Spartan Newsroom (https://news.jrn.msu.edu/series/capitalnewsservice)
Some school officials report that going back to the classrooms helps improve student mental health. The face-to-face interaction is a relief for many during the pandemic. With interviews from officials in Manistee, Detroit and Hart. By Tasia Bass FOR ALL POINTS
Safety advocates want to put more children in car seats under proposed legislation that has been stalled for years. Last year, 4,544 children ages 14 and under were injured in Michigan traffic accidents. Of those, 43 died. But car injuries are the second-highest preventable injuries in children. We talk to a Grand Rapids injury prevention expert and the director of the Michigan Chapter for the American Academy of Pediatrics. The bill is cosponsored by a Grand Rapids lawmaker. By Megan Castleberry FOR GRAND RAPIDS, LANSING AND ALL POINTS.
Zholdas Orisbayev | Half a million Michigan families could risk eviction by the end of the year without financial help from the federal government, housing advocates say. One in every five Michigan rental households have fallen behind on their payments because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Michigan League for Public Policy. And 242,000 Michigan children are in families that haven’t been able to keep up with rent or get enough to eat. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently ordered a ban on evicting low-income tenants who cannot pay their rent because of COVID-19. The order is effective until the end of the year, but it doesn’t relieve tenants from paying back rent that they owe landlords. By Zholdas Orisbayev FOR LANSING AND ALL POINTS
Eric Freedman | When L. David Mech arrived at Isle Royale in 1959, he had no idea he would pioneer the nation’s longest-running prey-predator study, one that would become a model for wildlife biologists around the world. Nor did he likely expect to eat beaver brains or loon there. His new memoir tells of his first three summers and three winters at one of the country’s most remote national parks. We talk to Mech and a Michigan Tech professor who is now a leading wolf-moose researcher. By Eric Freedman. FOR MARQUETTE, BAY MILLS, SAULT STE. MARIE, ST. IGNACE AND ALL POINTS.
Capital News Service | There’s a new wilderness bike/hike trail at the Huron County Nature Center, only two hours from northern Metro Detroit and a shorter drive from Flint and Saginaw. For news and outdoors sections. By Jim DuFresne. FOR ALCONA AND ALL POINTS.
COVID-19 may have kept library patrons from spending hours browsing the stacks for new reads, but Michigan librarians are busy quarantining books, shipping them to eager readers and finding ways to innovate to serve the public safely. New ways of using the library such as “grab-and-go” trips are planned. We spoke to library workers in Grand Rapids, Detroit and East Lansing. By Taylor Haelterma. FOR GRAND RAPIDS, LANSING AND ALL POINTS.
Toxic algae blooming in Lake Erie is creating safety concerns for humans and aquatic life, prompting the state to work with farmers to reduce the phosphorus levels in field runoff. For news and agriculture sections. Experts at NOAA, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.
It’s unlikely most people get excited when they see a vacant manure pit, but converted storage lagoons on former dairy farms can be money-making ventures for aquaculture operations. We hear from a Michigan Sea Grant expert in the Western UP and from Wisconsin farmers.
Sustained use of no-till methods improves crop productivity while providing environmental benefits, a new MSU study finds. We talk to a crop researcher and farmers in Clinton and Gratiot counties.
The steady sound of crickets chirping in the evening is a staple of a Midwest summer. And with some simple math, that chirping can be used to tell the temperature.