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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Michigan NOW: Don't "Play Politics" with Women's Health

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Thursday, February 9, 2012   

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Fallout from the Susan B. Komen Foundation's flip-flop on funding breast cancer screenings for Planned Parenthood spawned charges on both sides of "playing politics" with women's health.

Republican strategist Arie Fleischer reportedly had been advising, or helping to hire, the Komen executive who resigned over the controversy. Other reports say Komen has been consulting with a public-relations firm connected to Democrats.

Mary Pollack, legislative vice president for the Michigan chapter of the National Organization for Women, recommends a neutral executive search firm, and keeping the focus on one issue alone: women's health.

"They shouldn't be hiring a Republican operative or a Democratic operative to do a search for staff."

Pollack says she knows many women who have decided to stop volunteering for Komen because of the controversy.

"I don't know if they'll ever be able to recover their brand name. It has been so besmirched by what they've done."

Pollack says non-profits would be well-advised to stay away from what she calls the "abortion wars."

"I think every organization needs to be very careful about this."

Many women rely on Planned Parenthood for screenings such as mammograms, Pollack says, adding that she doesn't want to see them lost in the battle.

The Komen Foundation is one of the nation's largest, according to CharityWatch, but other groups also work on breast cancer prevention. CharityWatch recently downgraded Komen's rating from a B-plus to a B, in part because of an increase in its fund-raising costs. Similar groups scored higher; for example, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation got an A-plus.


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The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

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