West Michigan

This is WYCE's Community Close-Up, our weekly public affairs program that we produce in partnership with the Grand Rapids Community Media Center.

Community Close-Up is all about bringing you diverse perspectives from our great community leaders here in West Michigan.

And it's WYCE Station Manager Phil Tower.

I'm very pleased to welcome to our latest episode, Erica Soto.

She is Artistic Director with...

Compania de Teatro Hispano de Michigan.

In English, that is the Michigan Hispanic Theater Company, a brand new Grand Rapids, well, relatively new, Grand Rapids-based nonprofit theater company, creating great opportunities for Latino artists and also bringing, and this is what's really exciting, Spanish language and bilingual theater to West Michigan.

She saw the hole and she said, we are going to do this.

It comes a week after trustee Rima Vassar filed a separate racial discrimination lawsuit.

Another homicide has been reported at a West Michigan prison.

State police say 35-year-old Dante Houston was found unresponsive in his cell at Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Ionia and died on Sunday.

The suspect's name has not been released.

Will Detroit turn for Jocelyn Benson or will it give John James a look? Southeast Michigan is the biggest number of people.

The candidates have been spending a lot of time here, but they've also been in West Michigan and mid Michigan and even the Upper Peninsula.

Right now, the polls indicate Jocelyn Benson is up, but it's still within the margin.

Let's go to Robert in Detroit.

This is Becky San Martin, child care and early childhood reporter for the Detroit Free Press.

A West Michigan child care abuse and assault case is raising difficult questions about how children are protected in licensed child care settings.

Prosecutors in Kent and Ottawa

counties have charged a former child care worker, 20-year-old Grand Valley State University student Austin Happner, with 67 felonies in connection with the sexual abuse of more than 30 young children in his care during private babysitting jobs and at two separate licensed child care centers in West Michigan.

Hefner's defense attorneys could not be reached for comment.

Hefner is currently being held at Kent County Jail without bond as the criminal cases progress through the courts and the investigation into the alleged abuse continues.

you were in our studio? What does senior tech support do? So it's really simple.

We provide in-person tech support specifically for older adults in the Chicagoland and the Grand Rapids and West Michigan areas with a focus on training and education.

So what I like to tell people is if it connects to the internet, we can help you.

And as much as you want to understand what we want to teach, we want to teach.

It's a service I could pay for, but I don't have to pay for any more service than I need.

Yeah.

One other thing I wanted to add, actually, if you have any listeners in the Grand Rapids area or anybody who has family there, we actually just recently expanded into Grand Rapids and the West Michigan area.

So we are serving clients in that area as well.

This is West Michigan's Morning News.

Good morning.

Wood Radio News Time, 7.08.

One with the governor in the next half hour.

One now with the city clerk in Grand Rapids.

Joel Hondorp is back on West Michigan's Morning News.

Joel, thanks for doing this again today.

Great to be with you, Steve.