Cover Stories
PFAS detected in metro Detroit’s water supplies
PFAS chemicals are present in metro Detroit’s drinking water — in some cases at levels that potentially meet or exceed new federal drinking water guidelines. Costs to clean it up could be substantial. A Planet Detroit analysis of state and federal survey data revealed detectable levels of the contaminants in 59 areas in southeast Michigan:…
Living with PFAS in metro Detroit
This report was made possible through a partnership through Planet Detroit, with reporting contributed by Britny Cordera. Tenitia Purple Rudolf has fished the Detroit, Huron, and Rouge rivers since she was nine. Fishing is important to her family, who migrated to Detroit from Mississippi before she was born. She says she once made good money…
Detroit’s annual African World Festival is back at Hart Plaza to celebrate the African diaspora
Nearly 20,000 people are expected to gather from July 12-14 at Detroit’s Hart Plaza to celebrate the beauty, strength, and spirit of the African diaspora at the 41st Annual African World Festival. Presented by The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the festival will feature Afro-centric performances, vendors, food, clothing, health products, visual…
Detroit’s only inner-city YMCA ends daycare and preschool offerings
In a letter to local families on Monday, the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit announced the closure of The Boll Family Early Learning Center at Detroit’s Boll Family YMCA due to “a combination of factors that make its operations unsustainable.” While the programs will continue through August 30 to allow families time to find alternative care,…
Is Detroit still cheating homeowners on taxes? New audit to find out.
Detroit homeowners are nearing the truth about whether their houses are still being overtaxed after the city council on Tuesday approved hiring an independent auditor to review property value assessments. The council unanimously approved a $230,000 contract with the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAC), a Kansas City-based nonprofit research group that focuses on property…
Marianne Williamson calls for Biden to step down and an open convention
Among the growing chorus of voices calling for President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 election amid signs of deteriorating health is Marianne Williamson, the best-selling self-help author and former Detroit-area megachurch leader. In a statement published Tuesday following Biden’s poor debate performance on Thursday, Williamson said that her on-again, off-again long-shot campaign…
Michigan boosts efforts to keep invasive carp out of the Great Lakes
Michigan is home to 21% of the world’s fresh water, but in recent years the Great Lakes have had a problem with invasive carp. Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced on Monday that Michigan has signed an agreement in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Illinois to create the Brandon Road Interbasin Project —…
Metro Detroit leads U.S. in overpriced homes, study finds
Gone are the days when homes in Detroit were absurdly cheap. Now, even reasonably priced houses are hard to come by. Metro Detroit now has the most overpriced housing market in the U.S., according to researchers at Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University. The study shows that 40.8% of homes in the Detroit region…
Detroit’s Blue Bird Inn gets $1.9M grant
The historic Blue Bird Inn on Detroit’s west side is getting closer to reopening. The building at 5021 Tireman Ave., once a renowned music venue where jazz legends like John Coltrane and Miles Davis performed, was abandoned by the early 2000s and faced the threat of demolition. In 2019, however, the Detroit Sound Conservancy purchased…
Lapointe: Mass shootings, the Surgeon General, and the Supreme Court
When they took the kids to the splash pad that hot mid-June day, the grownups of Oakland County didn’t expect the splash to come from bullets that drew blood. But that’s just what happened in Rochester Hills when a paranoid man who owned an arsenal of weapons opened fire with one of them at the…
Detroit’s Rattlesnake Club has closed
Detroit’s swanky riverfront Rattlesnake Club Restaurant has closed its doors for good. According to a press release sent Saturday by its vice president and CFO Mark Tuttle, the fine-dining establishment’s final day of business was Friday. “After 36 years, the Rattlesnake Club Restaurant will close permanently after June 28,” Tuttle wrote. “We are grateful for…
Help us, Gretchen Whitmer. You’re our only hope.
There’s no spinning it — Thursday night’s presidential debate was just plain painful to watch. Donald Trump spouted a firehouse of lies that President Joe Biden, plagued with a cough, was too frail and feeble to properly fend off. Too many clips saw Biden mumbling meandering non-sequiturs in a near-whisper or trailing off as he…
Detroit police to overhaul facial recognition use after ‘groundbreaking settlement’ in false arrest suit
Civil rights activists on Friday announced a “groundbreaking settlement agreement” in connection with a lawsuit filed by a Black man who was arrested by Detroit police based on a false facial recognition match. Robert Williams was arrested in front of his wife and young daughters at his Farmington Hills home in January 2020 after the…
Michigan Senate finally passes bills to expand FOIA to governor and Legislature
Michigan is one of only two states that shields the governor’s office and the Legislature from providing records under the Freedom of Information Act. That could soon change after the state Senate on Thursday passed bipartisan legislation aimed at expanding FOIA to include the executive and legislative branches of state government. Lawmakers approved the two…
Sullaf reopens under new ownership in Detroit’s ‘Chaldean Town’
Until its abrupt closure around three years ago, few restaurants in metro Detroit belonged in the same breath as Sullaf, the small Iraqi spot that was the last restaurant standing in what residents once called “Chaldean Town” along Seven Mile Road between Woodward and I-75. As I wrote in my 2017 review of Sullaf, the…
Detroit orders emergency demolition of collapsed Dabls MBAD African Bead Museum building
The City of Detroit has ordered the emergency demolition of a partially collapsed building that was intended to be part of the Dabls MBAD African Bead Museum, Metro Times has learned. Last week, owner Olayami Dabls launched a crowdfunding campaign with a goal of raising $400,000 for repairs after he received a $500 blight ticket…
Pro-Trump Michigan attorney loses spectacularly in yet another courtroom drama
Michigan “Kraken” lawyer Stefanie Lambert, who unsuccessfully tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Michigan and was later charged with improperly accessing voting equipment, has lost yet another court battle in her quest to prove baseless claims about voter fraud in the state. Macomb County Circuit Judge Edward A. Servitto dismissed Lambert’s request under…
Wayne State sign defaced with ‘blood of innocent Palestinians’
A prominent sign that welcomes students to Wayne State University’s campus was splattered in red paint on Wednesday to symbolize “the blood of innocent Palestinians” after the school refused to divest from companies linked to Israel, a popular activist group said Thursday morning. The “W” sign, which sits on the edge of campus off of…
Detroit’s 2024 Kresge Artist Fellows include musicians, filmmakers, dancers, and more
More than 30 local artists have been awarded a total of $1 million by Kresge Foundation to pursue their dreams. This year’s cohort is the first in the long-running program to receive no-strings-attached awards of $40,000, which were increased from $25,000 each last fall. The awards were announced Thursday by the Kresge Arts in Detroit…
Enjoy 7 days of $8 burgers during Detroit Burger Week 2024
Your stomach should be growling: Detroit Burger Week is back in 2024, and it’s almost here. From Monday, July 22, to Sunday, July 28, you can enjoy $8 burgers at restaurants in and around the city. Each participating spot will create a specialty burger for the week, and the event is both omnivore and vegetarian…
State AG Nessel joins legal battle against TurboTax’s ‘free’ filing ruse
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined a coalition of 22 attorneys general in backing a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) order aimed at halting deceptive advertising practices by Intuit, the maker of TurboTax. The order targets Intuit’s “misleading promotion” that falsely claims its preparation software is free when, in reality, most consumers end up paying…
Detroit bans locking patrons inside businesses after fatal gas station shooting
Businesses with bulletproof glass in Detroit are now forbidden from locking patrons inside a store after a gunman shot three people, one of them fatally, at a gas station in May 2023. The Detroit City Council unanimously approved the measure Tuesday to prohibit “the unlawful restraint of a patron against their will,” the amended ordinance…
Free Will Astrology (June 26-July 2)
ARIES (March 21-April 19): This may sound weird, but I think now is a perfect time to acquire a fresh problem. Not just any old boring problem, of course. Rather, I’m hoping you will carefully ponder what kind of dilemma would be most educational for you — which riddle might challenge you to grow in…
