State Round Up

Grand Rapids: Public museum hosting “Bodies Revealed” exhibit
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The Grand Rapids Public Museum this fall is scheduled to host a traveling exhibition featuring whole and partial body specimens that have been dissected and preserved.

The museum announced Wednesday that “Bodies Revealed” will run Nov. 20 through May 1.

It’s expected to include about 12 full body specimens and 200 additional organs and partial specimens. The displays offer a look inside human skeletal, muscular, respiratory and circulatory systems.

Organizers say the bodies, which are preserved through a process called polymer preservation, are respectfully presented. They say they hope the exhibit will educate and inspire youth to enter health care fields.

The museum says it conducted community focus groups before deciding to host the exhibition.

Mount Pleasant: Former CMU player loses suit over scholarship
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. (AP) — A judge has ruled in favor of Central Michigan and its women’s basketball coach in a lawsuit by a former player who claims she lost her scholarship because of discrimination.

Brooke Heike didn’t show enough evidence to keep the case alive. A federal judge in Bay City dismissed it without a trial.

Heike, a prep star at Romeo High School, lost her scholarship after the 2007-08 season. CMU says it was because of her attitude and an unwillingness to work hard.

Heike says she was told she wore too much makeup and wasn’t coach Sue Guevara’s “type.” To Heike, that meant she wasn’t a lesbian. The school denied any discrimination.

In his decision Monday, U.S. District Judge Thomas Ludington said Heike got a fair hearing from a campus appeals board.

Waterford: Work on $6M nursing facility starts in township
WATERFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Construction began on a $6 million, 120-bed nursing and rehabilitation center in Oakland County’s Waterford Township.

Ciena Healthcare Management Inc. says Regency at Waterford is scheduled to open this fall. The site is about 25 miles northwest of Detroit. Groundbreaking was planned Wednesday.

Ciena says the 25,000-square-foot facility will include 40 private and 40 semiprivate rooms.

Lansing: Gov. Granholm and spouse pay 43K in taxes for 2009

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Gov. Jennifer Granholm and her husband paid nearly $43,000 in federal, state and local taxes on gross income of about $195,000, the couple’s 2009 income tax returns show.

The returns and accompanying documents, viewed Tuesday by The Associated Press, show Granholm and her husband, Dan Mulhern, got most of their money from the nearly $157,000 the governor earned. The governor turned back about 6 percent of her salary, after taxes, to the state treasury.

Mulhern made nearly $10,000 from his work as a radio talk show host and around the same amount from his other business dealings. He paid nearly $1,500 in self-employment taxes, but got a deduction for half of that.

The couple listed $8,969 in charitable cash contributions and $520 in other donations.

They received $143 in taxable interest and $2,005 in dividends, but lost $3,000 in capital gains.

The couple paid $12,931 in child care expenses for their youngest child, Jack, but did not qualify for the federal child care credit.

In all, Granholm and her husband paid $34,002 in federal taxes, $6,903 in state taxes, $1,777 in resident taxes to the city of Lansing and $61 in nonresident taxes to the city of Detroit.

They owed $4,999 in federal taxes but were due a $6,927 refund from the state.

Elk Rapids: Woman charged in son’s death found hanged in jail cell
ELK RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Authorities are investigating the apparent suicide of a northern Michigan woman who was facing charges in the fatal shooting of her teenage son.

The Traverse City Record-Eagle and WWMT-TV say Antrim County Jail officials found 39-year-old Anne Avery-Miller hanging from a bed sheet inside her cell about 11 p.m. Monday. She died Tuesday at Munson Medical Center in Traverse City.

Avery-Miller was indicted last October, and was being held pending a Nov. 16 pretrial hearing on an open count of murder.

Avery-Miller contended that her son, 16-year-old Sam Avery, died Nov. 7, 2007 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in their home. A forensic pathologist ruled the death a homicide.