Harrison: Inmate apparently kills himself in Clare County jail
HARRISON, Mich. (AP) — The Clare County Sheriff’s Department says a 44-year-old parole violation suspect apparently killed himself in jail by slitting arteries in his arms.
The Morning Sun of Mount Pleasant says Ronald W. Ross of Spring Lake was found bleeding profusely in the shower. The jail is in Harrison, about 90 miles north of Lansing.
Sheriff John S. Wilson says Ross was conscious when guards at the county jail found him but died later Friday.
WJRT-TV says Ross was being held on parole violations, concealing stolen property and weapon charges.
Detroit: Police, prosecutors to padlock strip club for one year
DETROIT (AP) — Police and the Wayne County prosecutor’s office are expected to lock up a Detroit strip club where they say a 14-year-old girl performed.
The formal padlocking of All Stars Lounge was planned for Monday afternoon. The club is to remain closed for a year.
County Circuit Judge Virgil Smith also held a hearing Monday morning on the padlocking order. The club’s attorney Timothy Murphy had said he would file an appeal.
Club manager Andrew Hutson faces a preliminary examination Tuesday on a charge of child sexually abusive activity. He was arrested in April after the girl’s mother told police she pulled her daughter from the club.
Police said the girl may have danced there several nights each week, making about $350 per night.
Detroit: Feds award $5.5M for Great Lakes projects in Mich.
DETROIT (AP) — The federal government has awarded $5.5 million for three Great Lakes protection projects in Michigan.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration designated the grants for the state and the University of Michigan.
The biggest, totaling $3 million, will provide plant and animal habitat in the Saugatuck area.
Additionally, the state will get $1.7 million to acquire property for ecological and conservation purposes in Houghton.
An $835,000 grant will go to the university for study of algal blooms and water quality in the Great Lakes.
East Lansing: MSU expert says Amazon trek shows signs of hope
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan State University geographer just back from a grueling 700-mile trek along the Transamazon Highway in Brazil said there are signs that the country’s environmental protection efforts are taking hold.
The 10-day summer trip was part of Bob Walker’s continuing research on deforestation in the Amazon rain forest. The National Science Foundation is funding the work. Walker has studied the Brazilian Amazon for 20 years, with funding from NASA and others.
Walker said he and two scientists who accompanied him believe that illegal logging and gold-mining operations threaten further damage to the world’s largest rain forest, but also found wide areas of undisturbed forest in nationally protected areas and indigenous reserves.
The researchers also found examples of Brazil’s government halting unofficial road building, Walker said.
Accompanying him were Eugenio Arima, his former doctoral student and now an assistant professor at both Hobart College and William Smith College, and Michigan State doctoral student Ritaumaria Pereira.
A local driver helped the trio during the trek along the Transamazon Highway, from Itaituba in the east to Labrea in the west. The area is about 1,700 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro.
About 18 percent of the forest in Brazil’s Amazon disappeared between 1970 and 2008, according to satellite and other data reviewed by the Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.
Most of the destruction is in the more developed eastern Amazon basin, and Walker said he suspected that a government crackdown on illegal logging was pushing cutters west into the Amazon. He said those suspicions were confirmed during his trip.
But they also found signs of anti-logging efforts succeeding, Walker said.
In one case, a village mayor let loggers start building a road. But he said the national government stepped in and halted the project.
“There seems to be an emerging Brazilian will to fulfill the intentions of protected areas,” Walker said.
