The proposed bill looks to set the new minimum wage to $10 an hour, a change that would be gradually enacted over the next three years.

The bill comes from Democratic representatives, specifically Reps. John Switalksi of Warren and Rashida Tlaib of Detroit. According to them, raising the minimum wage would would give Michigan workers “a chance at a better life.”

According to the AP, past measures to raise the minimum wage in the state have seen opposition from Republicans, who currently control the legislature.

The state of Michigan’s minimum wage is currently $7.40 an hour for all employers of 2 or more employees. Michigan workers are given overtime for hours exceeding 40 in a single week.

The federal minimum wage sits at $7.25 an hour. 22 states have minimum wage laws the same as the federal wage, and 19 states have minimum wages higher than $7.25. 4 states currently have minimum wages that are less than the federal rate and 5 states currently have no minimum wage laws on the books.

Recently, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said that the minimum wage would currently sit at $22 minimum if it had kept up with worker productivity. President Obama has proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour.

According to a report from CBS news station WNEM, a woman named Evie Branon, who fell into a coma following a stroke, recently awoke and issued an odd request. After the 79-year-old turned the page on the coma chapter of her life, she woke one morning and issued a request: “I want to go to a Bob Seger concert.” The staff at the nursing home where she was staying took the request to heart, and arranged for Branon to take a limousine to Thursday’s Bob Seger concert in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

Branon told WNEM that she has seen Bob Seger in concert before, but that she was hoping the rock star will grant another of her requests on this occasion.

“I’m learning how to stand up so I can hug him, and I wanna hug him and give him a great big smooch,” said Branon

WNEM TV 5

(Image courtesy Adam Freese – Mitchell, SD/Wikimedia Commons)

Brooke Harris said she gave her 8th-grade journalism students a writing assignment on the Martin case and that the students expressed interest in raising money for his family; the school has fundraisers often which involve a “dress down” day for participants. Harris approached school superintendent Jacqueline Cassell about the idea but was told her class could not go forward with it. When Harris asked if her students could come before school officials to plead their case, she was suspended for “encouraging” the students to plan the fundraiser, and when Harris showed up at the school during her suspension–to drop off some items, she says–she was fired.

“I didn’t tell the kids, ‘Let’s go and do it anyway.’” Harris said. “I was actually, literally, in the process of talking to my kids about what we could do instead when (Cassell) requested the meeting with me and told me that I needed to let it go.”

“I was told … that I’m being paid to teach, not to be an activist. When I tried to defend myself, it was construed as insubordination,” Harris said.

More than 50,000 people have signed an online petition demanding that the Pontiac Academy for Excellence rehire Harris, but she isn’t sure that will happen.

“I want my job back, but I’m not entirely sure if that’s even possible,” Harris said. School officials deny that the fundraiser is the reason for her dismissal but won’t comment on it further.

A rep from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Dawud Walid, says the school’s decisions will only hurt the students.

“It taught the students who tried to organize and tried to raise their voice in terms of social justice that they will be repressed,” Walid said. “Instead of empowering our children … the Pontiac Academy is actually teaching children to internalize oppression and internalize racism.”

Hester was an employee of Lewis-Cass Intermediate School, and working as a teacher’s aide at Frank Squires Elementary School, in April 2011, when she posted a photo of a co-worker’s pants around her ankles to that co-worker’s Facebook wall. The shot was not revealing, she said — intended as a joke, it showed only her co-worker’s pants sitting atop her shoes. But a parent who was Facebook friends with Hester noticed the photo and reported it to the school.

Hester was later called into the office of Lewis-Cass Intermediate superintendant Robert Colby, who asked her for access to her Facebook account. “He asked me three times if he could view my Facebook and I repeatedly said I was not OK with that,” Hester told local news station WSBT.

The teacher’s aide was subsequently put on administrative leave and then suspended. A letter from the Lewis Cass ISD Special Education Director, which Hester includes in her court documents, reads: “…in the absence of you voluntarily granting Lewis Cass ISD administration access to you[r] Facebook page, we will assume the worst and act accordingly.” [vis WSBT]. Hester is now on unpaid leave and fighting the suspension.

“I stand by it,” Hester said in a statement. “I did nothing wrong. And I would not, still to this day, let them in my Facebook. And I don’t think it’s OK for an employer to ask you.” The case will go to arbitration in May.

While there is technically no law forbidding employers from asking for employees’ Facebook login information, the general public consensus seems to be that this constitutes an unreasonable violation of personal privacy, and the issue has been gaining ground in the media recently. One young job applicant recently walked out of a job interview when his prospective employer asked for his social networking login information, and Facebook itself has spoken out against the practice, calling it “alarming and distressing.” Senator Richard Blumenthal even requested a Department of Justice investigation into the legality of the practice, as he drafted legislation to prohibit the practice. (That legislation was later blocked by Senate Republicans.) Meanwhile, the debate on the practice’s legality has moved to the state level, with states like California proposing legislation barring employers from asking for confidential login information. Michigan is another state consider such legislation under House Bill 5523, and ZDNet reports that Michigan State Representatives Matt Lori and Aric Nesbitt will include Hester’s story in bill.

Do you support national or state legislation against employers demanding login credentials from their employees and applicants? Let us know in the comments.

[via WSBT, H/T: ZDNet, Image Source: TechnoTab]

According to ABC 57, Miller felt that she had to send a text, not knowing that while she was texting, was heading closer to the edge of the pier. Even though there are railings that prevent users from walking directly into the shower, Miller tripped over an object while texting and immediately fell into the water. Miller’s reason to this situation has been provided below.

“I had set an appointment for the wrong time and so I sent about three words. Next thing you know it was the water.”

Her family (Greg-Husband and Quinn-Son) came to her rescue and jumped into the Lake Michigan channel to help save her. Michigan officials were then called to the scene after receiving a 911 call stating that there were three people in the channel. Quinn first came to her aid while hearing his mother’s voice yell “Oh, God!” as she fell into the water. Rebecca Van Zant (a bystander at the time) came to her rescue also jumped in the water to help rescue her.

To see the story in full, please view the video below from South Bend, Indiana’s ABC 57 TV station.

I have provided some tweets below showing mixed reactions to this story:

When the mastermind executed his cunning plan he inadvertantly left behind some key evidence. During his daring escape the suspect left behind his cell phone. The victim gathered up the evidence, alerted authorities, and waited for action.

When the police arrived at the suspects home, he knew what they were there for and put up a struggle. Eventually freeing himself, he once again fled the scene. Found a few blocks later, he was taken into custody and booked on charges of assault and larceny. The iPad is said to be worth about $500.

So if you are going to commit a crime, it is best if you don’t leave all your contact information behind with the victim. This is a rookie mistake. I’ll look forward to seeing the outcome of this case.

Unhappiness manifested itself quickly as one group decided they would rather take their chances with Microsoft acquiring Yahoo, and filed a lawsuit to force Yahoo to consider takeover overtures.

A Bloomberg report said the Wayne County Employees’ Retirement System of Michigan, owner of about 13,600 Yahoo shares, sued Yahoo in Delaware’s Court of Chancery. Theirs could be the first of several others, depending on how Yahoo handles the ongoing negotiations.

Yahoo wants no part of a Microsoft buy, and announced they consider Microsoft’s initial $44.6 billion bid as undervaluing the company. If they choose to use it, Yahoo has a ‘poison pill’ defense they could invoke to keep out of Microsoft’s hands.

But the report said use of the poison pill appears unlikely, as it would further anger shareholders who have seen Yahoo lose more than half its market value over the past two years. Hedge fund president Nancy Havens of Havens Advisors told Bloomberg that Yahoo is “between a rock and a hard place” now, with only a goal of getting a sweetened price out of Microsoft.

Microsoft responded to Yahoo’s rejection of its offer with the intent of pressing its acquisition. Top Microsoft executives like CEO Steve Ballmer will work on convincing big institutional investors that the deal makes sense for both Microsoft and Yahoo.

The job title was listed as "freelance" and offered $5,000. Investigators say Ann Marie Linscott posted two ads on the site in November and had three responses from people who thought it was an ad for a freelance writer.

In emails Linscott, 48, informed the would be writers that she was looking for "silent assassins" to "eradicate" a 56-year-old Oroville Calif., woman named "Carol", according to the FBI. Linscott had been having an affair with the woman’s husband who she met online a number of years ago while taking an online college course.

Linscott used the moniker "bourne2run" as part of her email address. A California grand jury brought murder-for hire-charges against Linscott, who is now looking at up to 30 years in prison and a $750,000 fine for her ad. She was arrested in Grand Rapids, Mich on January 24.
 

This represents a definite shift in geography for Google; the last time we heard about schools and the company’s software, all of the colleges were clustered in Michigan.  Now, the University of North Carolina Greensboro, Clemson University, the University of Texas San Antonio, Kennesaw State University, and Arkansas State University have been named in a press release.

“Google has always had a close relationship with higher education,” explained Jeff Huber, vice president of engineering at Google.  “Google Apps Education Edition is a groundbreaking option for universities, and we want to work closely with them to implement smart use of technology for education.”

Every bit of software that Google provides should be free.  In return, the company will just get some exposure to college students (and I can assure you that most of those students are already using Google.com and Gmail, anyway).

So there you go – more good deeds, courtesy of Google.  Now if the company could just get those weather machines to work . . .

From the sound of it, the alliance is aimed at avoiding scenes like this one from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

_{"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."}

_{"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."}

_{"But the plans were on display…"}

_{"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."}

_{"That’s the display department."}

_{"With a flashlight."}

_{"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."}

_{"So had the stairs."}

_{"But look, you found the notice didn’t you?"}

_{"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’."}

Google will help Michigan implement its Sitemap Protocol, which allows search engines that support it to access and index state webpages, specifically records kept in large online databases so there are visible in search results.

 "For example," says Google’s State Policy Counsel John Burchett, "Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP) test scores for hundreds of schools spanning multiple years currently reside in over 25,000 documents.

"The new partnership will allow a user to find the results for the school name and test year, eliminating multiple searches requests and clicks. It will also help make accessible information about child day care centers and homes, workers compensation appellate decisions, fish stocking, Michigan school report cards, lane closures on Michigan roads, and more."

Who on Earth, may I ask, would want to buy fish stockings?