August primaries reveal candidates to GV electorate

Following statewide primary elections on Aug. 2, in-state residents of Grand Valley State University now know who will be on their ballots this fall as the November midterm elections draw nearer.

Muskegon businesswoman and conservative media personality Tudor Dixon claimed the Republican nomination for governor to face incumbent Democrat Gretchen Whitmer in November.

In GVSU’s U.S. House District, former Trump administration official John Gibbs defeated incumbent Grand Rapids Representative Peter Meijer in the race for the Republican nomination in Michigan’s newly drawn 3^rd Congressional District.

Gibbs will face Democrat Hillary Scholten, who ran against Meijer for the same seat in 2020 and lost by six percentage points.

Scholten ran unopposed in her August primary.

GV students return to campus amidst growing monkeypox outbreak

Students at Grand Valley State University have returned for the Fall 2022 campus against a backdrop of concern over an uncommon virus spreading amongst the state and the nation at large.

The monkeypox virus, typically endemic in and contained to regions of the African continent, has continued to proliferate throughout the summer and threatens to spread at a much faster pace as students return to mingle with peers.

Spreading through various forms of close contact with infected individuals and their personal items, health officials have signaled concern over increased risk for transmission as young children and college students return to campus environments where such can become frequent.

Over 17,000 monkeypox cases have been identified in the United States, with Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Beccera declaring the outbreak a public health emergency as of Aug. 4.

Over 100 cases have now been reported in Michigan, with a higher concentration in metropolitan areas like Detroit.

As of Aug. 28, state health officials had identified five cases of the virus in GVSU’s Ottawa County and 10 in neighboring Kent County, which includes the city of Grand Rapids.

AWRI drones boost efforts to clean lakeshore

Grand Valley State University’s Annis Water Resources Institute will house two new electric-powered, remote-controlled drones designed to improve lakeshore and waterway cleanup operations.

Funded by a $1 million donation from Meijer to the Council of the Great Lakes Region, the drones are one of four sets distributed throughout Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.

The drones will serve to patrol Michigan beaches and waterways, sifting through the sand and water to collect miscellaneous, unnatural debris such as bottle caps, cigarette butts and other forms of plastic and refuse.

One of the two machines, dubbed BeBot, will travel along beaches to collect trash accumulated on the sand’s surface level.

The second drone, the Pixie Drone, will travel through water to sift out potentially harmful debris.