Andrew Kilbourn, of Taylor, filed the lawsuit against Livingston County, Deputy Alexander Kotsonas and an unidentified supervising deputy in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Become a paid subscriber to read entire article and to watch video of traffic stop. You are also supporting my work by becoming a paid subscriber.

Read more

Sue Jacisin, an Oakland County resident, said she received the notices Saturday at her P.O. box in Ortonville. One was addressed to her, while two others carried the names of her parents.

“The problem with that is that my parents have been dead for many years,” Jacisin said.

Jacisin said her father died 22 years ago and would be 107 years old if he were alive today. Her mother died six years ago.Michigan woman questions election mail sent to parents who died years ago

I can’t continue my independent journalism without your support. If you aren’t yet consider becoming a paid subscriber for less than $1 per week. Click the button below.

Subscribe now

The mailing was not an absentee ballot, and Jacisin said it did not appear to have been sent by the Michigan Department of State. Instead, she described it as an election-related solicitation containing information about registering to vote and obtaining an absentee ballot. The material directed recipients to Michigan.gov/Vote and advised them to contact their local clerk with questions. Jacisin said the return address was a P.O. box in Alexandria, Virginia.

Jacisin said she checked Michigan’s online voter registration system and could not find an active registration for either parent.

“They didn’t come up in the registration polls, so why are they getting requests to register and send in absentee ballots?” she said.

Third-party election mail is allowed in Michigan

The Michigan Department of State says receiving this type of mail does not necessarily mean the person named on the mailing is currently registered to vote or eligible to receive a ballot.

According to the department, political parties, special interest groups and nonprofit organizations frequently send absentee ballot applications and other election-related mail. The state specifically acknowledges that those organizations sometimes use “outdated voter registries and mailing addresses.”

Voter information is also available through public records in Michigan, although sensitive information is protected. Publicly available voter information can include names, addresses and birth years, while Michigan law prohibits disclosure of information including driver’s license numbers, the month and day of birth, telephone numbers and digitized signatures.

That means outside organizations can obtain voter information and use it for political or voter outreach. Organizations may also use their own databases or other mailing lists. If those lists have not been updated to reflect deaths, moves or other changes, mail can continue arriving for people who are no longer eligible voters.

The fact that an organization sends an application to a deceased person does not mean that person has been issued a ballot or that a ballot could legally be cast in that person’s name.

Michigan says a voter generally must submit an absentee ballot application before a ballot is mailed unless the voter is already on the permanent absentee ballot list. Local clerks verify applications, and the state says signatures on absentee ballot envelopes are compared with signatures on file. Voting or attempting to obtain a ballot in another person’s name is illegal.

Michigan also says it regularly receives death information and removes deceased voters from the Qualified Voter File. The state’s voter database contains canceled registrations as well as active registrations, meaning the existence of someone’s information in an older or third-party database does not establish that the person remains eligible to vote.

Jacisin said the situation nevertheless concerns her because of how long her father has been dead.

“My father’s been dead for over two decades,” she said, adding that she had never previously received this type of election mailing addressed to him.

Jacisin also questioned what would happen if someone attempted to complete paperwork using a deceased person’s identity, while stressing that she would not do so.

“I’m not going to do it obviously,” she said. “But there’s a part of me that just thinks, what if I did? What would happen?”

Michigan election officials say safeguards are intended to prevent such an attempt from resulting in an illegally cast ballot. The Department of State says clerks verify absentee ballot applications and ballot-envelope signatures against voter records, and Michigan’s Qualified Voter File tracks ballot issuance and voting activity.

Rules differ across the country

Michigan is not alone in allowing outside organizations to participate in absentee-voting outreach, but the rules governing third-party involvement vary significantly by state.

The National Conference of State Legislatures says some states impose restrictions on third parties distributing or collecting absentee or mail ballot applications. NCSL lists 19 states as restricting or prohibiting at least some third-party activities involving the distribution or collection of absentee ballot applications, while other states impose deadlines or other requirements and some specify no such restrictions. Michigan itself restricts who may return or solicit to return a completed absentee ballot application, even though third-party organizations may distribute applications.

Share

That distinction is important: receiving unsolicited election mail is not the same as receiving an actual ballot, and restrictions on distributing applications are different from restrictions on collecting completed applications.

Jacisin said the mailing left her wanting to know where the organization obtained her parents’ information and why a database being used for election outreach still contained the name of a man who died 22 years ago.

“I have no idea how this transpired, why this transpired and why this is the first time it’s happened in 22 years,” Jacisin said.

I reached out to the Michigan Department of State for information about Jacisin’s case, including how third-party organizations obtain voter information, what safeguards are in place when applications are submitted in the names of deceased people and why deceased individuals may continue to receive election-related mail from outside organizations.

The department had not responded as of publication.

The U.S. Treasury Department began issuing the payments Wednesday, Sept. 30, to eligible people in 30 states that use HealthCare.gov, according to administration officials. Recipients will also receive a letter signed by President Donald Trump explaining the payment.

The White House says the money is being returned because fees collected to operate the federal ACA marketplace exceeded what was needed to run the system.

Click here to get my breaking news updates in your email by signing up to this newsletter if you aren’t already. Click button below.

Subscribe now

Insurance companies that sell plans through the federal marketplace pay user fees to help cover the cost of operating HealthCare.gov. Those costs can be incorporated into the premiums consumers pay. The Trump administration says the federal government accumulated roughly $500 million more than was needed and is returning that money to consumers who bore the full cost of their premiums.

Share

President Trump has blamed the Biden administration for the situation, saying consumers were overcharged and the excess money was not returned.

“For years, the Biden Administration overcharged you to fund the operation of HealthCare.gov,” Trump says in the letter accompanying the checks, according to a copy reviewed by CBS News. “That money belongs to hard-working Americans, not the Government, and now, I am returning it to you!”

The payments are not going to everyone enrolled in Obamacare.

The refunds are primarily targeted at people who purchased coverage through the federally operated marketplace and did not receive premium tax credits or other financial assistance, meaning they paid the full cost of their insurance premiums.

The 30 states covered by the program include Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Texas and Florida, among others. States operating their own ACA exchanges are not included because the federal government did not collect the marketplace user fees involved in the refunds.

The White House announced the refund plan earlier this month. President Trump said nearly 1 million Americans would receive $500 each, putting the total value of the payments at approximately $500 million.

The administration has characterized the payments as refunds rather than a new federal stimulus program. The checks are also separate from rebates that insurance companies can be required to issue under the ACA when they fail to spend a required percentage of premium revenue on medical care.

Subscribe now

The payments come as health insurance costs remain a major issue for consumers. Enhanced ACA premium tax credits expired at the end of 2025, reducing financial assistance for some marketplace customers and increasing what many households pay for coverage. Critics of the administration’s $500 refund program argue that the one-time payments do not offset the larger premium increases some ACA customers have faced.

The administration says eligible recipients have already been identified, meaning consumers do not need to apply for the $500 refund.

Get more from Dave Bondy in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

DSA national co-chair Ashik Siddique privately praises Abdul El-Sayed as ‘viable candidate’ for U.S. Senate

While U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed insists he’s not a socialist, the Democratic Socialists of America are promoting the former health official as a “viable candidate.”

DSA National Co-Chair Ashik Siddique broke down the situation during a recent Socialism 2026 Conference in Chicago.

“I don’t think it’s any accident that in New York City, this Democratic Socialist politics is expressing with a large Muslim working-class population,” he said in an undercover video obtained exclusively by The Midwesterner. “In Michigan, where you have somebody like Abdul El-Sayed being a viable candidate for Senate, um Rashida Tlaib. Click here to read more.

Homeschoolers outperform public school students in new report

Homeschool students outscore their public school counterparts by double-digit percentages on standardized tests, according to a report published earlier this year in a peer-reviewed journal.

A Nationwide Study on the Academic Achievement of Home-Educated Students, conducted and written by Brian Ray and Braden Hoelzle, appeared May 21 in the “Peabody Journal of Education.” It is the first study of its kind in 15 years, the authors say.

“The aim of this study was to offer an updated snapshot of the academic achievement of homeschool students and identify predictors of their achievement, a new, albeit limited, comparison of homeschoolers’ academic performance to that of institutional school students, and ascertain parents’ reasons for homeschooling,” the authors wrote. Click here to read more.

Stay in contact with family with push to talk nationwide waterproof walkie talkies. Click here to learn more and get an extra 10% off.

Click here to learn more and get an extra 10% off.

When these licenses can’t cross state lines, consumers suffer

Anne Davis is a psychotherapist who spent two decades counseling homeless people and patients with mental illness in Colorado. But when she moved home to Michigan — which has a severe shortage of counselors, social workers and therapists — it took more than a year for the state to allow her to get back to work.

The state desperately needs therapists like Davis. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, more than 3 million Michiganders live in a community that does not have enough mental health professionals. The state is facing a shortage of therapists and psychiatrists. But Michigan’s licensing laws have made it difficult to fill these gaps. Click here to read more.

Detroit Fire dispatcher accused of lying to the FBI and tipping off her brother to a raid

DETROIT (FOX 2) - A former dispatcher with the Detroit Fire Department in trouble with the feds is accused of tipping off her brother about an impending raid, then lying about it to the FBI.

Big picture view:

The criminal complaint says in March 2025, Stephanie Steen, a dispatcher, was working when law enforcement was cleared to conduct an early morning raid at her brother’s home on Turner on the city’s west side.

He was wanted for defrauding unemployment.

It is alleged that Steen called and texted her mother, who also lives there, to tip them off, something former Assistant Detroit Police Chief Steve Dolunt says could have been very dangerous. Click here to read more.

Will Democrats Reject ‘Free Money’ for Schools?

A potentially sweeping reform to K-12 education beginning in January is forcing Democratic governors to weigh the political risks of joining or rejecting the new federal school choice program designed by conservatives.

The little-known program, called the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, creates a new and possibly large funding stream for education based on private donations to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations. The uncapped initiative is expected to generate billions of dollars in scholarships that could affect the educational paths and performance of millions of students in both public and private schools. Click here to read more.

Read more

Hudson released a lengthy statement to me a short time ago:

The Libertarian Party has chosen to disavow my campaign—and I’m perfectly comfortable with that.

I will never compromise my morals, my principles, or my convictions just to fit the narrative of any political party.

America was built by independent, free-thinking people. Our founders didn’t need a political party to tell them what to believe, what to say, or how to think.

Neither do you.

And in response to the Libertarian Party’s public announcement, I have this to say:

I disavow the party insiders whose priorities I believe have moved far away from the principles of individual liberty, limited government, personal responsibility, and constitutional freedom.

I disavow Scotty Bowman, Mike Saliba, Angela Thornton, Dana Carver, Jay Gillotte, and Rafael Wolf!

I will not bend my principles to make party leaders comfortable.

I will not trade my convictions for political acceptance.

And I will not ask permission from a political establishment to stand up for what I believe is right.

This campaign was never about serving a party.

It was about serving the people.

You don’t need a party to think for you.

You don’t need permission to question authority.

And you certainly don’t need to surrender your freedom just because someone tells you that’s what the party wants.

So if standing on principle means standing alone, then I’ll stand alone.

Because I would rather lose a political party than lose my principles.

I will not be controlled.

I will not be silenced.

I will not be bought.

I WILL BE FREE.

Read more

Get more from Dave Bondy in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Federal court throws out Nessel antitrust suit against oil companies

A federal judge has dismissed a climate-related lawsuit Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed against oil and gas companies.

The lawsuit, initially announced in 2024, was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan and alleged that several oil and gas companies contributed to climate change. Nessel retained three out-of-state law firms to pursue major petroleum firms.

The lawsuit against BP PLC, Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., Shell PLC, and the American Petroleum Institute alleged they violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act and the Michigan Antitrust Reform Act. Click here to read more.

Egyptian sentenced to life for funding Muslim Brotherhood giving money to Abdul El-Sayed’s U.S. Senate campaign

An Egyptian American activist sentenced to life in prison in absentia by a Cairo court for his support of the Muslim Brotherhood is pumping cash into Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign for U.S. Senate.

Mohamed Soltan, the 38-year-old president of the American Committee for Middle East Rights, is funneling funds to El-Sayed’s Abdul for U.S. Senate candidate committee as ACMER contributes to Fighting for Michigan PAC, the super PAC backing the former Wayne County health official.

Soltan was sentenced by an Egyptian court to life in prison in 2015 after spending two years behind bars alongside his father, Salah Soltan, a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood who served as deputy minister of endowments for Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Click here to read more.

Stay in contact with family with push to talk nationwide waterproof walkie talkies. Click here to learn more and get an extra 10% off.

Click here to learn more and get an extra 10% off.

ICE Arrests Illegal Aliens Convicted of Murder, Sexual Abuse of Children

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested more illegal aliens in sanctuary jurisdictions, including those convicted of murder, child rape, and possession of child sexual abuse material.

“Every day, the brave men and women of ICE are risking their lives to arrest and remove illegal aliens from our communities. Yesterday, ICE arrested murderers, pedophiles, rapists, and other dangerous criminals,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin said.

Among those illegal aliens arrested is Esteban Enriquez-Munoz of Mexico. Enriquez-Munoz was arrested in the sanctuary state of California after having been convicted of murder, robbery, and assault. Click here to read more.

Mom who says she mistakenly put newborn in oven instead of crib learns her fate

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A woman in Kansas City was sentenced after she placed her 1-month-old in an oven rather than a crib.

Mariah Thomas was sentenced to 13 years for the felony charge of endangering the welfare of a child resulting in death.

Thomas pleaded guilty Tuesday and accepted her sentence, with a first-degree murder charge being dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

Thomas’ child died in February 2024.

Officers responded to a home on a report that an infant wasn’t breathing on Feb. 10, 2024. The baby was found dead at the scene.

Detectives said the circumstances were suspicious enough to cause concern, leading to an investigation. Click here to read more.

Tucker Carlson Issues Shocking Call for Trump’s Cabinet to Remove Him from Office Via 25th Amendment: He Should Be ‘Bundled Up and Taken Out!’

Tucker Carlson called for President Donald Trump to be removed from office by his own administration officials under the 25th Amendment.

In an interview published Thursday with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, Carlson continued his criticism of Trump, someone he once vocally supported, and went from impeachment talk to the 25th Amendment while discussing the ongoing Iran war.

“He’s not going to be punished for it. They’ll get him on corruption or whatever,” Carlson said when asked if Trump should be impeached over the war.

The former Fox News host declared Trump “should have been removed from office immediately when he threatened nuclear war.” Click here to read more.

Subscribe now

Read more

This was before the Tesla Model S. Before Ford sold an electric F-150. Before seemingly every automaker had an EV somewhere in its lineup, and long before charging stations started appearing outside grocery stores, dealerships and highway exits.

Bay City Electric Light & Power installed two electric vehicle charging stations downtown. They were free for drivers to use, and the municipal utility was already talking about installing more.

Click here to sign up to guest author Landen Taylor’s Substack.

Seventeen years later, the electric cars arrived and the chargers just couldn’t keep up.

On October 1, Bay City plans to disconnect its two remaining city-funded public charging stations, located near the Jennison building and Delta College Planetarium. City officials discussed the decision during the August 17 City Commission meeting, citing both the outdated technology and the continuing burden on Bay City Electric ratepayers.

Subscribe now

The chargers are Level 1.

For a modern electric vehicle, a full charge using one can take as long as 50 hours.

No, that’s not a typo. A driver could plug in Monday morning and potentially still be waiting Wednesday morning.

It is an almost perfect little story about the problem with being early to technology. Bay City installed public electric vehicle charging infrastructure at a time when most Americans probably couldn’t name a production electric car. The city kept the electricity free. The chargers survived for the better part of two decades.

Then the technology they were built to support improved so dramatically that the chargers themselves became increasingly difficult to justify.

Share

The decision to disconnect them does not mean Bay City is banning electric vehicles, abandoning electrical transportation or preventing businesses from installing chargers. In fact, the city’s proposed zoning language in 2026 goes in almost exactly the opposite direction. Bay City has been considering regulations intended to facilitate EV charging infrastructure, including requirements that certain new multifamily developments install conduit so chargers can be added later.

Bay City Electric Light & Power later described those first two chargers as free public stations installed by the utility. Five years later, the utility expanded its involvement in EV infrastructure by partnering with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Adopt a Charger on a station at the Bay City State Recreation Area.

That charger opened in October 2014 and was billed as the first electric vehicle charging station installed at a Michigan state park.

At the time, Bay City Electric was proud of being early. Utility staff said they hoped to install additional chargers around the city and promote electric vehicles in the process.

In 2014, building a public charger at a state park was notable enough for a grand opening. In 2026, PlugShare, one of the country’s major EV charging directories, lists dozens of public charging locations in and around Bay City, including 13 DC fast chargers. Private businesses, dealerships and national charging networks have filled a market that barely existed when Bay City installed its first plugs.

Subscribe now

The city’s original chargers are now competing with infrastructure capable of doing in minutes or hours what they may need the better part of two days to accomplish.

That makes October’s shutdown less a story about Bay City rejecting electric cars than a question about what a city is supposed to do when technology it purchased becomes obsolete.

During discussion of the chargers, city officials considered their cost, usage and the possibility of third-party partnerships or grants for upgraded equipment. But the immediate decision was simpler: the existing city-funded chargers will be disconnected.

That leaves an important question unanswered: Were they worth it?

Seventeen years is a long time for any piece of public technology to remain in service, particularly one installed during the infancy of the industry it supports. Yet determining whether Bay City’s experiment was successful requires more than knowing when the chargers were installed and when they will be shut off.

Subscribe now

It requires knowing how they were actually used.

What did the equipment and installation originally cost?

How many vehicles have plugged into them since 2009?

How much electricity has Bay City given away over 17 years?

And how much are electric customers actually saving by disconnecting them?

Bay City has not publicly provided enough information to answer any of those questions exactly.

The original project probably cost thousands of dollars rather than tens of thousands, but even that comes with an asterisk. Level 1 charging can be as simple as allowing a driver to connect to an ordinary 120-volt outlet. If Bay City Electric used existing electrical service and its own employees, the cost may have been relatively modest. If workers had to trench through pavement, pour concrete, construct pedestals, install signs or run new circuits, the total could have climbed considerably higher.

A broad estimate of several thousand dollars for the pair is plausible.

Electricity use can be approached more mathematically.

A conventional Level 1 connection operating on a 120-volt, 15-amp circuit can continuously draw approximately 1.44 kilowatts. Some Level 1 equipment can provide closer to 1.9 kilowatts, so the specifications of Bay City’s chargers would still matter. Using the more conservative 1.44-kilowatt figure, one vehicle connected for three hours would consume no more than approximately 4.3 kilowatt-hours.

That gives us a way to construct several scenarios without pretending we know which one reflects reality.

If the two chargers collectively averaged one three-hour charging session per week, they would have hosted approximately 887 charging visits over 17 years and distributed about 3,800 kilowatt-hours.

If they averaged two sessions per week, those figures would increase to approximately 1,774 visits and 7,700 kilowatt-hours.

At one session per day between the two locations, the total would be approximately 6,200 visits and 27,000 kilowatt-hours.

At two sessions per day, it would be approximately 12,400 visits and 54,000 kilowatt-hours.

Those are charging visits, not necessarily 12,400 different vehicles. One local driver using the same charger regularly could account for dozens or hundreds of sessions. The calculations also assume that a connected vehicle drew the full 1.44 kilowatts throughout each three-hour visit. A car that was nearly full, stopped charging or drew less power would reduce the total.

Usage almost certainly was not consistent across all 17 years, either.

During the chargers’ earliest years, the number of vehicles capable of using them would have been tiny. Activity presumably increased as the Chevrolet Volt, Nissan Leaf, Tesla models and other plug-in vehicles became more common. Treating 2009 like 2025 would therefore be misleading, even if the final average happened to resemble one of these scenarios.

There is an upper limit.

If both chargers delivered 1.44 kilowatts every minute of every day for 17 years, they would have consumed approximately 429,000 kilowatt-hours. If the equipment can deliver closer to 1.9 kilowatts, that ceiling rises to approximately 566,000 kilowatt-hours.

Those figures are not estimates. They represent the physical maximum under continuous operation. Reaching them would require both charging spaces to remain occupied around the clock for 17 years without interruption.

Reality was unquestionably some fraction of that.

The dollar value depends on which kind of cost is being discussed.

If electricity is valued across the period at an illustrative range of 10 to 17 cents per kilowatt-hour, one combined three-hour session per week would place the lifetime retail value between approximately $380 and $650.

Two sessions per week would produce a lifetime value between approximately $770 and $1,300. One session per day would place it between approximately $2,700 and $4,600. Two sessions per day would put it between approximately $5,400 and $9,100. Even four combined sessions per day, every day for 17 years, would represent approximately 107,000 kilowatt-hours with a retail value between roughly $10,700 and $18,200.

Those numbers should not be mistaken for Bay City Electric’s actual expense.

A retail electric rate pays for considerably more than the immediate energy flowing through an outlet. It helps support employees, power plants, purchased electricity, poles, wires, substations, debt and the rest of the system required to deliver reliable power. Most of those expenses do not disappear when two chargers are disconnected.

The driver wasn’t paying, but that does not automatically mean other customers absorbed the full retail value of every kilowatt-hour.

The more relevant financial question is Bay City Electric’s avoided cost: how much less the utility will spend because it no longer has to produce or purchase the electricity those chargers would have consumed. That figure could vary depending on when the vehicles charged, where the utility obtained its power and whether charging occurred during periods of high system demand.

It is likely lower than the electricity’s retail value.

The same scenarios demonstrate how modest the direct annual savings could be.

At one three-hour session per week, the chargers would distribute approximately 225 kilowatt-hours annually. At a retail comparison of 17 cents per kilowatt-hour, that electricity would be worth about $38.

At two sessions per week, it would be worth about $77 annually. At one session per day, it would be worth approximately $268. At two sessions per day, it would be worth approximately $536.

Even four three-hour charging sessions every day between the two locations would represent only about $1,070 in electricity at that retail comparison. The utility’s actual avoided energy expense could be smaller.

There is a meaningful difference between shutting down two chargers because they are consuming thousands of dollars in electricity and shutting them down because aging equipment is no longer useful enough to warrant future maintenance.

Bay City Electric is not an investor-owned utility sending profits to distant shareholders. It is a municipally owned utility serving the city and portions of surrounding townships. Ultimately, the costs it absorbs remain within that publicly owned system.

That makes describing the electricity as simply “free” slightly misleading. The drivers were not paying for it but somebody was.

If the chargers were heavily used, Bay City Electric customers were subsidizing a modest amount of electricity in exchange for providing a downtown amenity. If they were barely used, the electricity itself may have cost almost nothing, but maintaining dedicated public equipment for a handful of drivers would become harder to defend.

Either possibility is more useful than arguing about electric vehicles in the abstract.

The chargers themselves also show how dramatically the meaning of EV infrastructure has changed. Level 1 charging is essentially the bottom rung of electric vehicle charging. It uses comparatively little power and works best when a vehicle can remain connected for a very long time.

For a public downtown charger, the equation is different.

Someone visiting the Delta College Planetarium is not staying for 50 hours. Neither is somebody eating dinner downtown, attending an event at Wenonah Park or spending an afternoon shopping.

Federal energy guidance estimates Level 1 charging can add only a few miles of range during each hour a vehicle remains connected. A three-hour downtown visit might therefore provide roughly enough electricity for another 15 miles of driving.

Current charging maps illustrate how much the landscape has changed. PlugShare lists 43 public charging stations in the Bay City area, including 13 DC fast chargers. Networks represented locally include Tesla Supercharger, ChargePoint, Blink and Electrify America.

The private market Bay City Electric hoped to encourage is no longer theoretical. That creates an interesting possibility: perhaps Bay City’s chargers did not fail at all.

Maybe they simply lived long enough to become unnecessary.

Municipal governments sometimes build infrastructure because the private market has not yet provided it. A city creates a parking lot, industrial park, broadband network or other public amenity because officials believe the investment can encourage activity that would otherwise struggle to develop.

Public EV charging in 2009 fit that description remarkably well.

Nissan would not begin selling the Leaf in the United States until the following year. Chevrolet’s Volt arrived around the same period. Tesla was still a tiny automaker best known for an expensive two-seat Roadster.

Bay City Electric was installing public charging stations anyway. Five years later, it helped put one at a state park and publicly talked about expanding further.

Today, an EV driver around Bay City can choose among infrastructure operated by private charging networks and businesses with equipment considerably more capable than those original municipal plugs.

If that was the outcome Bay City hoped for in 2009, unplugging two obsolete chargers in 2026 isn’t necessarily an admission of defeat.

It may simply be the end of the experiment. Still, there is a legitimate argument for asking why the city isn’t upgrading them.

Public charging in downtown Bay City serves a different purpose than a fast charger beside a highway. A visitor can park, plug in, eat at a restaurant, visit the planetarium, walk through downtown or attend an event while the car charges. The charger becomes less a fuel station than another amenity attached to the parking space.

A modern Level 2 charger could perform that job considerably better than the equipment being disconnected.

And Bay City has one obvious advantage most municipalities do not: it owns an electric utility.

Bay City’s own planning policy suggests officials still expect electric vehicles to become a larger part of transportation. Proposed zoning language states that charging stations should be placed in convenient and safe locations and kept in working order to promote electric vehicle use and confidence in the city’s charging network. The same language would allow EV spaces in commercial, institutional, office and industrial developments and require charging infrastructure in certain larger multifamily projects.

The available math suggests the direct electricity savings could amount to hundreds of dollars per year, perhaps less, depending on how frequently the stations are actually used. Maintenance and repair costs could make the decision considerably more defensible, but the city has not yet publicly separated those expenses from the cost of the electricity itself.

Until Bay City releases the original invoices, meter readings, usage records and maintenance history, nobody outside the utility can say exactly what the experiment cost or how much its ending will save.

Whether the chargers were a burden, a bargain or simply a small public experiment that ran its course depends on numbers Bay City should already have.

The rest is just estimating what came through the plug.

Read more

Dr. Mark C. Komorowski, president of Great Lakes Physician Organization, said the organization wants to give patients a clearer picture of what happens behind the scenes in health care, including hospital consolidation, facility fees, tax exemptions and insurance costs.

Great Lakes Physician Organization represents independent practice physicians. Komorowski said physicians regularly hear from patients who are confused by medical bills and do not understand why they were charged certain amounts.

“We decided that what better way than to run a town hall,” Komorowski said, adding that the goal is to invite the public to learn more about health care delivery and its costs.

The organization plans three upcoming public meetings:

• Sept. 21: Midtown Brewing Co. in Lansing, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

• Sept. 28: Frankenmuth Brewery, Hops Room, in Frankenmuth, 5 to 7:30 p.m.

• Oct. 1: Molasses Smokehouse and Bar in Midland, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Komorowski said state lawmakers and candidates from both political parties are being invited to attend. He said the events are intended to educate the public and give residents an opportunity to hear from elected officials and candidates about how they would approach health care issues.

Share

“We invite the legislators, both sides of the aisle, both chambers to come and listen to the topic,” Komorowski said.

Among the issues Komorowski plans to discuss are hospital mergers. He said research has shown that consolidation can result in higher costs rather than the savings sometimes cited as a benefit of merging health systems.

Komorowski also raised concerns about the tax treatment of nonprofit hospitals and properties acquired by hospital systems. He said Michigan hospitals collectively receive about $1 billion annually in tax benefits and argued that the public should have easier access to information showing how hospitals provide benefits to their communities.

Subscribe now

He said hospitals should be required to clearly post information about their community benefit programs, including spending on programs such as debt forgiveness and assistance addressing food insecurity.

Another issue expected to be discussed is facility fees.

Komorowski said an independent physician practice cannot charge the same type of facility fees that hospital owned practices can charge. He said that can mean patients receive additional charges for similar services depending on where they receive care.

“If I was an employed physician, you would get billed for me, the injection and two facility fees, one for the visit and one for the injection,” Komorowski said.

Komorowski said greater price transparency could also help patients compare the cost of medical services among competing health systems.

“You can’t figure out what an MRI costs at MyMichigan versus Covenant versus McLaren,” he said.

Subscribe now

He said existing transparency requirements need stronger enforcement mechanisms and argued that making prices easier for consumers to compare could create more competition among health care providers.

Komorowski also discussed what he described as a shortage of primary care physicians in Michigan. He said reimbursement rates, administrative requirements and the costs of operating an independent medical practice can make it difficult to attract and retain family medicine and internal medicine physicians.

He said Michigan trains a significant number of physicians but has difficulty keeping some of them in the state after they complete their training. Komorowski pointed to reimbursement differences between Michigan and neighboring states as one factor he believes contributes to the problem.

The town halls will also give members of the public an opportunity to ask questions about medical bills, insurance and health care terminology.

Komorowski said people should not be reluctant to ask basic questions because much of the health care billing system is difficult for patients to understand.

“There’s no dumb questions,” he said. “People don’t understand it.”

Komorowski said the events are not intended to become partisan debates. Instead, he said he wants patients, physicians and lawmakers in the same room discussing the problems they see in Michigan’s health care system and potential responses.

“We’re not trying to have a debate between both sides of the aisle,” Komorowski said. “We’re just trying to make them understand.”

He also encouraged candidates and lawmakers to attend, saying the meetings offer voters an opportunity to hear directly from people seeking or holding public office about health care issues.

Read more

Organizers said the rally and parade will take place Sunday, Sept. 20, in Bad Axe. The event is intended to raise awareness ahead of a Sept. 24 public hearing involving a proposed solar project covering approximately 1,650 acres.

The residents said they are not opposed to individual property owners installing solar panels. Their concerns center on large, industrial-scale solar developments on agricultural land.

“We’d like to have people show up for the rally,” one organizer said. “We started out asking farmers with their tractors” before expanding the invitation to people with trucks, trailers and other vehicles.

I can’t keep doing this work without your support. If you aren’t already consider becoming a paid subscriber for less than $1 per week by clicking button below.

Subscribe now

Organizers said their message is focused on protecting farmland and ensuring residents have a greater voice in decisions involving large energy developments.

The group also raised concerns about the amount of land Huron County could eventually devote to renewable energy projects. They said county officials have previously approved an ordinance allowing up to 15,000 acres for solar development in areas under county zoning. The residents said they are pushing commissioners to reduce that amount.

The residents said land for the projects is generally being leased from private landowners rather than purchased or developed on public property. Some questioned whether large solar installations should be treated differently from other industrial uses of agricultural land.

Share

Another concern raised during the interview involved what happens at the end of a solar project’s useful life. Organizers questioned whether money set aside for decommissioning would be enough to remove panels, posts and other infrastructure if a project were abandoned or a developer went out of business.

Huron County is already home to hundreds of wind turbines, and organizers said large-scale solar development has become a more prominent local issue in recent years.

Residents interviewed also expressed concerns about potential effects on neighboring homes, farmland and property values. Those concerns were presented by the residents during the interview and were not independently verified.

Subscribe now

The group said education is a major goal of its effort.

“I just feel like there’s just not the information or the transparency that there needs to be so that people can make good, informed decisions,” one organizer said.

In addition to Sunday’s rally, organizers plan an informational meeting from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 22, at the Knights of Columbus hall in Bad Axe. Organizers said the meeting is open to everyone, including supporters of solar development and residents who have not formed an opinion.

The week’s events will culminate Sept. 24 with a public hearing concerning the project’s permit application. Organizers said the hearing will be held at the senior center on Nugent Road and will be open to the public.

Subscribe now

Organizers said they hope residents attend the meetings, learn more about the proposal and make their views known before local officials make a decision.

“We just really want the people that are making these decisions to put the people, the residents, first,” one organizer said.

MDOC said the prisoner confronted a Qualified Mental Health Professional and produced what the department described as a prisoner-made weapon. The prisone…

Read more

Refer a friend

Read more

In a letter dated Sunday, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said the district has 14 days to address what …

Read more

Refer a friend

Jocelyn Benson’s husband personally delivered application for despised Saline Township data center

While Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson works to convince Michiganders she’s not beholden to data center developers, documents on a widely despised development in Saline Township is undermining that narrative.

Emails obtained by independent journalist Anna Hoffman through a public information request show Benson’s husband, Related Companies VP Ryan Friedrichs, personally delivered the application to rezone 575 acres in Saline Township in July 2025.

“Hi Kelly, please see attached for an Application to rezone approximately 575 acres of land in Saline Township, which Ryan delivered to you earlier today,” Related Companies Associate Jon Furman wrote in an email to Saline Township Clerk Kelly Marion on July 10, 2025. Click here to read more.

Michigan Wants to Track How Far You Drive – And Eventually, Charge You for It

LANSING, Mich.– Michigan motorists are already up in arms over Flock cameras tracking where their vehicles go. Now imagine adding a meter to the equation. Because if tracking where you drive wasn’t controversial enough, the next question could be how much you’ll pay for getting there. And it’s more than just talk. The state of Michigan is spending millions to study a system that could track how many miles you drive – and eventually charge you for every one of them.

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is moving ahead with a “road usage charge” pilot program that could eventually replace some or all of the gas tax with a fee assessed for every mile driven. The purpose of the study, according to MDOT, is “to guide the development and evaluation of a road usage charge study and pilot program to assess the potential and positive and negative findings for mileage-based revenue collection for this state’s roads and highways as an alternative to the fuel tax system.” Click here to read more.

Stay in contact with family with push to talk nationwide waterproof walkie talkies. Click here to learn more and get an extra 10% off.

Click here to learn more and get an extra 10% off.

Former MSU resident physician arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting two patients

EAST LANSING, Mich. (FOX 2) - A former Michigan State University physician has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting two patients.

The physician, who MSU police identified as 39-year-old Arpit Saxena, was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia Thursday night.

MSU police say on April 3, 2025, officials were called out to the MSU Health Care facility to meet a victim who wanted to report she was a victim of sexual assault. When police arrived, the woman told officials that she had just left her appointment from inside the facility and reported that she had been sexually assaulted by the resident physician who had examined and treated her. Click here to read more.

U.S. Secretly Removed Accused Pedophile Diplomat From Britain: Report

A report from The Sun — Britain’s top circulation newspaper — has claimed that U.S. secret agents carried out a clandestine operation on UK soil without informing local police, seizing an American diplomat from his London flat, taking him to a U.S. air base, and returning him to the United States.

The diplomat was reportedly under investigation after allegedly receiving indecent images of children from his brother. According to the report, American agents received a court order in the U.S. before carrying out the raid on the diplomat’s apartment in Putney, London, on August 25th. An investigation of the flat is said to have confirmed that the diplomat was in possession of the child pornography in question.

The move to remove the unnamed man back to the United States has riled feathers in London given that American officials have no authority to carry out policing operations in the United Kingdom. Click here to read more.

If That Grocery Store Receipt Was Already Making Your Eyes Water … Just Wait

U.S. diesel prices hit $6 per gallon on Friday for the first time ever, as fuel supply disruptions triggered by the Ukraine and Iran wars raises transportation costs across the entire economy.

Truckers and farmers are paying about 63% more to fill up their semis and tractors than they did at this time last year, according to data from AAA. The average price nationwide is now about $6.06 per gallon.

Prices are even higher in California, the biggest agriculture state in the U.S., at $7.98 per gallon.

Fuel costs are rising as crude oil prices have surged in response to a sharp escalation in fighting between the U.S. and Iran this month. U.S. crude oil futures topped $100 per barrel on Thursday for the first time since May. The contract has gained about 20% in September. Click here to read more.

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled Sept. 9 that amendments made to the state’s Sex Offender …

Read more

According to information provided to Keeping it Real, a student reportedly arrived at Churchill High School dressed to depict Kirk being killed, including what appeared to be fake blood running down the student’s neck.

The incident raised questions about how the school responded and whether the depiction violated district policies.

A photograph of the student in the costume was subsequently posted to a non- affiliated

Read more