Article

COVID-19 is causing chaos in grocery stores

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It’s like the holiday rush, shoppers in a frenzy. 

COVID-19 has created chaos all over the world, including a place you might not expect: grocery stores. Shoppers have been scrambling to buy whatever is left, but there isn’t much. “I’m here ‘til like 10 and I don’t see it slowing down that much,” Meijer employee Dylan S. said. But the hot commodity isn’t a run on turkeys, it’s toilet paper. “Every store you go to, it seems like everyone’s bought toilet paper,” Jean Schlicklin said.  “They’re trying to restock them, but they can’t get them restocked quick enough.”

Toilet paper isn’t the only thing people have stocked up on.

Body image

Sexual objectification: Is it a problem? How do we solve it?

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EAST LANSING, Mich. — During Halloween in 2016, Sharon Thomas, a human biology major at University of Michigan, was walking through the neighborhood of Cedar Village around 8 p.m. when a man called her from across the street. “He said, ‘Hey, baby, you look fine,’ then he ran over to me from across the road,” said Thomas.  “I didn’t really register what he was doing at the moment.”

Thomas said the man ran up to her and grabbed her waist while complimenting her. She pushed him away physically, but she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

Gender

Sexual violence on college campuses

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The number of sex crimes reported on U.S. college campuses increased by 50 percent over the last decade, according to the latest Indicators of School Crime and Safety survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice. While sexual violence is difficult to measure, factors such as grade level, gender and rates of campus crime reporting can help determine the prevalence of sexual violence.

Education

Audit says inspectors need to recheck more school buses that fail safety checks

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By ALEXANDER SMITH
Capital News Service
LANSING — A recent state audit says state officials should more aggressively re-inspect school buses that fail safety checks. The number of buses with safety defects rose by 684 to 3,038 in 2016. That’s 19 percent of Michigan’s fleet, according to the 2016 School Bus Inspection Report. According to a September state audit report of the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division, inspectors rarely reevaluated a bus tagged as defective. In 2016, only 30 percent of tagged buses were reevaluated by inspectors, the audit reported.

community

Rates for some crimes fall in Lansing, but it doesn’t feel that way to all

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By Alana Easterling
Listen Up Lansing Staff Reporter

Some things are just not adding up: when it comes to crime, Lansing residents are saying one thing, while data is saying another. Crime rate data for Lansing displays a decrease in some crime rates, but some Lansing residents feel that crimes rates haven’t decreased, but have gotten worse. Lansing crime rate data shows that the crime rates in Lansing have fluctuated since 2002, but they have indeed decreased since then as well. In 2007 there were 14.1 murders for every 100,000 residents, and just six years later in 2013, that rated decreased by half to 7 murders for every 100,000 residents. Though statistics and those behind the scenes say crime has decreased, some Lansing residents feel otherwise.

Government

In the shadow of Kalamazoo, police hope to keep Grand Ledge safe

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By Madison Morse
Living in the Ledge Staff Reporter

An act of violence can occur at any moment, place or time. This became all too real on Feb. 20 when a mass shooting in Kalamazoo left six people dead and two injured. This tragedy has the community of Grand Ledge
buckling down to stay one of the safest cities in Michigan. “We can take a lot of information from the shootings,” said Lt. Chris Blievernicht of the Grand Ledge Police Department.

Clinton County

Overall crime rate declining in St. Johns …

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By Rachel Bidock
Clinton County Chatter Staff Reporter

ST. JOHNS — According to the St.Johns Police Department Annual Report, St. Johns crime rate is at one of the lowest rates it has been in eight years, with a combined 198 index and non-index crimes. Index and non-index crimes are defined in the report as either serious crimes such as murder, criminal sexual conduct and robbery or other crimes such as simple assault, bad checks, and forgery. St.

Community News

Road salt still a go-to for wintery Lansing roads, but city eyeing a change

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By Alexander Smith
Listen Up Lansing Staff Reporter

Road salt is one of the state’s top tools to keep cars on the road during winter, but for how much longer? In Lansing, it’s still an important tool in the city’s snow removal program. “Generally speaking, we’ll apply salt down to maybe 10 degrees, then we’ll apply what’s called a sand-salt mix, because salt will not react if the temperature gets too cold,” said Public Service Director Chad Gamble. “It’ll just be rocks on the roadway, which is no good.”

Gamble said even though some streets are left unsalted, major plow operations use 200 to 300 tons of the sand-salt mix. “We don’t apply salt to all 400 miles of neighborhood streets, it’s somewhat of a waste of money,” said Gamble.

Holt-Delhi Township

Local law enforcement works to eliminate drunk driving from Holt's streets

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By Anna Shaffer
Holt Journal Staff Reporter

In Holt, like many other towns in all over the country, driving while intoxicated is a problem. A problem local Ingham County Delhi Division sheriff’s deputies are working hard to eliminate. Although there has not been an increase in the number of operating while impaired (OWI) arrests in Holt over the years, it is still a number Lt. Dennis Hull would like to see decrease. “Ideally, we would like the number of arrests for intoxicated driving to be zero,” said Hull. According to the 2014 Michigan Annual Drunk Driving Audit distributed by the Michigan Department of State Police Criminal Justice Information Center, Ingham County ranked sixth-highest in the state for number of OWI arrests with 1,093 arrests.