Detroit
Group plans to bury Wayne Co.’s unclaimed bodies
DETROIT (AP) — The Jewish Fund and some area funeral homes have joined up to provide burials for 200 bodies that have gone unclaimed at the Wayne County medical examiner’s office.
WJBK-TV reports the group will ensure the bodies are buried in individual graves at local cemeteries. The funeral homes are donating time, services and land at no cost.
The coalition also plans to host an interfaith memorial service that will be open to the public.
According to WDIV-TV, caskets are being purchased with the help of a $60,000 donation from the Jewish Fund.
A room at the morgue is filled with the bodies. No one has claimed them, and the county can’t afford to bury them.
The bodies are expected to be buried over the next month or two.
Albion
Librarian faces embezzlement charges in June
ALBION, Mich. (AP) — The director of the Albion District Library is due back in court next month after being charged with embezzlement.
The Battle Creek Enquirer reports 43-year-old Karen Kuhn-Clarke, of Albion, was arraigned Friday in Calhoun County District Court on felony charges of embezzlement from a nonprofit and use of a computer to commit a crime.
The Associated Press sent a message Wednesday seeking comment from her lawyer Mark Robison.
Prosecutors say Kuhn-Clarke used a library credit card to pay her own expenses beginning in 2011, totaling between $4,000 and $14,000. Search warrants were executed this month at her home and the library. Police seized records and computers.
Kuhn-Clarke is free on $5,000 personal recognizance bond A preliminary examination to determine if the case goes to trial is June 5.
East Lansing
MSU sees more out-of-state kids applying at school
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan State University has received a record number of applications, including an increase from beyond the state’s boundaries.
The East Lansing school’s 33,172 undergraduate applications are up about 5 percent from the previous year. Out-of-state applications increased 12 percent, the Lansing State Journal reported Sunday.
Officials say they have boosted the number of recruiters focused on out-of-state students. They studied demographics and recognized the number of new high school graduates in Michigan would be down into the 2020s.
Michigan State launched pilot recruitment projects in 2009 in selected Ohio school districts.
The university’s number of international undergraduates has quadrupled in the past decade. As recently as 2003, 19 out of every 20 undergraduates at the school came from Michigan.
“For many years, we were very Michigan-centric,” said Jim Cotter, the university’s director of admissions. “We knew that the Michigan State brand was very, very well recognized across the state of Michigan. However, I’m not as certain that it was as recognized in California, New York and New Jersey.”
Cotter said he expects to have an incoming freshman class of about 7,800, which would include about 70 percent in-state students.
A recruiter from Michigan State’s College Assistance Migrant Program Scholars Initiative got Pamela Alvarez to consider the university, and she’s been accepted. The 17-year-old from Brownsville, Texas, also will benefit from a lower tuition as part of the program, as well as grants and scholarships.
She will be the first person in her family of migrant workers to attend college.
“College has always been a thing of luxury that we simply cannot afford,” she said. “I knew I wanted something better for myself, and I knew I had to leave Brownsville ... to find it.”
Battle Creek
Michigan zoo to sell animal ‘doo’ at upcoming event
BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (AP) — A zoo in southern Michigan is selling a composted mixture of manure produced by exotic animals.
Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek is hosting a “Zoo Doo” event Thursday and June 5.
Horticulturist Frank Cummins told the Battle Creek Enquirer that the zoo has compost available from herbivores that will sell at $25 a load to zoo members and $30 for nonmembers. Cummins says that the price is a deal, since cow manure can sell for around $2 or $3 a bag.
The Kalamazoo Gazette says zebra, antelope, giraffe and other animals are contributing to the gardening aid.
Binder Park Zoo says it’s a “fun and creative way” to raise money and dispose of waste. It also uses the compost as fertilizer at its facilities.
Crystal Falls
Conviction OK’d in handyman killing of 81-year-old
CRYSTAL FALLS, Mich. (AP) — The Michigan appeals court has affirmed the conviction of an Upper Peninsula man who was convicted of killing an 81-year-old woman before she could testify against him in a theft case.
David Levack had helped care for Joyce Johnson’s husband before he died in 2009 and subsequently worked at the Johnson home as a handyman.
Joyce Johnson was found dead in her tub in 2012 after she failed to appear in Iron County court. She had accused Levack of stealing jewelry.
Levack raised many points on appeal, but the court rejected them last week. He said the trial should have been held in a different county because of pre-trial publicity. But most members of the jury pool said they didn’t know Levack.
The 47-year-old is serving a life sentence.
