State Roundup

Detroit: Mobile Library of Congress exhibit visits Michigan
DETROIT (AP) — A Library of Congress exhibit mounted in a customized semi-trailer is making stops in southeast Michigan this week.

The “Gateway to Knowledge” exhibit is scheduled to be at L’Anse Creuse Middle School North in Macomb County on Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s to be open Friday and Saturday at the Grosse Pointe Historical Society’s Provencal-Weir House in Grosse Pointe Farms.

Hours and other details are posted on the Library of Congress website.

The exhibit includes copies of several pieces in the library including a 1455 Gutenberg Bible, a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, Walt Whitman’s poem “Leaves of Grass,” and 1962 drawings for the comic book that introduced Spider-Man.

The touring exhibit has stopped this year in states across the Midwest and South.

Toledo: Missing boys’ dad ends fight over return to Mich.
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — The father of three boys missing since Thanksgiving waived his right to an extradition hearing on Tuesday and was promptly processed and driven away to face charges across the state border in Michigan.

John Skelton, 39, had been fighting extradition on three charges of parental kidnapping in the disappearance of his sons Andrew, 9, Alexander, 7, and Tanner, 5. But during a Tuesday morning hearing in Toledo he agreed to his return to his home state.

Within an hour of the hearing’s end, Skelton was driven off by Morenci, Mich., Police Chief Larry Weeks and another officer.

Skelton’s attorney, Merle Dech, would not say why Skelton decided to stop fighting extradition.

Skelton’s estranged wife, Tanya Skelton, reported the boys missing after he didn’t return them to her from a court-ordered visitation. They were last seen on Thanksgiving playing in their father’s backyard in Morenci.

Police say John Skelton tried to hang himself the day after Thanksgiving, and made up a story about giving the boys to a female friend so she could take them to their mother.

After hundreds of people scoured wilderness areas along the Michigan-Ohio border for days, Weeks said he didn’t expect a positive outcome in the case. Those searches produced no sign of the children.

Skelton wore a brown jail jumpsuit in court on Tuesday, not the protective gown designed to stop inmates from harming themselves that he wore during the previous hearing. Looking more alert than the last time and with a thicker beard, he sat in a wheelchair and was wheeled out at the conclusion of the hearing to be returned to the jail for processing.

Skelton’s $3 million bond was extended as a condition of his extradition.

Lansing: Abandoned Michigan sites get redevelopment boost
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Redevelopment projects in Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Hamtramck and Lansing are getting a boost with state tax incentives.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday the projects are in line for brownfield redevelopment assistance from the state. Granholm, who leaves office at the end of this year, made the announcement at her last scheduled meeting with the Michigan Economic Growth Authority board.

The brownfield redevelopment projects are aimed at providing new life and investment for abandoned or contaminated sites.

The projects include housing and medical office developments in Detroit, business school developments in Grand Rapids and mixed use developments in Lansing.?