After the fun we had here with the peculiar Ann Arbor cameo on a 1955 Mickey Mouse Club episode, reader Lisa Treat wrote in with something curious her husband spotted in a different bit of early TV, an episode of Bewitched. The image, displayed below, shows what appears to be a cross-stitch of a football player in a Wolverine uniform of the 1960s.

Why is it there? It certainly seems like something homemade that a set designer or producer put in deliberately – especially since it’s a little strange that they would put a football player over Tabitha’s crib but otherwise make the room very, very pink.

I fell down an Internet rabbit hole trying to figure it out via IMDB, Wikipedia, and Google with very little luck. Virtually nobody connected to the show had any Michigan ties except Dick York, the original Darren who left the show after five seasons for health reasons. Eventually, he wound up in the Grand Rapids area, where he died in 1992. That’s it.

Some mysteries, I suppose, must remain so. If you have a clue, though, by all means let me know.

Your news is here. The immigration and data center debates persist, there’s intrigue in the mayor’s race, the Winter Olympics start tonight with several athletes with current or past A2 ties, and what appears to be a human skull somehow ended up in a Goodwill donation bin.

This is last week’s most-clicked link, although now it may be behind a paywall.

– Steve Friess, editor

1. ICE backlash intensifies: Students at several high schools walked out midday on Wednesday and marched on the federal courthouse downtown (pictured above) to demonstrate their opposition to the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant crackdown and tactics used in pursuing possible deportees. That follows last Friday’s closure of Community High and A2STEAM when too many staffers called out as part of a “national shutdown.” Wednesday’s protest was only the latest anti-ICE action; a group called Ann Arbor ICE Out, led by former AAPS trustee Jeff Gaynor, has begun picketing four major intersections on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. It’s not just in Ann Arbor, either; at Saline High last Thursday (January 29), the principal sanctioned one brief anti-ICE walkout, but then tried unsuccessfully to block a second one later in the school day. In related news, Ann Arbor City Council and the Chelsea School Board this week joined the Washtenaw County Commission in limiting ICE access to non-public areas of its buildings and property without warrants. In Lansing, Ann Arbor state rep Carrie Rheingans introduced a measure – albeit unlikely to pass the GOP-controlled Senate – to bar all law enforcement from making stops or arrests based on “personal characteristics” like race or language spoken. Oh, and an Ypsi man was fined $5,000 and sentenced to six months probation for flipping off border patrol agents and brake-checking their vehicles in July. The Trump administration, for its part, is touting the detainment and pending deportation of a forty-five-year-old El Salvador national previously convicted of manslaughter who was also deported in 2015 and 2018.

2. The mayor’s race gets interesting: Incumbent Christopher Taylor, aiming for an unprecedented fourth four-year term, will need to get past a primary challenge by county commissioner Yousef Rabhi, a thirty-seven-year-old former state rep running as a Democratic socialist. This comes three months after Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani won the NYC mayoralty. Read more

3. Data center debate goes nuclear: The confirmation from a representative of Los Alamos National Labs to the Michigan Daily that the planned $1.2 billion U-M collaboration with Los Alamos National Labs in Ypsilanti Twp. will involve “nuclear weapons” research set off a new round of consternation among opponents already displeased with the facility’s potential impact on the environment and the electrical grid. It’s not exactly a new revelation; an online FAQ page posted by U-M did say “​​the federal facility … will focus on scientific computation to address various national challenges, including cybersecurity, nuclear and other emerging threats, biohazards, and clean energy solutions.” Nonetheless, it did provide another round of headlines. Meanwhile, Concentrate does a pretty good job of laying out the economic versus environmental issues surrounding the myriad data center projects planned around the region. Also, work has already started on Oracle and Open AI’s Saline Twp. data center.

Podcast pair: EMU theater school alums Josie and Michael Herman (pictured above) tell Erica Hobbs their latest horror/sci-fi show Liminal took a year to produce via their Ann Arbor–based Acorn Arts & Entertainment. Their four-episode audio drama, about three brothers fighting for their lives inside of a dreamscape, was inspired by their fascination with liminal, or transitional, spaces and wanting to tell a story about sibling dynamics. Read more

Post Sherrone: Micheline Maynard takes a deep dive into December’s shocking firing and arrest of U-M football head coach Sherrone Moore. Regent Sarah Hubbard told Maynard she’d heard rumors about Moore’s alleged affair with a subordinate but that she tends “to give people the benefit of the doubt.” Read more

What She Said: A reader asks our advice maven where “brilliant creatives” can find one another in Ann Arbor. Read more

MLive delves into a question I wish I’d thought of: Why doesn’t Concordia pay property taxes on the vast expanses of land, including the barn above, if they no longer use any of it for educational purposes? Read more

Council voted 8-2 in favor of a $300 million “tax capture” plan and, separately, for the agreement that allows the planned fourteen-building Arbor South development off State St. and Eisenhower Pkwy. Read more

The heartbroken family of the U-M sophomore who apparently froze to death after leaving a frat party is unimpressed by the administration’s handling of the matter. Read more

The Ann Arbor PTO Council took to social media to indicate support for teachers’ decisions not to participate in anything unpaid or noncontractual, including the annual evening kindergarten preview events, while they work without a new contract. Read more about the dispute.

MDOT just started a noise study of M-14. They want to hear from you, but you’ll have to speak up. Read more

Time named U-M the ninth-best university in the world, the highest rank for any public university. Read more

You can now hug your incarcerated loved one lodged at the county jail. Treating accused or convicted people as humans? What a concept.

There’s more evidence that the two-year guaranteed basic income pilot program, which ended in December, wasn’t the rousing success its proponents hoped it would be. Read more 

Speaking of guaranteed income, city administrator Milton Dohoney got a retroactive raise last month, bumping his salary to an even $300,000. Read more

Did someone really donate a human skull to Goodwill? The more I read, the less sure I am – perhaps because I don’t understand what they mean by it being an “artifact,” and nobody seems to think that needs to be explained.

The city landed a $4.3 million state grant to redevelop the area around Blake Transit Center. Read more

Fourth-year U-M ice hockey head coach Brandon Naurato inked a five-year, $3.8 million contract extension laden, of course, with bonus incentives. Under the forty-year-old Livonia native, the team has been ranked No. 1 nationally for ten weeks and counting. Read more

In related news, tonight’s faceoff with MSU at Yost Ice Arena will be the facility’s first “zero-waste” game. I mean, unless you count the fact that Spartans will be there. Read more

In time for the Super Bowl, Ann Arbor’s Detroit Street Filling Station gets a pat on the back from PETA for “chicken wings” made of cauliflower. But to be fair, how would a vegan know how the real thing compares?

The Winter Olympics start tonight. Of local and/or U-M–related interest are figure skaters Evan Bates and Madison Chock, bobsledder Jasmine Jones, and hockey players Zach Werenski, Quinn Hughes and Jack Hughes, Kyle Connor, Connor Hellebuyck, Seth Jones, and Tage Thompson.

Thai restaurateur opens sixth eatery: Teerawat Pho-On, who goes by Apple (above), tells Dave Algase in this month’s Observer that his latest venture, Eat Thai Ann Arbor on S. Main St., aims for a “more homestyle take on the cuisine” than what diners get at another of his properties, Tuptim. Eat Thai is the only full-service Thai restaurant in downtown Ann Arbor and will cater to the student population with late-night hours. Tuptim, incidentally, is in the process of moving across Washtenaw Ave. to a larger site. Read more

Chelsea’s Garden Mill to close: “Despite our best efforts, the reality is that the current economic environment has made it impossible to continue,” says owner Jennifer Fairfield, who bought the business in 2012 after the death of her husband. “It’s time for me to find another path.” The store is discounting merchandise by as much as 70 percent as it liquidates. Read more

Champions Liquor to replace Blue Leprechaun: The longtime South University party store lost its lease in University Towers at the end of 2025, so owner Robert Kesto plans to move across the street and take over the space freed up when the sports bar closed in December, MLive reports. Kesto says that as soon as his liquor license is transferred from the prior location, he plans to remodel and reopen with a dance floor and bar.

Skyline High collage concert benefit is Wednesday: The event, which starts at 7 p.m., features members of the school’s band, choir, orchestra, and theater programs performing a variety show. Tickets are $20 for the general public, $10 for students, with proceeds going to support the school’s arts programs. For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Blood Battle pits U-M against three Big Ten rivals: The four schools, including Penn State, Michigan State, and Wisconsin, are competing to see who can amass the most donations to the American Red Cross between January 12 and February 26. To make an appointment to donate, click here.

Tickets available for Michigan Ovarian Cancer Alliance soiree: The New Orleans–themed “Mardi Gras on Main” fundraiser, which features dancing to live music by the local ensemble the Alex Belhaj Crescent City Quartet, is February 15 at Conor O’Neill’s. Admission is $40; click here for more information. Purple, green, and gold attire encouraged.

By Jennifer Taylor

Friday: At The Creature Conservancy’s “Adult Open Hours,” meet representatives of species who live in organized groups, including a kangaroo, a pancake tortoise, an alpaca, and a Patagonian mara, one of the largest rodents in the world. Age 18+ only. For more information, click here.

Saturday: Hear renowned trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra honor Duke Ellington with “Duke in Africa,” a performance of West African–influenced works the jazz great composed after a 1966 trip to Senegal. For more information, click here.

Sunday: Cheer for the Maize and Blue at the U-M Women’s Basketball vs. UCLA game. The Wolverines are enjoying a historic start to the season, currently sitting at No. 8 in the Associated Press poll. For more information, click here.

See the Observer’s online calendar for many more local events. 

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