Justin mclean faces up to 25 years in prison when sentenced September 20 following Wednesday’s plea in U.S. District Court on a bank robbery charge.

The Northern Michigan Bank branch in Chocolay Township was robbed October 12. McLean was arrested as a fugitive later that month.

McLean’s wife told the FBI that she believed her husband was going into a McDonald’s restaurant next to the bank.

Daniel Nieskes, 27, is accused of breaking into an apartment and trying to kill the male resident. He was charged with attempting to commit and conspiring to commit murder, committing and conspiring to commit first-degree home invasion, and destruction of a building between $200 and $1,000.

Wednesday Nieskes pleaded guilty to third-degree home invasion. In exchange all other charges will be dropped.

Sentencing is set for next month. He faces up to seven years in prison.

Meanwhile, a June 11 trial is set for Nieskes’ codefendant, Douglas Garver.

Two pregnant heifers were beaten so badly they had to be euthanized. A 1,400-pound bull recovered but no longer can be used for breeding. It sustained broken bones, welts, and about 20 knife wounds.

Eighteen-year-olds Nicholas Leisner and Peter Sauve are serving two to four-year prison sentences. Defense lawyer Steve Benson says Meier and his friends were “highly intoxicated” during the attack.

Statistics released Wednesday show the state had a seasonally adjusted jobless rate of 8.3 percent in April. That’s down from 8.5 percent in March and represents the lowest jobless rate for the state since July 2008.

The state’s unemployment rate in April was slightly above the national rate of 8.1 percent. Michigan’s workforce rose for the fourth consecutive month and the total employment level has advanced by 91,000 or 2.2 percent since April of last year.

Professional and business services led April’s job additions, followed by financial activities, education, and health services. Minor declines have been reported in construction and manufacturing.

The DNR says officials from its Forest Resources Division will discuss a range of topics, including forest ownership, the division budget, timber management on state forest lands, wildfires, eco-region plans, forest roads, and private land management.

The first meeting was Wednesday in Gaylord. The other meetings are June 5 at 5 p.m. at Recreation Lanes in Iron Mountain, June 6 at 6 p.m. at America’s Best Hotel in Newberry, and June 13 at 6 p.m. at the Ramada Inn Convention Center in Lansing.

Justin Curran, 24, is charged with one count of attempted accosting children for immoral purposes. He allegedly had sex with the girl at her home on or around January 3 of this year.

The charge is a misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in jail and a $2,000 fine. Arraignment is set for June 18 in Dickinson County Circuit Court.

Officials announced last Thursday that Haynes would take over for Les Wong, who resigned to become president of San Francisco State University in California. Wong became president of Northern in 2004.

Facing questions about how the choice was made, the board met in public Tuesday and voted 6-2 to name Haynes as interim president. The no votes came from Stephen Adamini and Gil Ziegler, who’d objected to the process that led to Haynes’ selection last week.

The Detroit Free Press reports the review exposes problems with the state’s qualified voter file and controls exercised by officials with the Secretary of State and local clerk’s offices.

The Secretary of State’s Office says clerical errors, not acts of voter fraud, are the reasons for the irregularities.

A comparison of the voter database to Department of Community Health death records, for example, found that 1,375 people listed as dead had voted 1,381 times during the audit period. About 90 percent were by absentee ballot.

The audit looked at a period between October 2008 and June 2011.