“Having her back after seeing her completely disappear is a great thing,” Blake’s friend Lisa McKhann said last week.

“It’s great to have her back,” agreed Blake’s father, Rick Blake of Grand Rapids, in a separate interview.

Jess Blake, now 40, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in September 2014 after she collapsed at Esko High School, where she taught geography and history to seventh- and eighth-graders.

By last spring, Blake — described by McKhann as energetic and independent — had lost her ability to make appointments, to drive, to buy groceries, to tell or understand jokes, to read, to write or to follow the plots of movies, McKhann said.

A Michigan appeals panel upheld a lower court’s conviction of 47-year-old medical marijuana caregiver Alenna Marie Rocafort. In September of 2012, police raided a house next to Rocafort’s Kentwood home that she was using for her medical marijuana caregiver operation and seized 5.6 pounds of marijuana. The amount of marijuana seized, the courts found, exceeded the amount of usable marijuana she was legally allowed to possess for her medical marijuana patients. Rocafort argued that the marijuana was not usable because it was in the drying process, but the courts disagreed, even though she intended to use the dried plants to make hash oil.

Survey the latest at the Detroit Auto Show and you will find fibers from water bottles in car seats, hemp in the dashboards and citrus peel in the tires.

Automakers, in a continuing quest to develop lighter and more environmentally-friendly vehicles, are making increased use of sometimes unlikely materials in their cars and trucks.

US auto giant Ford has set a requirement that the seat fabrics sold on all vehicles in North America must have at least 30 percent recycled content, said Barb Whalen, Ford's color, material and design manager.

There will be no relaxation of this rule due to low crude-oil prices, which have made petroleum-based components cheaper, she said.

2016 could bring major changes to the way Michigan treats marijuana.

There are three campaigns hoping to put legalization of recreational marijuana on the November ballot. Two of those groups – who appear to be raising significant money and have been collecting signatures for months – would tax and regulate marijuana for personal use for people 21 and older.

A state elections board recently gave the go-ahead for a third group to start circulating petitions. That campaign, Abrogate Prohibition Michigan 2016, would fully decriminalize marijuana use for any purpose for people 18 and older.

In addition to those efforts, supporters of bills to overhaul Michigan’s medical marijuana system are pushing for votes in the state Legislature.

Medical marijuana could be a big topic of discussion for state lawmakers in 2016.

Bills in the state Senate would create protections for dispensaries and people who use non-smokable forms of medical marijuana, such as baked items and oils.

Now, Democratic state Rep. Sam Singh, D-East Lansing, has introduced a new bill that would ban employers from firing workers for having a medical marijuana card.

Singh says firings have become a problem in many states where medical marijuana is legal.

“We’re definitely seeing it across the country. And so therefore we know it will happen here in Michigan, if it already hasn’t,” he said.

SPRINGFIELD, Mich. — What started as a domestic situation Thursday evening eventually lead Calhoun County Deputies to discover and seize over a pound of marijuana, several plants, and a firearm.

Around 8:00 p.m. Thursday, Deputies were called out to the 200 block area of 24th Street for a domestic problem, where several “unwanted subjects” were reportedly present.

The person who had originally called in the complaint had told dispatchers that one of the people there was involved in selling illegal drugs.

When Deputies arrived on scene they observed what they say was evidence of said illegal drugs. They then obtained a search warrant for the residence and performed a more thorough search.

LANSING, MI — An evolving proposal to allow regulated medical marijuana dispensaries and related businesses is unlikely to move this year in the Michigan Senate despite an ongoing push from supporters.

Sen. Rick Jones, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, does not have the votes to advance the bills from committee and is instead asking Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof to discharge them to the floor by early 2016.

"That's entirely up to him," Jones, R-Grand Ledge, said Tuesday. "I would hope that it would be this week, but I realize this week is taken up by some very pressing issues."

A group of marijuana advocates in the state of Michigan are extending a petition deadline they had set for themselves in order to boost their chances of getting a marijuana-legalization question on the ballot next November, according to the Detroit Free Press. The group, known as MILegalize, is trying to gather 252,000 signatures before June in order to make the ballot.

The group said that it is in stable financial condition, though it only had $500,000 on the books. One of the ways that funding level could work out could be if most of the work is done by volunteers, which is the plan for the advocates. At least one activist plans on driving around the state in a motor-home while broadcasting a radio show of his live in order to gather 5,000 signatures in eight days.

DETROIT - Some Detroit pastors are on a mission to wipe out weed dispensaries in the city.

They say they have had enough of the smell, the addition crime and what it’s doing to Detroit's youth.

That is why the Detroit Coalition of Concerned Pastors is pushing the city council to shut down the nearly 200 medical marijuana dispensaries that now line city streets.

"We don't need this in our community, period," said Pastor Marvin Winans.

"The state of Michigan didn't authorize any of them to open and neither did the city of Detroit," said Pastor Darell Reed. "And they are popping up all over the place. It's a problem and a nuisance."