News

Turnover Trouble

Turnover Trouble

Nov 25, 2025 | , |

In 2023, Michigan men’s basketball set an unenviable record: most losses in program history. In the spring of 2024, athletic director Warde Manuel gave coach Juwan Howard his walking papers, and found himself mired in a different sort of athletic contest: national post-NCAA grabathon for the hottest available coach. Michigan won when Dusty May—who had turned a moribund Florida Atlantic University program into a national powerhouse—inked a five-year deal with the Wolverines.

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Extreme Makeover: Broadway Edition

Extreme Makeover: Broadway Edition

Nov 25, 2025 | , |

On March 16, 2020, Eunice Choi, Realtor and owner of the Broadway Party Store, confirmed a permanent closure of her business with a handwritten sign stating “We are closed … Covid 19.” Beyond the sign, sun-bleached bags of chips sat on shelves, and stocked display refrigerators stood dark.

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Vision Zero In Hindsight

Vision Zero In Hindsight

Nov 25, 2025 | , |

In June 2021, city council adopted its Moving Together Toward Vision Zero comprehensive transportation plan, which called for the elimination of traffic fatalities and serious injuries by the end of 2025. Three months earlier, city staff announced a slightly less ambitious target: the number of fatalities and serious injuries caused by car crashes would fall below five per year. The two goals share one important commonality: failure.

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Defunding Science

Defunding Science

Nov 23, 2025 | , |

But there’s an imminent threat to promising mRNA research: massive cuts to the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposed by President Trump, which researcher Nils Walter says “would really devastate the progress that can be made.”

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Don’t Call It a Data Center

Don’t Call It a Data Center

Oct 24, 2025 | , , , |

In December, U-M announced its plans to partner with the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to create a $1.25 billion “state-of-the-art” computing and AI research facility. Construction is expected to begin in 2027 and wrap up in 2031. The facility is tentatively sited on nearly 150 acres of land on Textile Rd. in Ypsilanti Twp.

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Sports for Sale

Sports for Sale

Oct 24, 2025 | , , |

After a landmark July court decision, the NCAA enabled schools to pay their athletes and removed limits on scholarships. Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel decided that every competing athlete would receive a full scholarship, and revenue sharing too, although the bulk of that money goes to men’s football, basketball and hockey.

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Fixing Barton Dam

Fixing Barton Dam

Oct 24, 2025 | , , , |

When I lived in Ann Arbor back in the 1980s, Barton Dam was barely on my radar. The Huron River was scenic enough from the road: a heron or hawk here and there, maybe a deer ambling just off the shoulder. The dam itself, tucked out of sight from Huron River Dr., might as well have been invisible.

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Newspaper Rescue

Newspaper Rescue

Oct 24, 2025 | , |

Ann Arbor businessman Nagabhushanam “Bobbi” Peddi has purchased the Sun Times News, a weekly paper covering Dexter, Chelsea, Milan, and Saline.

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The Observer’s Next Owner

The Observer’s Next Owner

Oct 24, 2025 | , |

Editor in chief John Hilton and publisher Patricia Garcia, who have owned the Ann Arbor Observer since 1986, were just beginning to think about a succession plan when the pandemic hit. They realized retirement would have to wait.

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Learning Lag

Learning Lag

Oct 24, 2025 | , |

Students in grades 3–7 took the Michigan Student Test of Education Progress (M-STEP) last spring and the results were released on the same late-August day they returned to their classrooms. 56 percent of Ann Arbor’s third graders scored proficient or better, and 61 percent of fourth graders.

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Trade Off

Trade Off

Oct 24, 2025 | , , , |

On November 4, voters decide whether to raise property taxes by 1 mill for the next decade. The money raised—$25 million the first year—would support CTE programs like this one. Administrators can talk ad nauseam about the power of giving young people a variety of opportunities for instruction in specific career fields, but it’s student testimonials that have been front and center in the campaign to push through the millage. Yet the debate over the ballot question isn’t so much about support for or opposition to CTE as it is whether a new tax ought to pay for it.

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Fee Parking

Fee Parking

Oct 24, 2025 | , , |

Burns Park homeowners stood on street corners holding placards beckoning football fans to their lawns and driveways. West of the stadium, churches directed visitors to spots, and a line of cars waited to park at the U-M golf course on State St. Just another game day in Ann Arbor.

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Park #163

Park #163

Oct 24, 2025 | , |

A sunny weekend in mid-September saw the grand opening of Broadway Park West. Sitting on seven acres of new green space on the Huron River just north of the Amtrak station, the park connects to the Border to Border Trail via a new pedestrian bridge—eliminating the need for pedestrians and cyclists to cross the less-accessible Argo Dam.

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Cluster Museum Is Coming Out Swinging

Cluster Museum Is Coming Out Swinging

Oct 24, 2025 | , , , |

A former ballet studio on N. Main is ready for a star turn in a new artistic direction. Cluster Museum, a new collaborative of local artists, hosts a small commercial gallery with art supplies for sale in the front section. Behind the wide viewing window is an ample floor for contemporary thematic exhibits, workshops, and author readings.

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Target: Public Health

Oct 24, 2025 | , , |

“We don’t have the capacity or technical expertise to do research,” explains Washtenaw County Health Department (WCHD) administrator Susan Ringler-Cerniglia. “The CDC has critical resources when we need to respond at the local level. In the case of an unusual pathogen, we call on the CDC. It’s incredibly frightening to feel like we may not be able to rely on them.”

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