After an outcry from one of Lansing’s more economically challenged neighborhoods, Mayor Andy Schor is looking to reverse plans to bill hundreds of homeowners for an upcoming environmental study. more

When I got out of the Marines, I found out everybody started selling their cars because of the gas prices during the oil crisis. more

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer started meeting individually with the Republican Senate majority leader and House speaker this week in the hopes of crafting a deal that will raise more road funding money while making cost-saving reforms to the state’s auto insurance law. more

Lansing City Council members are looking to hire a full-time “chief restructuring officer” to help keep the budget balanced and “set a better direction” for the city. more

The City Clerk’s Office will begin accepting applications for five more medical marijuana dispensaries May 28 for 30 days, with more emphasis on candidates’ business models.  more

For the sake of my mental health — and democracy — I’m going to hope that Donald Trump isn’t a harbinger of that realignment, but rather the last gasp of a boomer generation being supplanted by socialism-curious millennials and Gen Zs. More pointedly, my hope is that Trump’s presidency proves an ultimately useful shock to the system, something that awoke us to the cancer in our midst. more

Plans to unify district courts in Ingham County are facing friction from yet another judge who would rather keep East Lansing and Lansing separated from the rest of the county. more

Whoever is in charge of raising the curtain on a downtown performing arts center in Lansing can sit back and take a smoke break. It’s going to take some serious researching and soul-searching to come up with a design that works. And there might not even be a curtain. more

A renewed push toward workforce diversification is paying dividends after a dozen members of minorities and women joined the ranks of the Lansing Police Department, with more to come. more

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is among this year’s seven recipients of the City Pulse LGBTQ+ Inclusion Awards. more

Michigan is one of the worst in the nation for library access, ranking 47th for its student-to-school librarian ratio, according to the Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest union of teachers and other school personnel. Experts say it’s no coincidence that the state also ranks fifth worst In the nation for literacy. more

Lansing will be home to two additional licensed medical pot shops. And they're open for business. more

Work has begun on Capital Park Center, a 48-unit apartment complex with retail space near the Hall of Justice. more

My first bowl of Mapo Tofu came when traveling through Meishan in China’s southern Sichuan province. Before lunch, I climbed up a mountain trail to see the 230-foot Leshan Giant Buddha, carved out of a sandstone cliff between 700 and 800 AD. My shoes were worn, my calves were on fire,  and I was hungry. more

My aunt would always bring us to Hunter Park and her daughter to play in the pool. This is a nice park where kids have room to play. There is a tennis court. My mom used to bring us to play tennis and we would watch her. I’ve spent many great summers here. more

The dirty little secret about American politics is that the average voter knows next to nothing about their government or the policies it enacts, which means half of voters know less than that. more

The first few weeks of class for Combat Veteran Certificate students didn’t involve running out and buying textbooks. It involved writing a farewell letter to family, receiving a pair of green dog tags and several packets of ready-to-eat military rations. more

The popular opinion in town is that if Michigan must hold court-ordered special state Senate elections in 2020, East Lansing Democrat Curtis Hertel Jr. will be ineligible to run for his seat. more

Ingham County Sheriff Scott Wriggelsworth contends additional state funding will be needed to provide a growing number of inmates with access to adequate mental health treatment behind bars. more

Despite reduced expectations for cost savings, a plan to consolidate Ingham County’s district courts is advancing in the face of growing opposition. more