Spartan Newsroom (https://news.jrn.msu.edu/tag/greg-monahan/)
A fire at Chandlers Crossing in East Lansing has displaced dozens of residents. Michigan elections are right around the corner, and voters need to be aware of polling changes. And, Batman and Superman recently made a visit to MSU’s campus. Some students got to be extras in the movie. Focal Point is an Emmy awarding winning, student produced newscast from the School of Journalism at Michigan State University.
A new Capital region taxi authority could allow for easier access for drivers and riders between East Lansing and Lansing. Trowbridge Plaza is getting a facelift. Find out how businesses are faring during the construction. And, former Spartan and ESPN personality Jemele Hill was the Grand Marshall for this year’s homecoming week at MSU.
By GREG MONAHAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — State and university officials as well as entrepreneurs in Michigan are anxiously awaiting the results of a federal appeal that will affect how a commercial drone industry develops in the state and across the country. The status of using what are also called Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – UAVs -commercially is in a holding pattern after a federal judge ruled last month that the Federal Aviation Administration had no authority to issue a $10,000 fine against a Virginia drone pilot. That set off celebrations in the drone community that were short-lived. The following day, the FAA announced it would appeal the decision and the ban on commercial drone flight remains in effect until the appeal is decided. “In a way really nothing has changed,” said Tony Sauerbrey, the drone program manager at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City.
By GREG MONAHAN
Capital News Service
Over the past 70 years, Saline has grown from a small farming town south of Ann Arbor to a constantly growing midsized community with a healthy city center and a number of new schools. Since the mid 1990s, Saline has built four new schools to meet its growing population. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the city’s population has increased about 33 percent over the past two decades. These images from Michigan State University’s aerial imagery archive trace Saline’s growth from a ruralvillage in 1940 to a bustling community 70 years later.
By GREG MONAHAN
Capital News Service
Michigan received $152,000 in federal grants for 2014 to monitor the cleanliness of its lakes and beaches. That’s more than $200,000 less than the state was allotted in 2013, according to Department of Environmental Quality toxicologist Shannon Briggs. And state lawmakers have already spoken for nearly two-thirds of this year’s money by allocating $100,000 of it to the Macomb County Health Department in southeast Michigan. “We had a re-direct of $100,000 of that $150,000,” said Brad Wurfel, communications director for the Department of Environmental Quality. “It is done.”
The downside is that there is far less money allocated to testing water safety elsewhere in the state this year.
By GREG MONAHAN
Capital News Service
The U.S. government isn’t expected to open airspace for civilian drone flight until 2015. But Northwestern Michigan College students can fly drones today. The Traverse City college is the only school in the Great Lakes region and one of a handful in the nation with federal approval to teach courses on unmanned aerial vehicles, more commonly known as drones. The college teaches U.S. drone law, drone technology and how to operate the school’s unmanned fixed-wing airplanes and quadcopters – helicopter-like unmanned aircraft with four rotors. It also has a certificate of authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that permits the college and its students to research and conduct unmanned, outdoor flight with a number of remote control aircraft.
By GREG MONAHAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — A four-phase, five-year process is underway to restore one of the largest coastal wetlands in Lake Erie. Erie Marsh contains 2,217 acres of wetlands that are home to 65 species of fish and 300 species of migratory birds. That’s according to The Nature Conservancy, the organization tasked with cleaning up the marsh. Only around 5 percent of the wetlands in western Lake Erie remain from the mid-1900s, when pollution and dike construction harmed the quality and flow of the water, according to the director of the operation to restore the marsh in southeast Michigan near the Ohio border. Dikes built more than a half-century ago to control water flowing into the wetlands cut the marsh off from the lake, said Chris May, the conservancy’s restoration director in Michigan.
MSU fans are gawking at the chance to make the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1988. Local businesses and shoppers in East Lansing are taking advantage of great deals on Green Friday. And, Pope Francis is putting faith back in people across the nation. Focal Point is an Emmy awarding winning, student produced newscast from the School of Journalism at Michigan State University.
By GREG MONAHAN
Capital News Service
LANSING – Think all ice is the same? That’s not the case on Michigan’s Great Lakes. And now scientists have found out how to detect the differences – with math. The development, reported recently in the International Association for Great Lakes Research, is important because it could help guide freighters through Michigan’s icy lakes, assist the Coast Guard in breaking up large ice formations and help weather scientists predict evaporation that could lead to lake effect snow. Researcher George Leshkevich of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Ann Arbor led the study with help from Son Nghiem of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination has one former politician recalling his time with the former president. One grocery store in East Lansing could be closing to make way for new development. And, campus is bustling with talk of the long awaited movie sequel that just came out.
Focal Point is an Emmy awarding winning, student produced newscast from the School of Journalism at Michigan State University.