February 13, 2026

Can you guess what is pictured above? Click the image to find out!

Welcome to our redesigned a2view newsletter! You’re still getting the news, but we hope the visual changes improve the reading experience. Major kudos belong to creative director Caron Valentine-Marsh and senior designers Tabi Walters and L. Marquette for their patience, thoughtfulness, and good humor as the rest of us barraged them with ideas and wishes.

We certainly appreciate any feedback. Send it here.

The coming week offers quite a lot of cultural variety! Saturday, of course, is Valentine’s Day, which means that Sunday is The Day Steve Goes To CVS For Half-Priced Chocolates. Monday is President’s Day and Tuesday is Pączki Day, aka Fat Tuesday, as well as the first day of the Year of the Horse on the Chinese calendar, although local celebrations for the latter don’t really get going until Saturday with this and this. The next day we have Ash Wednesday, too.

Some questions: is there such a thing as a Pączki Moon Cake? And do we count the years on the Chinese calendar? If so, what do I write on my checks? Maybe I stick to the Jewish lunar calendar where it’s 5786?

Your news is here. The long-gestating Comprehensive Land Use Plan is getting closer to completion; the Ward 4 primary has a new contender; the fraternity tied to the death of a student is facing consequences; and a chocolate shop is, appropriately, replacing Kilwins. Oh, and there’s a U-M connection to the Epstein files. Yikes.

This is last week’s most-clicked link.

– Steve Friess, editor

View of the Week

Credit: Ben Thompson

Eager for the thaw.

3 Big Things

Credit: Steve Friess

Seen on the wall of an AAPS elementary school this week.

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Mulling ICE: The question on the minds of many these days is how to respond to potential raids or inquiries by federal immigration agents. The topic is ubiquitous; it even merited a lengthy conversation at a PTO meeting I attended this week where the principal essentially reiterated what AAPS superintendent Jazz Parks wrote last month. In Ypsi, where rumors of recent arrests of parents of YCS students kicked off the current wave of widespread anger and anxiety, council is weighing a ban on ICE employees working for the city, although one councilwoman worries such a policy would be impractical and invite lawsuits. Meanwhile, the Detroit Free Press, in a piece that is behind a paywall, writes movingly about how daycare centers in Ypsi and elsewhere are preparing for that knock on the door.

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More data centers moratoriums and questions: Add Superior Twp. to the list of jurisdictions in the region passing a “pause” – in this case for a year – on consideration of proposals for data centers, with York Twp. discussing a six-month moratorium this week with plans to vote on it next month. There are no known proposals in Superior Twp., but one has been floated for York, much to residents’ dismay. Also of interest, attorney general Dana Nessel has formally asked the Michigan Public Service Commission to reconsider contracts it approved between DTE for the mammoth OpenAI-Oracle facility in Saline Twp. Meanwhile, U-M continues its sales pitch in support of the computing center it hopes to build with the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Ypsilanti Twp., but this Michigan Daily columnist is decidedly unimpressed.

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D-Day looms for new land-use plan: The city’s planning commission ought to expect a full house on Wednesday (February 18) as it hosts a public hearing on the recently released fourth draft of the controversial Comprehensive Land Use Plan. MLive offers this excellent explainer with cool maps to help understand what the fuss is, but basically it comes down to those who support more density and height in residential development, those who believe this will exacerbate the affordability problem rather than tame it, and those concerned about losing the town’s charm and altering the nature of their neighborhoods. The planning commission can make changes – council will have to accept or reject it as it is when it comes to them – so next week’s hearing is pivotal.

From the Observer

Credit: J. Adrian Wylie

A match made in ecological heaven: In a Valentine’s Day edition of our Ann Arborite profiles, Michelle Yang spotlights Lisa Brush and Jim Frey (above), a local environmentalist power couple who met while helping Leslie Science & Nature Center become an independent nonprofit. Brush is founder and executive director of The Stewardship Network; Frey recently retired from Resource Recycling Systems, the consulting firm he founded. Read more

Affordable Townie Homes coming to fruition: The planned twenty-six multifamily houses being developed by the Ann Arbor Community Land Trust across four sites are expected to be completed by year’s end, Ally Choi writes. They’ll cost between 25 and 75 percent below market value with an innovative workforce-friendly ownership arrangement. Read more

The month in home sales: Alex Kourvo writes about a pair of half-million dollar homes, a time capsule in a sea of condos, and a workman’s cottage with a “cosmic” perspective. Read more and browse our interactive map.

Hit These Links

Courtesy: TeamUSA press

Ann Arbor–based figure skaters Evan Bates and Madison Chock settle for a controversial silver in Milan-Cortina to, more than likely, cap their Olympic careers. Read more

Amid controversy sparked by critical comments of the U.S. by other members of Team USA, Fox News saw fit to highlight how thrilled, grateful, and patriotic bobsledder Jasmine Jones, a former EMU track and field standout, is. She competes next week.

A U-M kinesiology prof is serving as a sports physiologist for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Read more

As if the intersection between State St. and Ellsworth Rd. isn’t problematic enough, a gas leak last night made things much messier. Read more

FYI to parents of preK-age kids: This is how my family saved more than $15,000 this year.

The team with the most Wolverines won Super Bowl LX, so the U-M fandom is rejoicing.

The Freep reports that the latest cache of Epstein files show some parents tried to get his help to get their children into U-M. The kids didn’t attend. The story is excellent, save for the initial description of Jeffrey Epstein as a “discredited financier.” He wasn’t a horrifying monster because he was bad or shady with money. (In a weird twist, one of the students whose parents asked for Epstein’s help went to my high school in Syosset, NY, per this.)

Columnist and author Mitch Albom profiles sports announcer Mike Tirico of Ann Arbor, whom he dubs the most “omnipresent personality in American sports.”

Ypsi needs help naming snowplows. Read more

WEMU’s David Fair and Mike Jewett will retire at the end of June. The announcement comes just as the station settles into modern new digs named for Art Timko.

Do you wanna build a rain garden? The county wants to help.

Pride Source spotlights three LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs with support from Ann Arbor SPARK. Read more

The city is still seeking a sculptor to create a statue for queer pioneer Kathy Kozachenko, leading me to wonder: In this city – and/or a LGBTQ+ world – bursting with artists who should want to honor this history, why is this difficult?

AAPS is joining a federal lawsuit against social media companies over efforts to draw children to the platforms. Read more

Police bodycam footage shows Blair Shelton, who fought for decades to prove his innocence in a local rape case, being racially profiled again last summer while browsing the Target on State St. Cops detained the sixty-seven-year-old while looking for (checks notes) a twenty-seven-year-old who had already been arrested. Read more

Delta Tau, the fraternity whose party U-M sophomore Lucas Mattson left drunk the night he apparently froze to death, is on interim suspension. The family’s attorney says Mattson’s mother is “angry as hell.” Read more

The group that opposed Props A and B, which enabled the downtown library to redevelop as a mixed-used high-rise, must pay $2,300 to settle a campaign finance infraction. Read more

The unarmed motorist shot to death by Washtenaw County sheriff’s deputies last month has been identified by his family as thirty-four-year-old Navy vet John Andrew Jenuwine of St. Clair County. His attorney says more than twenty shots were fired, seven of which hit Jenuwine and caused nonfatal injuries, but he died of blood loss. Read more

Votebeat examines why the lines at the polls were out the door in Ann Arbor in 2022. Read more

Renter advocate Jeffrey Milk, twenty, is running for the Democratic nomination for the Ward 4 seat being vacated by Dharma Akmon. Ann Arbor District Library board member Aidan Sova is also running as a Democrat.

Parks & Rec wants $5 million to replace the South Barton Pedestrian Dam. Read more

All this extra snow we’ve had this year is really, really good for the environment. Read more

How cool: the Maize and Blue flag flew atop Mount Kilimanjaro.

Marketplace

“Artisanal, small-batch” bagel startup takes off: Steven Kovanda tells Alex de Wild in this month’s Observer that he spent months perfecting his recipe at home in pursuit of the alchemy that is the authentic New York City–style bagel. In November, he began offering them via Facebook Marketplace to a surprisingly warm reception, so he now trades as Batch House Bagels. They can also be ordered via Instagram or by email.

Toledo pizza brand coming to the Standard: Stubborn Brother Pizza Bar expects to open its second location on the ground floor of the ten-story apartment building at Main and William streets by summer, WTOL reports. It’ll be a ninety-seat dining area with a thirty-eight-seat bar, but the pizza dough will be made in Toledo and driven to the A2 site three times a week, the owner says.

Ferndale chocolatier to replace Kilwins: Quix Chocolate expects to take over the space at 107 E. Liberty by summer, DBusiness reports. It will sell the company’s Belgian-style chocolates as well as Illy coffee and Guernsey ice cream. The brand is also sold in fifty-six Michigan grocery stores and the Evans Terminal at DTW.

Helpers

Program seeks to thwart mental health stigma for Black men: Packard Health will soon launch Healing Brothers United, an effort funded by the county’s mental health millage to encourage Black men to seek help, Concentrate writes. The program will offer services, such as a Black male therapist, as well as community events and public workshops.

Fat Tuesday meal to benefit Ypsi’s Hope Clinic: The Delicious Resistance event at the First United Methodist Church in Ann Arbor will feature structured conversation on the themes of pleasure, activism, revelry, and spirituality as well as musical performance and a poetry reading. Admission is on a free-to-$55 sliding scale but registration is required. For more information, click here.

Next A2Zero Clothing Swap is Thursday: The public is invited to bring in up to ten washed articles of clothing or accessories in good condition to trade from 4 to 7 p.m. in council chambers at Larcom City Hall. For more information, click here.

Things To Do

By Jennifer Taylor

Friday: Vinegar Valentines, a Clements Library exhibit of salty Victorian-era Valentine’s Day. For more information, click here.

Saturday: “Candlelit Valentine,” a concert by composer-pianist R. MacKenzie Lewis and friends performing romantic classics, torch songs, and more. For more information, click here.

Sunday: Chinese New Year Celebration at Briarwood Mall. For more information, click here.

Looking for more? Check out the Observer’s exhaustive online calendar of upcoming events.