Tuesday, November 26, 2024

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MSU

Energy usage surges to record level with heat

Staying cool takes more than just a good pair of sunglasses and a leather jacket.It takes energy.Electricity use jumped recently as Michigan residents battled summer heat with fans and air conditioners.Jackson-based Consumers Energy set a record for power usage with 7,780 megawatts from 2 p.m.

MICHIGAN

Restaurants clear out smoke, gain more business

More Michigan restaurants are throwing out ashtrays and adopting no-smoking policies. Smoke-free restaurants have increased by 200 to come to a total of 3,000, according to the “Dining Smoke-Free in Michigan” guide for 2001, which lists smoke-free restaurants. According to state figures, Grand Rapids had 135 smoke-free restaurants; Traverse City, 127; Ann Arbor, 106; Muskegon, 86; Kalamazoo, 82; and Lansing had 63. Scott Walker, the director of health promotions in the state Department of Community Health, said a smoke-free atmosphere is in demand among 76 percent of nonsmokers in Michigan.

MSU

Classic car show to raise funds for charity

Classic cars are going to make MSU’s campus a safer place this weekend. Cars on Campus and the MSU Alumni Association are sponsoring a weekend of charity events to benefit MSU Safe Place and Highfields Inc. MSU Safe Place works to help those who experience domestic violence within the MSU community.

MSU

Legislators offer solutions to tuition hike criticisms

It’s been more than two weeks since Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus sent a questioning letter about tuition increases to university presidents around the state.In response, many of the presidents have called or written with arguments for their increases.“Everyone has a different answer,” Posthumus said.

MICHIGAN

City hopes to aid at-risk youth

College may not be a long shot for at-risk teens in Lansing, who can earn scholarships by staying in school. The Helping Other People Excel Scholarship Program will aim to provide two-year Lansing Community College scholarships to 500 at-risk seventh-graders in Lansing schools each year. “H.O.P.E.

MSU

Professor heads pop culture association

It was 1962 when the Main Library decided to expand its collection beyond agricultural studies and Shakespeare.Nearly 40 years later, more than 250,000 popular culture pieces rest in the library’s growing Special Collections - and pop culture studies at MSU keep growing.Gary Hoppenstand, an American Thought and Language professor and associate department chairman, was elected president of the Popular Culture Association, a 3,000-member organization dedicated to the scholarly study of pop culture of all kinds.“It entails quite a bit,” Hoppenstand said.

MSU

Glass art exhibit heats up gallery

On a hot Sunday afternoon, people were doing their best to stay out of the 90-degree heat. But some stopped to watch a man play with 2,000-degree molten glass anyway.Art Allison, from Pottsboro, Texas, was demonstrating the art of glassblowing to spectators outside of Mackerel Sky, 217 Ann St.“I’ve been doing this for 22 years now and this is what I like to do,” Allison said.Allison was in East Lansing for a demonstration that was part of the First Sunday Gallery Walk, which is a coalition of East Lansing and Lansing galleries that hold exhibitions for the public on the first Sunday of every other month.Allison started working with glass while a student at Kent State University in 1979, and since then has made a living out of it.“All it is is just blowing a bubble and then decorating it,” he said.

MSU

Camp bridges technology gap

Michigan area middle-schoolers have been trying their hands at new technology during the third annual Kids Learning In Computer Klubhouses, or KLICK, Leadership Camp, held on MSU’s campus this week. The KLICK program is an after-school program designed to teach middle-schoolers of low economic backgrounds or communities how to use new technology.

MICHIGAN

Night Out seeks to clear crime from neighborhoods

Neighborhoods in Lansing are stepping out.From 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday, the Lansing Police Department, Neighborhood Watch and city of Lansing are coming together for National Night Out.The night serves as a way for neighbors to get to know each other and helps promote police-community relationships against crime.

MSU

Kids enjoy art at 4-H garden

Soaked from head to toe, 4-year-old Mason resident Adrienne Hough grinned from cheek to cheek.“I like the frogs,” Hough said, as she danced under the squirts of water coming from cement frogs, one of the features in the Michigan 4-H Children’s Garden.Hough was one of about 50 children who enjoyed art under the hot sun during the garden’s “Art Day.”Mason resident Karen Krepps said she took the morning off from work to spend the day with her grandchildren, Jacob and Faith Krepps.“It’s great,” the elder Krepps said.