Outdoor stadiums and sports arenas can now allow up to 20% of their usual capacities under newly loosened restrictions from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. And that means about 1,500 people will likely be able to return to Jackson Field, the home of the Lansing Lugnuts — which kicks off its 2021 baseball season with a home game May 4. more

Last summer, nearly 1,000 Okemos High School students and alumni signed a petition calling for the school to finish what it started. In addition to demanding a new mascot, the petition also called for a third-party evaluation of the Okemos Public Schools’ 2016-2019 equity plan. more

Where you stand on an issue often depends on where you sit. And so it is with the occasional urge to change Lansing’s mayor-council form of city government to a council-manager form of government. It’s a question that pops up every few years but has never gained much traction as an alternative to the capital city’s longstanding approach to municipal governance. (See page 11 in today’s edition for our related story.) more

Lansing Mayor Andy Schor rolled out his latest budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year tonight. more

About 9 p.m. on a Saturday in early March, a caseworker from Bethany Christian Services in Lansing dropped two hungry kids from Honduras off at the home of their temporary foster parents, Elsa and Sebastian. more

One night this spring, on an undisclosed date, in an undisclosed patch of earth near MSU’s Beal Botanical Gardens, a group of excited plant biologists will follow a map to a treasure that is unique in the world. more

Some residents are voicing frustrations after a local company erected a fence around its property line earlier this year. more

The Michigan chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture is ignoring state and local restrictions on face masks as COVID-19 case rates continue to climb. more

It’s St. Patrick’s Day in East Lansing, and while the college town isn’t exactly a madhouse, it’s certainly not a socially distanced ghost town either. more

A cluster of a more infectious variant of COVID-19 connected Grand Ledge High School appears to have reached its conclusion. more

Okemos Public Schools could be in search of a new mascot after district officials decide whether to drop its longstanding “Chieftain” name, the last remnant of a sports brand that once included images of a Native American heads, among other cultural references. A decision is anticipated in May. more

Last week, a man walked into the Hair United salon at 513 W. Ionia St., a quiet block where downtown Lansing eases into the shady Genesee neighborhood to the north. Owner Liz Winowiecki spritzed some water on the man’s hair, a prelude to applying the scissors. “Chauncey used to call that ‘sky juice,’” the customer told Winowiecki. more

A full back-page advertisement in City Pulse can cost more than $1,400. It’s no cheap feat to label former Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero as “America’s Horniest Mayor” — especially in text this large. So, who’s bankrolling the first mudslinging attack ad of the mayoral campaign? more

All Michigan residents ages 16 and up will be eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine beginning April 5, state officials announced this week. And beginning Monday, all those over the age of 50 will be made eligible to receive their shots. New state guidelines also make those 16 and up with disabilities or medical conditions eligible for a vaccine beginning next week. more

For Beverly Nettles, the 10-year ordeal of getting her law license reinstated is nearly over. more

Former Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero maintains that he has fundamentally changed since he decided to leave office at the end of his third term in 2017. He’s running for mayor this year not as a perfect man, but as a “better man” — now with grandchildren and a much cooler temper. more

Meshawn Maddock was beaming. She said she was in God’s Country in the Upper Peninsula. It’s her opinion, of course, but she’s certainly acting as if she’s in heaven. more

A fundraising group is inching closer toward its goal of raising $30,000 amid efforts to reopen the city-owned Moores Park Pool. more

The following interviews were conducted by students in Professor Amy Haimerl’s feature writing class at Michigan State University. more

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced the first two cases of COVID-19 in Michigan on March 10, 2020. And over the last year, state officials have tracked nearly 600,000 more cases and attributed more than 15,000 deaths to the virus. more