State Roundup ...

JACKSON
Ordinance places restriction on medical marijuana 
JACKSON, Mich. (AP) — A new ordinance in Jackson will require medical marijuana users and caregivers to use only 20 percent of their homes for drug use and cultivation.
The measure that passed Tuesday night by a 4-3 vote of the Jackson City Council is scheduled to go into effect Sept. 12, the Jackson Citizen Patriot reported.
Kimberly Jaquish was among the council members who voted against the ordinance.
“I don’t think people should be restricted in their homes in any way,” she said. “Your house is your castle. We shouldn’t be involved in your home.”
Dozens of medical marijuana advocates at the meeting walked out after the vote. Joe Cain organized a protest ahead of the meeting and spoke to City Council about the ordinance. He said he and others plan to sue to block the regulation.
“I respect the law,” said Cain, who owns Medical Marijuana Farmers Market. “You’ve been told 50 times by attorneys and by everyone that what you’re doing is illegal and conflicts with state law. You don’t respect the law.”
Michigan voters approved marijuana for some chronic medical conditions in 2008, but the state Supreme Court ruled in January that medical marijuana dispensaries aren’t allowed. Michigan has roughly 130,000 registered users of medical marijuana.
Two other possible restrictions were struck from the Jackson ordinance. Those would have required renters to provide a statement from their landlord allowing medical marijuana use and prohibit “combustible materials” in a home where medical marijuana is grown.

DETROIT
Input sought for Detroit Historical Museum exhibit
DETROIT (AP) — The Detroit Historical Society is asking the public to help create an upcoming museum exhibit about Detroit’s buildings.
The Detroit Historical Museum is creating an exhibit entitled “Detroit Decides: Our Most Celebrated Buildings” that is scheduled to be unveiled Feb. 1. The exhibit will feature three buildings that signify the spirit of Detroit as nominated by people in the Detroit area.
“Along with straight facts about each of the three buildings, the exhibit will primarily focus on stories and memories of Detroiters, demonstrating a real history of those buildings that represent the spirit of Detroit,” Tobi Voigt, chief curatorial officer of the Detroit Historical Society, said in a statement.
Nominations end Aug. 30. They may be made at the Detroit Historical Museum near the museum’s store or on the Detroit Historical Society’s website. The results will be announced in October to encourage more story submissions for the top three buildings.
The exhibit is planned for the Allesee Gallery of Culture, which opened in November as part of the Detroit Historical Museum’s $12 million renovation. Focusing on 1900 to the present, the gallery spotlights cultural icons and artifacts that hold significant meaning to Detroiters.

TYRONE TOWNSHIP
Memorial highway planned to honor Michigan officer
TYRONE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A portion of Old U.S. 23 will be designated a memorial highway in honor of a police officer who was fatally shot last year while responding to a 911 call in suburban Detroit.
WHMI-FM and the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus of Howell report a dedication is tentatively planned Sept. 13 in Livingston County’s Tyrone Township.
Signs honoring Patrick O’Rourke will be placed along the roadway. He lived in Tyrone Township and was an officer in Oakland County’s West Bloomfield Township.
The 39-year-old was in a group of officers responding to a call the night of Sept. 9, 2012, about a man believed to be suicidal. Authorities said the man fired from inside a bedroom, killing O’Rourke. The gunman was found dead after a 20-hour standoff.

DELTA TOWNSHIP
Pet pig’s future in question after board’s latest vote
DELTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — The future of a Michigan family’s pot-bellied pig is in question after a decision that pigs should be considered livestock, not pets.
The Schuiling family has been fighting to keep the pet pig named Oscar since it got notice from Eaton County’s Delta Township in March that keeping the animal was in violation of a zoning ordinance.
WILX-TV reports the Delta Township Zoning Board of Appeals voted Tuesday night to uphold its decision that pigs are livestock.
Nicole Schuiling says she’ll submit a request to the township near Lansing to pass an ordinance with new definitions of livestock and pets. The family lives in a subdivision, and the Lansing State Journal has reported that an anonymous complaint initially led officials to the pig.

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Tech pleads guilty in widespread hepatitis outbreak
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A traveling hospital technician accused of causing a multistate outbreak of hepatitis C last year pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal drug charges in New Hampshire under an agreement that calls for him to serve 30 to 40 years in prison.
The judge asked 34-year-old David Kwiatkowski why he wasn’t going to trial. “Because I’m guilty,” Kwiatkowski responded.
Kwiatkowski, who pleaded guilty to 14 charges of drug theft and tampering, will be sentenced at a later date, probably in November, U.S. Attorney John Kacavas has said.
With his plea, Kwiatkowski will avoid criminal charges pertaining to patients outside New Hampshire. At least two dozen civil lawsuits related to his case are pending, most of them against Exeter Hospital, where he worked for 13 months.
Originally from Michigan, Kwiatkowski worked in 18 hospitals in seven states before being hired in New Hampshire in 2011. As a traveling hospital technician, he was assigned by staffing agencies to fill temporary openings around the country. Along the way, he contracted hepatitis C, and is accused of infecting others by stealing painkiller syringes and replacing them with saline-filled syringes tainted with his blood.
According to the plea agreement filed Monday, Kwiatkowski told investigators he had been stealing drugs since 2002 — the year before he finished his medical training — and that his actions were “killing a lot of people.” His lawyers have declined numerous interview requests.
Forty-six people in four states in hospitals where Kwiatkowski worked have been diagnosed with the same strain of hepatitis C he carries.?