Report knocks how Michigan responds to some reports of abuse
DETROIT (AP) — An independent team monitoring Michigan’s child welfare system is criticizing how the state has responded to some allegations of abuse.
A judge received the latest report Thursday. The state is under court oversight while it tries to improve foster care, child welfare and other programs for kids.
The state has reached many milestones since a lawsuit was filed in 2006, but the case still isn’t over and has cost taxpayers more than $10 million.
Monitors say the Department of Health and Human Services sometimes doesn’t formally investigate abuse of foster kids unless there’s an obvious physical injury. The examples included a boy who was kicked in the scrotum.
Human Services spokesman Bob Wheaton said the state is “diligent” about investigating abuse allegations that meet certain criteria.
Attorney Sara Bartosz of the group Children’s Rights says the findings are “deeply disturbing.”
No criminal charges in hotel pool CO poisoning
NILES, Mich. (AP) — A prosecutor has decided no criminal charges will be sought in the carbon monoxide poisoning death of a 13-year-old boy in the pool area of a southwestern Michigan hotel.
Berrien County Prosecutor Michael Sepic said Thursday that negligence may have played a role in the April 1 death of Bryan Watts at the Niles Quality Inn & Suites, but it did not meet the definition of gross negligence necessary for a criminal charge.
Sepic says the poisoning likely resulted from a pool heater ventilation pipe disconnecting from the heater, causing carbon monoxide to leak into a maintenance room and be vented into the pool area.
About 10 other people, mostly children, required hospital treatment after being sickened by the carbon monoxide.
Ginsburg earns $204,000 from book of collected writings
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she earned $204,000 last year in royalties from her new book, a collection of writings and speeches from the court’s oldest member.
The details are in annual financial disclosure reports for the justices that were made available on Thursday.
“My Own Words” was released in October and it’s Ginsburg’s first book since joining the court more than two decades ago. It was a collaborative effort between Ginsburg and two professors at Georgetown
University Law Center who are working on her upcoming biography.
Justice Stephen Breyer received about $45,000 in royalties from his latest book about the high court and the world. Breyer also says he sold land in Concord, Massachusetts, last summer valued at $500,000 to $1 million.
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