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MICHIGAN

Youth push for teen vote

LANSING - The Lansing Junior City Council Initiative held a kickoff meeting for its Lansing Teen Voter Registration Challenge, 2001, on Monday at a local high school.Members of the initiative explained the challenge to about 10 interested high school students and community members in the Eleanor Dorsem Social Room at Eastern High School, 220 N.

MSU

Art class shares in project

D’Ann de Simone’s painting class took an opportunity to weave its way into the community - literally. Members of the class, Studio Art 420, Painting, are just a few of many East Lansing residents who have participated in producing a room-sized tapestry project under the direction of local artist Nancy McRay. The students met Monday in The Art Apartment, 210 Abbott Road, where their contributions were added to numerous materials and objects from community members already woven into the tapestry. McRay said the community’s involvement with the project so far has been overwhelming. “I have this huge sense of responsibility for what’s been given to me,” McRay said.

MICHIGAN

Mini horses breed womans passion

MASON - Nestled just south of the Interstate 96 and Okemos Road intersection, a mile or so from the electric signs and cash registers of capitalism, Westwind Farms is a curious picture of rural American life.There, Cammie Cavanaugh reigns supreme, walking with ease and familiarity through red stables, surrounded by barn cats, fences and multicolored horses.You won’t find many saddles around Westwind Farms, though - the farm, 3146 Okemos Road, specializes in miniature horses.

MSU

Stay in school activists inform and motivate U

The Office of Minority Student Affairs was out in full force to keep students from dropping out of school at Saturday’s Racial Ethnic Student Retention Conference: Overcoming F.E.A.R.Students gained tips and learned real expectations for college at the 11th annual conference, titled “False Expectations Appearing Real,” at the Union.“I don’t see sisters beating down the doors of brothers who are dropping out of school left and right,” said Lenzy Bell, while speaking to more than 100 students.

MSU

ASMSU, yearbook reach agreement

While sitting in a quiet, empty Red Cedar Log office late Thursday night, Editor-in-Chief Rianne Jones said she was able to breathe her first sigh of relief in weeks.Jones’ tension was due to a power struggle with ASMSU over the yearbook’s operation, which, after about a month of controversy, reached a compromise Thursday.The ASMSU Student Assembly approved three intricate parts of the bill that established the settlement while two other sections of the measure failed.

MICHIGAN

Attorney Generals life threatened in letter

Michigan Attorney General Jennifer Granholm’s life was threatened via a letter last week before she made a scheduled speech in Chesterfield Township.A threat assessment was done by the Michigan State Police in conjunction with the Warren Police Department, and it was determined that there was no danger.

MICHIGAN

Police battle racial profiling

LANSING - Police department officials put about 30 area residents through the same training this weekend that officers have received to combat racial profiling.Two-hour sessions on Saturday and Sunday drew about 15 people to the Harry Hill Vocational Center, 5815 Wise Road, to discuss profiling practices and learn about the department’s strategy to prevent it.Racial profiling is a practice in which police take action based on race, ethnicity or national origin rather than illegal or suspicious activities.“Historically, police officers were taught this.

MICHIGAN

Registration deadline arrives for upcoming election

Today is the last day to register to vote for the upcoming special elections. The elections, which are scheduled to take place March 20, are to fill three vacant seats in the state Legislature.Candidates for the seat left behind by Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, who won the 8th Congressional District race in November, include Rep.

MSU

Professors research effects of deforestation

A team of MSU researchers has been working on a project that could hold the fate of the Amazon rain forests in the balance.Mark Cochrane, a research scientist in the Department of Geography, has spent years in Brazil researching an extensive report titled, “The Future of the Brazilian Amazon.”“The whole point (of our research) is to allow the policy developers and the Brazilian government to make an informed decision,” Cochrane said.

MICHIGAN

House rejects pay increase

It is not often that 100 people would each turn down $20,000.“Have you ever voted down a pay raise?” asked House Speaker Rick Johnson, R-LeRoy, in his office Monday.The state House rejected a pay raise of that amount Thursday in a 100-6 vote.

MICHIGAN

Faculty help ease transition into college

Marqus Coleman knows what he’ll be doing after he graduates from East Lansing High School in June.He’ll attend Defiance College in Ohio.“The counselors at my school helped me with deciding but my mom and my dad always told me that I had to do something after high school,” Coleman said.Although the senior high school student’s decision was influenced by his counselors and parents, MSU officials say the trend is for prospective college students to get too wrapped up with career plans.William Metcalfe, a psychologist at MSU’s Counseling Center, said he talks with MSU students who are concerned about their niche at college and about future careers.“Sometimes I’ll see students early on adjusting to just what this place is like, where their niche is and what their opportunities are here,” he said.

MSU

U researchers investigate corn spacing, create adaptive equipment

MSU crop and soil science professors are researching what may be the wave of the future for growing corn.Kurt Thelen, professor of crop and soil sciences, has been researching the effects of growing corn in narrow 15-inch rows in comparison to the traditional 30-inch rows that many farmers around the country employ.The study began in 1997.“Historically it’s always been the planting implements that spaced rows of corn,” Thelen said.

MSU

Minority speaker series to host civil rights activists

Four theologians who experienced the American Civil Rights Movement firsthand will bring their stories and perspectives to MSU for Black History Month, which starts Thursday. The speakers will come to campus as part of the Visiting Minority Lecture Series titled “Slavery to Freedom: An American Odyssey.” The series is presented by MSU’s College of Osteopathic Medicine and is a joint effort by the university and the state of Michigan to increase MSU’s minority faculty pool without hiring lecturers full-time. “This allows us to tap our resources nationwide to bring speakers to campus and make them more accessible to students and faculty,” said Sandy Kilbourn, the college’s executive director for external programs. Kicking off the series will be the Rev.

MICHIGAN

Number of flu cases to increase

The flu has been slowly making its rounds and the worst may still be on the way. Last year influenza reached its height in December, but this year the bug has been delayed throughout the nation, including Michigan, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The flu causes 20,000 deaths and 110,000 hospitalizations each year in the United States. English freshman Allyson Stanley had the flu during winter break, but didn’t go to the doctor. “I figured if it ended within a day, then I wouldn’t go, but if it persisted, I would go to the doctor,” she said.