Airport staff surprised by arrival of centenarian instead of infant after American Airlines booking system errors
A 101-year-old woman has been regularly mistaken for an infant because an airline’s booking system was unable to compute her date of birth.
The woman, named only as Patricia, was born in 1922, but the American Airlines system apparently does not recognise that year, defaulting instead to 2022, the BBC reported.
Continue reading...Brother and sister, ages five and eight, killed as woman drives 25ft into a building, sheriff says
A young brother and sister died and several people were injured, some of them seriously, when a vehicle driven by a suspected drunken driver crashed into a young child’s birthday party on Saturday at a boat club, according to a Michigan sheriff.
An eight-year-old girl and her five-year-old brother died at the scene, when a 66-year-old woman crashed 25ft into the building at about 3pm at the Swan Creek Boat Club in Berlin Township, about 30 miles (48km) south of Detroit, the Monroe county sheriff, Troy Goodnough, said.
Continue reading...University of Michigan president Santa J Ono proposes ‘disruptive activity policy’ after pro-Palestinian group cuts his speech short
The University of Michigan is facing backlash from students, faculty and civil rights attorneys following a proposal to significantly restrict the right to protest on campus.
The “disruptive activity policy”, announced last week in a campus-wide email from the university president, Santa J Ono, would create strict punishments for anyone who interrupts official university events, including speeches, classes, athletic events, field trips, performances, graduation and award ceremonies.
Continue reading...Dog that had gone missing was discovered in Michigan clean and well-fed: ‘Whoever had her took good care of her’
Nearly nine months after his disappearance, a dog that had gone missing in California was discovered more than 2,000 miles away in Michigan.
A resident in Harper Woods, a Detroit suburb, contacted police in late March to report a stray dog in her neighborhood. Police collected the terrier mix, named Mishka, and brought her to an animal welfare group.
Continue reading...Civil rights group denounces congressmember Tim Walberg’s calls to ‘get it over quick’ as a ‘clear call to genocide’
Rather than provide humanitarian aid in Gaza, the US should ensure it is subjected to atomic bombing the way that “Nagasaki and Hiroshima” were at the end of the second world war, a Republican congressman said in shocking remarks that by all indications were recorded recently at a gathering with a relatively small group of his constituents.
The comments by US House representative Tim Walberg of Michigan drew condemnation from progressive political quarters, including from some who expressed disbelief that a former Christian pastor would advocate for what they called the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Continue reading...The success of this agile grassroots group underlines the discontent over the war – and represents a warning for Democrats
People in Michigan, and across the country, had been protesting for months over the Gaza war and the US government’s role in it, marching in the streets, showing up at the president’s public events, and pressuring their elected officials to support a ceasefire.
But it didn’t seem as though Joe Biden was listening to a groundswell of Democrats who opposed the war and US media coverage of the protests, and of the war itself, seems to be waning, too.
Continue reading...Campaign to ‘leave it blank’ or vote ‘uncommitted’ aims to increase pressure on Biden to stop Israel’s incursion in Gaza
A protest movement in Georgia – a swing state that President Biden narrowly won in 2020 – is seeking to apply pressure to the incumbent over his support of Israel before the 12 March Democratic primary election.
On Monday, a group of multifaith and multiracial groups called the Listen to Georgia Coalition launched the Leave It Blank campaign, which urges voters to submit a blank ballot next Tuesday. The push follows a similar grassroots effort – Listen to Michigan – in which more than 100,000 voters marked their ballots “uncommitted” last month.
Continue reading...Former president is awarded all 39 state delegates for November’s national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Donald Trump continued his march toward the GOP nomination at the Michigan Republican party convention on Saturday, sweeping all 39 delegates.
The delegates awarded will fuel Trump ahead of Tuesday, 5 March, when 15 states will hold primaries and Trump’s nomination could be all but decided. The Michigan state party delegates met on Saturday at the sprawling Amway Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, huddling in 13 separate meeting rooms representing the state’s 13 congressional districts.
Continue reading...The state GOP had ousted its party chair, Kristina Karamo, in January, but she has not accepted her removal, dividing members
Michigan Republicans are gathering in Grand Rapids for a convention they hope will be less fraught than the last four months of chaotic power struggle within the state Republican party.
During Saturday’s convention, the party will choose most of the delegates it will send to the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July to formally choose the party’s 2024 presidential candidate (Tuesday’s primary, which Trump won, determined the rest).
Continue reading...Defeated former South Carolina governor has pledged to stay in Republican presidential primaries at least through Super Tuesday
Donald Trump has won Michigan’s Republican primary election, the latest in a string of convincing primary victories as he closes in on the GOP presidential nomination.
The Associated Press called the race for Trump over the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley at 9pm ET.
Continue reading...Follow live as the state’s Republican and Democratic voters choose their preferred candidate for the US presidential election
Democrats and Republicans went to the polls on Tuesday for Michigan’s presidential primary. The critical swing state’s election will prove a test for both frontrunners, Joe Biden and Donald Trump. But a separate Republican convention held on Saturday will determine the final delegate count for the Republican party.
Here are the results from the 27 February Michigan primary:
Continue reading...Trump faces local leaders embroiled in factional dispute, while Biden faces a campaign by antiwar activists to abandon him
Voters will make their way to the polls in Michigan today, in a presidential primary that will test how much Joe Biden and Donald Trump should be worried about winning key groups of voters for the general election in the critical swing state.
Both face challenges within their respective parties. After underperforming the polls and struggling with suburban and college-educated Republican voters in earlier primaries, Trump’s campaign in Michigan is dealing with a state Republican party whose local leaders have been embroiled in an ugly factional dispute, while Biden faces a campaign by antiwar activists to abandon him over the president’s continued support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Continue reading...Gretchen Whitmer responds to calls by some Democrats to vote ‘uncommitted’ in Michigan’s primary on Tuesday
Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, pushed back on calls to not vote for Joe Biden over his handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying on Sunday that could help Trump get re-elected.
“It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term,” she said on Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “A second Trump term would be devastating. Not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy. This was a man who promoted a Muslim ban.”
Continue reading...Linsey Huff’s lawyer says restaurant’s owners sacked her for refusing to name names in conflict over money
A Michigan restaurant server who recently received a $10,000 tip on a $32 tab says the establishment has since fired her amid a dispute over how many of her co-workers deserved a share of the remarkably large gratuity.
The story of the tip that Linsey Huff earned while waiting on a table at the Mason Jar Cafe in the western Michigan community of Benton Harbor on 5 February initially went viral on corners of the internet dedicated to uplifting news because it had been left by a patron who wanted to honor a late friend.
Continue reading...Michigan representative tells state voters to pick ‘uncommitted’ option over White House support for Israel’s strikes on Gaza
The progressive US congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has called on her fellow Michigan Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s presidential primary election – at the expense of the party’s incumbent, Joe Biden – in late February.
Appearing in a video posted to X on Saturday by Listen to Michigan, a political campaign to encourage the state’s voters to vote “uncommitted” in the 27 February primary, Tlaib justified her stark display of displeasure with Biden by alluding to Israel’s military strikes on Gaza, which local authorities say have killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians since last October.
Continue reading...‘Never Surrender High-Tops’ cost $399 and arrive on the market just after judge hands former US president huge penalty
Donald Trump has launched his own sneaker brand, a day after a New York judge ordered him to pay $354.9m in penalties for fraudulently overstating his net worth to dupe lenders.
“I’ve wanted to do this a long time,” the former US president said, as he unveiled what he called the first official Trump footwear at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia, a gathering that bills itself as the “The Greatest Sneaker Show on Earth.”
Continue reading...Mayor Abdullah Hammoud increases law enforcement near places of worship after piece calls Michigan city the ‘jihad capital’ of US
The mayor of Dearborn has ordered more police officers onto the streets, ramping up law enforcement presence across places of worship and major infrastructure points this weekend following an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal that called the Michigan city the “jihad capital” of the US.
And on Sunday Joe Biden weighed in, denouncing anti-Arab hate and, without referring specifically to the newspaper, saying “it shouldn’t happen to the residents of Dearborn – or any American town.”
Continue reading...Researchers have conducted an annual survey of the animals’ population every year since 1958, except in 2021 due to Covid-19
A stretch of unusually warm weather has forced federal officials to temporarily halt researchers’ annual count of wolves and moose in remote Isle Royale national park for the first time in more than six decades.
Isle Royale is a 134,000-acre island situated in far western Lake Superior between Grand Marias, Minnesota, and Thunder Bay, Canada. The Michigan park is a wildlife biologist’s dream – it offers a rare opportunity to observe wolves and moose without human influence.
Continue reading...Prosecutors say parents made gun accessible to Ethan Crumbley and ignored his mental health needs
Jury selection began on Tuesday in the trial of the mother of a teenager who carried out a deadly mass shooting at his school on involuntary manslaughter charges in an unusual effort to pin criminal responsibility on the shooter’s parents for the deaths of four students.
Jennifer and James Crumbley are not accused of knowing their son planned to kill fellow students at Oxford high school in 2021. But prosecutors said they made a gun accessible to Ethan Crumbley, ignored his mental health needs and declined to take him home when confronted with his violent drawings at school on the day of the attack.
Continue reading...Quick-thinking state police officer enlists pet canine to carry rescue equipment to man who fell through ice
A man who fell through the ice on a frozen Michigan lake was rescued after a quick-thinking state police officer used the stranded man’s dog to get rescue equipment to him and pull the man to safety.
Bystanders called 911 on Thursday after the 65-year-old Traverse City man fell through ice-covered Arbutus Lake, state police said.
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