Today on Stateside, how the state is carrying out infrastructure projects it can't afford to maintain. Plus, an Interlochen Public Radio investigation into the Grand Traverse County Correctional Facility after multiple former female inmates claimed that some officers were ignoring their requests for basic personal hygiene products.
Listen to the full show above or find individual segments below.
If we can’t pay to fix existing roads now, how can Michigan afford to grow?
- Nearly $10 million has been poured into widening 1.3 miles of 23 Mile Road in Macomb County while elsewhere in that county, there are 800 lane-miles of roads in poor condition with no money to repair them. Chad Livengood is with Crain’s Detroit Business. He breaks down why some road repair efforts are better funded than others and what he thinks needs to change in Michigan's severely-out-of-date-road-funding formula.
Inside Amazon's massive new fulfillment center in Romulus
- Behind the scenes of any given Amazon purchase, thousands of people are working to make that order possible. It’s a world most customers never see. But on Friday, Amazon showed off one of its newest fulfillment centers — a large building near Detroit Metro Airport that can process tens of thousands of orders at a time. Michigan Radio’s Dustin Dwyer brings us this story.
Former inmates of Grand Traverse County jail claim basic feminine hygiene needs were ignored
- More than a dozen former inmates at the Grand Traverse County Correctional Facility claim their basic hygienic needs were often ignored by a handful of officers while they were incarcerated. They say it could take days to get items like soap, a toothbrush, or feminine hygiene products. Interlochen Public Radio’s Morgan Springer brings us this story and joins Stateside to talk about an administrator for the Grand Traverse County jail who resigned after allegations that he had inappropriate relationships with former inmates.
Fund devoted to improving ties between Michigan communities and tribes sees some success
- The Native American Heritage Fund provides grants to support projects throughout the state that deepen ties between local communities, schools, and Michigan’s Native American tribes. Jamie Stuck is tribal council chairperson of the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi and the chair of the Native American Heritage Fund. He talks about some of the proposals the fund has recently supported and how he thinks those projects have made a difference in Michigan.
What kinds of summer learning programs work best?
- “Summer slide” is the term for when students come back to school in the fall having forgotten things they learned in the grade before. Studies find that pretty much everybody falls behind academically during the summer, but low-income, non-white students fall further behind than their more-affluent, white peers. The solution? Summer education programs.
- Catherine Augustine is a senior policy researcher for the RAND Corporation, and she directs the RAND Pittsburgh Office. She explains how “summer school” has evolved in the past several decades, what a successful summer learning program looks like, and what districts can do to make these programs more accessible.
Endangered butterfly is a "canary in the coal mine" for water quality in Michigan
- One of the world’s rarest butterflies, the Mitchell’s satyr, can only be found in Michigan and Indiana. Now, the race is on to save the species from extinction. Daria Hyde is a conservation scientist with the Michigan Natural Features Inventory at Michigan State University. She explains what's causing the deterioration of the Mitchell's satyr's natural habitat and what kind of conservation efforts it would take to remove the butterfly from the endangered species list.
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