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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...

Emmett Township Public Safety Officer Ben Hall is being called a hero because he didn't give a 25-year-old mom a ticket after pulling her over because her daughter was in the backseat without a booster seat. Officer Hall saw Lexi de Lorenzo driving near downtown Battle Creek with her daughter in the back seat. She had a seatbelt on but Michigan law requires a booster seat for children less than 8 years old.

A mother in Michigan took to Facebook last week to express her outrage over a 10th-grade school assignment that she felt promoted Islam. In an initial post, Jennette Hall complained about a Jenison High School assignment that asked students to make a pamphlet about Islam. The post, which had been shared over 5,400 times as of Tuesday morning, said students were told the pamphlet would be used to "introduce Islam to 3rd graders." ... “This assignment upset me because they are presenting Allah as the same God of the Christians and Jews. This paper, in my opinion, is promoting Islam...

Republicans are canceling TV ad spending planned for the final two weeks of Michigan’s U.S. Senate race, signaling that the GOP is investing in other races in its drive for the Senate majority. The National Republican Senatorial Committee pulled nearly $1 million in ads for the weeks of Oct. 21 and Oct. 28, according to a political operative who tracks ad spending. Democrat Gary Peters leads Republican Terri Lynn Land in Michigan. …

Obama came on the scoreboard and unanimous "boo" went through the stadium #spartyon— Jake Wasko (@jake_wasko) October 5, 2014   Most interesting MSU student section cheer today? booed loudly when Obama was shown on video board.— Kelly Weber (@StateLady) October 5, 2014  According to reports on Twitter and from several individuals who called into the Rush Limbaugh Show on Monday, President Obama was enthusiastically booed when he appeared in a public service announcement shown on the scoreboard video screen at Michigan State University during Saturday’s football game against Nebraska.The “It’s On Us” PSA, which features a parade of celebrities...

Hope For America– Michigan State University aired a sexual assault with Uncle Joe and Barack Obama PSA during the football game Saturday. Now Barack and Hollywood elites are lecturing students at football games. Sam Willis @CarmelChewy Follow Never been more proud to be a Spartan when the Student Section boo'd Obam

what is likely to become a theme of the last weeks of campaigning before the midterm elections, former President Bill Clinton all but begged voters here in Arkansas not to use their vote as an expression of disapproval for Barack Obama. The president is playing an outsized role in the race between Arkansas Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor and Republican challenger Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. Obama is seriously unpopular here; a recent survey by the Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling put his job approval rating at 31 percent, versus 62 percent disapproval. ... The Democratic effort to free Pryor and...

With one month until Election Day, Republicans' chances for retaking the Senate and picking up seats in the House are improving. The GOP has been buoyed by positive public polling, while red-state Democrats are still struggling to find distance from President Obama. There are bright spots and even some unexpected new targets on the map for both parties, but the overall national environment seems to have ticked a bit toward Republicans. The GOP needs to win a net of six seats to retake control of the Senate, and Republicans seem better-positioned to do so now than they did through much...

A victory by Terri Lynn Land in Michigan’s Senate race in November is important to winning back Republican control of the chamber, former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney told supporters during a GOP rally Thursday in his native state. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who lost the 2012 presidential race to Barack Obama, said it has been a tough time for the country since that election. “It’s time for him to apologize to America,” Romney said of Obama, speaking to several hundred GOP supporters. But, Romney said, “Help is on the way” in the person of Land, who “will make...

To understand why revitalizing Detroit will be difficult, consider the response to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s (DWSD) recent plan to make overdue customers pay their bills. The DWSD serves more than 4 million customers across the Detroit region. The suburbs mostly buy water from the DWSD wholesale, so it’s mainly city residents and businesses who get billed directly, and over half of them—about 90,000 customers—haven’t paid up. Total past-due bills add up to nearly $90 million, with the average delinquent residential customer owing $540, or more than 7 months’ worth of service, based on an average bill of...

I submit that that prior polls showing support for Gay marriage should be taken with a grain of salt considering the atmosphere of intimidation that exists in the country today. Grand Haven Tribune reports a survey released Monday from the Pew Research Center indicates American support for same-sex marriage could be leveling off after several years of dramatic growth in acceptance of equal rights for gays and lesbians. The study’s authors caution it’s too soon to draw any definitive conclusions. But the new poll released Monday found a 5 percentage point drop since February, from 54 percent to 49 percent,...

A Michigan court ruled that the state branch of the powerful Service Employees International Union does not have to pay back tens of millions of dollars in dues taken from home health care workers who were forced into unionization. The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled last week that the SEIU Healthcare Michigan does not have to pay back more than $34 million in dues collected from over 40,000 home health care workers. Many were forced into the union under state requirements that they join because they were taking care of sick family members at home.

The University of Michigan has released a list of relationship behaviors that it considers violent and abusive — including “withholding sex.” “Discounting the partner’s feelings regarding sex,” “criticizing the partner sexually,” and “having sex with other people” are also examples of “sexual violence,” according to the list. The school also offers definitions of domestic abuse. Under the section for “verbal or psychological abuse,” it states that not only is “insulting the partner” considered “abuse,” so is “ignoring the partner’s feelings.” Janet Bloomfield, social media director for A Voice for Men, explained the dangers of such broad definitions of “violence” in...

The Detroit City Council on Thursday unanimously approved a plan to return oversight of daily operations to elected officials while retaining the city’s state-appointed emergency manager to oversee bankruptcy matters until they are resolved. Kevyn Orr, who was appointed by the state in March 2013 to manage Detroit’s troubled finances and who took the city into the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, said Thursday that Detroit is “more than ready for the change.” …

<p>It was a fairly routine day at Michigan’s Coast Guard Station Saginaw River – until the telephone rang. It was Thursday afternoon, September 18.</p> <p>A baby eagle had been spotted in the water by the captain of a sailboat. The bird was in distress. It was wounded and could not get up.</p>

Michigan's closely watched U.S. Senate contest is back to a two-point race. Michigan now shifts from Leans Democrat back to a Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports 2014 Senate Balance of Power Rankings.

DETROIT (AP) — Detroit's water department defended its shutoff policy Monday and warned that free service to people with unpaid bills could be "very devastating" to the bottom line. Judge Steven Rhodes set aside Detroit's bankruptcy trial to hear evidence in a controversy that has been boiling all summer. A coalition representing low-income residents is asking him to suspend water shutoffs and restore service to people who have lost it. The water department would be violating Michigan law and breaking agreements with bond holders if forced to supply water and ignore overdue bills, attorney Sonal Mithani said. The "humanitarian concerns...

DETROIT – In a recent Detroit Free Press op-ed, University of California-Berkeley Professor Robert Reich places the blame for the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy on the “mostly white” residents of Oakland County. Detroit-in-ruins-15“But Detroit is really a model for how wealthier and whiter Americans escape the costs of public goods they would otherwise share with poorer and darker Americans,” Reich wrote. “ … But one thing is for certain: A very large and prosperous group close by won’t sacrifice a cent — the mostly white citizens of neighboring Oakland County.” The reaction of one Oakland County official was that Reich,...