With legislative enthusiasm for police divestment continuing to wane in Lansing, Mayor Andy Schor announced plans last week to invest more than $2 million into staffing the Police Department over the next four years and to hire five more entry-level officers in the Capital City. more

The minutiae of queer life rarely make it into the Lansing State Journal or other mainstream media. Small everyday details can best be found in sources generated by LGBTQ+ people themselves, and often signal subtle and meaningful changes in the making. more

The results of the survey — which was conducted through Mayor Andy Schor’s 40-plus member Racial Justice and Equity Alliance — was released one day after the Lansing City Council approved federal grant funding last week geared toward hiring five more police officers in the Capital City. more

Five of the six mayoral candidates facing off in the August primary election battled it out on stage last night at a live, 60-minute televised debate hosted by FOX 47 News and City Pulse. more

The candidates’ ability to repair longstanding racial inequities, reform public safety and help curb the city’s skyrocketing levels of gun violence are undoubtedly key issues in this year’s election cycle. We asked the candidates directly: How do you plan to use your position, if elected, to drive forward some meaningful social equity and/or public safety reforms in Lansing? more

In addition to selecting top candidates running for office in the city Lansing, voters in Ingham County will have a chance to decide on two ballot proposals at the primary election on Aug. 3. Voters in Eaton County will also consider a bonding proposal for Potterville Public Schools. more

WEDNESDAY, June 16 — Over the last month, five mayoral candidates facing off in the August primary election have outlined their platforms in a series of opinion columns published in City Pulse. … more

Two more murders. Two more Lansing teenagers dead, bringing the city’s 2021 death toll by homicide to 15. And it’s only June. At this rate, Lansing is on track to easily outstrip last year’s record of 22 homicides — the most murders in a single year in decades. With the hottest days of summer just ahead, we’re bracing for even more senseless violence while community leaders scramble for answers. more

The headline on the front of the Lansing State Journal on July 25, 1972, might be described as cheeky: “City’s Night Life Can Get Real ‘Gay.’” The accompanying tagline, “Perversion Downtown Varies,” carried a darker message, at once moralistic and salacious. more

This weekly column has allowed me an opportunity to sample some of the best recreational cannabis products available in Greater Lansing. And over the last year, I’ve browsed through just about every store in town. That’s why I can say — with some degree of certainty — that First Class Cannabis Co. holds the title for the cheapest selection in the Capital City. more

This week’s City Pulse cover artist, Julian Van Dyke, has deep roots in Lansing. Since his early days in Old Town studios in the 1980s, his art has sprung up like colorful blossoms all around town — at the downtown library, music festivals, on walls, in galleries and, most recently, in a series of lively coloring and activity books for young people. As a volunteer member of Lansing’s Juneteenth committee, Van Dyke designed the event’s logo in his trademark up-with-people, coloring-book style. more

For many African-Americans, the sudden mass embrace of the Juneteenth holiday in 2021 smacks of Columbus “discovering” America. more

An East Lansing real estate developer has filed suit against the local news site East Lansing Info and its publisher, Alice Dreger, alleging that a series of “false and defamatory” statements have humiliated him and his company and jeopardized his business relationships. more

An obscenity-laced, racist voicemail left on the House office voicemail for a Black state representative is being investigated by law enforcement. more

Police say the Councilwoman and mayoral candidate was driving northbound on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard when she failed to stop at a red light and struck and totaled both her car and a westbound car on Kalamazoo Street driven by a 75-year old woman. more

Lansing City Councilwoman and mayoral candidate Kathie Dunbar blacked out during a virtual candidate forum hosted last week by the Eastside Neighborhood Organization following a car crash that reportedly took place over Memorial Day weekend. more

Mike McKissic wants to end an epidemic in Greater Lansing.  more

The chaotic pandemic year of 2020, as well as the first quarter of 2021, saw a record surge in gun ownership among Americans. Whether people were motivated by political tension, fear of increased crime during difficult economic times or just looking to further fortify their home defense, many have recently become first-time gun owners.  more

Last month, this column featured local glassblower Ben Birney and some of the extravagant bongs being produced at his studio on the north side of Lansing. When I heard that his sister Sarah Birney and her husband, Bryan Madle, were running a CBD production laboratory in the same building, I just had to return to find out more about this local cannabis-focused family.  more

Headlines in the Lansing State Journal in the 1950s, then simply the State Journal, tell a skewed story about people we now understand as LGBTQ. In the decades before Stonewall, the proverbial “first draft of history” of journalists was decidedly slanted in the local mainstream press, as it was in newspapers across the country. more