Thursday, April 2, 2026

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MICHIGAN

E.L., students support AIDS walk

Danforth Goff was never alone during AIDS Walk Michigan-Lansing. He also wanted to ensure those with HIV and AIDS won’t feel lonely either.“We need to encourage people that there is hope, that they are not alone in this process,” said Goff, a hemophiliac who contracted HIV through tainted blood products in 1980.

SPORTS

Haygood explodes on Irish

Ask Herb Haygood what he brings to the team and the first thing he’ll say is speed. Even though the junior receiver was tied for second on the squad with seven receptions heading into the Notre Dame game Saturday, Haygood had not displayed his wheels in the first two games this year. So if there were any doubts about his claims, Haygood erased them Saturday as he bolted 68 yards upfield en route to scoring the game-winning touchdown with 1:48 remaining in MSU’s 27-21 win over Notre Dame. “Coach said big-time players make big-time plays in big-time games and I guess that’s a big play,” he said. With MSU losing 21-20 with just under eight minutes left in the game, Haygood said Notre Dame wasn’t heading home victorious. “I told someone earlier, ‘We’re not going to lose the game,’” he said.

MICHIGAN

Council to discuss City Center tax increment; residents to vote on school levies

The East Lansing City Council will hold a special meeting Tuesday to discuss the City Center tax increment and increasing restrictions on smoking in restaurants.To fund the City Center, an ordinance would raise taxes of East Lansing residents in small increments.The project, with a price tag of about $30 million, will be home to an array of new shops and restaurants in East Lansing.

MICHIGAN

Byrum, Rogers discuss matters close to heart

Every 29 seconds an American suffers a heart attack, and every minute someone dies from one. Every 53 seconds an American suffers a stroke, and every 3.3 minutes someone dies from one. “Heart disease and stroke are the nation’s number one and number three killers - but few politicians seem to notice,” Mike Michalski, chairman-elect of the American Heart Association’s Midwest affiliate, said. The American Heart Association sought to end that legislative ignorance this year by developing a new initiative called Take Heart 2000, a series of four national events aimed at educating lawmakers and candidates on the health issues related to cardiovascular disease. “The American Heart Association has developed a new initiative - Take Heart 2000 - to educate officials and political candidates on important heart and stroke issues in an effort to get them to speak out and support a health policy agenda aimed at fighting heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases,” Michalski said. On Friday, the Kellogg Center hosted the last in a series of nationwide candidate forums sponsored by the American Heart Association. “Right now there is a lot of national attention on Lansing because there are such crucial races going on,” said Cindy Hawken, director of communications for Western Michigan’s American Heart Association. Take Heart 2000 highlights three key policies the American Heart Association would like candidates to support: Increasing federal research funding, including funding for heart disease and stroke; authorizing the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the manufacturing, sale and marketing of tobacco products; and removing barriers to health care that limit access to emergency services and specialty care. “Because health issues like heart disease and stroke affect almost every family, we’d like (candidates) to be aware of those issues and to find out their opinions,” Hawken said. Invited to attend the forum were state senators Dianne Byrum, D-Onondaga, and Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, as well as Democratic U.S.

NEWS

McPherson to trade bonus for new greens

AUGUSTA, Mich. - MSU President M. Peter McPherson received his traditional 3 percent raise and a $25,000 bonus at Friday’s MSU Board of Trustees meeting.The board, which met at the university’s newly acquired Brook Lodge in Augusta, Mich., voted unanimously to boost the president’s salary.Since his arrival, McPherson has been insistent on limiting his raise to 3 or 4 percent, an amount somewhat comparable to what other university employees have received.And he said he will donate the bonus, a one-year stipend, back to the university to plant 2,000 trees on south campus as part of a beautification project.“I really didn’t come here to make money on this job,” McPherson said.

COMMENTARY

Share Wealth

MSU President M. Peter McPherson’s $25,000 bonus is an insult to MSU’s underpaid faculty.

NEWS

Residents react to lewd slurs scrawled through hall

Students living on three floors of Bailey Hall emerged from their rooms one Saturday morning to find offensive writings and crude drawings covering their hallways. An unknown person or people vandalized the interior of the Brody Complex hall after midnight Sept.

NEWS

Fraternity paints over heritage message on rock

Maria Garcia-Mugg dropped to her knees and began to cry when she observed the rock on Farm Lane early Friday morning.The entomology sophomore spent most of Thursday night helping to paint the rock as part of Culturas de las Razas Unidas’ celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.But as she passed the rock on her way to class Friday, she saw a sight she called “disturbing.”“The rock had been painted over by the same fraternity that had given me their word that they would not do it since this was a cultural event,” Garcia-Mugg said Sunday.The heritage month began Sept.

MICHIGAN

State House to vote on higher education bill

Lawmakers will be addressing key issues this week in the state House and Senate - most notably, the bill to fund higher education for the next fiscal year. The state House is expected to vote on a budget bill that will appropriate $1,838,900,562 to Michigan’s 15 public universities.

NEWS

Spartans save best for last

Jeff Smoker is a wide-eyed 19-year-old freshman.Saturday he grew up.With MSU’s fate resting in his right arm, Smoker, playing for injured starter junior quarterback Ryan Van Dyke, delivered a perfect strike to Herb Haygood on fourth-and-10 with 1:48 remaining in the fourth quarter.And the rest was Haygood history.When the junior wide receiver crossed the goal line 68 yards later to give the Spartans the conclusive 27-21 score over visiting Notre Dame, Smoker confirmed he possesses maturity and poise well beyond his teenage years.“They blitzed and left (Haygood) one-on-one and I hit him right out of his break,” Smoker said.

SPORTS

Kickers lose to defending champs

In a game vs. two-time defending NCAA champions Indiana (6-3) that could have swung either way, the MSU men’s soccer team (4-3), found itself on the losing end of a controversial game.

NEWS

Student enrollment, academic standards continue increase

Enrollment may only be up slightly this year, but some students still think campus seems more congested than past years.“It has seemed a little more crowded during peak hours - when big classes let out it’s more crowded on the sidewalk,” Lyman Briggs sophomore Jennifer Eschbaugh said.

MSU

Kellogg manor dedicated

HICKERY CORNERS, Mich. - MSU trustees, President M. Peter McPherson and other administrators inaugurated the university-owned, newly renovated W.K.

MSU

Trustees elect new chairperson

AUGUSTA, Mich. - Colleen McNamara, a five-year veteran of MSU’s governing body, was elected chairperson of the university’s Board of Trustees on Friday. McNamara, who joined the board in 1995, replaces former Trustee Bob Traxler, who resigned in August to accept a position on the Mackinac Island State Parks Commission. “It’s really an honor,” McNamara said Friday.

COMMENTARY

Academics should remain a priority

The stories on Harvard Professor Stephen Jay Gould and discussions with MSU President M. Peter McPherson, Ronald Fisher, director of the Honors College, and others is among the most exciting articles I’ve read in my nearly 40 years at MSU.