For those who have missed the news, White House environmental adviser Van Jones announced his resignation Saturday. It’s a resignation we find understandable. Jones didn’t want to take away from the real work that President Barack Obama’s administration is trying to accomplish, a sentiment we find admirable.
Students should keep an eye on their e-mail, because their inbox soon might contain a message asking for their vote on a proposed increase to their ASMSU tax this fall.
After more than 10 years of planning, investing and developing, it looks like City Center II might finally die.
One year ago, surviving Welcome Week might have meant you didn’t vomit in the street or have a run-in with the East Lansing Police Department. This year, however, it might just mean you made it to class prepared.
As many students lazed away the summer in bikinis and swim trunks, men and women in suits worked around the clock in Washington, D.C., to debate one of the most important issues in our nation’s recent history: health care.
There are a lot of strict ways a government can punish an organization. And to those who don’t know the context, those punishments often can seem unwarranted. But there are times when organizations repeatedly have ignored government wishes, which almost always means penalties will come.
The country’s slow transition to an entirely digital world has made its way into the education system, as more universities begin to offer online courses and digital textbooks for classes. President Barack Obama proposed funding online courses at community colleges as part of an effort to improve higher education, and it appears colleges nationwide soon might no longer need paper books. But that doesn’t mean this new technology won’t have some drawbacks.
Despite the success of Michigan’s push to draw filmmakers into the state with incentives like tax credits, some in the state Legislature still aren’t pleased. After only a year with the country’s biggest tax credit to the film industry, there are opponents claiming that the credits cost the state too much and that spending should be capped.
In hard economic times such as these, it becomes more common for citizens to retreat to the comforts of life: popping a cold one after a stressful day at work; a cigarette or two to take the edge off, perhaps. And that’s completely understandable — there’s no sin in that.
A new line has been crossed in the seemingly never-ending controversy surrounding President Barack Obama’s birthplace. For the past few months, “birthers” — those doubting Obama’s citizenship based on his place of birth — have been calling on the president to release his full birth certificate, claiming that he was not a natural born U.S. citizen and thus cannot hold the office of president.
The distance between Detroit and Chicago might seem a little shorter if a plan to bring a high speed rail line to the Midwest comes to fruition. Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, Indiana and Minnesota have all united in hopes of securing $8 billion of federal stimulus money to build a 110 mph rail line though the states.
In the months since the $787 billion recovery plan has started making its way into local economies, some of the bill’s short-term results are becoming noticeable. But few have seen as much immediate success as the government’s “cash for clunkers” program, which has been so popular among motorists it has already exhausted its voucher money provided by the stimulus package.
It seems like every year for the past few years, the Michigan government’s most important goal has been to shave some spending off its shrinking budget. We’ve supported almost every attempt the state has made to reduce its size, since the prospect of raising taxes isn’t a great one.
Those annoying commercials warning about four-hour erections could be a thing of the past if a new bill introduced by Rep. James Moran, D-Va., sees its way through Congress. Moran’s beef with the commercials stems from what he considers a problem of decency. Though, his proposal would probably be better off if he tried to take on prescription drug advertising as a whole, instead.
Although it may not seem like it, and despite the state’s seemingly endless list of problems, there are good things happening. A Detroit housing development has a chance to be one of those good things.
As the state’s economy continues to wind itself down, finding a decent job that pays a wage high enough to live on is starting to be thought of as a luxury. Even if someone was to be hired, many companies are only looking for part-time employees, and it would be extremely difficult to live on that income.
Almost a decade of planning, organization and effort by East Lansing officials was beginning to come together. It finally appeared as though City Center II might actually end up being built after all. But now, before a single bulldozer has been started or a single orange barrel has appeared at the site, the project is suffering another setback.
With the state on the verge of an election as well as a $1.7 billion deficit, a lot of people are trying to offer their solutions to many of Michigan’s problems. Unfortunately, not every idea is productive.
To help with both the city and state’s image problems, Lansing, the state of Michigan and MSU might all be joining forces to update the Michigan Library and Historical Center in downtown Lansing.
Now that the silence has ended and a temporary journalism director has been chosen, the College of Communication Arts and Sciences and its dean Pamela Whitten likely are ready to move on to the next matter of business. But Whitten shouldn’t be too hasty before she takes on another task, because there’s a lot that could have been done differently during this saga.