been transformed into a charter high school in the northwest side of the city. It is a stride any parent would hope to see in a son or daughter graduating from this school, founded by Jalen Rose, a former NBA player and member of the University of Michigan's legendary "Fab 5" squad. Outside the leafy campus of Jalen Rose Leadership Academy High School, parents wait for their children to emerge as a handful of students play on the school's clay basketball court. James, a member...

More than 13 months after Eastern Michigan University police responded to a report of racist vandalism taking place on campus, Police Chief Robert Heighes hopes the university community can move forward following the arraignment of a suspect Monday, Oct. 23.Reviewing more than 1,200 hours of video from more than 100 campus cameras, Heighes said, helped lead to the arrest of former EMU student Eddie Curlin, 29, who was arraigned in Washtenaw County District Court on three counts of malicious destruction of property, four counts of identity theft and one count of using computers to commit a crime in connection with the vandalism incidents that took...

<p>Paul Mitchell was trying to find a polite way to say it. I had just asked Mitchell, who represents Michigan’s 10th congressional district, which includes northern Macomb County, to tell me what voters in the famous swing county want from their elected leaders. After hesitating for a moment, Mitchell said, “I had someone say at an event this week, ‘We just want shit done.’” It is there, somewhere in the excrement of modern American politics, that President Trump’s chief political challenge can be found. Trump won the presidency by making specific promises to working-class people in Macomb County and other crucial swing counties. The fate of his presidency will be determined by whether he can make good on at least some of those promises. A northern suburb of Detroit, Macomb is Michigan’s third-largest county with 840,000 people. In my three weeks traveling Macomb, I found that it doesn’t have a stellar reputation among people in southern Michigan.</p>

Dive Brief: The Michigan Department of Transportation announced it will take on private-sector partners to finish a $1 billion state highway modernization project in Oakland County, MI. Using the public-private partnership (P3) model to design, build, finance and maintain the remainder of the project, rather than waiting on public funds to become available, could shorten the construction schedule by up to a decade, The Detroit News reported. MDOT will issue requests for qualifications from potential private partners before the end of the year, and it anticipates the selection process will wrap up in the summer and fall of 2018. The...

The director of the Michigan State Police shared a meme only to become one. Colonel Kriste Etue posted a popular Breitbart News Facebook page post on her personal Facebook page in late September that called the NFL national anthem kneelers “anti-American degenerates.” In response on Thursday, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, who called the post  “innapropriate,” docked her five days’ pay. After the Breitbart News Facebook page posted the message on September 24, the Huffington Post noted that conservative news site had “published the top post on the social network by any major American publisher” that weekend. It boasted a greater reach than any such post in...

Rep. Paul Mitchell’s district, which includes northern Macomb County and parts of other counties in Michigan’s thumb, voted two-to-one for Trump over Clinton. Mitchell did only slightly worse, beating his Democratic opponent 63 percent to 32 percent Both Trump and Mitchell appealed to voters here because they’re straight-talking businessmen who promised to bring back jobs lost to trade, cut taxes, and address Michigan’s crumbling infrastructure The Democrats have lost touch with Macomb County values, Mitchell said. Their preoccupation with gender and race “doesn’t sell” here. “I guess the best way to view it is elitist East Coast, West Coast values...

Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon is reportedly talking to musician Kid Rock about a potential run for Senate in Michigan, according to RealClear Politics. A source familiar with their conversations told RealClear Politics that Bannon and the musician, whose real name is Robert Ritchie, are in regular phone contact about Ritchie possibly challenging Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). Ritchie has been teasing a run for Senate for months. In July, he tweeted out a poll showing himself ahead of Stabenow in a 2018 match-up, and created a “campaign site” that has so far sent users to his merchandise page...

There is a stray bullet investigation ongoing in the south of Michigan, in Northville Township. A window was shattered on about the 10th or 11th of October, 2017. I am skeptical of these type of incidents. They are quite rare. The image of an Iraqi woman showing investigators two complete rifle cartridges, that supposedly hit her residence, is memorable.This incident appears to be real, not a hoax like the famous Iraqi incident. The window was shattered. It was broken in a believable way. The bullet was found with the shattered glass. The bullet looks fresh and has rifling marks....

Four city council members in Ann Arbor, Michigan knelt for the Pledge of Allegiance after their meeting was called to order on Monday night.5th Ward councilmen Chip Smith and Chuck Warpehoski were joined by 1st Ward council members Sumi Kailasapathy and Jason Frenzel in taking a knee when it came time to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before the city council meeting, M Live reported.Warpehoski said his decision to kneel was an "act of attention, concern and respect.""I can't speak to what is in each person's heart, but for me to ‘take a knee' is an act of attention, of...

Four members of the Ann Arbor city council mimicked the NFL protests and took a knee for the recital of the Pledge of Allegiance during Monday’s meeting. According to Mlive.com, Chip Smith, 5th ward; Chuck Warpehoski, 5th ward; Sumi Kailasapathy, 1st ward; and Jason Frenzel, 1st ward were the four kneelers. "I can't speak to what is in each person's heart, but for me to 'take a knee' is an act of attention, of concern, and of respect," Councilman Warpehoski explained on his website. Warpehoski elaborated at the meeting: "And it is in that spirit that I take a knee...

As night follows day, mass shootings in America are followed by a succession of Democratic politicians and liberal activists pushing for tighter gun restrictions. Almost as reliably, those efforts fail. But in the wake of the massacre in Las Vegas, in which Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and injured hundreds more at an outdoor concert, there is reason to believe this time might be different. Paddock used “bump stock” devices that effectively turn semi-automatic firearms into fully automatic weapons, causing a higher death toll. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have shown some support for a ban of bump stocks. House...

Dive Brief: The Florida Turnpike broke ground earlier this month on a new test track where it will experiment with high-speed toll technology as well as systems for vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-vehicle communications, according to FleetOwner. The 400-acre SunTrax site, in Auburndale, FL, will test toll equipment and interoperable tolling systems, as well as smartphone-based payment methods. Other technologies to be tested include high-speed connected platooning trucks, moveable barrier systems and machine vision and materials testing for new pavement types, lane markings and signage. Construction on the site's oval track is expected to be complete in spring 2019 with the first...

It’s a nightmare scenario for a 21-year-old mother – a court has granted joint custody to a man accused of raping her when she was 12. The rape allegedly occurred in September 2008, according to a press release by the woman’s attorney, Rebecca Kiessling. Christopher Mirasolo was charged with raping the woman when he was 18 and she was 12, which is a first-degree felony in Michigan. “The sentence ‘for a violation that is committed by an individual 17 years of age or older against an individual less than 13 years of age’ should have been a mandatory ‘imprisonment for...

Class, not race, is the dominant struggle of our political age, says Rep. Paul Mitchell, who represents Michigan’s 10th congressional district covering parts of Macomb County and the rest of Michigan’s thumb. We recently sat down with Mitchell, a Republican, to talk about race and class, attacks on police officers and the Black Lives Matter protests, among other topics. After a career owning and running a nonprofit health school, Mitchell turned his attention to politics. Mitchell said that the left focuses on racial struggles, but the real struggle is between “the haves and the have nots.” “And I tell you...

A group of black firefighters from Detroit are backing their white colleague after he was fired on his first day for bringing a “racially insensitive” watermelon to work. Robert Pattinson, 41, was fired after introducing himself to his fellow firefighters by bringing in a watermelon with a pink bow on top as part of workplace tradition of new recruits bringing in a gift for fellow employees on their first day on the job. *snip* However, a number of black firefighters from the same department reacted to the incident with a big show of support for Pattinson, describing him as an...

Charles Murray’s event at the University of Michigan was completely overthrown by student protesters, who occupied the auditorium and loudly interrupted Murray for 40 minutes before sauntering out of the room. The event, set to begin at 6:00 p.m. EST, was immediately shut down by protesters before Murray even was given a chance to begin as one demonstrator projected a “white supremacist” hologram above his head.