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Five Things You Need to Know for Friday, June 17, 2005

Houston, we have a series!

Also, if you haven't been checking our Arts & Entertainment section, you should be! A&E Editor Stephen Johnson has been posting a ton of Michigan events.

Lawmakers Seek Permanent Great Lakes Drilling Ban

Hearst Newspapers (via the Freep) reports that a group of lawmakers from states surrounding the Great Lakes urged Congress on Thursday to permanently bar new oil and gas drilling in the waters. The federal moratorium that currently bans new drilling operations in the five lakes (which provide drinking water for more than 30 million Americans) will expire in 2007.

Read Lakes drilling ban may stay put in the Freep

Iron Mountain Builds Coaches

The Marquette Mining Journal reports that longtime friends and Iron Mountain natives Tom Izzo (MSU Hoop coach) and Steve Mariucci (Detroit Lions head coach) are featured in the current issue of Sports Illustrated. "Lean on Me" includes photos from the past and present of the pair. Unfortunately, you need to be an SI subscriber to view the story online.

Read At the top of their game: Izzo, Mariucci featured in S.I. in the Mining Journal

More High Schoolers than Ever Participate in Sports

The Oscoda Press reports that all-time records for participation in high school sports were broken by Michigan High School Athletic Association member schools during the 2004-05 school year, topping the 300,000 mark for the first time (6000 more than to 02-03 record). Volleyball continues to be the most popular sport for girls while the most popular boys sport is football.

Read High school sports participation top 300,000 athletes in Michigan in the Oscoda Press
Michigan High School Athletic Association web site

Blues in the Black

The Detroit News reports that state lawmakers are asking nonprofit health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to use part of their $2.2 billion surplus to help bail out state health care programs for the poor that are in jeopardy because of the state's budget crisis. If the Blues don't voluntarily do so, Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Shirley Johnson will consider introducing legislation to revoke the tax-exempt and nonprofit status of Michigan's largest health insurer.

Read Blues told to give up surplus in the Detroit News

U of M / Google Library Agreement Posted

The Search Engine Watch blog reports that the agreement between Google and the University Of Michigan for the Google library digitization program has now been posted online. Under the agreement, the entire print collection of the University Library will be put into digital format.

Read Google Library Digitization Agreement With University Of Michigan Now Available from Search Engine Watch
Michigan Digitization Project web site