Thirty years ago, Bishop Edgar Vann of Detroit’s Second Ebenezer Church founded the Vanguard Community Development Corporation with the simple goal of providing after-school programs for local youths. Today, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization’s mission has expanded to all matters of community development and engagement, including affordable housing and commercial development. Vanguard will celebrate its anniversary with a gala and award ceremony from 7-11 p.m. on Saturday at the Henry Ford Health Pistons Performance Center.

Over the course of her career as a hairstylist, Kelsie Angst says she’s appreciated the camaraderie with her coworkers and the opportunity to learn new skills along the way. That’s the spirit she hopes to cultivate at her new beauty salon Studio Vera, which recently opened in Detroit’s Woodbridge neighborhood. “I’ve worked in a few salons, and I stayed at most of them for at least three years,” Angst says.

The Metro Times annual Best of Detroit Reader’s Poll is now open! You can vote for all the people, places, and things to do that make Detroit great across 400+ categories — including arts & entertainment, food & drink, goods & services, people & places, and sports & recreation. Voting closes at midnight on Wednesday, September 11.

Michigan Central says that more than 100,000 visitors have walked through the doors of Detroit’s rehabbed train station since Ford Motor Co. opened them to the public in June. Due to the popular demand, Michigan Central is now extending its “Summer at The Station” tours through Labor Day weekend — so if you haven’t visited yet, you have a few more weeks to do so. “This outpouring of support has truly been inspiring,” said Joshua Sirefman, CEO of Michigan Central.

Democrats have been delirious with joy ever since President Joe Biden finally ended his untenable re-election campaign last month, making way for a feel-good ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and her freshly announced running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. If they win in November, she will be the first woman to be elected president, while he is a plainspoken former schoolteacher and football coach with a surprisingly progressive record as a lawmaker, catapulting to viral fame in recent weeks for simply saying what many of us have been thinking: Republicans Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are “weird.” More than that, with a palpable momentum, the pair seem to be in about as strong of a position as possible to keep Trump from returning to the White House and enacting the terrifying Project 2025, a far-right plan to replace the government with a Christian nationalist autocracy.

A long time ago, massive mastodons roamed North America, including Michigan. However, the prehistoric beasts went extinct more than 10,000 years ago, possibly due to overhunting by early humans. Now, the mastodon is on track to become recognized as the first-ever national fossil of the U.S.

Dick’s Sporting Goods is getting ready to shutter its last three remaining Moosejaw stores in the U.S. and completely dissolve the brand, Metro Times has learned. Multiple workers confirmed the impending closures to Metro Times, though the company’s corporate office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The workers say the stores will remain open through close of business on Saturday, and what remains of the brand’s online store will fold into Dick’s Public Lands subsidiary.

Detroit’s historic Belle Isle Aquarium is now open on Thursdays through the end of August. The Belle Isle Conservancy announced the expanded hours, which it credits to a $10,000 contribution from Comerica Bank. The funds will also support ongoing restoration of the building, as well as preservation and restoration efforts at Belle Isle park.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib criticized her colleagues for hosting Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is visiting the U.S. this week for a planned address on Wednesday. “Netanyahu is a war criminal committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” said Tlaib, the lone Palestinian American in Congress. “It is utterly disgraceful that leaders from both parties have invited him to address Congress.

Hands-free driving laws like the one Michigan passed last year to reduce distracted driving are working, a new analysis found. According to a study by Massachusetts-based Cambridge Mobile Telematics, the 12 months since Michigan banned hands-on cellphone use while operating a vehicle saw a 12.8% decrease in distracted driving.

The Shinola Hotel’s operating partner has responded to a racial discrimination lawsuit filed earlier this month on behalf of a Black Detroit man who claims his resume was ignored until he resubmitted it with the white-sounding name “John Jebrowski.” In a statement, Sage Hospitality called the lawsuit “baseless” and touted its diverse workforce. “Unfortunately, it is clear that the plaintiff’s attorney is spreading these false allegations through the media in an attempt to intimidate the company and cause reputational and financial harm,” Sage Hospitality Group president Daniel del Olmo said.

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between IPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization. People who want to install solar panels on their roofs have to consider a lot: sunlight, cost, and coordinating with contractors and utilities. Tens of millions of people across the country also have to think about their homeowners association.

One of them is Arab. The other is Jewish. Ismael Ahmed and Don Was are also dear friends, and both yearn for peace.

A Black Detroiter has sued the city’s Shinola Hotel for racial discrimination, alleging the luxury hotel responded to his resume only after he reapplied with a white-sounding name. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by Marko Law, PLLC. According to the suit, Dwight Jackson, 27, has “extensive work experience in hotel hospitality” and applied to the boutique hotel multiple times between January and April 2024 without ever getting an interview.

Among the growing chorus of voices calling for President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 election amid signs of deteriorating health is Marianne Williamson, the best-selling self-help author and former Detroit-area megachurch leader. In a statement published Tuesday following Biden’s poor debate performance on Thursday, Williamson said that her on-again, off-again long-shot campaign is back on. “President Biden deserves our respect, our compassion, and our gratitude,” Williamson said in a statement.

There’s no spinning it — Thursday night’s presidential debate was just plain painful to watch. Donald Trump spouted a firehouse of lies that President Joe Biden, plagued with a cough, was too frail and feeble to properly fend off. Too many clips saw Biden mumbling meandering non-sequiturs in a near-whisper or trailing off as he repeatedly lost his train of thought.

More than 30 local artists have been awarded a total of $1 million by Kresge Foundation to pursue their dreams. This year’s cohort is the first in the long-running program to receive no-strings-attached awards of $40,000, which were increased from $25,000 each last fall. The awards were announced Thursday by the Kresge Arts in Detroit program, administered by the College for Creative Studies on behalf of the Kresge Foundation.

We’re feeling vindicated by our decision to bring Detroit-based journalist Eleanore Catolico on board as part of a year-long New Voices Fellowship in 2022. On Tuesday, the Society for Features Journalism announced that Catolico won second place in its annual writing competition for the category, “Inclusion and Representation in Features.” Catolico earned the award for two of her Metro Times stories: “At queer prom, a trio of Southwest Detroit teenagers cultivate belonging for LGBTQ+ youth” from July 5 and “In Detroit, a poetry workshop gives high school students freedom to be themselves” from Nov. 29. The category includes “Coverage that centers on historically marginalized or undercovered communities through revelatory storytelling.”

More than 10,000 pyrotechnics effects will dazzle onlookers in Detroit and Windsor during the 66th annual Ford Fireworks next week. The event, produced by the Parade Company, is set for 10 p.m. on Monday, June 24 and is free and open to the public. But where’s the best place to view the show?