State News

It may cost you more to drink a beer. Byron Center Republican Tom Hooker has introduced legislation to increase the tax on beer to five cents. The extra money raised would help fund treatment programs. The beer tax has been the same since 1966. The tax would only be on …

Kinross Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula is still on lockdown as clean-up from a Saturday prison riot continues. The Michigan Department of Corrections say the inmates were peacefully protesting Saturday morning in Kincheloe and got violent in the afternoon. Sinks were broken inside the bathrooms, inmates also broke windows. …

The Michigan House has given final approval to bills that would further regulate medical marijuana. This comes nearly eight years after its use was first authorized by voters. The main legislation would impose a new tax and establish a state licensing system to grow, process, sell, transport or test marijuana. …

More information is known concerning Republican State Representative Peter Pettalia, who was killed Monday evening in a motorcycle accident. According to Michigan State Police, Pettalia was killed after a pickup truck pulled in front of his motorcycle on M-33 and he ran into it. MSP says Pettalia was wearing a …

The median house-hold income has jumped $2,800 to $56,500. Business editor Murray Feldman says the it’s the first positive jump in eight years. Feldman says even with the spike we are still one point six percent below where we were before the recession hit in 2007.

The state board of education is expected to vote today on guidelines for schools to create a comfortable environment for LGBT students. Part of those recommendations will include recommending that schools let transgender students use bathrooms and locker rooms with the gender they identify with. It’s generated a lot of …

An average of six student athletes at every high school suffered a concussion during the last school year. For the first time, the Michigan High School Athletic Association ordered every high school to report concussions in it’s athletes. The results–over 4,400 reported concussions, says spokesman John Johnson.

As part of a National Day of Action, hundreds of low-wage workers gathered in Lansing to express the fact that over 64 million workers in America are underpaid. That’s health care worker Manilla Freeman. The march was to highlight what they call the moral imperative for racial and economic justice, …

Ford working to demonstrate today why it believes it can have a self driving car in fleets by 2021. AutoBeat Reporter Jeff Gilbert takes us for a ride.

You’re told to watch your fat intake to protect your heart, but has that advice been influenced by the sugar industry? Here’s Health Reporter Dr. Deanna Lites.