| April 03, 2026Can you guess what’s pictured above? Click the image to find out! |
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| | Happy Passover and Easter!
Nobody tells you until you’re a parent that the holidays that involve make-believe characters and/or candy and/or kid-friendly activities are actually weeks-long affairs, so my children met the Easter bunny two weekends ago at the Christina’s Sweet Treats and More in Saline and again this past Sunday at an event on Long Island where we’ve been for spring break. On Sunday, back in A2, we plan to go to Temple Beth Emeth for an afikomen hunt.
Because we’re on a family trip, I’m going to keep this brief. Your news is here, full of basketball, anti-Trump activism, and some data center developments.
This is last week’s most-clicked link.
– Steve Friess, editor |
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| | | Thousands protest on third No Kings day: From Ypsilanti to Whitmore Lake and everywhere in between, turnout was strong for the March 28 round of the international day of demonstrations against the Trump administration and policies considered anti-democratic. Of course, the largest crowds were in the county’s largest city, Ann Arbor, with topics of concern ranging from immigration policy to federal funding cuts to attacks on academia along with the newest matter, the war in Iran. There was a sliver of controversy reported by WEMU when congresswoman Debbie Dingell was denied an opportunity to speak at the downtown rally on the grounds that organizers from Ann Arbor Indivisible were not having elected officials do so. That said, county commissioner and mayoral candidate Yousef Rabhi, who they’ve officially endorsed, both launched the march and spoke at the end of the gathering. Check out a slideshow of images from the day on the Observer’s Instagram feed or on Facebook if you prefer. |
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| | Two by Final Four: The men’s basketball and hockey teams both advanced this week to the semifinals of their respective NCAA tournaments and play in the coming week. The basketball team demolished Tennessee in their Elite Eight game so thoroughly that one of sports media’s biggest loud mouths ate his words. They’re now heading to Indianapolis to play fellow No. 1–seeded Arizona on Saturday night. MLive may have jinxed the Wolverines by referring to them claiming they’re playing in “an unstoppable mode,” so thanks for that! Meanwhile, athletic director Warde Manuel says he wants head coach Dusty May, who is forty-nine, to “finish his career here at Michigan.” U-M’s usually dominant top-ranked men’s hockey team squeaked into the Frozen Four, which will be played on Thursday (April 9) in Las Vegas. They take on Denver. It’s the Wolverines’ twenty-ninth trip to the Frozen Four. Unfortunately, the U-M women’s basketball team was thumped by Texas in their second-ever appearance in their tournament’s Elite Eight, a bitter close to a record-setting season. |
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| | Ypsilanti Twp. votes against U-M data center: The township board, which has no say in what U-M does with its land holdings, nonetheless voted unanimously to declare “strong and unequivocal opposition” to the siting of a $1.2 billion supercomputing facility it plans to build with Los Alamos National Laboratory. Acknowledging that U-M probably will win the fight, supervisor Brenda Stumbo said near the end of the 90-minute special meeting, “What I’ve said about the University of Michigan is that they have more power, more wealth, and more influence than any other developer we have come up against – and we’ve come up against toxic incineration companies and we prevailed.” Among the concerns is that the research into nuclear weapons would make the area a target for foreign adversaries, although officials involved say it “would not involve the storage or handling of nuclear materials.” In its ongoing campaign to bolster support for the facility, U-M posted an essay by Karthik Duraisamy, director of the Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering Research, insisting that the new supercomputing center would provide “the scale required for larger simulations, faster discovery, deeper collaboration and more ambitious research.” In other data center news, Drew Saunders writes in this month’s Observer that the much-opposed Saline Twp. facility being built by OpenAI and Oracle is already creating some traffic headaches. |
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| Courtesy: Save Our Garden |
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| U-M law students jump into Saline community garden drama: The Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic is taking the side of seventy-five-year-old Changming Fan (above), who has been ordered to scale back the array of flower beds and planter boxes outside the subsidized senior community of Mill Pond Manor, Alex de Wild writes. Fan has become an online cause célèbre, with more than 1,200 signers to a Change.org petition urging Mill Pond Manor to let him keep his garden. “The garden was formerly just scrub brush and poison ivy,” says clinic director David Santacroce, Fan’s attorney.
WISD faces cuts to early childhood programs: The state budget eliminated money for Great Start Collaboratives across the state, including Washtenaw County’s Success by 6 program that provides aid and guidance for families in areas of health care, social services, education, and child care, de Wild writes. The county does have other grants and leftover money to carry them through this school year, and there’s a chance the legislature may pass the governor’s recommendation to restore the funding in the next budget by summer.
Why isn’t there an NCAA-sanctioned women’s hockey team at U-M? That’s the question Micheline Maynard delves into this month after a homegrown athlete helped win Olympic gold in Milan-Cortina. U-M does have women’s hockey as a club sport, but those wanting to compete in Division I college athletics have to matriculate elsewhere. |
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| | | A measles case was confirmed in neighboring Monroe County. It’s unclear if it is linked to the seven cases in Washtenaw.
Kent Syverud will start as the next U-M president in May, not July as previously announced.
Next week, U-M will hold its annual memorial service for students who have died in the past year. There were six, including nineteen-year-old sophomore Lucas Mattson, who froze to death in January after leaving a fraternity party.
The Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority got another rejection in its efforts to expand the city’s tax-capture area, this time from WCC.
Hash Bash is this weekend and it seems like there’s a lot of people very, very tense about it. If only there was some way to just chillax, man.
Bye bye, pretty trees.
Destination Ann Arbor wants your thoughts on what sort of travel destination Ann Arbor is. Take the survey.
In a related item, two apparently unsalvagable Ypsi buildings will be razed, including a crumbling but very cool-looking former ice cream spot.
His criminal case is resolved, but if you still want some Sherrone Moore coverage, the bodycam video just dropped.
U-M wants everyone to know they provided $32 million in financial support to the City of Ann Arbor last year.
A pair of local “property brothers” bought a decrepit 1861 mansion in Ypsi (below) for $1 forty years ago, restored it, and now want $1.1 million for it. |
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| From left: Brian Kim, his wife Diane, his sister Angae Kim, and her husband Jacob Hong. Credit: J. Adrian Wylie |
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| Hyundai Asian Market becomes Modu Market: Food truck entrepreneur Brian Kim and his family (above) bought the Korean grocery behind the Sunoco at Platt and Ellsworth when its founders decided to retire, Dave Algase writes in this month’s Observer. In the process, Kim’s sister and brother-in-law, who have had culinary careers in French fine dining, relocated here from Los Angeles after the 2025 wildfires devastated their father’s home and damaged their prepared meal business.
Pinball Pete’s is open: Following up on last week’s item referencing Algase’s feature about the relocation of the beloved arcade, it finally let customers in last weekend. Check out this fun YouTube look inside.
Questions surround future of Real Seafood Company: Property management firm Chaconas Group posted this week on Instagram that the Main St. building that houses the Ann Arbor staple is for rent, but nobody from Real Seafood Company has said anything about closing or relocating the business. Algase reached owner Kevin Gudejko, who cryptically wrote back: “As you’re I’m sure aware some things that you read are negotiating tactics.” Still, Gudejko has made some noise about following the stream of businesses leaving downtown amid “rising property taxes, increased homelessness, aggressive panhandling and concerns about crime and perceptions of safety downtown,” according to MLive. |
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Former EMU basketball star turned fashionista returns for free Ypsi program: CLR Academy is hosting Desyrée Nicole, who does styling for NFL and NBA players, for a two-day fashion and creative program, MLive reports. The academy is a free, weekly Saturday wide-ranging program for kindergarten through eighth grade students. Nicole’s programs are scheduled for April 11 and 25.
Ypsi library hosting repair clinics: The downtown branch on W. Michigan Ave. is holding the second of three pilot events at which members of the community can bring small electronics for volunteers to try to fix. No registration is required for the event, which runs from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The first event was held March 26, and the third is set for May 2 from 1:30 to 3 p.m.
Tickets on sale for Friends in Deed dinner: The April 29 gathering at WCC is the nonprofit’s signature fundraising event and includes a silent auction. Tickets start at $125 per person. The organization provides a range of assistance to people facing financial difficulties. |
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