News

Starry-Eyed

A group of local chefs and business owners hope to lure Michelin to Ann Arbor.  In April, Michelin announced its first Great Lakes edition, rating restaurants in Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis. (It has published a Chicago guide since 2010.) Michelin reviewers have begun visiting restaurants, and the guide is slated for publication in 2027.

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College Cheer at Huron High

Four students were admitted to Yale—which Huron High college counselor Emily Mashal says may only take thirty students from the entire state—alongside acceptances to Columbia, Stanford, Northwestern, and Brown. More than ninety-five students were admitted to U-M, and several first-generation students earned spots at top institutions with full financial support.

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Truce in Gaza, Conflicts in Ann Arbor

In May 2024, a week before police stormed and dismantled the Gaza solidarity encampment on the Diag, first-term Democrat U-M Regent Jordan Acker wrote on social media that he would never budge from his view that the university must not divest its endowment from companies that profit from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. “If these protesters do not like these answers, they are free to run for office and try to get the people of Michigan to elect them,” Acker posited.

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Sirens’ Song

As the sky spasmed with lightning in the early hours of April 15, smartphones throughout Washtenaw County shrieked: TORNADO WARNING. Mournful wails could be heard outside, even above the thunder and bullet-hail of rain. Ann Arbor’s twenty-two outdoor warning sirens were sounding an emergency for the first time since the bow echo thunderstorm in July 2023.

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All the Lonely People

People experience loneliness when “perceptions of their social relationships don’t match what they would ideally like them to be. Not everyone who feels lonely is truly alone and not everyone who is socially isolated feels lonely,” says University of Michigan social epidemiologist Lindsay Kobayashi. The importance of third places—low-cost or free community spaces like parks, coffee shops, and libraries where people can find connection outside of home (a first place) and work (a second place)—is becoming a more popular topic in public health research.

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Comprehensive Plan: What Happens Now?

In mid-April, Ann Arbor’s planning commission held its first working session aimed at figuring out zoning and other legal language changes based on the city’s new Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP). Planning staff arrived with three proposed outlines of implementation steps the commission could take, including a set of seven priorities the planners recommended.

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Downtown Dead Zone

The west side of the block is a kaleidoscope of historic storefronts housing Vinology restaurant, Crazy Wisdom bookstore, and half a dozen other businesses. Across the street, the vacant stone-and-glass facades of PNC and JP Morgan Chase loom over the sidewalk like silent ghosts. 

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The Road Less Travelable

Those tire-swallowing holes are created during the weather’s freeze and thaw cycle where subfreezing temperatures are quickly followed by fifty-degree days. Moisture like snow and ice melt seeps into the pavement, freezes and expands, and then thaws to create gaps. 

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