July 21, 2017
Oona Goodin-Smith
Flint., MI - The water expert (click here) who helped expose rising levels of lead in Flint water and the pediatrician who helped link the elevated lead to the blood of city children have been selected for the MIT Media Lab Disobedience awards.
Flint pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha and Virginia Tech University engineering professor Marc Edwards are set to receive the award on Friday, July 21, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman will also present the pair with a $250,000 cash prize to share, which both Hanna-Attisha and Edwards said they plan to donate back to Flint organizations.
Hanna-Attisha said she plans to contribute her cut of $125,000 in full to Flint kids recovery efforts.
Edwards told The Roanoke Times that he plans to give his portion of the cash prize to his "fellow disobedient ones in Flint" who helped him to expose the lead-in-water crisis....
By Oona Goodin-Smith
(MLive.com file photo)
Flint, MI - Universal (click here) EMS ambulance company has shuttered its doors in Flint and Genesee County.
The company announced its closing via press release on Wednesday, July 19 -- a day after it officially closed for business.
The ambulance company -- which has provided service in Flint for over 12 years -- did not state a reason for its closing.
Bruce Trevithick, executive director of the Genesee County Medical Control Authority, said he received a call around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 18, that the company would close for business at 6:30 p.m. that night...
Stop the violence, Flint. It is ruining the the reputation of the city.
July 18, 2017
By Roberto Acosta
A pipefitter with General Motors for 30 years, (click here) the 63-year-old Flint native retired in 2006 but he then took up a job as a Flint Mass Transportation Authority bus driver.
In his 50s, Al Ballard took up the violin.
"He had always wanted to play in an orchestra," said April Bigelow, one of Ballard's three daughters. "He'd always wanted to play the piano and violin."
Keith Corbett, musical director of the Lapeer Symphony Orchestra said Ballard came aboard with the group of musicians around nine years ago.
"He came in with not a lot of experience," said Corbett. "He was really improving a lot over those years."
