Recent Articles
U-M, MSU rivalry began in 1800s
When John Macklin was named head football coach and athletic director of Michigan Agricultural College in 1911, he inherited a fledgling football program plagued by low attendance at a school where enrollment just slightly topped 1,700. Macklin led the M.A.C.
Backyard fires may be allowed by summer
Here's a recipe for a backyard get-together on a summer evening in East Lansing: A handful of friends lounging in lawn chairs, burgers starting to brown on the grill, droplets of water condensing on a bottle of cold beer and — a fire? MSU students have crossed East Lansing police in the past for lighting things on fire in residential areas, but if City Council approves an amendment to the fire code, some student renters would be within their rights to start fires in their yards. Council could approve the revised law next week. That doesn't mean burning couches or bonfires — permitted fires would have to burn in an outdoor fireplace. In the past, residents of the city's neighborhoods could have fires on their properties if they first obtained a permit from the East Lansing Fire Department.
E.L's downtown neighborhood grows up
Drive down Grand River Avenue and you'll see a narrow strip of one- and two-story brick buildings — bookstores, bars, bong shops and burrito joints — about what you'd expect in a midsize college town. For better or worse, that's been the character of East Lansing's downtown for decades. Not for much longer.
Resources lacking for cleanup of toxic sites
In thousands of instances across Michigan, polluted ground isn't being cleaned up, and there's not much the state's enforcement officers can do about it. A lack of funding and legal authority are making it hard for the short-staffed Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, to hold polluters accountable. "There's a long list of sites that need immediate attention," said Tom Simpson, a DEQ project manager who oversees all gas tank leaks in Ingham and Clinton counties. Michigan's varied geology and history have left the state with a legacy of environmental problems, officials say. "We have been a manufacturing center for more than 100 years," said Phil Schrantz, chief of field operations in the DEQ's Remediation and Redevelopment Division.
The mind of a modern Nazi
Downtown Lansing abounds with politicians, and Bill White could be any one of them as he sits in a Beaner's Gourmet Coffee around the corner from the Capitol, dressed in a suit and tie, sipping a tall mocha topped with a swirl of whipped cream. But White isn't a mainstream politician.
