School gets bottled water amid tests for hazardous chemicals
ROCKFORD (AP) — Officials are shutting off drinking fountains and providing bottled water at a middle school in western Michigan as they test water for possible hazardous chemicals from a decades-old tannery waste dump site nearby.
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality announced precautionary measures Thursday at East Rockford Middle School.
The agency says there's no evidence of contamination in the Rockford school's drinking water but says precautions will be taken until test results come back within about two weeks.
Wolverine World Wide used chemicals at its former tannery in Rockford to waterproof leather for Hush Puppies shoe manufacturing.
Dump sites have turned up in the area, with contamination including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.
State toxicologists say exposure to PFAS have been linked to cancer as well as other health issues.
County will ask Supreme Court to review prayer ruling
WASHINGTON (AP) — A North Carolina county will ask the Supreme Court to review a ruling barring it from opening its meetings with Christian prayers.
The First Liberty Institute, representing the Rowan County Board of Commissioners, filed papers Thursday with the high court asking it to consider the case.
In July, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond ruled 10-5 against the county.
The judges said that while prayer itself is not unconstitutional, the commissioners' practice of leading the prayers themselves and inviting the audience to join, always in the Christian faith, violated the First Amendment by establishing Christianity as a preferred religion.
The Richmond court's ruling is at odds with the 6th Circuit in Detroit, which found in September that such prayers are constitutional in a case out of Michigan.
Prisons selling inmates cold case playing cards
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma authorities are hoping to solve killings and other cold cases by selling playing cards that feature the cases to prisoners.
The first in a planned series of decks is already on sale for $1.42 at six of the state's lockups, and a second deck is already being planned.
The cards are reminiscent of those distributed to U.S. troops during the Iraq War that featured members of Saddam Hussein's government, except these feature unsolved cases from 1978 through 2013.
"We recognize that virtually every single case that is unresolved, there is information that rests within at least one individual, if not more than one individual," he said. "It's our belief that ... much of this information I speak of rests within individuals who are incarcerated," said Stan Florence, the director of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
Florence said other states, including Florida, Colorado, Connecticut and South Carolina, have similar programs that have led to the solving of about 40 unsolved homicides.
Joe Allbaugh, the state Department of Corrections director, said each deck costs $1.09 to produce, and the profits will be used to new decks featuring other unsolved cases.
Eventually, they'll be the only cards inmates can buy.
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