Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s announcement on Thursday clears the way for full capacity at baseball games and some concerts and a total reopening of Michigan on July 1. Here’s what you need to know.
Facing a crucial post-pandemic school year, Michigan leaders are exploring ways to bolster a dwindling teacher corps, from loan forgiveness programs to boosting starting pay.
One week after new CDC guidance, the governor says she will end restrictions on outdoor events on June 1 and end remaining rules in time for Independence Day holiday.
Business groups are frustrated with MIOSHA, which is pushing ahead on hearings to make pandemic work rules permanent even as the governor is easing rules on masks for residents.
The governor appears to be jettisoning a plan that required up to 70 percent of residents to get vaccines for additional pandemic restrictions to be lifted. CDC mask guidelines and improving numbers have changed the calculus.
If current vaccination rates continue, Michigan wouldn’t fully reopen for months under the governor’s current plan, endangering the summer tourist season. To business leaders, that’s untenable now that the mask mandate has ended for the vaccinated.
Federal guidance late last week that gave vaccinated people more freedom to go maskless left the state and private businesses scrambling to update their own rules.
Within the past two weeks, a nonprofit set up for Gretchen Whitmer’s inauguration footed the bill for the $27,000 flight to Florida amid the pandemic. The disclosure is unlikely to quell the issue.
For now anyway, many stores are still going to require masks, as are courts. But changes could be coming quickly after Michigan changed rules ending mask requirements for the fully vaccinated.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is ending a mandate that likely would have been in place through summer. But policing who has a vaccine and who doesn’t will likely prove impossible.
In a major step on the road toward normalcy, the CDC announced fully vaccinated Americans need no longer mask or socially distance in most settings. The move poses hard questions for Michigan schools and businesses.
Republicans are using budget stalemate to hold up child care money and try to kill mask mandates, any plans for a vaccine passport and efforts to stop Line 5. They won’t likely have much luck.
Republicans accuse Whitmer of hypocrisy following reports she flew on a private jet owned by political donors. The Michigan governor says security concerns prevent her from disclosing details about the trip.
Long-time Michigan journalist John Lindstrom blasts the cynical ploy Republicans are considering that would suppress voting and proposes a constitutional amendment to prevent it.
Unemployed Michiganders will need to prove they are searching for jobs to continue qualifying for benefits when the state restores a suspended requirement by the end of May, a change employers are clamoring for as they struggle to fill openings.
In a letter Tuesday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer put Enbridge on notice that if the company keeps operating Line 5 in the Straits beyond Wednesday, the state will pursue legal action to recoup any profits Enbridge amasses from “wrongful use of the State’s property.”
The “non-delegation doctrine” sounds innocuous, but Michigan’s highest court’s ruling could make it more difficult to react quickly to emergencies, says the state’s retired chief justice.
The Canadian petroleum company technically has until Wednesday night to stop piping oil through the Straits of Mackinac, according to the state of Michigan. But what happens if the company refuses to abide by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s order?
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she would lift pandemic office restrictions two weeks after 55 percent of residents got their first dose. Michigan reached that milestone Monday. Even so, offices aren’t likely to look the same as they were pre-pandemic.
Her refusal to answer questions about who funded a private trip to Florida follow flaps about confidential severances and reluctance to release COVID-19 records.
