It Figures

1.4 Million

According to the Michigan AAA, an estimated 1.4 million Michiganians traveled during the 2008 Thanksgiving holiday period, a 6-percent decrease from last year, says AAA Michigan. AAA forecasted a small decline in the number of holiday travelers nationally. A spokesperson for the AAA said the desire to spend time with family, combined with much lower gas prices, still provides a strong impetus for many to travel. Due to the traffic-related deaths and injuries that take place during this time of year — and a trend of college students who get together with friends over drinks the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving — dubbed “Black Wednesday,” Michigan law enforcement agencies took special measures to enforce safety belt and drunk driving laws.

2,000

A Wayne County, Mich., judge has thrown out medical evidence and expert testimony in asbestos litigation from a doctor who diagnosed thousands of patients with asbestos-related ailments. Circuit Judge Robert Colombo Jr.’s ruling involves Dr. R. Michael Kelly, a Lansing internist and occupational medicine specialist. Colombo ruled standards related to expert testimony weren’t met. The Detroit Free Press reports the ruling could put more than 2,000 asbestos lawsuits on Colombo’s docket in jeopardy, since cases that used Kelly as an expert for diagnosis would need to find new experts. Kelly testified that his methods were exact and radiologists not experienced in diagnosing asbestos disease could overlook the indicators he saw.

$150,000

A Presbyterian minister accused of having sex with a woman when she was a teenager kept working as a pastor and college administrator after the church’s insurance company paid the accuser $150,000. Rev. Ronald Campbell resigned from Trinity International University, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Trinity Graduate School in Deerfield, Ill., shortly after a church commission ruled that he sexually abused the woman in the 1980s. An Associated Press story said that Campbell has not been charged criminally. The Presbytery of Chicago said the state’s statute of limitations had run out when the woman came forward two years ago to say she’d been sexually abused in the 1980s.

Topics Michigan