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March 27, 2026Can you guess what’s pictured above? Click the image to find out! |
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| | Ten years ago this week, my father, Neil Charles Friess, died. It happened pretty suddenly – I was in Florida for his seventy-fifth birthday and he was having a great deal of discomfort and pain. Then, the day I was scheduled to fly home, I accompanied him to the gastroenterologist; the doctor told me to get him to the ER. They took a look inside, saw a raging tumor that had taken over his abdomen, and told us to take Dad to hospice. He died three days later.
In some ways, the speed was merciful. I lost one brother-in-law in September to Alzheimer’s and another in November to cancer, and both were agonizing, lengthy deteriorations that traumatized my nephews and nieces. Losing my father was a bitter surprise that divided our family life into before and after, and I wish he’d met my children and his nine-and-counting great-grandchildren. But I’m glad he didn’t suffer as much as many people felled by cancer do.
I try to imagine him at eighty-five. His mother lived to eighty-four, his father to ninety-three, so Dad was an outlier in my family in terms of life span. Hopefully he’d still be playing golf and gin rummy; he’d probably be reading everything he could about autism vis-à-vis my son; and I suspect glumly that he would’ve gone MAGA. I suppose we were spared the father-son strife that might have caused, although we did stop talking politics altogether after a blowout fight over the start of the Iraq War in 2003. (I was right, Dad – it turned out to be universally accepted as a terrible mistake.)
I wrote in June 2016, my first fatherless Father’s Day, about Dad’s acceptance of me for the Washington Post. He was a good man and I miss him.
Your news is here. It’s a busy, high-profile sports weekend ahead, the measles outbreak now includes a child, interim U-M president Domenico Grasso testified before Congress, and there appear to be mistakes in the U-M Law Library’s luminous stained glass.
This is last week’s most-clicked link.
– Steve Friess, editor |
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| | | The U-M women’s basketball team mug at Crisler Center on Sunday after punching their ticket to the Sweet Sixteen. Courtesy: Emily Richmond |
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Families supportive of AAPS’s teachers union gathered at the Michigan Education Association’s Ann Arbor headquarters for a watch party of this week’s Board of Education meeting. Credit: Amy Sumerton |
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| | AAPS faces public pressure amid teacher contract talks: A group of parents, students, teachers, and members of the community are among more than 1,000 signers of a missive demanding the school board halt any new spending until the district release “detailed budgets” for the 2023–24, 2024–25, and 2025–26 school years. “Stop asking us what we would cut, without sharing details of what we spend,” the letter urges, noting that trustees frequently ask this of critics. Around the district, PTOs are canceling events that typically involve teachers working outside school hours. The lack of a contract also impacted last week’s report cards; teachers used boilerplate language to describe students rather than the typical individualized commentaries. “Our teaching agreement only allocates three hours specifically for report card writing,” according to an email to parents who complained. “In the past, teachers have spent ten to twenty hours in addition to the time provided to personalize report cards for each student.” |
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| | More measles, more problems: The county is now up to seven confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable disease, all stemming from an unvaccinated adult who is believed to have acquired it earlier this month in Florida. The latest case is an unvaccinated child who is a “close contact” of the original patient. Also, the list of sites of potential public exposure has grown to also include two WCC buildings, the Kroger on Whittaker Rd., and the treatment areas at Trinity hospital’s emergency room. Anyone who may have been exposed should monitor themselves for symptoms for twenty-one days but “do not seek medical treatment in person without calling the doctor’s office, urgent care, or emergency room first,” according to the Washtenaw County Health District. WCHD spokeswoman Susan Ringler-Cerniglia says one patient was hospitalized but has since been released. |
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| | U-M grads plotting launch of “anti-Amazon”: Rachael Merritt, a 2022 alum who went to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship, blew up on TikTok this week as she teased Dorro, a start-up she and two cofounders, also U-M alums, plan to launch April 7. “It’s probably an insane idea, but what the hell?” Merritt asks in a video shot on the Diag, as spotted by the Observer’s eagle-eyed social media guru Tabi Walters. In just a few days, Merritt has amassed nearly 42,000 followers. From what can be gleaned from Dorro’s site, the plan is to open an online store of curated, bespoke artistic wares that are “intentionally sourced.” |
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| | A sweet sports bonanza: The U-M men’s and women’s basketball teams had little trouble disposing of their first two opponents in their respective NCAA tournaments. The men, who are seeded No. 1 in their quadrant, face No. 4–seeded Alabama, tipping off at 7:35 p.m. tonight. If the Wolverines win, they’ll play either No. 6–seeded Tennessee or No. 2–seeded Iowa State on Sunday. On the women’s side, the No. 2–seeded Wolverines play No. 3–seeded Louisville at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow; if they win, they face either No.1–seeded Texas or No. 5–seeded Kentucky on Monday. Meanwhile, the U-M men’s hockey squad demolished Ohio State last weekend in the Big Ten tournament and faces off against Bentley University tonight at 5:30 p.m. And if all that weren’t enough, the U-M men’s gymnastics team has also won a Big Ten title, largely on the shoulders of star Charlie Larson, a gay athlete known as one of a trio of Powerpuff Girls. |
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| | Wolverine goes public on mental health challenges: In a brave move for a promising football player, linebacker Ernest Hausmann goes in depth with Sports Illustrated about his bipolar disorder and how it manifested in a manic decision to abruptly flee the team last fall. Hausmann, twenty-two, was 100 miles from an Oregon air base, where he planned to enlist in the Air National Guard, when he flipped over in his SUV – an accident that helped him recalibrate. Hausmann is back with the Wolverines, but that’s just part of the story. Read the whole beautifully written piece. |
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| | | Fragments made whole: Gregory Anderson, who works in marketing for Motawi Tileworks, writes of WCC art historian Elisabeth Thoburn’s elaborate uses of the imperfect or surplus pieces she buys up from the store’s Boneyard. “Over seven years, she gathered thousands of these second-quality tiles and installed them room by room,” Anderson writes of her Pinckney home. “At retail pricing, the square footage of tile covering her floors, walls, fireplace, and outdoor mural would easily total well into six figures.”
A stain in the glass? The dazzling windows of the Reading Room at the U-M Law Library appear to have mistakes in them, Alex de Wild writes. Specifically, the windows imply Oxford University was founded in 896 and Cambridge in 915, but the earliest evidence of teaching at those sites dates to 1096 and 1209 respectively.
My Town: Patti Smith, a self-confessed terrible dancer, tells of her discovery of Elemental Ecstatic Dance, “a sober, free-form movement practice where people dance however their bodies want.” |
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| | | | Courtesy: Screengrab via C-SPAN |
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| Interim U-M president Domenico Grasso (above) testified before Congress yesterday, defending the school’s security standards against espionage and other intelligence attacks. Watch the hearing or read his submitted statement.
The Ann Arbor District Library’s open call for Indigenous artists from the Great Lakes region to create artwork for Land Acknowledgement plaques closes April 6. AADL wants to put the work on display at its five branches.
More than thirty leaders in the Ann Arbor area have signed a letter urging Monroe Public Schools to return suspended athletic director Chet Hesson to his job. Hesson was placed on leave after making empathetic comments about a student at Skyline High on the girls’ volleyball team who had been targeted for anti-trans harassment.
Jill Biden is coming to town. Finally.
A car smashed through the front of Kroger on Whittaker Rd. in Ypsilanti Twp. on Wednesday, resulting only in minor injuries. A shopper shot this video.
Sheriff Alyshia Dyer has reached a settlement in her lawsuit against the county commission, county administrator, and county aimed at regaining control of her department’s human resources operations. She largely triumphed, but an independent review is being launched into a particular incident.
A decline in revenue from marijuana sales could hurt local mental health and substance abuse programs, services for at-risk youth, and more.
Detroit Free Press photographer David Rodriguez Muñoz focuses a photo essay on the travails of an Ypsi asylum seeker trying to put his life back together after being unlawfully detained by ICE for three months.
The county is gearing up to celebrate its 200th birthday.
Did you know that overwrought song played when the March Madness winner is crowned was written by someone who lives in Ann Arbor? I did not. |
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| | | Pinball Pete’s is (almost) back: The beloved arcade, bounced from its South University perch by construction of a new high-rise apartment building, is moving into the space at 500 E. Liberty that’s been vacant since Douglas J Salon moved to Kerrytown in 2021. Dave Algase writes in the March issue of the Observer that owner Ted Arnold expected to be open this month, but as of this week there’s no opening date set.
Western-themed bar opens downtown: The Ranch Honky Tonk, due to open this week, is the brainchild of Grizzly Peak Brewing Co. owner Jon Carlson, MLive writes. It replaces the Den and the Cellar, also owned by Carlson, who says the prior enterprises did not “click.”
Hummus Express replaces Zamaan Grill: Owner Ali Hijazi, who still has Zamaan Cafe and El Limón on Plymouth Rd., turned his location at the Colonnade over to the soon-to-open fast-casual Hummus Express, Algase writes in this month’s Observer. |
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| | | Groups raise $4.2M on Giving Blueday: More than 11,800 donors helped hit the mark during the twelfth annual event, down from the total $4.7 million last year and $5.3 million in 2024. Nearly half the total came from 2,257 donors giving $2.2 million to the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. Also notable: Dance Marathon significantly exceeded its goal of $10,000 for Giving Blueday, according to MLive.
Hands-On Museum hosts sensory-friendly days: The first this year happened Wednesday, but two more are scheduled for April 29 and May 27, according to the website. During the two-hour sessions, from 3 to 5 p.m. on each date, the museum allows fewer visitors, provides “designated break spaces” within exhibits, and sensory bags and tools to check out. Admission is free but space is limited.
Moving company collecting items for SafeHouse Center: Two Men and a Truck’s Ann Arbor location is taking in donations of craft supplies, kid and adult pajamas, hygiene products, and household supplies for clients of the nonprofit that supports survivors of sexual assault and domestic abuse. The Movers for Moms campaign is accepting contributions at its offices at 125 Dino through May 6. |
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