Sarah Hulett

A new poll finds that even kids from some middle-income families are cutting back on sports, because of "pay to play" fees in middle and high schools. According to the poll, conducted by Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan, a majority of schools now charge students a fee to play sports.

One in five families earning $60,000 a year or less said their kids participated less in sports because of "pay-to-play" fees. The drop in participation was even greater for families earning between $30,000 and $60,000.

Researcher Sarah Clark, Associate Director of the National Poll on Children’s Health, says schools might want to consider installment payments to ease the burden.

"I personally have heard some parents talking about how difficult it is to come up with all that money all at once, where, if they could stagger it out, it might be a little easier to do," said Clark.

Clark says only six percent of families reported getting the fees waived.

She says sports participation helps kids improve their grades and their health, and it can help keep them from dropping out of school.

The Oakland County Commission is expected to vote this week on a plan to put a tax question on the August ballot. The millage would raise money for the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The measure before the commission would create a five-member authority that would write the ballot question. The DIA is seeking a point-two mill tax increase in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.

The millage would cost the owner of a $200,000 home $20 a year.

If all three counties approve it, the tax would raise $23 million for the museum. The money would pay for operations. The DIA is promising free admission to residents is counties that approve the millage.

Commissioners in Wayne and Macomb counties have already voted to create the authority.

*Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that commissioners in Wayne and Oakland counties had voted to put the millage question on the ballot. Wayne and Macomb have done that; Oakland commissioners vote this week. Also, the money raised by the millage would pay for operations, not an operations endowment. The copy above has been corrected.

 This could be the last season for the S.S. Badger.

The coal-fired car ferry has plied Lake Michigan since the 1950s. But federal regulators say the coal ash the ship dumps into Lake Michigan is bad for the environment. And they've ordered the ship's owners to stop the practice by mid-December.

Brandy Henderson is marketing director for the Ludington Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. She says the Badger brings about $21 million into the local economy each year. But she says there's sentimental attachment to the ship too.

"It's kind of a tradition for people to head downtown and grab an ice cream cone and head over and watch the sunset and wave off the Badger as they head across the lake. So it does have more meaning than just the hard numbers and the jobs and things like that."

Legislation in the U.S. House would allow the Badger to continue to dump coal ash because it's been nominated as a national historic landmark. Environmental groups are fighting that designation.

Jack Martin has has been appointed chief financial officer in Detroit. That's one of two key positions in the effort to turnaround the city's troubled finances.

Martin served as CFO of the U.S. Department of Education several years ago, and in January he was picked to be the state-appointed emergency manager of Highland Park schools.

The Detroit native says he also helped turn around Washington D.C.'s municipal finances.　

"That effort was successful," Martin says." I'm confident that this initiative will be successful. But I know it won't be easy. It will be a very, very tough struggle."

Martin will work alongside a still-unnamed program management director, and a financial advisory board. He starts the job on Monday with a yearly salary of $220,000.

A union that represents some Detroit transit workers is asking the U.S. Department of Labor to withhold federal transit money from the city. In a letter to labor secretary Hilda Solis, the union says the money should be withheld until Detroit and the state get rid of a provision in a recent consent agreement that suspends collective bargaining requirements.　

Attorney George Washington represents AFSCME Local 312. He says the Urban Mass Transit Act spells out that the preservation of transit employees' collective bargaining rights is a condition for getting federal mass transit money.

Washington says that flies in the face of the consent agreement Detroit recently entered with the state. That agreement lays out a series of conditions the city is expected to impose unilaterally by July 16. 　

"Nobody has talked with the union about any of that, and there's no bargaining going on. They're just trying to issue orders and dictates," said Washington.

In a statement, Michigan Treasury spokesman Terry Stanton said this:

"It is unfortunate that, at a time when the city and state are working collaboratively to address the city’s financial crisis and delivery of key services, some are willing to take actions that promise only to further erode the city’s bus service and, perhaps more critically, its fiscal condition."

People with concealed pistol permits in Michigan will soon be able to carry Tasers. Governor Rick Snyder signed the bill into law today.

The rules will be the same as those that apply to people authorized to carry firearms in Michigan.　

"They will have to get the same training," said state Senator Rick Jones, who  sponsored the legislation. "It's a minimum of eight hours that tells a license holder when they can fire their device, and when they cannot. A Taser will be treated like a handgun under Michigan law, so nobody can play with them."

Here is a video of then-state Rep. Jones getting shot by a Taser during a House committee hearing:

More than a quarter-million people in Michigan have concealed pistol licenses. Michigan joins 44 other states that allow people to carry Tasers in public.

Eastern Michigan University plans to offer its employees incentives to become homeowners in Ypsilanti. Details of the "Live Ypsi" program are still being finalized. But Leigh Greden says university employees could qualify for five to 10-thousand dollars in loans for down payments or rehab work. "And if the employee continues to be employed by Eastern Michigan, and continues to live in that home, we will forgive 20 percent of the loan per year for five years," said Greden. "And then at the end, all of the loan will have been forgiven." Greden says the idea is to stabilize neighborhoods near the university. The DTE Energy Foundation and Washtenaw County are both kicking in money for the program, and Greden says negotiations are under way with a third organization as well.  The concept is modeled after the "live Midtown" program in Detroit. 

A rally is planned in Lansing this week in support of legislation to ban Sharia law in Michigan.

The bill is sponsored by State Rep. Dave Agema (R-Grandville). It makes no specific mention of Sharia. And Agema says his intent is not to single out the legal code of Islam.

"All this bill does - I don't care if it's coming from the United Nations or where it's coming from," said Agema. "If it's anathema to our state Constitution or our federal U.S. Constitution, I'm just clarifying to the judges: don't use it."

The legislation has languished in committee for months without a hearing. Agema says he hopes the rally will convince Republican leaders in the state Legislature to take up the bill.

Muslim leaders in Michigan say the bill is a distraction from the state's real problems. They say it can only serve to feed anti-Muslim sentiment.

"I think it's unfortunate that instead of dealing with the real issues such as the suffering economy and the crime rate that we have here in Michigan, that Mr. Agema is involved in these hijinks such as protesting this non-existent threat," said Dawud Walid of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Michigan.

Two dozen states have passed similar legislation.

Michigan U.S. Rep. Gary Peters (D-Troy) says tens of thousands of people in Michigan face the prospect of higher student loan costs, unless Congress acts soon.

The interest rate on government-backed Stafford student loans is set to double July 1, to 6.8 percent.

"Just here in the state of Michigan 330,000 students will be faced with a large increase in that interest, which will add $1,000 to the debt of the average student. So on average $4,000 if you get out in four years," Peters said

MaVida Burrus is a student at Walsh College in Oakland County. She says the interest rate hike would make it difficult to balance her household checkbook.

"I am the mother of three, and we have bills to pay, we have mortgages, we have car notes, and I am raising these children on my own," Burrus said at a press conference called by Peters. "So this interest rate would mean a lot to me."　

The U.S. House passed a Republican-sponsored bill last week that would maintain the lower rate, and pay for it with cuts to public health programs.

Reps. Peters and Hansen Clarke are co-sponsors of a bill that would instead end $6 billion worth of subsidies to the oil and gas industries. That's the cost to the federal government of keeping the lower interest rate.

Oakland County’s economy had a “red hot” year in 2011. That’s according to a report by economists at the University of Michigan.

The county added more than 23,426 jobs last year. The economists who prepared the report say they expect the recovery to continue in the next three years – although at a more modest clip.

Professional services, manufacturing, health care and wholesale trade were the sectors that saw the biggest growth in 2011. But the public sector lost jobs, and that’s expected to continue.

The report says 2011 was the best year for Oakland County’s economy since 1994.