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Focus this week on driver behavior around school buses

To ensure students’ safety when traveling to and from school, police officers across Michigan will be ramping up patrols this week looking for drivers illegally passing school buses. “Operation Safe Stop” is a statewide enforcement campaign that will be conducted today through Friday in conjunction with National School Bus Safety Week. Participating police agencies will work with their local school districts during this week to provide education and enforcement for their communities. OSS enforcement efforts will focus on drivers who ignore the flashing red lights and extended ...

Who were police looking for in Seney Township?

Although it’s not entirely clear what they were doing, a handful of police agencies spent most of last week poking around wooded areas in and around northern Seney Township in Schoolcraft County last week. We do know investigators have said they were looking for human remains, perhaps buried decades ago. What we don’t know is whose remains they sought or what case all of this was in connection to. Of course, area coffee shops and social media platforms have been abuzz with speculation. A number of people have posited that Jimmy Hoffa, the long, lost ex-president of the ...

AG warns of scam with ‘prop money’

The state is warning of a scam involving Facebook Marketplace and similar platforms — and if this one sounds like something out of the movies, it’s because it is. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has reissued a consumer alert after numerous social media reports surfaced of Michigan residents being paid with realistic “prop money” marked as “For Motion Picture Purposes” for items sold on Facebook Marketplace and similar platforms. While the Department of Attorney General has not yet received direct consumer complaints, it is aware of multiple reports involving ...

Why people resist modern vaccines a mystery

It’s hard to understand why parents or adult guardians refuse to get their children vaccinated. It’s a puzzling problem that medical experts seem unable to crack: convincing all parents that immunizing their children against diseases that we thought were long gone generations ago. There has long been a cottage industry of sorts of vaccine doubters, which has grown exponentially with the widespread advent of the internet. Anti-vaxers, as those folks are sometimes called, can cite chapter and verse of statistics that show how dangerous vaccines are and how parents are putting their ...

MDARD offers advice on using disinfectants safely

As temperatures and daylight declines and people spend more time in enclosed spaces, the chance to spread illness grows — it’s the start of the cold and flu season for a reason. So the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has issued some recommendations on using disinfectants safely and responsibly to help guard against the “bugs” that can be harbored indoors. Disinfectants used on surfaces are classified as pesticides and regulated by both MDARD and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, MDARD advised in a news release. Before using any ...

Don’t throw out fall leaves

It's autumn and area forests are replete with blazing colors and, of course, falling leaves. Speaking of leaves, what should a person do with them? The initial urge might be to rake them into bags, but that’s not necessarily the best option for nature. According to the National Wildlife Federation, leaves form a natural mulch that suppresses weeds and fertilizes the soil as it breaks down. Removing leaves also gets rid of valuable wildlife habitat. How is that possible? You might not see them, but many moth and butterfly caterpillars spend their winter in fallen leaves ...