News

Ray Herrick—a master toolmaker and close friend of Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, and Thomas Edison—started Hillsdale Machine & Tool Company in 1930. Four years later, it was on the brink of bankruptcy when the town of...

Q: Several stoplights seem now to be out of sync with the pedestrian crossing signal. For instance, when you are headed west on William and waiting for the light at Main Street, pedestrians get the white OK-to-cross sign while...

The trio might have been candidates campaigning as they smiled, shook hands, and spoke to half-empty auditoriums around Ann Arbor in April. Instead, they were publishing executives working for the Newhouse family, and their...

On April 6, Renee Wolf was chauffeured to suburban Lansing. At a cyber cafe there, she and others boarded a bus to the Michigan Department of Health. She rolled into the building in her wheelchair, deposited some forms in a box,...

Will the feds pay for new bridges on East Stadium Boulevard? Homayoon Pirooz, head of the city’s Public Services Department, sure hopes so. He points out that January’s economic stimulus bill includes “$1.5...

“I made a mistake,” admits Ravi Nigam. “I didn’t campaign.” The lawyer/engineer was widely expected to win a school board seat in this month’s election. His only opponent, grad student Adam...

The Green Road post office in northeast Ann Arbor eliminated two delivery routes in March. After an evaluation that included counting every piece of mail handled and every step walked, the thirty-one remaining routes were...

“I have been looking for a job since I got back to school this fall and have yet to find one,” says 2009 grad Mallory Bradford.”There’s a lot of anxiety,” says Bradford. “I worked so hard to...

A philanthropist who lost megabucks in the Bernie Madoff scam has found a more tangible investment: homes in Ann Arbor Hills. The Observer has learned that at least four houses in the affluent east-side neighborhood have been...

Q: What are those poles on the street that are green or blue and have little cone-shaped hats on top? Some of them are in pairs.A: Once aware of these poles, one spots them in many places around town, for example, on the...