Detroit Free Press
CAN CADE BE A HERO FOR MORE THAN ONE DAY?
Heroes hear trumpets. They rise to the call. So here was Cade Cunningham lifting past the ghost of Isiah Thomas and the night he scored 43 points on a bum ankle in the 1988 NBA Finals. And here was Cunningham, shooting past the specter of Dave Bing and...
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Ferndale’s new fans
While Detroit has seen its population grow in recent years, the same isn’t true for its inner-ring suburbs; most have seen their populations decline instead. The bright spot? Ferndale. Known for its vibrant downtown, thriving local businesses and...
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Drivers’ dread: Is $5 a gallon on the way?
Michigan gas prices, which already had surged from a week ago, jumped again — in a single day — an average of 15 cents a gallon to a statewide average of $4.19 a gallon. The new average in Michigan on Tuesday, April 28, followed several bits of news,...
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‘End of an era’
On Saturday, April 25, Dittrich Furs opened its doors for the last time, ending a 133-year run that saw it become synonymous with luxury in metro Detroit and beyond. Customers made their final purchases as current and former employees gathered to say...
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Blanche: Trump ‘likely’ was targeted
WASHINGTON – Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on April 26 said the gunman who opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner appears to have targeted President Donald Trump and officials in his administration. “It does appear...
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Shiver details affair, reveals her pregnancy
Paige Shiver, the former executive assistant to former Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore, said Moore had “complete control” over both her emotions and her career, he “used it against” her and that he impregnated her. Shiver, whose lip quivered as...
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Tensions escalate in Strait of Hormuz
President Donald Trump’s ceasefire with Iran remained in place April 23 as tensions in the Strait of Hormuz continued and negotiations between Lebanon and Israel were expected to resume in Washington. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Ambassador...
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High school ‘water wars’ are a final splash of fun
Wet and Wanted anticipated The MockingSquirts. The handful of Berkley High School seniors filed through the kitchen of classmate Noah Golembiewski’s house in Huntington Woods, some stopping to fill up water guns at the sink, before heading into the...
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In Cheboygan, a flow of water brings good vibes
CHEBOYGAN – Another long branch came floating down the river, heading right toward them. They stood ready to stop it. They had to. “This is the kind of stuff right here that we’re pulling out,” said Paul Dunn of the Department of Natural Resources,...
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Answers sought after Louisiana massacre
SHREVEPORT, LA – Residents of this historic riverfront city remained shaken a day after a gunman opened fire April 19 and killed eight children in the nation’s deadliest mass shooting since January 2024. They were looking for explanations – and...
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First the floods, now the freeze
First it was flooding, now it’s freezing temperatures that poses a new threat. “Well, there is still flooding, but for the most part, things are slowly getting better,” National Weather Service Meteorologist Jim Keysor said Sunday, April 19, in...
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15 bridges close, 2 fail as flooding concerns mount
Threats to Michigan dams, roads and bridges continue as northern Michigan and parts midMichigan remain under a flood warning through the weekend with more rain in the forecast. Residents in Cheboygan, in the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula, got...
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Cheboygan County floods pack animal shelter with pets
As the flooding became more widespread in Cheboygan County and the situation at the Cheboygan Lock and Dam in the city became more dire, Cheboygan County Humane Society Executive Director Michelle Reid inquired to other local officials about what the...
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Evacuation order lifted but Cheboygan dam still at risk
As rains continued in Cheboygan, crews hoping to prevent an overflow of the Cheboygan Lock and Dam downtown were hoping to catch a break. “We need Mother Nature to cooperate as well,” said Rich Hill, a leader with DNR’s unified incident command for...
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Three northern Michigan dams at risk as waters rise
Water was everywhere. It was moving up to the front porches of homes and flooding backyards. Hotels were full of utility linemen and emergency workers. And near the Cheboygan Lock & Dam Complex — the most worrisome area — crews were doing everything...
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Water rises as Cheboygan Dam nears spillover
Cheboygan residents near the community’s dam on the Cheboygan River remained on stand-by to evacuate Monday, as water levels remained precariously close to spilling over the dam and potentially causing a dam failure − as ominous weather news provided...
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U.S. to blockade strait, Trump says
A day after failed peace negotiations between the United States and Iran in Islamabad, President Donald Trump said the U.S. Navy will start blockading the Strait of Hormuz. In back-to-back social media posts on April 12, Trump said the United States...
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Iran sets conditions for talks with U.S.
Zac Anderson, Christopher Cann and Michael Loria Iran vowed on April 10 not to participate in negotiations unless a ceasefire takes hold in Lebanon and Iran’s assets are unfrozen, throwing doubt over high-stakes peace talks set to begin the following...
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Celebrate U-M basketball’s national championship with Free Press
swag. Scan the QR code to purchase championship books, page prints and commemorative newspapers.
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Resurrected at Michigan State
EAST LANSING – This was 33 months in the making, in case you’ve lost count. There’s zero chance he can contain himself now, much less take the high road. He didn’t wait nearly three years to allow someone behind the wall, behind the safety and sanity...
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MICHIGAN MAGIC
INDIANAPOLIS – Long after the buzzer had sounded, even when half of Lucas Oil Stadium had already cleared out, the Michigan basketball team still wouldn’t leave the court, which at the Final Four is elevated like a stage, a fitting platform for the...
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Police help ICE through traffic stops
Violet Ikonomova The police department in Canton Township, a racially and ethnically diverse metro Detroit suburb, says it doesn’t enforce immigration laws. Still, in August, when an officer stopped a man who gave him a Mexican driver’s license that...
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Trump issues more threats against Iran
Kathryn Palmer President Donald Trump took to social media on April 5 to applaud the U.S. military’s rescue of the second airman whose fighter jet was shot down over Iran – and to issue an expletive-laden threat against the Middle Eastern nation to...
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A BEAUTY OF A HOME OPENER
In Detroit, we treat Opening Day like an unofficial holiday, with parties and events happening all around downtown leading up to the game. We were on the ground to cover it all. Getting the party started Thousands of Tigers fans, dressed in orange,...
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Artemis II 10-day crewed mission will fly by moon
After two major delays, NASA made history on April 1, launching a crew of four astronauts on a 10-day expedition around the moon and back. The Artemis II mission, which is the second under NASA’s multibillion-dollar moon program, marks a major...
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Book Tower looks ‘incredible’ as it celebrates 100th
March marked the 100th anniversary of a famous building in downtown Detroit that, like numerous others in the city, was lucky to have survived a previous period of emptiness and neglect. The Book Tower, 1265 Washington Blvd., is an ornate 38-story...
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New EMU leader to students: Just tell me what you want
Incoming Eastern Michigan University President Brendan Kelly grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. When he was about 8, he was drafted to help his brothers move furniture for their parents’ interior design business with an emphasis on customer...
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Artemis 2 mission ready for launch
Three Americans and one Canadian will set their sights on heading toward the moon for the first time in more than half a century. Yes, robotic U.S. landers have begun to touch down on the moon, but ever since the Apollo era came to an end in 1972,...
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BIG BLUE BLOWOUT
CHICAGO – They went from the bottom of the Big Ten to the Sweet 16 in a flash and followed that turnaround with the best regular season in Michigan basketball history. Then they played even better once the 2026 NCAA Tournament started. Now they’re...
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McGonigle’s major league debut is a walk in the park
SAN DIEGO – Kevin McGonigle looked like a veteran all day. It was his MLB debut. The Detroit Tigers’ 21year-old top prospect stepped to the plate five times March 26 against the San Diego Padres, batting sixth and playing third base — and he came...
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May commands with calm style
He is seemingly unflappable on the sidelines, his boyish face expressionless, his neatly cropped hair devoid of sweat. With his arms crossed and his jaw set, he could be a civil engineer overseeing a bridge build, or a chairman of the board staring out...
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Doughnuts and dirt baths: Around the world with Farley
On March 3, Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley found himself surrounded by a family of Aboriginal people in Queensland, Australia, as they performed a ritual to make their honored guest feel at home in their country. The ceremony, called “Welcome to Country,”...
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Michigan sues ICE to stop a planned detention facility
State and local officials are taking legal action to try to stop a planned immigration detention facility in Romulus. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and city officials announced Tuesday, March 24, they had sued the U.S. Department of Homeland...
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MDOT patrol group keeping motorists safe on highways
Before Dennis Richards walked back to his truck, he checked to make sure the stranded white shuttle along the side of eastbound Interstate 94 wasn’t carrying any of the elderly passengers it serves. That type of consideration is part of Richards’...
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TOXIC TOPOGRAPHY
The bald eagle needed to be killed. Euthanized. All signs pointed to it. h But Alysha Albrecht, a rehabilitator who runs the Raptor Center of Southeast Michigan out of her Lapeer home, hesitated. She moved deliberately and sought consultation from...
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Bouchard: Antisemitism cannot be normalized
The top law enforcement officer in Oakland County decried antisemitism and religious hate as the director of national intelligence linked the Temple Israel attacker to a Hezbollah leader. Flanked by faith leaders, Oakland County Sheriff Michael...
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Temple Israel ‘takes back’ narrative after the attack
Images from inside Temple Israel following the attack earlier this month show scorched hallways, charred and discolored group photos on the wall and meals left behind — macaroni and cheese, grapes and cookies partially eaten on wooden tables with...
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1st patient in Michigan hopes for a life change
A 24-year-old Southfield man is the first person in Michigan to successfully undergo life-changing gene therapy for sickle cell disease using a commercial treatment approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “It’s a privilege to talk about my...
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Nation is hit by weather extremes coast to coast
Adeep freeze settled into the South as a heat wave spread in the West and a trail of high winds and downpours left the East. h On the heels of a major storm that delivered downpours, high winds and thunderstorms in eastern states, the National Weather...
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NATIONAL GUARD RECRUITS MICHIGAN TEENS WITH VR
Here, in one of Woodhaven High School’s gymnasiums, it was hard not to watch the teenagers try out some virtual reality technology and see that war, indeed, has a face. In this instance – on Friday, March 6 – it was a face partly covered by video-game...
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6 U.S. service members killed in crash
Six more U.S. service members were killed when their refueling aircraft crashed after a midair collision over western Iraq, officials said March 13, as the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran reached the two-week mark with few signs of slowing down. The...
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TERROR AT TEMPLE ISRAEL
A man drove a truck into Temple Israel, a Jewish synagogue, in West Bloomfield in a lunchtime attack on March 12 that left him dead, injured a security guard and set the building on fire, authorities said. The attacker was the lone death in the event,...
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Ships attacked in Strait of Hormuz
President Donald Trump said he would ensure safety in the Strait of Hormuz as oil tankers have come under fire and the U.S. military has attacked mine-laying ships during the Iran war. Iran has effectively closed the narrow strait, preventing Saudi...
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Many say they’ll rebuild amid massive cleanup effort
UNION LAKE — Flattened homes, cars and pickup trucks tossed and crushed like pop cans, and fallen and twisted trees mark a half-mile stretch of road where a tornado killed three people Friday, March 6 and left a massive cleanup for residents who say...
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Deadly tornadoes earliest recorded to be that strong
The tornadoes that tore through four southwest Michigan counties March 6, killing four people and injuring nearly two dozen others, were highly unusual not only for their intensity but their early arrival. The most severe of the four tornadoes that...
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Michigan tornado victims identified
Two of four people who died in tornados that devastated southern Michigan on Friday have been publicly identified. The Cass County Sheriff’s Department identified a 12-year-old boy who died near Edwardsburg in Cass County and a funeral home obituary...
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Sherrone Moore reaches plea deal
In a stunning shift, ex-Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore and prosecutors agreed to a plea deal instead of moving forward with a critical hearing, a move that avoids a trial and testimony from his former executive assistant who told police he...
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OUTER SPACE TESTS HAPPENING AT MSU
The complicated electronics now pervading our lives — in our hands, in our cars and orbiting us constantly in satellites — have their own version of Kryptonite: cosmic rays from space that can zap them and cause everything from temporary glitches to...
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Michigan Muslim leaders plead for Trump to end war
Muslim leaders in Michigan gathered in a Dearborn Heights mosque to call for peace and an end to the war against Iran as mourners gathered in religious centers for services remembering people killed in Iran and other parts of the Middle East. “We call...
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Metro Detroiters showing dissent for the war with protests
On a cold, sunny Monday afternoon, March 2, over 70 metro Detroiters gathered outside Royal Oak’s St. John’s Episcopal Church to voice their dissent to the ongoing U.S.-Iran war. The protest was organized by Peace Action of Michigan, which plans to...
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Trump administration: War won’t be ‘endless’
The Trump administration’s war with Iran will not be “endless,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on March 2, as the United States and Israel’s joint air strikes against Iran expand, the death toll rises and a congressional debate over President...
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Tehran retaliates after leader killed in strikes
Three American service members were killed in action amid the ongoing conflict with Iran, U.S. military officials confirmed, one day after the United States and Israel launched strikes against the country and Tehran quickly hit back. Five others were...
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Clinton questioning shows a changed Democratic Party
WASHINGTON – In late February 2016, Hillary Clinton cruised to an overwhelming victory in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary – an unambiguous statement of the former first lady and secretary of state’s dominance over her party as she...
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Whitmer pushes literacy, housing in her final address
LANSING — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer touted seven years of work in her final State of the State address Wednesday, Feb. 25, but said there are still significant strides to be made in fields like literacy and housing before she leaves office at the...
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Bierschbach: We open doors ... We create opportunities
Wayne State University’s new president, Richard Bierschbach, said that when he sits down for lunch with students, they pour out their hopes and dreams to him. “I can identify with it,” he said. “My parents grew up on farms. My mom’s a first-generation...
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Seger sideman’s music treasures are headed to auction
In the years following the 2020 death of Alto Reed, his family faced a daunting challenge. As Bob Seger’s star saxophonist for nearly five decades, Reed accumulated a vast trove of musical instruments, rock memorabilia and touring mementos — enough to...
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Larkin plays huge role in USA gold medal run
MILAN – Dylan Larkin was still on his skates half an hour after the game ended, a gold medal around his neck. He didn’t want to take off either. “It’s just the best feeling I’ve ever felt with these skates on,” the Detroit Red Wings forward told USA...
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Battle for Trump’s brain at State of the Union
The state of President Donald Trump’s union is troubled. When Trump delivers the State of the Union on Feb. 24, the audience in the House chamber will likely include members of a Supreme Court that just outlawed the stiff tariffs that have been his...
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A golden goal moment for Farmington’s Keller
MILAN – Megan Keller threw her arms in the air, threw her equipment on the ice, and her teammates mobbed her. She had just scored a golden goal, completing a remarkable rally for the U.S. women in the final game of the 2026 Winter Olympics women’s...
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A dream of building tiny trucks in Detroit factory
The old factory where Andy Didorosi wants to build tiny trucks needs a new roof. This 50,000-square-foot complex on Detroit’s west side could probably do with a few other updates, too. The building, which more recently had been an old envelope plant,...
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Lenten time-saver: Cleric takes the ashes to the streets
It seemed counter to the spirit of Ash Wednesday, but Katy Kerch said her family would kill her if she didn’t observe the occasion. Fortunately, she was exaggerating. Also, fortunately, right at the entrance to Woodward Corner Market in Royal Oak was...
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Civil rights icon ‘kept the dream alive’
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a towering civil rights icon who battled alongside Martin Luther King Jr., negotiated global hostage releases and shamed corporations for their lack of diversity and failure to support voting rights, died on Feb. 17. He was 84....
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Tigers’ prospects strive for edge to make roster
LAKELAND, FL – Maybe, it was the palm trees. Or the lake off in the distance. But a Jimmy Buffett song popped into my head: “As the son of a son of a sailor/ I went out on the sea for adventure.” But this was just a little different. This was...
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FAT PACZKI
People crowded into a couple of paczki parties in Detroit over the weekend, getting a head start on celebrating Fat Tuesday. The h party-goers — some dressed in paczki gear — drank paczki-flavored liquor and beer, and feasted on paczki, perogies and...
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DASHING IN THE SNOW
Jimmy Pelizzari says the Sno*Drift Rally is like no other road race. “It’s amazing going through the woods at like 90 mph sideways, and there’s just a bunch of people out in the middle of nowhere with bonfires going, cheering you on, so that’s really...
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U.P. town split over ‘deer prison’ and what to do with it
IRON MOUNTAIN — The deer are going to be killed. Unless something changes, unless someone steps forward to say they’ll take these flawed animals, the deer are going to be killed. And some people think that dying is better than how they now...
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SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES
LAKELAND, Fla. − It felt like old times. Justin Verlander, the iconic Detroit Tigers pitcher, walked down a path, heading to the Tigers’ headquarters outside Joker Marchant Stadium. He had just finished his first workout — a day after agreeing to a...
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Michigan student walkouts: ‘We need to change things’
More than 200 Dexter High School students walked out of school 20 minutes early on Feb. 9. They stood outside of the school until the bell rang, then marched over a mile from their school to Monument Park, holding signs and chanting on Main Street in...
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Cash aid for moms and babies continues to grow
A cash aid program for moms and babies opened its application in Michigan's largest city and will soon reach the state's northernmost regions — continuing a rapid 6A expansion of the initiative, which aims to quickly offer financial security to...
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NO ESCAPE
In mid-December the last Ford Escape compact SUV — signed by many of the UAW workers who built it — rolled off the assembly line at Ford Motor’s Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky. It was an understated end to one of the automaker’s best-selling and...
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MAGA VS. BAD BUNNY SPLITS SUPER BOWL
Sen. Tommy Tuberville was thrilled to attend the Super Bowl in 2025 when he hitched a ride on Air Force One, joining President Donald Trump and several other Republican lawmakers for the big game. “Happy Super Bowl Sunday,” the Republican senator for...
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Report: Trump attacking pillars of democracy
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has attacked key pillars of U.S. democracy, Human Rights Watch warned on Feb. 4 in its annual report, citing the Republican president’s immigration crackdown, threats to voting rights and other policies. Human...
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Tigers’ lefty a mound legend
Legendary Detroit Tigers pitcher Mickey Lolich, whose three complete game victories in the 1968 World Series delivered a championship and earned him the series MVP, has died at age 85. As one of the anchors of the Tigers’ pitching staff in the 1960s...
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Usher, Big Sean blaze music path for city kids
In a darkened video production room Monday in Detroit, Usher and Big Sean stood before a large LED screen, watching a clip that had been created in that very space. There, on the fifth floor of the Station at Michigan Central, the two music...
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Obscure U.P. museum chronicles a lost world
K.I. SAWYER AFB – Sarge was pointing out the obvious. At least to him. “This little bird right here is the T37, of course,” he said, standing before a museum exhibit. “In Vietnam, they used it as the A37 dragonfly; slightly larger engines. But it...
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