News

LANSING, MI (AP)--   Governor Gretchen Whitmer is asking lawmakers to reinstate certain employers’ ability to hire new workers who, while working, would still get a $300-a-week unemployment benefit into early September.

The governor is touting Michigan's “workshare” program as a return-to-work incentive as companies struggle to fill jobs amid the pandemic. It provides partial jobless benefits when businesses bring back laid-off employees at reduced hours, or they cut workers’ hours rather than let them go.

LANSING, MI (AP)--   Conservative activists who falsely claim former President Donald Trump won reelection are asking the Republican-led Michigan Senate to order an audit of the results.

The Michigan Conservative Coalition says “something very wrong” happened in the 2020 election, even though Trump’s unfounded fraud allegations have been resoundingly rejected by officials who certified the results, judges and others. The group says it will submit more than 7,000 affidavits from people backing a “forensic” audit. It does not appear that Senate Republicans will embrace the request.

HOUGHTON, MI--   The Houghton County Sheriff’s Office is looking for a missing man who has dementia.

MARQUETTE TOWNSHIP, MI--   Two people had to be rescued after their sailboat capsized on Lake Superior Thursday.

Marquette Township Fire and Rescue responded around 3 p.m. and found the vessel capsized between Middle Island Point and Partridge Island. One person was in the water and the other was with the boat. Another person in a canoe was trying to help the crew.

Rescue personnel reached the crew with a surfboard as the Coast Guard arrived. The sailboat and its occupants were safely taken to shore.

MARQUETTE, MI--   The Superior Watershed Partnership finally received a physical award Thursday after it won Lake Superior Magazine’s Achievement Award in October of last year.

ANN ARBOR, MI (MPRN)--   The University of Michigan needs to do more to atone for allowing the late Doctor Robert Anderson to sexually abuse patients.

That's according to several survivors who spoke at a press conference Wednesday. They say the university hasn’t done enough to fully investigate institutional complicity in Anderson’s decades of abuse.

Jon Vaughn says he was abused by Anderson when he was a U of M football player from 1988 through 1991. He says he and other survivors will "expose the entire truth of this evil.”

LANSING, MI (MPRN)--   The Republican-controlled Michigan Senate adopted bills Wednesday to expand ID requirements to vote in-person or to get an absentee ballot.

The bills were adopted on party-line votes over the objection of Democrats and the promise of a veto from Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Republican Senator Ruth Johnson is a former Secretary of State. She says showing a photo ID is a reasonable expectation.

DETROIT, MI (AP)--   General Motors will raise spending on electric and autonomous vehicles and add two U.S. battery factories, as it gambles that consumers will eagerly switch from gasoline to the new technology.

The announcements came as crosstown rival Ford said its entire Lincoln luxury brand lineup would be electric or gas-electric hybrid by 2030, including four fully electric vehicles. For months, the automakers have been one-upping each other with electric vehicle announcements, which have fueled stock price increases for both companies.

MARQUETTE, MI--   Michigan’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate inched up by a tenth of a percentage point in May to 5 percent.

The Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget says state employment levels increased by 6,000 and the number of unemployed edged up by 3,000, resulting in a modest workforce gain of 9,000 in May.