News

With a rare “blizzard warning” in effect, the Midwest is bracing for heavy snows and high winds. At 4 a.m. on Tues. Feb. 1, the storm was expected to hit Ann Arbor at 7 p.m. To follow the storm, click here to see the...

How bad is the rise in homelessness in Washtenaw County? “We served 1,200 people last year, and we still have a waiting list of three people for every bed,” says Ellen Schulmeister, executive director of the Shelter...

The 2009 merger of Chelsea Community Hospital with the Saint Joseph Mercy Health System brought an unexpected thank-you gift to area residents: a staggering $25 million was set aside in a perpetual fund to improve their health...

Jeff Masters, guru at Ann Arbor’s Weather Underground, thinks we’re in for another cold winter. But don’t count Masters among the global-warming skeptics–on the contrary, the U-M meteorology Ph.D. has...

This September, 2002 Ann Arbor Observer feature addresses some of the questions raised by the January 8, 2011 shootings in Arizona. For a more recent, and encouraging, account of the local response to mental illness, see this...

Until now, no one in the city has had anything good to say about the emerald ash borer infestation.The Japanese beetle, named for its color and diet, invaded Michigan in 2002. In Ann Arbor alone, it has killed 22,000 ash trees,...

When Jerry Clayton became the new county sheriff two years ago, the board of commissioners told him to cut the department’s $38 million budget by half a million dollars in his first year in office. That seemed like a lot...

Governor-elect Rick Snyder spent the evening of November 2 celebrating his victory with his wife, Sue, their three children, and supporters at a downtown Detroit hotel ballroom. The next morning, he headed to Lansing to start a...