Here are the top stories for the week of Sept. 18.
The East Lansing and MSU communities mourned the loss of firefighter Dennis Rodeman on Wednesday. Rodeman, a former Marine and firefighter of seven years, was struck by a former MSU student's vehicle on Sept. 9 while collecting donations for muscular dystrophy.
The driver was reportedly angered by slowed traffic caused by the collections. A memorial service was held at MSU's Breslin Center on Wednesday, with Rodeman being laid to rest later that day.
A civil lawsuit involving MSU and ESPN may reach the Michigan Supreme Court this month. ESPN, in a study to see if athletes may be treated differently by campus authorities, used a FOIA request to gain access to crime records for 301 of MSU's student-athletes — including not only arrests, but any kind of interaction with police. MSU redacted the names from the records, believing the student's names shouldn't be public unless they were actually charged.
ESPN sued to acquire the names, and after a series of appeals made by MSU the decision may fall to Michigan's Supreme Court sometime this month.
After months of debate, the decision to renovate the old Taco Bell building on Grand River Ave. has been made. The building will be made into an apartment complex with commercial space on the first floor. No start date for the project has been given yet.
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
