Northern Michigan Journalism Collaborative

Mexican drug cartels are shipping purer forms of meth into rural Michigan, replacing the drugs that were once made in home labs and full of impurities, police and lab testing data shows.

Ice caves are forming along the lakeshore as Michigan experiences its coldest and snowiest winter in a few years. And while the caves attract attention, they can also be dangerous, especially as temperatures start to warm up.

Workforce cuts made by the Trump administration at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are prompting meteorologists to debate the reliability of weather predictions.

Michigan is one of just a dozen states without a statewide policy on students using phones in schools. Efforts to adopt one did not clear the Michigan Legislature. How has it worked in Up North districts?

As of a couple years ago, the State of Michigan had spent about $125 million investigating PFAS contamination and mitigating its potential harm statewide. Testing all private wells in Michigan would cost around $600 million.

A township in Antrim County has taken the first step toward repealing all zoning laws which would clear the way for one of the township’s trustees to build a lucrative gravel mine on his property.

The decision comes after years of outcry from some farmers that the cost of labor, transportation and housing for H-2A workers was making it impossible to break even.

A new state grant will build on a model developed in Leelanau County, hoping to alleviate the so-called “child care deserts” in parts of northern Michigan.

With little pine left to harvest, foresters and sawmills worry what the next several years will look like until newly planted trees can replace what the ice storm took away.

Understaffed, untrained, and sometimes even married townships officials control taxpayer dollars in many northern Michigan communities.