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(WOOD) An earthquake rattled West Michigan and other parts of the Midwest. The shaking happened around 12:20 p.m. It was felt around the Michigan. The USGS registered it as a 4.0 earthquake centered near Galesburg.

DETROIT (Reuters) - A Detroit prosecutor who said on Facebook that people involved in Baltimore rioting should be shot has resigned, after her comments ignited fierce criticism, the prosecutor's office said on Friday. Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Teana Walsh had posted comments about this week's unrest in Baltimore, which was sparked by the death of Freddie Gray after he was fatally injured in police custody, according to a screenshot of her page posted on MyFox Detroit.com. She described "large swarms of people throwing bricks etc at police who are fleeing from their assaults" and then suggested using guns. "Simple. Shoot...

Who in the world is Rick Snyder? I am sure most of you are asking yourselves this very question. Let me start out by making it very, very simple: Rick Snyder is the two-term governor of Michigan. He has the business background of Carly Fiorina, the policy wonkiness of Bobby Jindal, the mild-mannerism of Ben Carson, and the Midwestern appeal of Scott Walker. “I met with Rick Snyder yesterday. He’s running,” former U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) stated at the Jewish Republican Committee’s meeting in Las Vegas last Saturday. Governor Rick Snyder has not formerly announced his candidacy for president,...

Two months ago, Michigan Capitol Confidential broke the story that the Lansing School District had allowed the president of the state's largest teachers union to remain on its payroll for years as part of a “pension spiking” scheme. Last week legislation was introduced in the state Senate to prohibit such schemes. As reported by Michigan Capitol Confidential, under an arrangement with the Michigan Education Association, the Lansing School District contributed $51,976 annually to the state-run school pension system on behalf of union president Steve Cook, and was then reimbursed by the MEA. The deal will let Cook collect a much...

A new study published by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy makes the case for a new state-led process for amending the U.S. Constitution. Nick Dranias, the study’s author and president of the Compact for America Educational Foundation, argues that Michigan should join the effort already under way to use this new process to create a constitutional amendment to require the federal government to balance its budget. Gov. Rick Snyder already signed a resolution in 2014 calling for such an amendment to the Constitution, but Dranias writes that that effort likely won’t amount to much. Instead of using such resolutions,...

The Taylor School District has defied an order from the Michigan Employment Relations Commission that schools post a notice stating that teachers are no longer obligated to financially support the union as a condition of employment. The order, which was issued on Feb. 13, came in response to an unfair labor practice complaint by teachers regarding their rights under the Michigan right-to-work law enacted in December 2012. Angela Steffke is a Taylor teacher who filed suit against both the district and the union. In defiance of the right-to-work law, the district and union entered into a 10-year agreement that required...

The IRS documents released by the government watchdog group on April 9 revealed that the senator, along with Senator Carl Levin, pressured the agency to go after political nonprofits – which turned out to be overwhelmingly conservative non-profits.. A May 1, 2013, email exchange between Lois Lerner and other top IRS staffers revealed that 11 days prior to Lerner’s admission in a ABA meeting that the IRS had “inappropriately” targeted conservative groups, she met with select top staffers from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in a “marathon” meeting to discuss concerns raised by both Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Sen....

Members of the Supreme Court questioned on Tuesday whether now is the right time to force states to allow same-sex couples to marry, pointing to how quickly public opinion has shifted on the issue of marriage equality. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was a key figure in striking down the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, suggested that he might be worried about the court moving too quickly to force states to marry same-sex couples. “This definition has been with us for millennia,” Kennedy said of male-female marriages. The justice also said it would be very difficult for the court to...

The Supreme Court on Monday gave new life to a lawsuit challenging ObamaCare’s contraception mandate, striking down a previous ruling in favor of the federal government. An appeals court in Cincinnati will now reconsider the legal challenge from the Catholic groups in Michigan and Tennessee that had sought exemptions from an ObamaCare provision that requires employers to cover birth control for all workers. The justices asked the lower court to reconsider the case in light of last year's landmark ruling on the contraception mandate. That ruling, which was issued last June, decided that the arts-and-crafts retailer, Hobby Lobby, could...

LANSING, MI — Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder "is running" for president, according to a former U.S. Senator, whose comments at a Republican confab were quickly contradicted by a spokesman for the governor, who said he has not made any decisions of that kind. "I met with Rick Snyder yesterday," former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman told reporters on Saturday morning at the Republican Jewish Coalition's spring meeting, according to the Guardian and other publications. "He's running. He's running." Snyder was in Las Vegas this weekend to attend the RJC meeting as part of what his advisors are calling an economic tour....

A 12-year-old Michigan girl who just made it through the biggest fight of her life has been dealt another blow. In August 2012, Rose McGrath, of Battle Creek, was diagnosed with leukemia. But last week, her family received a letter from her school that would turn her world upside down. As CBS affiliate WWMT reports, the letter addressed concerns regarding Rose's attendance and academic performance, and stated that Rose had been dismissed from St. Joseph Middle School. "I didn't do anything wrong, but they still got rid of me," Rose said. screen-shot-2015-04-24-at-11-24-21-am.png Rose McGrath WWMT Rose has been with the...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan woman has been sentenced to three to seven years in prison for opening fire at a McDonald's restaurant after workers twice failed to put bacon on her burgers. Authorities say 30-year-old Shaneka Torres became angry in February 2014 when the first burger she ordered at the restaurant's drive-up station was missing bacon. She was offered a free meal, but bacon also wasn't added to a second burger order.

In the wake of the tragic murders of two Michigan children whose mother tortured them before stuffing them into the family’s freezer, lawmakers are calling for more stringent regulation of homeschooling in the state. The proposed legislation from state Rep. Stephanie Chang, a Detroit Democrat, would require homeschooled children to be inspected twice per year by a licensed social worker or law enforcement officer. The bill would also require homeschooling parents to register their children — like dogs or sex offenders — with the superintendent of the school district in which they reside. Michigan is one of eleven states that...

The claim that women make less than men is one of those claims that is true but not in the way that people want you to believe. The true part is that women earn less than men. The untrue part, and this is the piece union leaders would like you to believe, is that women with the same work history, the same educations, and working in the same fields as men earn less than men. The earnings data is quite clear that this is simply not true. What does all this mean? It means that the (very real) male-female wage...

In the wake of the tragic murders of two Michigan children whose mother tortured them before stuffing them into the family’s freezer, lawmakers are calling for more stringent regulation of homeschooling in the state. The proposed legislation from state Rep. Stephanie Chang, a Detroit Democrat, would require homeschooled children to be inspected twice per year by a licensed social worker or law enforcement officer. The bill would also require homeschooling parents to register their children — like dogs or sex offenders — with the superintendent of the school district in which they reside. Michigan is one of eleven states that...

A woman of Arab and Jewish descent who was strip-searched at a Detroit-area airport has reached a settlement in a lawsuit filed on her behalf, the American Civil Liberties Union said Tuesday The federal government will give Shoshana Hebshi $40,000 as compensation for being humiliated on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks after armed agents forced her from a plane at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, made her undress during a search and held her for hours. American Civil Liberties Union said Tuesday.

People close to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder have formed a fund allowing him to travel the country to more aggressively tell of the state’s rebound under his watch, raising the prospect of a potential Republican presidential bid. A spokesman for the governor told The Associated Press on Friday that a 501(c)(4) group, Making Government Accountable, was established within the past month. “Once we get into May, the governor will travel more out of the state and promote Michigan, particularly the remarkable economic comeback,” Jarrod Agen said. An aide close to the governor said Snyder is considering a presidential run and...

An outraged mom live tweeted her son's sex education class after becoming outraged by its abstinence only stance. Author Alice Dreger took to Twitter to express her horror at what she heard at East Lansing High School, in Michigan, when she sat in on a lesson earlier this week. Ms Dreger, a respected professor, began furiously tweeting out the contents of the lesson - which was filled with horror stories about what happened to people who have pre-marital sex. MORE AT THE LINK ABOVE... SOME OF HER TWEETS: @alicedreger: Uh oh. They stuck me in the corner with my computer...

Officials worry a monument featuring a gun may be an inappropriate centerpiece in the village park. MILFORD, Mich. -- A veterans group wants to complete the Veterans Memorial in Milford's Central Park with a fallen soldier monument, but the village council isn't sure the piece — which features a pair of boots and a helmet atop an M-16 rifle — is an appropriate focal point for the park.Bear Hall, founder and chairman of the local Friends of American Veterans (FAV), approached the council earlier this month hoping for approval of the plan.The group wants to place a fallen soldier memorial...

LANSING, MI - Freshman state Rep. Cindy Gamrat, R-Plainwell, has been indefinitely removed from the Michigan House Republican caucus. Gamrat, a tea party favorite, allegedly broke caucus confidentiality rules by posting a comment on Facebook during an off-campus budget workshop on Wednesday afternoon. A source familiar with the situation said Gamrat was not aware that caucus rules were in effect during the workshop but was confronted by House Speaker Kevin Cotter, who later told her she was no longer welcome in GOP caucus meetings. "In no way did I reveal anything confidential from the meeting, and I have never violated...