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Michigan Supreme Court ordered abortion rights and voting access initiatives on ballot after Republicans tried to block them.

MARC KLOCKOW

Abortion is officially on the ballot

Michigan GOP canvassers finally certify abortion rights, voting access petitions for November ballot initiatives

By Steve N eavling

THE MICHIGAN BOARD of Canvassers unanimously voted Friday to certify the ballot initiatives to amend the state constitution to a rm abortion rights and extend voting access.

The 4-0 vote comes one day after the Michigan upreme ourt ordered the canvassers to certify the petitions, saying epublicans on the board had no authority to re ect certification. epublican canvassers said they had no choice but to certify following the high court’s decision. e had this process for a reason, epublican anvasser Tony aunt said. It’s adversarial. hen there is disagreement, we have a deadlock. epublican anvasser ichard ouskamp denied that politics influenced his original vote against certification. It truly wasn’t partisan, ouskamp insisted. ouskamp and aunt originally re ected the eproductive reedom for ll initiative because of typographical errors, saying the amendment lacked su cient spacing between some of the words.

The Michigan upreme ourt disagreed.

The eproductive reedom for ll and romote the ote initiatives will appear on the ovember ballot.

The coalition behind the eproductive for All ballot initiative submitted a record , signatures, surpassing the roughly , re uired.

The coalition’s attorney teve Liedel told canvassers that they have “a clear legal duty to certify the petitions and that voters made their intentions clear when they signed the petitions. They read it, they understood it, they signed their name to it, they made no mistakes or errors, Liedel said. They don’t need government o cials telling them otherwise.

Michigan is one of states with a law banning abortion.

The state’s abortion ban was invalidated when the . . upreme ourt ruled in favor of abortion rights in R oe v. W ade in . ut since the case was overturned earlier this summer, the ban could go back into effect.

The Michigan ourt of laims ruled earlier that the state’s ban is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced. The Michigan upreme ourt will ultimately decide on the issue. egardless of the higher court’s future ruling, the eproductive reedom for ll initiative would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and eliminate the ban.

Two-thirds of likely voters in Michigan said they support a ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, according to an I -M poll that was released in uly. nother of voters said they are pro-choice, compared to ust who identify as pro-life.

The Promote the Vote initiative also will appear on the ballot.

The initiative calls for nine days of early voting, secure drop boxes, ballot tracking, public funding for postage on absentee ballots, and additional time for military and overseas voters to return their absentee ballots. The initiative would also allow voters to re uest an absentee ballot for all future elections. s painful as it was, the process worked, and for that we are very thankful, romote the ote attorney hristopher Trebilcock told the canvassers. I am faithful that you both respect the rule of law.

The coalition behind the eproductive Freedom for All initiative submitted a record , signatures. e are energi ed and motivated now more than ever to restore the protections that were lost under R oe, arci Mc onnell, spokeswoman for the eproductive reedom for ll campaign, said in a statement. This a rms that more than , voters read, signed, and understood the petitions and that the frivolous claims from the opposition are simply designed to distract from our effort to keep the abortion rights we had under oe for nearly years. pponents of the initiative, iti ens to upport MI omen and hildren, assailed the decision.

“It falls to voters now to reject this mistake-ridden, extreme proposal on lection ay, hristen ollo, spokeswoman of the group, said. It authori es abortions up until the moment of birth, while sweeping away every law designed to impose common sense limits on abortions, such as parental consent, and health and safety regulations on abortion clinics. This would become part of our constitution permanently, and no matter how much it endangered the health and safety of our children, we’d be stuck with it. epublican canvassers said the voting rights petition failed to identify every constitutional provision the amendment would override, an argument that emocrats re ected as pretty silly.

Promote the Vote submitted nearly , signatures to get the initiative on the ovember ballot, surpassing the roughly , re uired. The Michigan ureau of lections recommended certification for both initiatives. Today’s rulings from the Michigan upreme ourt underscore that the role of the oard of tate anvassers under law is to a rm the will of the voters, Michigan ecretary of tate ocelyn enson tweeted. That means certifying ballot proposals if when a su cient number of eligible citi ens’ signatures support the petition ust as the law compels them to certify election results based on the votes cast by the people of Michigan. I am grateful to the court for a rming this and hope the board now resumes its longstanding practice of working within its authority under Michigan law.

SHUTTERSTOCK

Detroit’s Lafayette Coney Island closed after rat poop found in restaurant

LAFAYETTE CONEY ISLAND has temporarily lost the etroit coney dog war with neighboring merican oney Island. ot because they have the better dog, but because the etroit ealth epartment reportedly found rat poop in the restaurant.

Lafayette voluntarily closed after a failed health inspection on tuesday last week, then reopened briefly before being issued an o cial cease and desist notice on ednesday.

A notice on the restaurant says “this food service establishment is not to be engaged in business or used as a food service facility until approved by the etroit ealth epartment.

The department was alerted to potential rats inside the coney island following several social media posts. ust yesterday we received an abundance of notifications on social media from our etroit residents indicating that there were several rodents running through the building at Lafayette, hief ublic ealth cer for the ity of etroit enise air a o told The D etroit N ew s. e immediately issued a team of inspectors to go on site. hile we didn’t see any rodents running through the restaurant we did see substantial evidence that there were rodents there ... multiple sighting of droppings. ur calls to Lafayette oney Island went unanswered.

—Randiah Camille Green

Omicron-targeted bivalent COVID-19 boosters are now available

UPDATED COVID-19 BOOSTER vaccines that target the previously vaccine-resistant micron mutation of the virus are now available, the Michigan epartment of ealth and uman ervices said ednesday.

The shots are known as bivalent boosters because they have been retooled to offer protection against the original strain of the virus in addition to the genetically similar micron variants . and . . ou can find the nearest clinic that offers them now at vaccines.gov. This is great news as we go into the fall and winter when we expect cases of I - to increase, said r. atasha agdasarian, Michigan epartment of ealth and uman ervices M chief medical executive. The bivalent booster will help fight the micron subvariants, including . and . I - vaccines remain our best defense against the virus, and we recommend all Michiganders stay up to date.

The bivalent boosters come from pharmaceutical companies fi er io Tech and Moderna. The fi er io Tech boosters are available to people age and older, while the Moderna boosters are available to people age and older. The one-dose booster vaccines are available if it has been at least two months since previous vaccination.

It doesn’t matter which version you get, o cials say. If you previously got fi er doses you can switch to Moderna, or vice versa.

The federal ood and rug dministration approved the use of the boosters last month. The iden administration compared the updated shots to those of the flu vaccine. s the virus continues to change, we will now be able to update our vaccines annually to target the dominant variant, resident oe iden said in a statement. ust like your annual flu shot, you should get it sometime between Labor ay and alloween. ccording to the enters for isease ontrol and revention, in une unvaccinated people had twice the risk of testing positive for I - and eight times the risk of dying.

To date, nearly . million Michiganders ages and up have gotten at least their first dose of the I - vaccines.

—Lee DeVito

The Joker’s real name is ‘Jack White,’ DC Comics reveals

WITH HIS FAMOUSLY pale skin, a penchant for colored suits, and a new blue hairdo, rock star ack hite has never looked more like the Batman bad guy the oker. o it’s perhaps no surprise what omics chose to be the real name for the iconic supervillain. ccording to issue o. of the comic book series Flashpoint Beyond , which dropped last week, the oker’s original name is ack swald hite.

The oker’s real name has been known as ack, and was revealed in other Batman-related media, including the films, where he was gangster ack apier in ’s Batman. ut this is the first time the oker’s full real name has been revealed in the core comic book canon. hite took to Instagram on ednesday last week to say he was honored by the news. I’d love to thank comics for giving The oker the name of ack hite’ after me, he wrote in an Instagram post. Though his hair is usually not as blue as mine, i still take it as a flattering gesture on their part and consider it an honor. It was a lonely ourney through my life being the only person with that name until now.

In a separate post, hite said that coincidently, he commissioned omics artist Mikel anin to create an illustration of him in the style of the oker for the album artwork for his record Fear of the D aw n, which was released earlier this year. I sent the drawings he had done of the oker that i loved, but i didn’t want him to make me look like the oker, only using some of the intensity of the face and bone structure style that he used, ust less maniacal haha hite wrote. e added, i arre patterns and coincidences emerge in the universe that we only see glimpses of at times, some meaningful, some meaningless. large thank you to Mr. anin for contributing this wonderful work to the record. hite is a comic book fan. mong the treasures ac uired thanks to his even ation rmy royalties is A ction C omics o. , the first appearance of uperman. e told The N ew Yorker that he considers it to be an important moment in literary history and keeps it in a temperaturecontrolled vault in ashville, where the etroit-born musician now lives.

—Lee DeVito