Michigan news roundup

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FRIDAY, Nov. 4 — A roundup of news from around the state, provided by our partners at Capital News Service. Follow the links for the full stories.

Churches fill gap on election day: Some voters who don’t like to darken the door of a church will be out of luck Tuesday. That’s because many communities use churches as convenient polling places. And that makes advocates of the separation of church and state nervous.

Bill would decrease local government’s tax revenues: Local officials worry that a plan to expand the number of nonprofit organizations exempt from property taxes will bring a significant hit on revenues that already have dramatically declined.

Facial recognition technology still a concern but Michigan a national leader: Michigan State Police are the nation’s leaders in protecting privacy during facial recognition searches, according to a recent report by the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology. Still, not many people may know that their drivers license photos may appear in such an electronic line up of potential criminal suspects.

Dozens of new sheriffs will take office in January: Michigan will have a record number of new county sheriffs after Tuesday's election. Twenty-six new candidates for sheriff are either running unopposed or are running against a non-incumbent. An additional 17 incumbent sheriffs face challengers. One reason for the record turnover is that Vietnam-era veterans who went into law enforcement in the 70s are reaching retirement age.

Lead poisoning is statewide but help is not: Funding to remediate lead contaminated buildings is unequally distributed across the state, putting rural communities at a disadvantage for protecting the health of their residents.

Traverse City tall building proposal has statewide implications: Traverse City voters are deciding whether to limit the height of that city’s buildings with a local proposal that may have statewide implications.

Web model shows currents in the Straits: You can watch how water flows through the Straits of Mackinac with an online animation that shows how it switches directions and reaches speeds as fast as some Great Lakes rivers. The animations produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration can be help find lost boats, predict conditions for freighters and track oil spills.

Michigan man on quest to photograph native orchids: The tiny white-and-pink flowers made Mark Carlson’s heart pound. His 30-year quest to find and photograph the small round-leaved orchis was finally over. Carlson, a 58-year-old Michigan professional nature photographer, is on a mission to photograph the state’s best orchids.

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