State Roundup

Detroit Hundreds at Focus: HOPE Walk remember co-founder DETROIT (AP) -- Detroit's annual Focus: HOPE Walk on Sunday celebrated the contributions and vision of co-founder Eleanor Josaitis, who died this summer after a bout with cancer. Hundreds joined the four-mile walk, which started with mild temperatures under sunny skies Sunday afternoon at Focus: HOPE headquarters on Oakman Boulevard in Detroit. Josaitis died in August at a hospice in the Detroit suburb of Livonia. She was 79. "It's been a difficult adjustment," Focus: HOPE spokeswoman Kathy Moran told The Detroit News before the walk. Josaitis and the late Rev. William Cunningham founded Focus: HOPE in 1968, after the riots that widened the rift between Detroit's black and white residents. The organization offers job training, as well as food programs for the poor and elderly. "I believe her legacy is that she has helped changed the trajectory of so many lives and so many communities here in Detroit and inspired so many other people to do good. It's really not something that can be easily calculated," the group's chief executive, William Jones Jr., said after her death. Focus: HOPE held its first walk in 1974 to promote civil and human rights, and equal opportunities. Grand Rapids Hundreds gather in Grand Rapids to talk protests GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) -- Several hundred people gathered over the weekend in Grand Rapids to discuss local plans related to the Occupy Wall Street protests that began in New York. The Grand Rapids Press reports Saturday's "Occupy Grand Rapids" meeting was held at downtown's Calder Plaza, drawing several hundred people. On Sunday, about 50 showed up at Ah-Nab-Awen Park with sleeping bags, food and protest signs. The nearly four-week-old protest began in a lower Manhattan park. Labor unions and students joined the protest in New York last week. Detroit Quicken Loans to welcome 2,000 workers downtown DETROIT (AP) -- About 2,000 Quicken Loans employees are scheduled to move into the recently purchased Chase Tower in downtown Detroit. The online retail mortgage lender says they'll join 1,700 Quicken employees already working at the company's headquarters inside the Compuware Building. Mayor Dave Bing and Quicken founder and chairman Dan Gilbert will welcome the new employees Monday morning. They'd been working in Quicken offices in the suburbs. Gilbert has said about 4,000 of the online retail mortgage lender's workers eventually will have their offices in downtown Detroit. Earlier this year, he completed acquisition of the 14-story Chase Tower. The move is part of Gilbert's plan to help revitalize downtown. He says he wants other companies to join Quicken and software developer Compuware Corp. downtown. Warren Homicide suspects to be extradited to Missouri KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A Missouri couple charged with a double homicide could be leaving a Michigan jail soon. The Jefferson City News Tribune reported that Ryan Coari and his wife, Jacie, waived their rights to challenge extradition Friday. The Coaris took off last month around the time the bodies of 56-year-old Michael Wieberg and his 33-year-old daughter, Amanda Wieberg, were found in a burned home outside the central-Missouri town of Auxvasse (OH'-vawz). The 28-year-old man and his 27-year-old wife were arrested Sept. 11 at a U-Haul store in Warren, Mich., after a suspicious employee called police. Court records say Jacie Coari confessed to dropping her husband off near Michael Wieberg's home so he could rob it. Ryan Coari is accused of shooting the victims. Online court records don't list an attorney for the couple. Published: Tue, Oct 11, 2011