Those planning to vote in-person during the general election this fall may be presented with a unique variety of “I Voted” sticker designs created by Michiganders.
The Michigan Department of State announced Wednesday it has selected nine winning designs from the state’s first ever “I Voted” sticker design contest, which will be made available for clerks to hand out to voters at the polls on Nov. 5.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson congratulated contest winners in a news release issued Wednesday, adding that she was “overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and creativity from the people of our great state.”
“Now,” she says, “let’s use the same energy in casting a vote this November. I encourage every eligible voter to make a plan now to have your voice heard – vote with an absentee ballot, at an early voting site, or on Election Day – and feel proud to wear a sticker designed by a fellow Michigander.”
More than 480 designs were submitted during the contest, which launched in May, and over 57,700 public votes were cast for the winners, according to the state.
Three winning designs were selected from three separate categories: elementary/middle school (grades K-8), high school (grades 9-12), and general entry — open to Michigan residents of all ages.
Submissions received were narrowed down to 25 semifinalists from each category by the Michigan Collegiate Student Advisory Task Force before the contest opened up for a public vote.
Check out the winning designs from each category in the photo gallery below.
Created by Jane Hynous of Grosse Pointe, a student at Brownell Middle School, for the Elementary/Middle School category. (Courtesy State of Michigan)
Created by Gabby Warner of Rockford, for the Elementary/Middle School category.(Courtesy State of Michigan)
Created by Katelyn Stouffer-Hopkins of Lansing, for the Elementary/Middle School category. (Courtesy State of Michigan)
Created by Olivia Smiertka of Holly, a student at Holly High School, for the High School category.(Courtesy State of Michigan)
Created by Michelle Lekhtman of West Bloomfield, a student at West Bloomfield High School, for the High School category.(Courtesy State of Michigan)
Created by Andrew Brasher of Saint Louis, a student at Alma High School, for the High School category.(Courtesy State of Michigan)
Created by Kelsey Winiarski of Livonia, for the General Entry category.(Courtesy State of Michigan)
Created by Breanna Tanner of Grand Rapids, for the General Entry category.(Courtesy State of Michigan)
Created by Madelyn VerVaecke of Livonia, for the General Entry category.(Courtesy State of Michigan)
For more information about voting and elections in Michigan, visit michigan.gov/vote.
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A 50-year-old Macomb County man was convicted Wednesday of brutally murdering his live-in girlfriend following a two-week trial in Macomb County Circuit Court.
Jason Ross was found guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and three other felonies in connection with the beating death of Kathleen Hales, 47, in July 2021 in her home in a mobile-home community near 19 Mile and Utica roads in Sterling Heights.
He faces life without parole at his Oct. 10 sentencing by circuit Judge Matthew Sabaugh.
The jury deliberated only two hours before reaching its verdict late Wednesday afternoon following closing arguments that ended abruptly when Ross, who was representing himself, quit 30 minutes into his closing.
Earlier in her closing, Assistant Macomb Prosecutor Elizabeth Abbo accused Ross of “brutally beating” Hales with a hammer and stabbing her with three knives, inflicting 69 wounds in all.
“The defendant put a hammer to her head while she was defenseless, laying there yelling for help,” Abbo said.
Hales suffered from torture, Abbo added.
Jason Ross speaks Wednesday to a jury in Macomb County Circuit after which he was convicted of first-degree murder in the beating death of Kathleen Hales.JAMESON COOK — THE MACOMB DAILY
“This took time. It wasn’t quick. It didn’t occur all it once. It took time. She suffered,” Abbo said, telling jurors Hales died from blunt-force trauma to her head, as she suffered several skull fractures.
Ross was 30 minutes into his closing argument in Macomb County Circuit Court when he quit after being told for the third or fourth time by Judge Matthew Sabaugh to stop bringing alleged facts or issues into the case that were not touched on during the trial.
“At this point, I don’t know what I can say,” he said at the podium in front of 13 jurors. “I’m done. I just don’t got anything to say. I’m happy. I’m good,” Ross said as he walked back to the defense table.
Sabaugh asked him twice, “Is that your choice?”
“It’s my choice,” Ross replied as he sat down.
Abbo, who made the objections, declined to give a rebuttal, as allowed by law, she said for the first time in her career.
Ross, who testified a day earlier under questioning by his advisory counsel, Adil Haradhala, claimed he acted in self defense after Hales cut him with a knife during an argument.
He admitted to police he killed Hales, telling detectives they “fought like men” but that he overpowered her.
He also blamed his actions on excessive drug use.
Ross and Hales had been together a short time as he had moved in next door to her only months before.
Hales got him a job at a restaurant where she had worked for over 20 years and held several positions, according to testimony.
After the slaying, Ross took Hale’s credit or debit cards and fled in her red 2004 Ford Explorer, prosecutors said. He was captured two days later in Prescott, Mich., located about a 50 minute drive north of Bay City, in possession of items owned by Hale that tie him to the slaying scene and a weapon, prosecutors said.
The jury acquitted Ross, who has been in custody, of first-degree murder although they found him guilty of the underlying charge, larceny. He also was convicted of unlawfully driving away a vehicle and illegal possession of a financial transaction device.
Several of Hales’ family members attended the trial.
Assistant Macomb County Prosecutor Elizabeth Abbo argues in front of a jury Wednesday in Macomb County Circuit Court in front of a photograph of the victim, Kathleen Hales, at the end of the trial of Jason Ross, who was convicted of first-degree murder.
JAMESON COOK — THE MACOMB DAILY
Grange Hall Road, between Fish Lake Road and Leroy Street in Holly Township and the Village of Fenton, will close on Thursday, Sept. 12, according to the Road Commission for Oakland County.
A culvert under the road will be replaced. This section of Grange Hall Road carries an estimated 12,630 vehicles daily.
The work will happen just east of Eddy Lake Road and is expected to be completed in one day so the road can reopen.
Residents and business owners will have access to their properties via roads east and west of the closure.
Through traffic will detour by taking Fish Lake Road to South Fenton Road to South Holly Road to Leroy Street, back to Grange Hall Road and vice versa.
The Michigan Snowsports Industries Association and the Michigan Ski Hall of Fame announced the induction of Michele “Mickey” MacWilliams of Clarkston, and Doris “Dorie” Sarns, former owner of Nub’s Nob, into the Michigan Ski Hall of Fame for their lifelong contributions to the Michigan snowsports community.
Dorie Sarns was a trailblazer for Michigan’s skiing landscape. She and her husband opened a small ski hill in the 1950s and then Nub’s Nob in Harbor Springs in 1959. She participated in the ski hill’s daily operations and was instrumental in adopting snowmaking technologies for optimal skiing conditions, according to a press release from the MSIA.
MacWilliams has been a transformative force in Michigan’s snowsports community. She began her career as a ski instructor at Schuss Mountain in the 1970s. Her impact grew through her work in advertising and marketing and she established Metro Media Associates, Inc. in 1981, becoming a key player in promoting Michigan’s snowsports industry.
In 1991, she helped form Michigan Snowsports Industries Association (MSIA), the trade association for the ski and snowboard industry in Michigan. Through the years, she served as the executive director of MSIA, pouring her boundless energy into driving the organization’s growth and effectiveness.
MacWilliams has been instrumental in introducing people to skiing and snowboarding by carrying out MSIA programs such as Discover Michigan Skiing, a learn-to-ski and snowboard program; and Cold is Cool 4th-5th grade passport, a program designed to encourage families to participate in skiing and snowboarding.
In 2022, Mickey founded MIsnow, an organization dedicated to preserving Michigan’s skiing history and promoting sustainability.
“Although I’m retiring from MSIA in March, I’m not going away. I’ll continue to work with MIsnow, our charitable organization, which helps underprivileged kids experience our slopes and trails, and also will be making a movie of the rich history of skiing in Michigan,” MacWilliams said.
“I’m confident that MSIA will continue to grow, prosper and change with its new executive director, Mike Panich,” she said.
A woman who allegedly robbed stores in West Bloomfield and Orchard Lake on Wednesday night — firing at least two gunshots during the crimes — was arrested by West Bloomfield police.
According to West Bloomfield police, a 911 call came in at around 8:40 p.m. from an employee at Twin Beach Market on Green Lake Road reporting a woman armed with a pistol entered the store and robbed him of cash, then fled. Soon after, 911 calls came in about other armed robberies in West Bloomfield and Orchard Lake believed to be perpetrated by the same suspect, including one at CVS Pharmacy at 6070 W. Maple Road where the woman reportedly fired two gunshots.
West Bloomfield police officers encountered the armed woman a short time later outside the CVS and took her into custody.
Police said the investigation so far indicates the woman acted alone. No injuries were reported, and police said there’s no known danger to the public in connection with the incidents.
As the investigation continues, anyone with further information on the West Bloomfield incidents is asked to contact Detective Phil Pacheco at 248-975-8905. Anyone with information on the Orchard Lake incidents is asked to contact Detective Michael Clement at 248-682-2400. A warrant request to the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office is expected at the conclusion of the investigation.
As polls and political pundits work to predict the still evolving presidential race, an expert in Michigan says if the vote is close, one group “could potentially decide the state.”
Erick Gonzalez Jeunke is a political analyst specializing in Latinx politics at Michigan State University. In an interview with the Michigan Public Radio Network, he said the state’s 400,000 eligible Latinos voters could hold the key to winning in Michigan, if the campaigns reach out to them.
Listen: Political analyst says Michigan Latino voters ‘could potentially decide the state’
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Michelle Jokisch Polo, WKAR News: In 2020 Joe Biden won the presidential election in Michigan by fewer than 200,000 votes. With more than 300,000 eligible Latino voters in Michigan, this group could prove vital in the state. How are parties engaging this voting bloc?
Erick Gonzalez Jeunke: I haven’t seen a lot of engagement for specifically this voting block. What that means is what they should have been doing and what I haven’t seen a lot of, but a lot of this happens behind the scenes, obviously, are registration drives. One of the gaps for Latino voters nationally, and then of course here in Michigan, is not just turning out to vote, but being registered to vote. A large part of that gap — about 70% of eligible voters — are even registered to vote. And so that’s part of the big gap. I mean, this is one of the lingering things, if you account for that, once you just look at registered voters, Latinos turn out at about the same rates as other groups, but the gap is really in getting individuals registered to vote. So that requires a lot of work, that requires the parties caring about these voters. Now when we get into this part of the season, a lot of the parties both nationally and here in Michigan, either leave that up to other groups, or they say, ‘look, we have limited resources. We can’t go out and mobilize people who aren’t registered.’ So a lot of that work takes place in the years and months that lead up to these elections.
MJP: This time around, it seems that there may have been fewer young democrats showing up to vote like they did in 2020, in the state primary election. Why do you think this is and tell us about the young Latino vote in November?
EGJ: I think it’s probably due to a not very competitive set of federal races, and then earlier in the year, a not very competitive presidential primary. But it’s also just an enthusiasm gap. We’re right in the middle of seeing this change with the change at the top of the ticket from Biden to Harris. I was just looking at some national polling data today, and what’s happening here in the Midwest and in Michigan is that Harris has seemed to have activated — particularly younger voters’ — enthusiasm about this race. So paying attention, getting excited, and that excitement turns into actual voting. It can turn into knocking on doors. It can turn into working for the campaign. So it’s still a little bit early to see what the overall effect of this is, but the early signs indicate that a change at the top of the ticket may reverse some of this lack of enthusiasm that we saw in the primaries, and particularly for younger Latinos.
MJP: How important do you think the Latino voting bloc is for the state’s general election?
EGJ: It depends how close the race is. It could potentially decide the state, and yet that depends on if the parties do the work to mobilize and get Latinos who aren’t registered, registered to get folks to turn out. So unfortunately, we won’t know until after the election. And it comes down to how close is Michigan actually going to be? It’s looking a lot less close than it did a month ago. But things could change, and we could go back to a really close race, if I had to put money on it right now, that it’s probably not going to be as close as we thought it was a month ago. But if it’s close, the Latino vote could be really, really important, and the Democratic and Republican parties could say, ‘boy, we really should have done more work to mobilize Latino voters in Michigan, because we could have taken it.’ And I think both parties would say the same thing about Pennsylvania andWisconsin.
Use the media player above to hear the full interview with Erick Gonzalez Jeunke, political analyst specializing in Latinx politics at Michigan State University.
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Teachers and those in other occupations have tasty treats coming their way as part of the Achatz Pie Company’s free slice promotions to be held over the next couple of months.
• Teachers can receive a free slice of pie on Friday, Sept. 6 and can choose from Apple, Pecan, Pumpkin, or Michigan Four Berry.
• Nurses can receive a free slice of pie on Friday, Sept. 27 and can choose from Apple, Pecan, Pumpkin, or Michigan Four Berry.
• First responders can receive a free slice on Friday, Oct. 18 and can choose from Apple, Pecan, Pumpkin, or Michigan Four Berry.
• All customers can receive a free slice of pumpkin pie on Friday, Nov. 1.
• Veterans can receive a free slice of any flavor on Veterans Day, Monday, Nov. 11.
Teachers can get a free slice of pie on Sept 6 and other groups have upcoming free slice days including nurses, first responders and veterans as well as one day for everyone. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF PUBLICCITYPR)
The offer is good at all Metro Detroit locations, Armada, Chesterfield Township, Shelby Township Beverly Hills, Bloomfield Hills, Livonia, Madison Heights, Oxford and Troy. No purchase is required, but for those events (aside from Nov. 1), a valid ID is required for the free slice.
— Macomb Daily staff
Teachers can get a free slice of pie on Sept 6 and other groups have upcoming free slice days including nurses, first responders and veterans as well as one day for everyone. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF PUBLICCITYPR)
The son of Alex and Marianne LaBrash of Sterling Heights, he is now a year old who is continuing to reach milestones and exemplifies the healthy outcomes that are made possible through the support of the annual Feldman Automotive Children’s Miracle Celebrity Invitational presented by Corewell Health Foundation of Southeast Michigan and the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation.
This year’s golf outing raised $1.5 million.
All of the money garnered through sponsorship support, on site-donations and a live auction, which included an electric guitar signed by Taylor Swift, benefit Children’s Miracle Network programming at Corewell Health Children’s and patients like Everett.
Everett came early at 24 weeks.
Being a preemie, he faced a plethora of challenges, especially lung development, which required a C-pap at birth, and a ventilator after developing pneumothorax, to regulate his oxygen and help with breathing.
During his stay at Corewell Health Beaumont Troy Hospital a team of health care professionals at Corewell Health Children’s Child Life Services provided Everett and his parents with care and compassion. Panda Warmers, Giraffe Omni Beds, and fold-out furniture for long stays were just some of the benefits that they received with the help of donations made to Corewell Health Children’s through Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.
“Our team at Troy, honestly, they were life-changing,” Marianne LaBrash said in a video released by the hospital. “They helped us through… so much. I definitely have a couple of lifelong friends with them.”
Alex concurred.
“Everyone’s easy going,” he said. “They’d lend an ear if you needed to vent to them. Thank you doesn’t wrap it up enough.”
The Feldman Automotive Children’s Miracle Celebrity Invitational is the largest celebrity golf event in the Detroit area, where every foursome enjoys an up-close and personal celebrity pairing.
This year’s event featured more than 50 national and local celebrities, including actors Donnie Wahlberg (last year it was Mark Wahlberg), Kevin Chapman, Jamie Denton, Marion “Pooch” Hall, Jamie Hector, and Jesse Spencer. From the world of sports, Kenny Anderson, Joique Bell, Lomas Brown, Johnny Damon, Braylon Edwards, Calvin Johnson, Pepper Johnson, Frank Zombo, and dozens of others took part in the day’s activities. It’s one of those events that everyone looks forward to, players and donors alike.
The morning began with Wahlberg accepting a “putting challenge” from three Corewell Health Children’s “Miracle” children selected to represent the more than 200,000 children treated at Corewell Health Children’s each year.
Alex LaBrash of Sterling Heights plays put-put with his son Everett during the Feldman Automotive Children’s Miracle Celebrity Invitational presented by Corewell Health Foundation of Southeast Michigan (CHFSM) and the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation held Aug. 26. Photo courtesy of CHFSM
“We are delighted with the incredible success of this event”, said Lamong Yoder, a registered nurse and president of Corewell Health in Southeast Michigan. “Our gratitude goes out to the many sponsors and celebrities that are the backbone of this one-of-a kind invitational. Funds raised will be used to help the children in our communities when they need it the most.”
After golf, a spirited live auction and course contests raised about $300,000 from bids on items like Taylor’s guitar donated by Bob and Connie Skandalaris, which went for $31,000, a private tour of Rick Hendrick’s Automotive Heritage Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, hosted and donated by Jay Feldman and Rick Hendrick, a 2025 Formula 1, Monaco package donated by Nino Cutraro; an Italian villa vacation, donated by the Rugiero Family and dinner in the Celani Wine Cellar, donated by Tom and Vicki Celani.
“It was inspiring to see so many people lending their support and contributing to our cause. We are helping so many children and families with the money raised. We are already planning for next year’s event and aiming to raise even more money to continue to provide support for those families in need,” said Jay Feldman, chairman and CEO of the Feldman Automotive Group.
Supporting the fundraising event this year was its title sponsor, the Feldman Automotive Group; lead presenting sponsor Quantum Ventures of Michigan; presenting sponsors Shift Digital and Vesco Oil Corporation; and supporting sponsors including the Celani Family Foundation, CIBC, Corewell Health, The Fourth Tri Sanctuary, Aaron and Carolynn Frankel Family Foundation, Mechanical Services, NativeWahl, and Terra Capital Industries and more than 50 other generous sponsors.
Also praising the generosity shown during the invitational was Ryan Daly, president of the Corewell Health Foundation Southeast Michigan.
“Corewell Health Children’s will receive support to provide life-saving services, vital pediatric equipment, and funds for patient scholarships for families unable to afford needed care,” Daly said, while the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation will utilize its funds to improve the quality of life for youth across the country by providing financial resources and community support to youth services.
Organizers of the event included a dedicated committee of community members — Tom Celani, Nino Cutraro, Jay Feldman, Ken Noonan, Bob Skandalaris, and Sam Yamin.
For more information visit corewellhealth.org/childrens or call 855-480-KIDS (5437). Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals raises funds and awareness for 170 member hospitals that provide 32 million treatments each year to kids across the U.S. and Canada.
All of the donations and money raised is used locally, to help Miracle families in nine counties throughout Southeast Michigan including Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties.
Alex and Marianne LaBrash of Sterling Heights, hold their son Everett. Now a year old and continuing to reach milestones, Everett exemplifies the healthy outcomes made possible through funds raised by the Feldman Automotive Children’s Miracle Celebrity Invitational presented by Corewell Health Foundation of Southeast Michigan and the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation Photo courtesy of Corewell Health Foundation.
For more than a decade, independent pharmacist Jay Patel has built a close and enduring relationship with his customers, who come to him for help in sickness and in health.
But now there are interlopers: Drug middlemen, companies known as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that influence which medicines can be bought, where to buy them and at what cost.
Patel and other independent pharmacists say their businesses are threatened by the growing influence of these companies, tied to huge health care conglomerates. In a system that is opaque and complex, patients are steered to affiliated pharmacies, such as CVS and mail-order pharmacies, they say. Pharmacists face high fees and low reimbursement rates, so are unable to cover their costs.
That could put Patel — and other locally-owned pharmacists — out of business.
“I want to do what matters to the community. But how long can I sustain this?” said Patel, 48, who owns Savco Pharmacy in San Jose’s West San Carlos neighborhood. “We are at their mercy.”
The PBMs respond that critics base their conclusions on incomplete evidence. According to the trade organization Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, they protect consumers from high drug prices by negotiating for discounts, called rebates, from drug companies.
The disappearance of independent pharmacies could limit consumer choice and health care access — especially in low-income or rural communities.
On Oakland’s Telegraph Avenue, Selam Pharmacy owner Michael Gebru called PBMs “a big black box.” He said “They bill me whatever they want, and can reclaim it. That’s pretty scary. It’s a Wild West.”
In the coastal village of Point Reyes Station, tiny West Marin Pharmacy recently lost its contract with PBM company Express Scripts, used by insurer Cigna and others. Now residents covered by Cigna must get their prescriptions by mail or make a 20-mile drive to find another pharmacy.
“If any of us, our children and families are ill, suffering from fevers, vomiting, diarrhea or worse, we may be forced to drive an hour or more to San Rafael, Novato or Petaluma just to get a prescription filled,” worried pharmacy customer Christine Cordaro of Inverness Park.
PBMs were created in the 1960s as a way to process prescription drug claims. They are responsible for paying pharmacies on behalf of insurance companies, employers and the government. The three largest companies are run by CVS Health, Cigna and UnitedHealth Group, which oversee prescriptions for more than 200 million Americans.
In 2012, the year San Jose pharmacist Patel bought his modest shop, PBMs processed fewer than 50% of prescriptions.
A series of mergers in 2018 created the current system, where health care conglomerates are vertically integrated — owning the insurer, the PBM and pharmacy. The giant health insurer Aetna combined with drug retailer CVS. Another large insurer, Cigna, bought Express Scripts. UnitedHealth built its own PBM. All three companies operate mail-order pharmacies.
“It’s like they’re taking the money from one pocket, and putting it into the other,” said Zsuzsanna Biran, pharmacist owner of West Marin Pharmacy.
Despite consumer opposition, the FTC approved the mergers. But now there are concerns about PBMs’ economic leverage. The smaller, locally owned pharmacies feel muscled out of the market.
CVS calls the plight of independent pharmacies “overblown.”
“Contrary to much of the independent pharmacy lobby’s rhetoric, there is no crisis facing independent pharmacies,” CVS said in a statement.
“What the independent pharmacy lobby has long coveted is a world without managed pricing or the competitive pressure from PBM negotiations on behalf of payer clients and consumers,” CVS said.
According to Express Scripts, “If we didn’t provide significant value for our thousands of partners, we wouldn’t exist.”
The PBMs work by negotiating rebates on the “sticker price” of medicines. Some of these savings are shared with insurers and employers. But a slice is kept by the PBMs. This is enormously profitable.
PBMs steer patients toward pricier drugs, with “formularies” of preferred medicines that discourage use of lower-priced alternatives, according to the reports, released last month. Because these high-priced drugs command a greater rebate, there’s more profit.
They also sometimes restrict patients’ access to mail-order deliveries, which they own. This cuts out the role of the local pharmacy.
Independent pharmacies say they’re saddled with unnecessary extra fees. When he started his business in 2012, Patel paid $15,000 to $20,000 in PBM fees; this year, his fees could surpass $110,000.
High fees and low reimbursement may discourage pharmacists from filling a prescription. If he loses money on a prescription, “I have two options,” said Patel. “Take the loss, or tell the patient that I cannot fill it.”
“With lower prescription reimbursements in one corner and higher back-end fees in the other, many community pharmacists are thinking about throwing in the towel,” according to the National Community Pharmacists Association, which represents more than 19,400 independent U.S. pharmacies.
Nearly one-third of independent pharmacy owners may close their stores this year, it predicted.
But in Sacramento and other state capitals, lawmakers are taking a tougher look.
State Sen. Scott Wiener has authored legislation, Senate Bill 966, that would impose new rules on PBMs, better regulating the companies. It would require PBMs to be licensed with the California State Board of Pharmacy and to pass down drug rebates to consumers.
Meanwhile, Patel takes joy in things that don’t cost money — recognizing customers’ names and faces, making birthday phone calls and reminding them to be immunized. Once he provided a cane, for free, to a customer with a gimpy leg.
And there are rewards that are priceless, such as the gifts of fruit, chocolate and home-baked cookies from grateful customers.
“He’s the best,” said customer Rob Souza, picking up a prescription for an ailing wife. “He’s like a small-town pharmacist, always working things out.”
Jay Patel, pharmacist and owner of Savco Pharmacy, works at his pharmacy on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, in San Jose, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
A fentanyl vaccine developed by researchers at the University of Houston is expected to head to clinical trials sometime in the middle of next year, with the hope of being a groundbreaking solution to a deadly crisis.
The vaccine, which has shown success in animal studies, is designed to stop the highly addictive opioid from entering the brain and causing an overdose. Biopharmaceutical startup Ovax acquired the license to produce and test the vaccine in November 2023 and raised over $10 million toward that effort by June.
“We’re all incredibly excited,” said Collin Gage, the start-up’s co-founder and chief executive officer. He added that his company is starting at “ground zero,” but he is confident it will one day have a fentanyl vaccine available to the public.
That day may be a long time from now. While public health emergencies, like the COVID-19 pandemic, can accelerate a vaccine’s development, testing a new vaccine can take anywhere from five to 10 years — sometimes longer.
The idea of creating an opioid vaccine has drawn scientific attention since the 1970s. Unlike bacteria or viruses, opioids aren’t recognized by our immune systems as foreign invaders. But the immune system can be trained to make antibodies in response to an opioid like fentanyl through a vaccine that links bits of the drug to noninfectious bits of bacteria and uses substances called adjuvants.
Adjuvants are designed to enhance immune response, and are particularly important in vaccines targeting substance use disorders. Past attempts to make these vaccines have been unsuccessful in part because the adjuvants weren’t effective enough, said Jay Evans, director of the Center for Translational Medicine at the University of Montana. Evans is also the chief scientific and strategy officer of Inimmune, a Montana-based biotech company developing and testing a variety of vaccines including ones targeting fentanyl and heroin addiction.
The adjuvant in the University of Houston’s fentanyl vaccine is an enterotoxin, a chemical produced by the bacteria Escherichia coli and modified to be noninfectious. It was first developed at Tulane University in Louisiana in the early 2000s and has been used in a variety of vaccines, said Colin Haile, a research associate professor of psychology at the University of Houston who led its fentanyl vaccine development. Haile is also an Ovax co-founder and adviser.
“It has been in 15 human clinical trials in combination with other vaccines,” he said, referring to the adjuvant used in his team’s vaccine. “There have been studies in infants where the results have been fantastic, nearly no side effects.”
Other researchers such as David Dowling and Dr. Ofer Levy, both Ovax co-founders, are using adjuvants that haven’t been tested in humans but appear to effectively enhance the immune response to vaccines targeting substance use disorders, at least based on animal studies, Dowling said.
Clinical trials littered with challenges
Phase 1 clinical trials for the University of Houston vaccine are planned to begin in the second quarter of 2025. Ovax is also in licensing negotiations with Boston Children’s Hospital for a fentanyl vaccine developed by Dowling and Levy. If those negotiations are successful, phase 1 clinical trials could begin in early 2026.
“Compared to a normal infectious disease clinical trial, it will be more difficult. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is pretty adamant that you’re not going to test this vaccine in healthy individuals that don’t already have some sort of opioid addiction,” he said. “So we need to target patients in phase 1 who have a history of opioid use disorder, and that’s a harder population to try to recruit. It’s going to take longer; the patient population will have more adverse events because they’re drug users and they will be harder to track.”
Evans added that the stigma around addiction and drug use might make people reluctant to disclose their condition and participate in a clinical trial.
Ovax has yet to decide where it plans to run its phase 1 clinical trials, Gage said, but it has been looking at sites in Australia and the Netherlands.
“We’re also looking in the United States,” he said, “but it’s difficult to find the right patient population.”
Future clinical trials would need to determine the effectiveness of the vaccine, who would benefit the most and how long immunity would last.
Vaccines as part of the solution
Some critics of fentanyl vaccines say they pull resources from existing treatments for opioid addiction such as buprenorphine, methadone and naltrexone. Some have questioned whether people would seek out the vaccine.
“People have to say they want to be injected, and they have to choose to keep coming back for each injection or infusion,” Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, told The Washington Post in 2023. “The vaccines do nothing to reduce craving or withdrawal or to motivate anyone to return for more care.”
For Haile, a fentanyl vaccine is not the sole solution but another weapon in the fight against the opioid crisis. He and his colleagues at the University of Houston have conducted animal studies investigating how the vaccine affects treatment with buprenorphine, a medication commonly prescribed to manage withdrawals and drug cravings. The findings have yet to be published but are “quite impressive,” Haile said, noting fentanyl vaccines could improve the effectiveness of existing treatments.
“The most important thing to keep in mind is that we’re moving as fast as we can go. … We need to get something to market as quickly as possible to address this terrible problem,” Haile said. “The ultimate goal is to protect people and save lives.”
A Drug Enforcement Administration chemist checks confiscated tablets containing fentanyl at the DEA Northeast Regional Laboratory on Oct. 8, 2019, in New York. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
Nearly 300 Teamsters union workers at Marathon Petroleum’s Detroit refinery went on strike Wednesday, following months of negotiations over worker pay and safety.
The union’s contract expired in January of this year and contract negotiations have been ongoing ever since. Teamsters Local 283 authorized the strike by a 95% vote.
Local 283 President Steve Hicks says they are asking for union security, seniority rights and an increase in pay.
“Since the pandemic, inflation is sky high from 2019 in double digits, and has cut into the spendable income of our members here,” Hicks told WDET. “So we need to get [a] percentage that’s a lot higher than what they are offering, which is 3% per year.”
Hicks says the union sent several emails asking to bargain over the last offer made by Marathon, but were denied.
In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, Marathon officials said they were “disappointed” that union members decided to go on strike, saying the company has met with union leadership regularly for the last nine months to reach a new labor agreement.
“The company has negotiated in good faith, but the union thus far has been unwilling to agree to acceptable terms for an agreement and, instead, has decided to engage in a strike in support of its bargaining positions,” the statement read. “We are fully prepared and have implemented plans to continue safely operating the facility with trained and qualified Marathon employees, and a safe and orderly handover to these experienced team members has been completed.”
Officials at Marathon say the refinery will continue producing transportation fuels for the region during the strike, and that they “do not anticipate supply disruptions.”
But Jeff Tricoff, a relief worker for the Local 283, says those workers have not had enough training to keep the community safe.
“They are trained and qualified in other plants, not in ours,” Tricoff said. “Every plant is different. Things are located in different places; everything has its own intricacies. It takes us nine months to over a year to train, and they brought them in in a couple of weeks and said they are fully qualified.”
Teamsters workers at the Marathon refinery work in a wide variety of classifications, including board operators, field operators, chemists, laboratory technicians, electricians and mechanics.
Tricoff says the union workers take great pride in keeping the plant one of the safest refineries that Marathon has.
Reporting by Bre’Anna Tinsley, WDET.
Other headlines for Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024:
A recent poll from The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4) of 600 likely voters showed an extremely tight presidential race in Michigan, with 44.7% of participants supporting former President Donald Trump, 43.5% supporting Vice President Kamala Harris, and 7% selecting a third party candidate.
Wayne County officials are holding a town hall meeting Wednesday evening to talk about the transport of nuclear waste from New York to a landfill in Van Buren Township. The town hall will take place at 6 p.m. at the Wayne County Community College – Ted Scott Campus in Belleville.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan will host a District 7 community meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, at Chapel Hill Baptist Church, focused on neighborhood cleanup efforts in commercial areas.
Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.
Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
Barron Trump has finally revealed his college choice — New York University — by turning up at the downtown Manhattan campus Wednesday morning for his first day of classes.
The 18-year-old son of Donald and Melania Trump sported a white polo shirt, Adidas sneakers and black Swiss Gear backpack, casually slung over his shoulder, as he was seen heading into the dean’s office building, followed by Secret Service agents, the New York Post reported. The Secret Service agents are there to guard him as his father, the former president, is running to return to the White House.
The sighting of Trump’s 6-foot-7-inch son ends months of speculation about his college choice, according to the Daily Beast, which first reported that NYU was his top choice. Barron is enrolled at NYU’s Stern Undergraduate College.
NYU is No. 35 overall on the U.S. News & World Report ranking of best colleges and No. 5 for its business programs. By choosing NYU, Barron is breaking with Trump family tradition. His father has boasted of his Ivy League education at University of Pennsylvania, which is ranked No. 6 by U.S. News and World Report. His older half-siblings, Don Jr., Ivanka and Tiffany, also graduated from Penn, while Eric Trump graduated from Georgetown University.
But NYU has the advantage of being Barron’s hometown university. NYU is kind of down the road — Fifth Avenue — from where Barron spent his childhood, raised by his mother in his father’s gilded penthouse in Trump Tower. It wasn’t clear, though, Wednesday, whether Barron will live on campus or will live with his mother at Trump Tower.
The fact that Melania Trump was seen arriving at Trump Tower last week fueled speculation that Barron would attend college in New York City. One way that Trump World sources have explained her absence from her husband’s campaign has been by saying that she sees herself as a “hands-on” mother, whose first priority is her son, Page Six previously reported. Some people have taken the “hands-on” mother description to mean that she would reside close to wherever he is attending college.
Donald Trump recently told the Daily Mail that while the family had considered other colleges, but Barron ultimately liked NYU the best.
“It’s a very high quality place. He liked it. He liked the school,” Trump told the Daily Mail. “I went to Wharton, and that was certainly one that we were considering. We didn’t do that … We went for Stern.”
“He’s a very high aptitude child, but he’s no longer a child. He’s just passed into something beyond child-dom.”
Barron Trump gestures after his father Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump introduced him during a campaign rally at Trump National Doral Miami, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
A convicted killer’s mother was sentenced Wednesday for lying to police while they were investigating the murder six years ago in Pontiac.
At the sentencing hearing, Oakland County Circuit Judge Daniel O’Brien sent Guadalupe Maria Davila-Rodriguez of Pontiac to the Oakland County Jail for 11 days with credit for five days served, for lying to a peace officer in connection with the fatal shooting of Emilio Valdez. The charge was amended from an original charge of accessory after the fact to a felony.
Davila-Rodriguez pleaded no contest to the lesser charge.
Angel Jose Alvarez, Juan Diego Hernandez and Guadalupe Maria Davila-Rodriguez (Oakland County Sheriff’s Office)
Valdez’s body was found in Osmun Lake in Pontiac on June 7, 2018, but charges weren’t filed until 2022. Angel Alvarez, Davila-Rodriquez son, was convicted of second-degree murder for Valdez’s death at the conclusion of a jury trial in June and sentenced to 36.5 – 80 years in prison. Her other son, Juan Diego Hernandez of Center Line, was charged with lying to a peace officer during the Valdez homicide investigation and was sentenced last month to six days in jail with credit for one day served. He, too, pleaded no contest to the charge.
Valdez’s body was found in Osmun Lake in Pontiac on June 7, 2018, but charges weren’t filed until 2022. Angel Alvarez, Davila-Rodriquez’s other son, was convicted of second-degree murder for Valdez’s death at the conclusion of a jury trial in June.
Valdez was a 2016 graduate of Warren Mott High School who had moved from Macomb County to Pontiac. Not long after his death, investigators said the 20-year-old was shot twice and still alive when he was put into the lake.
According to court records, it was alleged that the car Alvarez used in the homicide was the same one Davila-Rodriguez reported stolen.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Pit River Tribe elder Theodore Martinez knows more of death than anyone should.
“I want to acknowledge some of the people that have been murdered from my tribe,” Martinez said. “These are all my people.”
Martinez’s family, close friends and members of his tribe are among the more than 150 documented cases of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People crisis in California. The state has the fifth most unsolved cases involving Native people in the country, and tribal leaders have urged for the crisis to be declared a state emergency.
Earlier this year as he stood on the west Capitol steps, Martinez, with anguish in his eyes, recalled each person he’s lost in his lifetime.
There was Little George Montgomery, who was like a brother to Martinez. He was killed decades ago, with the tribe finding his body dismembered, Martinez said. All they had left to bury was his skull.
There was his own brother, Victor, who Martinez said was killed in 1992.
There was his cousin who lived on the Fort Bidwell Reservation in Modoc County. Martinez said she was found dead, face down in the water of the tribe’s hot springs.
There was Dewey McGarva. At 36, he went missing for more than a year. When his tribe found him, there wasn’t much left, Martinez said.
And then, there was Milton “Yogi” McGarva, who identified as Two-Spirit, a third gender identity for Indigenous people. McGarva was stabbed and fatally wounded in 2020.
“These are things that have gone on historically, throughout my territory,” Martinez said. “None of these things have been investigated. Nothing has been done.”
Alina Sanchez 16, left, stands with her mom, Angel Sanchez, center, and sister, Alyssa Sanchez, 13, during a candlelight vigil at the Capitol on May 1, 2024, for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People. (Lezlie Sterling/The Sacramento Bee/TNS)
As Martinez looked upon a crowd of Native Californians, he knew he wasn’t the only one who had lost relatives.
The deaths and disappearances of his relatives have gone unsolved by law enforcement for decades, Martinez said. It’s a pain many families relate to: the feeling of being let down and left without closure.
“We as Native people, we need to help each other. We need to support this movement,” Martinez said. “Because without that support, it’s not going to go very far.”
After feeling neglected by law enforcement, these families have taken matters into their own hands. They offer monetary rewards for anyone with knowledge of their relatives’ whereabouts, carrying posters with their loved one’s faces and names.
They haven’t given up. They all want justice.
Families of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People seek justice
Toni Espinoza, a member of Wilton Rancheria, is the sister of Angel Baby Espinoza, who died on Nov. 18, 2001. Her family believes she was killed.
Toni Espinoza said her sister died following a hit and run on Norwood Avenue in North Sacramento. Her family believes Angel Baby was pushed in front of the car by an ex-partner.
“We want justice. I want to be able to tell her kids who did this to their mom,” Toni Espinoza said, her voice beginning to break. “We have a right to know, everybody has the right to justice.”
Family members hold signs of their lost loved ones on the west steps of the Capitol that was lit red to bring awareness during a Missing and Murdered Indigenous People candlelight vigil Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (Lezlie Sterling/The Sacramento Bee/TNS)
Toni Espinoza said she worked with a police detective and allegedly found an eye witness. But the case was deemed manslaughter after three years and not pursued as a murder investigation.
To this day, her family, including Angel Baby’s own five children,still mourn her death. They are left with no answers.
“This is why we do what we can,” Toni Espinoza said. “To spread the word, to say her name, to do marches and hold protests in front of the Capitol so somebody will care.”
Over in Mendocino County, 81-year-old Ronnie Hostler and his family have been searching for his beloved granddaughter, Khadijah Britton, 23, who has been missing for the past seven years. Britton belongs to the Wailaki Round Valley Indian tribes.
Britton was last seen in Covelo, California, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, with an ex-boyfriend forcing her into a car at gunpoint.
While the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office was involved in the case, Hostler is unsatisfied. He said Britton’s disappearance wasn’t investigated until two weeks after her family reported her missing. Today, Britton has been deemed a cold case.
Britton’s family is still trying to find herbut at this point, they are looking for her body to bury in the family cemetery.
“We want to find her, wherever she may be, and we want to take care of her,” Hostler said. “That’s what we want right now, and we’re not getting it.”
Tribes face issues with law enforcement
The Sacramento Bee has spoken to, or heard from, 46 families, tribal leaders and experts in Indian Country affected by the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People crisis. They identified obstacles preventing cases from getting solved.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases reflect disproportionate rates of violence against Native communities nationwide. Native people are 2.5 times more likely to experience a violent crime, according to the Association on American Indian Affairs.
When cases are reported, there is sometimes no response, little follow through or poor coordination with criminal investigations, said Keely Linton, the operations director for the Strong Hearted Native Women’s Coalition, a nonprofit that supports families with Missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases.
Local law enforcement can be slow to respond to calls of crime and are “less attentive to the interests of tribes,” according to the UCLA American Indian Studies Center. Tribal communities also struggle to trust law enforcement.
Members of the Yurok Tribe including sisters Jone-deh Hostler, 14, left, and Brycee Hostler, 15, center, gather for a Brush Dance in front of the Capitol on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, during an event to bring awareness to missing and murdered indigenous people. (Lezlie Sterling/The Sacramento Bee/TNS)
Erik Apperson, the former Del Norte County sheriff, saw this dynamic firsthand when working on Yurok and Tolowa Dee-ni’ tribal lands. Now retired, he recalled meeting a shocked and grieving mother whose young son was killed by another boy on tribal lands.
Despite the tragedy of a young boy dying that night, the need to bring an offender to justice did not outweigh the absence of ability and desire to pursue the case, Apperson said.
“I believe in my heart that it was a homicide, even if negligence played a part in it,” he said.
Why do Missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases go cold?
Missing and Murdered Indigenous People crisis cases are seven times less likely to be solved than any other ethnic group statewide, according to Sovereign Bodies Institute. As a result, most cases go cold, said Linton, who is Íipay and Cupeno.
Families will often feel stigmatized by law enforcement and are often faced with skepticism due to racist stereotypes. They feel law enforcement is uncaring or that their loved one’s disappearance is minimized.
Bernadette Smith sits with a red handprint painted across her face with her daughter Chishkaleh Flores, 2, at the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People vigil at the Capitol on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. She holds a sign of her sister, Nicole Smith, who was murdered in 2017 on the Manchester Rancheria. Her murder is now a cold case. (Lezlie Sterling/The Sacramento Bee/TNS)
Racism against Native people can prevent cases from being pursued or taken seriously, said Linton. Officers are not always understanding or trauma-informed about the tribal communities they serve.
As a result, some harbor stereotypical beliefs and prejudices. It’s an issue Greg O’Rourke, the Yurok tribal police chief, faced when he handled a sexual abuse case with his non-Native partner in the his local sheriff’s department.
“I remember very specifically my partner saying ‘do the people on the reservation have kids just so they can molest them?’” said O’Rourke during a hearing on Public Law 280 in March. “This person was a good man, a good cop. But that was the response. How can you provide accurate and humane services when that is the first thing that comes to mind?”
Barriers are also deeply rooted in California’s colonial origins and laws today.
What is Public Law 280?
Enacted in 1953, Public Law 280 requires tribal law enforcement to share criminal jurisdiction with state police agencies, causing overlap and confusion. It’s a law that impeded on Britton’s case being pursued, Hostler said.
“The piece of colonization is still here, embedded with all these laws, all these laws that have moved forward in the state of California,” said Assemblyman James Ramos, D-San Bernardino. “It’s now, recently, that we’re layering back those laws and trying to insert the California Indian voice into it.”
Because of Public Law 280, tribal law enforcement are unable to prosecute non-Native people on tribal land. Tribal police can only arrest and detain non-Natives for “delivery to state and federal authorities,” according to the Department of Justice.
In regards to Missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases, it’s often non-Native people perpetrating sexual violence against Native women. Between 86% to 96% of abuse against Native women comes from non-Native offenders, who are rarely punished, the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University found.
How California legislation could help
Tribal police know their communities best, yet they lack the authority of a state officer to investigate murders, said O’Rourke.
This is where Assembly Bill 2138 could provide a solution. This bill, authored by Ramos, would launch a pilot program to grant state peace officer status to tribal police in selected tribal communities from 2025 until 2028.
If passed, this program would go into effect under the Department of Justice. By no later than 2027, the DOJ would submit a report about case clearance rates, including those for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases.
As another way to combat Missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases, California passed the Feather Alert in 2022, an emergency notification system similar to the Amber Alert.
But the alert has run into obstacles.
In December, The Bee found that the California Highway Patrol only sent out one Feather Alert. CHP has a history of not issuing alerts tribes requested, either because it did not meet their criteria or for undisclosed reasons. Since then, about 60% of Feather Alert requests have been rejected, according to the Press Democrat.
New amendments have been implemented for the Feather Alert. Law enforcement agencies are now required to respond to requests within 48 hours. If an alert is denied, law enforcement must provide written notice to a government agency or tribe that explains why.
“We’re starting to address and make the alert system stronger,” said Ramos, who is Cahuilla and Serrano.
A booth is set up for Indigenous Justice during the MMIP event at the Capitol on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (Lezlie Sterling/The Sacramento Bee/TNS)
Tribal leaders have urged more funding toward investigations. In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom awarded almost $20 million in grants to 18 tribes to fund prevention efforts for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases.
Families, meanwhile, called for the convictions of the perpetrators who enact violence against their loved ones. Justice has not been swift for most families, but McGarva’s family did have their call answered. Jarrett Bleu Rucker, the man who killed McGarva, one of Martinez’s relatives, was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison earlier this year.
“The victory and justice for Yogi was not easily won,” said Morning Star Gali, the founder of Indigenous Justice, who assisted McGarva’s family in the criminal justice process. “It was a difficult four years in the making, with his family not knowing when they would be able to breathe a sigh of relief.”
The road to support starts with visibility, priority and mutual respect for California’s first people, Ramos said.
“It’s time that our voices be heard,” Ramos said. “It’s time that our voices and what’s affecting our people doesn’t go in silence.”
The Strong Hearts Native Helpline provides culturally-specific resources for Native Americans experiencing domestic and sexual violence through a helpline 1-844-7NATIVE (762-8483).
Family members hold signs of their lost loved ones during a Missing and Murdered Indigenous People vigil held at the Capitol on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (Lezlie Sterling/The Sacramento Bee/TNS)
WINDER, Ga. (AP) — The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday that four people were killed and at least nine were injured in a shooting at a high school outside of Atlanta.
Students scrambled for shelter in the football stadium as officers swarmed the campus and parents raced to find out if their children were safe.
Authorities say a suspect is in custody.
“What you see behind us is an evil thing,” Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said at a brief news conference outside Apalachee High School. He declined to give details about casualties, or about the suspect.
Jacob King, a sophomore football player, said he had dozed off in his world history class after a morning practice when he heard about 10 gunshots.
King said he didn’t believe the shooting was real until he heard an officer yelling at someone to put down their gun. King said when his class was led out, he saw officers shielding what appeared to be an injured student.
Ashley Enoh was at home Wednesday morning when she got a text from her brother, who’s a senior at Apalachee High School:
“Just so you know, I love you,” he texted her.
When she asked in the family group chat what was going on, he said there was a shooter at the school. Enoh’s younger sister, a junior at the school, said she had heard about the shooter and that everything was on lockdown.
Few details were immediately available from authorities, who were dispatched shortly before 10:30 a.m. to respond to an “active shooting,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
“Casualties have been reported, however details on the number or their conditions is not available at this time,” the statement added.
Helicopter video from WSB-TV showed dozens of law enforcement and emergency vehicles surrounding the school in Barrow County, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta.
When Erin Clark, 42, received a text from her son Ethan, a senior at the high school, that there was an active shooter, she rushed from her job at the Amazon warehouse to the school. The two texted “I love you,” and Clark said she prayed for her son as she drove to the high school.
With the main road blocked to the school, Clark parked and ran with other parents. Parents were then directed to the football field. Amid the chaos, Clark found Ethan sitting on the bleachers.
Clark said her son was writing an essay in class when he first heard the gunshots. Her son then worked with his classmates to barricade the door and hide.
“I’m so proud of him for doing that,” she said. “He was so brave.”
Students had only started the school year a little over a month ago before the shooting Wednesday.
“It makes me scared to send him back,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Traffic going to the school was backed up for more than a mile as parents tried to get to their children there.
“I have directed all available state resources to respond to the incident at Apalachee High School and urge all Georgians to join my family in praying for the safety of those in our classrooms, both in Barrow County and across the state,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said in a statement.
“We will continue to work with local, state, and federal partners as we gather information and further respond to this situation,” Kemp added.
In a statement, the FBI’s Atlanta office said: “FBI Atlanta is aware of the current situation at Apalachee High School in Barrow County. Our agents are on scene coordinating with and supporting local law enforcement.”
The White House said President Joe Biden has been briefed by his Homeland Security Advisor, Liz Sherwood-Randall, about the shooting and the administration will coordinate with federal, state and local officials as it receives more information.
Apalachee High School has about 1,900 students, according to records from Georgia education officials. It became Barrow County’s second largest public high school when it opened in 2000, according to the Barrow County School System. It’s named after the Apalachee River on the southern edge of Barrow County.
The shooting had reverberations in Atlanta, where patrols of schools in that city were beefed up, authorities said. More patrols of Atlanta schools would be done “for the rest of the day out of an abundance of caution,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said.
After a lengthy public meeting Tuesday night, the Rochester board of education approved a three-year teacher contract despite concerns its language would pit educators against parents..
The board voted 5-2 in favor of the contract, agreed to on Aug. 1 and ratified by the Rochester Education Association on Aug. 29. Trustees Michael Weaver and Carol Beth Litkouhi voted against approval.
The new contract comes after 21 negotiation sessions and 120 work sessions between the union and the district starting back in February.
The district forecasts additional costs of $33 million over the next 3 years.
“As shortages in the workforce continue to challenge many industries, I believe this long-term contract will prove pivotal in providing increased stability for our organization,” said Superintendent Nicholas Russo. “Today’s contract approval demonstrates how our Rochester Community Schools board of education and our leadership team value our dedicated teachers.”
Some of the contract details include:
a reduction of the salary step schedule from 18 to 15 steps;
increases in base salary by three percent in year one, three percent in year two, and $2,000 in year three;
increases in longevity pay;
mutually agreeable language on formerly prohibited subjects of bargaining such as teacher evaluations, layoffs and recalls, teacher placement and teacher rights;
Several stipend increases in a variety of areas
“This contract, from a financial standpoint, still does not pay you what you are worth, but it is a needed increase for our teachers,” said board President Michelle Bueltel.
The high school auditorium was packed by teachers, parents and students concerned that contradictory language in the contract would limit teachers in the classroom.
“Academic freedom must align with curriculum, administrative and board policies, but the following clause says that there shall be no limits on the presentation of ideas regarding humanity, society and the world,” said Litkouhi. “This opens the door for teachers to introduce personal or political views unrelated to the class, potentially without parents’ knowledge.”
She added, “The union’s push to enshrine this right may protect those individual teachers, but it inadvertently undermines parental legal rights to direct their children’s education, which is established by Michigan Law. This language will only serve to heighten tensions between parents and teachers.”
Trustee Jayson Blake and Treasurer Julie Alspach responded that language in other areas of the contract would not allow teachers to provide their students with points of view that do not conform with the curriculum, subject or maturity level and take “academic freedom” past the contract’s framework.
“There are a number of provisions in here that are just being ignored because, I guess, there is this fear that the teachers are on this mission to teach children things that are inappropriate,” said Blake. “I don’t believe that. I trust the teachers.”
Some parents spoke out against having those provisions in the contract.
“The proposed language in the contract appears to propose a significant barrier between parents and the classroom,” said parent Catherine Agarwal. “It allows teachers to withhold classroom information from the parent. This agreement fundamentally shifts the balance of power away from parents and toward an unchecked academic freedom for teachers.”
She added, “This clause seems to provide teachers with near total immunity from the consequences of their actions in the classroom.”
“Both of the parties should go back and present a contract that takes out the vagueness of these sections,” said Weaver. “If there are actual protections to be provided, add those protections so they are clear and transparent.”
Blake pointed out the new contract did come at a cost to the district, but did not go into detail.
“We agreed to go into our fund balance to try to make this an attractive contract,” said Blake. “We actually gave a number of how much we were willing to go and it ended up digging deeper than that, but I am OK with that because I think our staff is worth that.”
Elizabeth Schroeck, the union’s president, addressed language said to pit parents against teachers and that teachers will use the contract to communicate their own beliefs without parents’ knowledge.
“The teachers of the REA are smart, they are strong and they are clear-eyed,” Schroeck told the board and the audience. “They are tired of cultivated controversies sucking up their time and energy when they want to spend it with their students. Teachers want the peace and joy to return.”
The new contract will be publicly available on the RCS website once the agreement is signed and dated.
Rochester school board President Michelle Bueltel, REA President Elizabeth Schroeck and Superintendent Nicholas Russo after the board approved the new contract.
photo courtesy RCS
The presidential election is a few months away, and American Muslim voters are weighing out their options for the next president.
Youssef Chouhoud, an associate professor of political science at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, studies trends involving American Muslim voters. He says this year many American Muslims are concerned about Gaza.
“Certainly one of if not the top, if not for some American Muslims, the only issue that they care about is the crisis in Gaza, and so that holds particularly heavy weight this election cycle,” Chouhoud said.
He says American Muslims are nestled within the American fabric, concerned about the economy, climate change, health care and immigration policies.
After 9/11, Chouhoud says, American Muslims were against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He says after 2010, many focused on domestic issues.
But he says that changed after the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel — during which Hamas killed 1,200 people — and the invasion of Gaza that followed, where the latest death toll stands at more than 40,000 Palestinians killed.
Chouhoud says many American Muslims view themselves as part of the extended Muslim nation, or the ummah.
“One of the beliefs in Islam is that anything that affects one part of the Muslim ummah affects you as well,” he said.
Chouhoud says many American Muslims also have close connections to Gaza.
“Everybody in the American Muslim context, is probably only one degree removed from somebody in Gaza,” he said.
Chouhoud says American Muslims are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to voting for the next president.
“They don’t, by and large, support a Trump presidency, for the reason that during the Trump administration, and you know, the explicit policies that Trump wanted to and has enacted have negatively affected American Muslims.”
He says many American Muslims say they do not feel like they belong to either Republican or Democratic parties.
“The sense of homelessness, I think, that American Muslims feel politically, is something that weighs heavy on them, and something that you know is going to probably continue from now until they go into the voting booth,” he said.
Chouhoud says things are likely to remain up in the air until the November elections.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
In August, Eva Goodman was placed in handcuffs and a jail uniform for sleeping in a courtroom during a field trip. Goodman, 15, was visiting with a group organized by the nonprofit the Greening of Detroit. During the visit, Judge Kenneth King of the 36th District court scolded the teen for her “attitude” and behavior.
Goodman’s mother told the Free Press after the incident that their family did not have permanent housing and got in late the night before. Judge King was temporarily removed from the court docket, and his classes at Wayne State University were reassigned due to his suspension.
Since the incident, the Created Equal team has been examining through conversations how society responds to people who live in poverty.
Dr. Rema-Vassar, a professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Wayne State University, spent 20 years working in education and studies race, gender and class implications in schools. She says King’s response to the incident in court was inappropriate.
“My adviser at UCLA used to say, ‘all behavior is functional.’ There’s a reason for all behavior. So if the baby is sleeping in the court, the human response is to figure out why,” Vassar said. “Teachers get to come in and say, ‘I haven’t had my coffee. Don’t bother me for five minutes,’ right? A judge can say, ‘I have to take a recess, I need to compose myself and come back.’ Why aren’t children allowed to do that? Why can’t children say, ‘hey, I’m tired.'”
Vassar joined the show on Tuesday to talk more about how a student’s behavior in school can be a reflection of their circumstances at home.
Guest:
Dr. Rema-Vassar is a professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies.
Listen to Created Equal with host Stephen Henderson weekdays from 9-10 a.m. ET on 101.9 WDET and streaming on-demand.
Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
A Michigan Court of Claims judge acted quickly Tuesday to deny Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s request to be removed from the state’s presidential ballot. That’s after Kennedy suspended his campaign last week to back Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Kennedy wants a court to reverse the determination of election officials in the Secretary of State’s office that he missed the deadline for removing his name as the nominee of the Natural Law Party of Michigan. Kennedy is trying to end his candidacy in Michigan and other swing states where he could siphon support from former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
“Plaintiff, a public figure, does not want to represent to the citizens of Michigan that he is vying for their votes for the position of President of the United States,” said Kennedy’s legal filing. “Keeping his name on the ballot against his wishes compels this speech and subjects him to derision, anger, reputational harm, and loss of good will by those who would vote for him based on this speech and later find out their vote was wasted and in vain.”
Kennedy argued the deadline cited by the state elections bureau applies only to down-ballot races and not to candidates for president.
Court of Claims Judge Christopher Yates dispatched the case very quickly, noting the urgency of resolving election-related questions this late in the cycle. Yates wrote the law is “clear and conclusive” that election officials in the Secretary of State’s office are not empowered to go along with Kennedy’s “self-serving act”
“Elections are not just games,” he wrote, “and the Secretary of State is not obligated to honor the whims of candidates for public office.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel praised the ruling.
“Michigan election law in this instance is unambiguous and the Department of State made the correct decision,” she said in a written statement. “…The law does not apply less because a candidate changes their plans. I appreciate the Court making a quick and wise ruling on this matter.”
Kennedy’s Michigan attorneys did not reply to a request for comment or plans to appeal.
If history is any guide, it is highly unlikely that Kennedy would win Michigan’s 15 electoral votes. The last third-party candidate to win Michigan was former President Teddy Roosevelt, who left the Republican Party to run as the candidate of the Progressive “Bull Moose” Party in 1912. That helped Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson unseat Republican incumbent President William Howard Taft.
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