State Roundup

Saginaw New Year's Day baby shares father's birthday SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) -- A baby born on New Year's Day in Saginaw shares a little something extra with his father -- the same birthday. Isona M.C.R. McFee, 19, gave birth to Joseph A.M. Jones-McFee early Sunday at Saginaw Covenant HealthCare Harrison, The Saginaw News reported. The child's father, Joseph E.J. Jones, marked his 20th birthday on the day of his son's birth. "He said, 'I'm telling you, you're going to have him on New Year's,'" McFee said Jones told her. "And he told me the truth." Jones, who cradled his son Monday and fed him a bottle, said he had a gut feeling that the boy might end up sharing his birthday. McFee went to the hospital on New Year's Eve for the third time since Christmas, the baby's original due date, and delivered the child after about 14 hours. "I really wasn't even (thinking) about New Year's Eve," McFee said. "I'm like, 'Oh my God, I just want this to be over,'" and then when he finally came, "I realized it was New Year's and said, 'How long have I been in labor for?'" McFee said that after the ordeal of her son's birth her mother joked: "'After all the pain he put you through, you should call him Painly.'" Joseph was born at 3:22 a.m. Sunday; his father was born at 3:37 a.m. on Jan. 1, 1992. The boy is the first child for Jones and McFee, who have been in a relationship for four years. The baby weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces, and measured 19 ? inches long. McFee says he's been a pleasant newborn: quiet, full of smiles and playful. McFee said she can't wait to get her "ball of sunshine" home to her mother's house in Saginaw, where she lives. "He's perfect," she said. Grand Rapids Authorities: West Michigan pastor embezzled funds GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) -- Authorities in West Michigan say a pastor embezzled between $50,000 and $100,000 from his church. WOOD-TV reports the Kent County prosecutor's office last week authorized a warrant charging the Rev. Arthur Pearson Sr. of Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church in Grand Rapids. An email seeking comment from Pearson was sent Monday by The Associated Press and a message was left at the church. Speaking at the church on Sunday, Pearson's mother Zelda Ford denied the allegations. She says he didn't take any money. Also Sunday, Grand Rapids police said officers were called to the church after a morning service because some members refused to leave and wanted to discuss the situation involving the pastor. Police had been monitoring the church's probe of its funds. Saginaw Calif. company cancels $177M solar plant SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) -- A California-based solar power company is canceling plans to build a $177 million solar panel factory in Michigan, the chief executive said. When the project was announced in 2009, San Jose-based GlobalWatt Inc. said it would create 500 jobs. At that time, Saginaw was one of two communities in the running for the project. But GlobalWatt chief executive Sanjeev Chitre said the Saginaw project is now on hold, because of a struggling economy and overseas markets. "We could not manage that kind of liability without the sort of market expanding really rapidly, which we couldn't see happening," Chitre told WNEM-TV last week. He said the company might reconsider if the market expands. The plan called for assembling crystalline silicon solar panels at the plant. State and local officials approved millions of dollars in incentives, but the aid wasn't distributed, the Midland Daily News reported. U.S. manufacturers have complained that solar panel prices have plummeted since China began large-scale exports. Officials in the Saginaw area have been pursuing a number of solar power-related projects. In November, a 240-acre site in Saginaw County's Thomas Township was dedicated as the Great Lakes Solar Technology Park. Munising UP prison shows success reducing segregation MUNISING, Mich. (AP) -- It costs Michigan taxpayers double the normal $33,000 annual prisoner cost to hold an inmate in a segregation cell, and one Upper Peninsula correctional facility is experimenting with a system of incentives to reduce the misconduct that leads to the disciplinary measure. The Michigan Department of Corrections uses what it calls "administrative segregation" to isolate prisoners who are classified as having adjustment problems or posing safety, security or escape risks. So far, the Alger Correctional Facility is seeing a 10 percent cut in use of segregation cells with the "Incentives in Segregation" pilot project that started in July 2009. The prison's about 330 miles north-northwest of Detroit. The program has reduced major misconduct and so-called critical incidents in segregation by more than half, Detroit Free Press columnist Jeff Gerritt reported in a story Sunday. "When you start re-enforcing positive behavior, (prisoners) have something to lose," said Warden Catherine Bauman. "It's made a safer environment for staff and prisoners." Bauman said the program has helped her prison convert one of its segregation units into double-bunk housing two years ago. She said it also has encouraged her officers to interact more with inmates. "It empowers me to do my job," said Corrections Officer Tracy Berg, who now helps train staff members at other prisons. About 1,000 Michigan inmates are under administrative segregation, the highest and most restrictive level of custody. With space for 44,200 inmates, the Department of Corrections has 1,126 administrative segregation cells in the 32 prisons it operates. It also has 542 punitive detention and temporary holding cells. In segregation, inmates are isolated from programs, treatment and other people, and restricted to their cells for 23 hours a day. They are handcuffed when leaving their cells, eat off serving trays pushed through the slots of steel doors. "Getting some incentives breaks up your time and gives you a chance to work for something," said inmate Patrick Thomas, 44, of Detroit, who has spent five months in segregation for possessing a shank. "You can go stir crazy just sitting in a cell." Before returning to the general population at Alger, segregation inmates work through six stages over several months. Each stage requires tasks and grants privileges. At Stage 2, prisoners must explain why they are in segregation and what they need to do to get out. In the stage, they can use library services and get some recreation time. The Alger program expanded in 2009 to the Upper Peninsula's Baraga Correctional Facility, which converted one of its four segregation units in 2011. Ionia Correctional Facility and Marquette Branch prison have also adopted the program, and Bellamy Creek plans to do so as well. Officials in California, Colorado, Maine, New York, Maine and Ohio have requested information on Alger's incentive program. Published: Wed, Jan 4, 2012