According to ConsumerReports.org, beware of solicitations for free or discounted furnace inspections.

It started with a jab of his foot, a tiny abrasion caused by something sharp sticking up from a hotel carpet. Within months, Allan Scruggs lost both legs.

UPDATED AT 12:57 P.M. -- In closing arguments this afternoon, assistant Washtenaw County prosecutor Blaine Longsworth pressed the point that Eastern Michigan Univeristy student Laura Dickinson did not die a natural death, as suggested by the defense attorneys of Orange Taylor III.

Three new student cases of a potentially deadly type of staph infection have come to light in metro Detroit, and schools across the region are scrubbing down locker rooms and disinfecting sports equipment to prevent spreading the antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Hold off on those sweaters, at least for this weekend. The temperature should reach 69 degrees today, according to the National Weather Service. The service expects clouds and winds up to 40 m.p.h. There's also a 30 percent chance of rain.

The family of Mark Stebbins, a child police say was killed in February 1976 by the Oakland County Child Killer, filed a civil lawsuit Thursday against Theodore Lamborgine, a convicted pedophile considered a suspect in the killings.

The Detroit City Council may soon extend the city’s Human Rights Ordinance to protect transgendered people from discrimination in employment, housing, education and public accommodations.

An organization is planning a prayer vigil tonight in front of the west side Detroit home where two young children were shot and killed early Thursday along with their mother and her boyfriend.

Grandmother Frenchie Darden woke up Thursday and saw the disturbing news report: Four shot dead in a west Detroit home, including two children. "I thought, 'What's wrong with these people killing children like this?' " An hour later the phone rang. Her son was on the other end, in hysterics.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said Thurs-day that he had searched his soul and decided to pay $8 million to settle a whistle-blower lawsuit against him and the city. A Wayne County jury last month determined that Kilpatrick retaliated against the two former cops who filed the suit -- rendering a $6.5-million verdict the mayor then vowed to appeal.

City officials are investigating whether the Detroit Property Assessment Board of Review improperly exempted residents from paying property taxes even though some of them made too much money to qualify for those exemptions.

Tyrika Henley, 21, knows how hard it is to find a job in Michigan's harsh economy. Add to that the pressure of having to find a place to live. And all the errands that both entail. And having to find a babysitter for a toddler.

We’re so lazy that we can’t be bothered to take a few extra steps and return shopping carts.

The former comptroller-treasurer of Grosse Pointe Woods is to stand trial on charges that he stole gas from the city.

The day after a chemical leak forced Tuesday's evacuation of about 3,000 Melvindale residents, city officials were tabulating a $30,000-plus bill for Reilly Plating. The company also was slapped with lawsuits from the city and several neighbors.

UPDATED AT 10:00 P.M. -- I-275 near Ford Road in Canton has reopened after five people were injured in a four-vehicle crash near Ford Road in Canton.

The Melvindale company responsible for Tuesday’s chemical leak contained the hydrochloric acid in a retention basin designed to hold such spills and no dangerous fumes were detected during the incident, the plant said today.

Michigan Public Service Commissioner Monica Martinez is scheduled to host an informational forum Oct. 25 for consumers in Dearborn, according to a release from the commission.

Computer experts at Lawrence Technological University have been working since Wednesday to resolve a computer virus that shut down the entire computer system. Bruce Annett, a Lawrence Tech spokesman, said it's unclear how the virus entered the system and how far it spread. It's being investigated.

Lance Hicks will be one of about 50 teenagers in Ferndale this weekend to talk about equality, activism and health issues as a part of one of the largest gatherings of transgender youth in the Midwest.

The family of the first of four children killed during a 13-month period in the 1970s filed a wrongful death lawsuit today against a man now serving three life terms for sexually assaulting boys.

A Southfield woman who worked as a Department of Human Services consultant was released on a $100,000 personal bond today after her arraignment on charges that she took bribes and forged paperwork to expedite three adult foster care license applications.

An 80-year-old hunter, missing in Independence Township since Wednesday night, has been found dead in the woods, Oakland County Sheriff’s Office officials said today.

Computer experts at Lawrence Technological University have been working since Wednesday afternoon to resolve a computer virus problem that forced the shutdown of the entire computer system.

A Warren mayoral candidate plans to file a complaint with the Secretary of State after a flyer sent to voters this week promoted his opponent and included a stamp that voters could use to send in their absentee ballots.

We’re so lazy that we can’t be bothered to take a few extra steps and return shopping carts.

Health care payouts that cost Macomb County taxpayers more than $230,000 may have been an inside job, not a clerical error as previously believed, according to a confidential memo from the county attorney. The memo states that the Macomb County Sheriff's Office will investigate whether an employee tampered with employment records to make it possible for as many as four former employees to continue collecting tax-funded health insurance after they were fired.

A new $22-million police station and courthouse is one step closer now that Shelby Township officials have approved a construction start. Work crews can start clearing trees at the site at 24 Mile and Van Dyke. Construction will start as early as next spring. The building is projected to open 18 months from then.

A Sterling Heights man will spend at least the next two years behind bars in the shooting death of his friend earlier this year. Matthew Kuczmarski, 20, was sentenced to prison Wednesday in the March 18 death of Michael Pastorelli, 23, of Macomb Township.

Two black women jailed after being pulled over in Chesterfield Township are asking a judge to dismiss disorderly conduct charges because they were victims of racial profiling and illegal incarceration.

When the storm seemed to peak after midnight Friday, Joe Soyring and Nicole Opperman of Milllington, southeast of Frankenmuth, took their 3-year-old daughter, Makayla, and their 14-month-old son, Blake, into the basement of their ranch-style home. But when it subsided, they came back upstairs, said Joe Soyring's sister, Barbara Illig.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Lt. Gov. John Cherry endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton for president today. The endorsement didn't come as a surprise, especially after all of the other front-running Democrats decided to withdraw from Michigan's presidential primary ballot last week because the state moved up its primary election date in violation of national Democratic Party rules.

UPDATED AT 6:05 P.M. -- The jury deliberating whether a Southfield man killed a fellow Eastern Michigan University student in her dorm room last year adjourned for the weekend at 5:30 p.m. without reaching a verdict.

The Michigan Department of Education changed instructions this afternoon for the retesting of fifth and sixth graders for a MEAP question that was compromised, and will now require all students to retake the question as first thing in the morning on Nov. 7.

UPDATED AT 11:25 A.M.: LOCKE TOWNSHIP — A couple spending their first night in a new house were killed when a severe storm ripped the home off its foundation and sent it into a nearby pond, police said. They are among at least three people killed in the storms throughout Michigan.

Michigan State Police are going business to business to help find out who pulled a toothpick prank at a high school in Tawas City.

Like many high school students, 16-year-old Laura Thornhill decided to spend her summer working, in hopes of saving money for things she might need during the school year. Laura's summer job as a teller at Peoples Trust Credit Union in Southfield taught her about finance and managing money. It also taught her about leadership.

As a puppy, Gretta was happy romping with her siblings. But when the Great Dane was just a year and a half old, she suddenly lost the use of her legs. Last year on the day after Christmas, Gretta was hospitalized and diagnosed with Wobbler Syndrome. Gretta underwent surgery and was home within several days.

Every Halloween for the last 10 years, Gerry Phillips has built a haunted house in the basement of his Royal Oak home. Instead of a storage area, his basement became 500 square feet of wall-to-wall frights. In Halloween lingo, his project was "a home haunt.

The object of the multi-street, neighborhood-wide yard sale hosted last weekend by the Friends of the Detroit Grosse Pointe Collaborative was to build a goodwill bridge over Alter Road, which not only divides two communities physically, but sometimes acts as a social barrier as well.

The object of the multi-street, neighborhood-wide yard sale hosted last weekend by the Friends of the Detroit Grosse Pointe Collaborative was to build a goodwill bridge over Alter Road, which not only divides two communities physically, but sometimes acts as a social barrier as well.

You'd think after 74 years, tongues would loosen about what people did to accelerate the flow of booze from Canada to the United States during that 13-year experiment called Prohibition that ended in 1933.