Southwest Detroit native and entrepreneur Arnold Boyd is one of two write-in candidates competing against nine others in the city’s mayoral race.

Boyd, the founder of a school bus transportation company, launched his campaign in May and was one of the last to join the packed field of candidates facing off in the upcoming Aug. 5 primary.

Running on a platform of expanding skilled trades, making it easier to start a business, offering legal aid to senior citizens facing foreclosure and more, he says he would bring something new and different to the city.

“I’m running for mayor because I feel the city…all too often we vote for people that have name recognition or people that are career politicians,” Boyd said. “It’s time for the city to vote for people that come from their own.”

Boyd joined The Metro on Tuesday to share more details about his vision for Detroit and how he plans to achieve it.

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In Detroit, three of the city’s seven city council districts have a community advisory council (CAC). The body helps advocate for residents’ issues and gives them direct access to city council members. 

Unfortunately, due to confusion around filing deadlines in the city clerks’ office, anyone who wants to run for  a CAC  will have to run as write-in candidate because their names won’t appear on the ballot. This includes incumbent candidates who have been serving on these councils for several years. 

To help us break down what CACs are, why only some distracts have them and what exactly happened that led to candidates missing the filing deadline, Metro Producer Jack Filbrandt spoke with Detroit Documenters Coordinator Noah Kincade and Outlier Media Civic Life Reporter Briana Rice.

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A newly founded Black-owned magazine in Detroit is trying to show its readers that everyone can live a life of luxury. 

Divine Magazine highlights Detroit’s creatives and fashion designers, at a time when the fashion world is paying more and more attention to what’s being made in Detroit. 

Charde Goins, Detroit native and editor-in-chief of Divine Magazine, says she has always expressed herself as a creative through her clothing, and she got the idea to start a fashion magazine after graduating from Central Michigan University. 

Goins joined The Metro to share what inspires her about Detroit’s fashion scene and the journey of launching her own fashion magazine.

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The annual Ann Arbor Art Fair — one of the largest juried art fairs in the country — will attract nearly half a million visitors to downtown Ann Arbor later this month.

The three-day event,  set for July 17-19, spans about 30 city blocks with approximately 1,000 artists participating. 

Frances Todoro-Hargreaves, interim executive director of the Ann Arbor Art Fair, joined The Metro on Monday to discuss the history of the event and what to expect this year. Brian Delozier, one of the featured artists at this year’s fair, also joined the program.

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Each year the Concert of Colors transforms Detroit with sounds from across the globe.

This year the rhythm is beating strongly in Mexicantown, where the festival kicks off on Saturday with a special showcase of Tejano and Latin music. Tejano, or Tex-Mex music, is a soulful blend of borderland storytelling and rhythms rooted in Mexico, Poland and the Czech Republic.

Ray Lozano, executive director of the Mexicantown Community Development Corporation, joined The Metro to talk more about Concert of Colors, Tejano music and the importance of amplifying immigrant voices.

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Men’s sports have dominated the media for decades, but that trend is shifting.

The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT), widely considered the most successful international women’s team, has won four World Cup titles and five Olympic gold medals. The team’s success has both increased the popularity of women’s soccer domestically and helped close the pay gap between the men and women’s national teams.

Today on The Metro, national sports columnist and commentator Christine Brennan joins the show to discuss parity in women’s sports and her new book on the subject, “On Her Game: Caitlyn Clark and the Revolution in Women’s Sports”

Later, Detroit City FC player on the women’s team, Ella Karolak, joined the conversation to discuss the unique challenges women athletes still face and how it has shaped her athletic career so far.  

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A judge is set to decide whether low-level radioactive material left over from the creation of the first atomic bomb can find its forever home in a metro Detroit landfill.

The state of New York wants to send about 6,000 cubic yards of tainted soil and 4,000 gallons of contaminated groundwater to a waste disposal site near Belleville, Michigan.

It’s one of a handful in the country licensed to dispose of such waste.

Communities near the site, including Canton Township, filed a lawsuit to stop shipments of the toxic material from New York.

Canton Township Supervisor Anne Marie Graham-Hudak says the suit kept those remnants of the Manhattan Project out of Michigan so far. But not other contaminated material.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Anne Marie Graham-Hudak: At this time, we still have this kind of waste coming into Michigan, whether it be into the injection well in Romulus or into the Wayne disposal site. But we’re hoping this lawsuit helps us launch some precedents to stop that.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: But the specific one from New York has not come yet?

AMH: No. And it was supposed to start coming basically in January. So we’re glad that we were able to stop it. We met with the judge, the hearing was in May and the judge is scheduled to make a ruling on July 2. We hope that happens. We’ve been working also with Michigan state Sen. Darrin Camilleri (D-Trenton) and state Rep. Reggie Miller (D-Van Buren Twp). They have two bills that are going to increase tipping fees, amongst many other things.

“The EPA were saying that this was safe. Our question was, ‘If this is so safe, why is it being moved? Why don’t you just mitigate it in place?’ And that’s still what we’re questioning.”

– Anne Marie Graham-Hudak, Canton Township supervisor

Our tipping fees are one of the lowest in the nation. We’re at roughly 36 cents a ton, so we’re basically inviting people to come dump into Michigan. In other states you’re looking at $13 a ton — that just exacerbates what we already have. And at some point our landfills will be full and we will be looking for other places. The Canton landfill maybe has five years left. The EPA were saying that this was safe. Our question was, “If this is so safe, why is it being moved? Why don’t you just mitigate it in place?” And that’s still what we’re questioning. Radioactive waste in the body is absorbed and it’s additive, so if you live near where they’re dumping it, that’s a problem.

Also, Michigan has 21% of the world’s fresh water, and we’re putting this in a dense area. They’ve got schools nearby. The groundwater takes it out to the Rouge River, which takes it to the Detroit River, which takes it out to the Great Lakes. So why are we even thinking of putting it there? Also, they’re going to store the waste in what they call “burritos.” They wrap the waste in these plastic burritos and then come here and bury it and put a cap on it. But they could not even guarantee that the plastic they’re going to wrap it in will match the half-life of some of this radioactive dirt. I’m a retired engineer. One of the things that I worked on before I left Ford Motor Company was electromagnetic radiation — that was actually one of my favorite classes in college. And they can’t guarantee how this waste will stay encompassed in this plastic. There’s no test on this plastic that had been done to see that. I think their guidelines are way too narrow. But they’re going to keep dumping it, which makes it additive, and it doesn’t go away. It’s a constant radiation.

QK: So you don’t trust what the agencies or the company are saying about this?

AMH: Correct. I do not trust it. I think some of the guidelines that have been made in Michigan, especially, are leaning more towards favoring companies. We’re an automotive area and we know that we’ve got PFAS. We know that, in the early days, automotive companies would dump (material.) There’s brownfields here for a reason, because companies dumped. And I really believe that some of our land is contaminated. I think our guidelines in Michigan are way too low. They protect companies more than they do our residents. This is a public health issue, it really is.

QK: So what remedy would you seek at this point?

AMH: That we stop this. State Sen. Darrin Camilleri’s bill actually states that we just stop everything from coming in. We do more studies and more testing. We do not allow any more radioactive waste to come into Michigan. We do not allow any more new sites to be established. I know a lot of the businesses are concerned about this, but if you look at it, even hospitals generate radioactive waste. They do X-rays, MRI’s, things like that. So how do we mitigate in place what we have instead of transporting it? I don’t think we should be transporting it. Quit thinking about kicking things down the road and saying, “Oh, hey, we’re just gonna keep doing this. We’re gonna keep making nuclear reactors and we’ll just keep burying it, not really thinking about what’s going to happen in the future.” I think that we’ve done that for too long and too haphazardly. Our limits need to be looked at. I think that they’re more pro-business than they are pro-public health. That is my biggest concern.

QK: So that’s what you would hope to have happen. You’ve been dealing with this issue for a while now. What do you think is within the realms of reality?

AMH: I think if we want it to be more in the business of reality it can be. Look at the concerns raised by the agencies, the mayors and supervisors and the townspeople. That’s why we have this injunction, that’s why we’re trying to push this legislation through. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce needs to take a look at things a little bit more. Let’s just talk about changing tipping fees. They’re saying they don’t agree with that. But we’re just a dumping state based on 36 cents a ton.

QK: If the disposal company comes back and says, “We’re licensed to do this. As you say, hospitals and other places keep making this kind of material. This site is allowed to take it and we’ve got to put it somewhere. So why not here?” How would you answer them back?

AMH: My answer is that we need to study this even more. I can understand that we have to decide what to do with Michigan’s waste, where this is happening. But taking outside waste, it just gives us less space to figure out what to do with our own. And it also is in a densely populated area. There is an interstate commerce clause that does not allow us to stop. There would have to be a constitutional change on the federal level also, because this is considered trading commerce and money.

QK: Have you ever had much reaction back from the federal government on this entire topic, no matter which administration was running it at the time?

AMH: Not really. They keep pointing to the interstate commerce clause. People always say it’s hard to change a constitution and it will never happen. But the U.S. Supreme Court just changed some things that were in the Constitution for 50 years. So I think it’s a possibility. I think the need is there. The want has to make it happen.

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Two groundbreaking leaders of Detroit’s arts and culture scene will be honored at the GhostLight Arts Initiative’s inaugural GhostLight Gala, taking place this Sunday at the Garden Theater.

Honoree Njia Kai is a celebrated cultural curator, producer and community visionary. Through her company NKSK Events + Production, the lifelong Detroiter has curated some of Detroit’s most iconic cultural celebrations— from the Charles H. Wright Museum’s African World Festival to the Downtown Detroit Tree Lighting.

Dr. George Shirley, who will also be honored on Sunday, is a man of many firsts.

He was the first Black man to teach music at a Detroit High School; the first Black tenor to perform a leading role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City; and the first Black member of the U.S. Army chorus in Washington D.C. He also received the National Medal of Arts from former President Barack Obama in 2015 for his work mentoring countless Black musicians.

Kai and Shirley both joined The Metro ahead of the gala to discuss their commitment and contributions to Detroit’s art scene.

Proceeds from the event will help support GhostLight programming, including its Obsidian Theatre Festival — which provides a platform for emerging Black voices in theater and film.

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After decades of steady decline, Detroit’s population is finally growing. Latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows Detroit increased its population by 6,800 residents from 2023 to 2024.

And even more people seem to be moving to Detroit’s neighboring suburbs, with many housing investments being made in recent years in the city’s outer suburban ring and nearby “exurbs” like Lyon, Milford and Commerce townships.

Ro Harvard, a realtor with Island Realty — an affiliate of Keller Williams Realty — joined on The Metro on Thursday to shine some light on the inner workings of Detroit’s housing scene, and what types of amenities and priorities draw buyers to certain communities — from school districts and walkability to affordability and property values.

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The United Auto Workers union announced last month it would be endorsing Rev. Solomon Kinloch Jr. in the Detroit mayoral race, calling him “a longtime advocate for working-class people.”

Kinloch, a senior pastor at Detroit’s Triumph Church, is the only candidate in the mayoral race who has not held an elected position. He is currently battling for second place in the race behind frontrunner Mary Sheffield — who continues to maintain a sizable lead. The top two vote getters in the Aug. 5 primary will face off in the November general election.

In Detroit, a political endorsement from the UAW has always carried considerable weight, but membership is down in recent decades, and there are shifting political views within.

Today on The Metro, UAW Region 1A Director Laura Dickerson joined the show to discuss the endorsement and why it matters.

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Detroit’s Rouge Park is turning 100 this year.

Friends of Rouge Park is hosting a free, three-day festival at the park this weekend, June 27-29, in celebration of the park’s centennial.

Many improvements have been made at Rouge Park in the last few decades, offering more services and recreational fun to city residents. At 1,200 acres, it’s the city’s largest park, and the biggest urban park in the state. It was so popular at one point, it attracted international crowds. But like the city, the park fell on hard times and went into a period of decline and disinvestment.

Despite those challenges, the park remains a staple in the city today thanks to the stewardship of community organizations like Friends of Rouge Park.

Today on The Metro, we play a conversation WDET Intern Lauren Myers had recently with Friends of Rouge Park Trustee Paul Stark about the park’s history. Also, Metro producer Cary Junior II and Metro Co-host Tia Graham visit Rouge Park to hear directly from residents about their connections to the park and how it’s changed over time.

Later in the show, Friends of Rouge Park’s Executive Director Lindsay Pielack and Land Stewardship Manager Antonio Cosme join the conversation and share more about the centennial celebration this weekend.

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Detroit mayoral candidate and City Councilman Fred Durhal III last week announced his strategic plan for improving the city, including cracking down on blight and implementing a more “equitable tax strategy.”

His plan emphasizes the importance of cutting taxes and red tape when necessary, reinvesting in communities and “main streets,” creating more affordable housing and expanding Detroit’s development authority to Midtown, Corktown and to Gratiot, near Eastern Market. Durhal also wants to see more thriving business corridors, more Detroit enterprises and more city residents.

He joined The Metro on Wednesday to expand upon the priorities laid out in his strategic economic plan for the city of Detroit.

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Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is the focus of a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday. 

The publicly-funded nonprofit, which provides funding to PBS, NPR and its affiliates like WDET, would lose $1.1 billion — two years’ worth of funding that has already been approved by Congress — if the bill passed by the House earlier this month gets Senate approval. It would also rescind more than $8 billion in funding for foreign aid programs addressing global public health, international disaster assistance and hunger relief.

That bill passed in the House by a margin of 214 to 212, with four Republicans crossing the aisle to vote against the package. There were also four Democrats and two Republicans who did not vote on the bill at all.

President Donald Trump has already signed an executive order to eliminate CPB funding, claiming all public media is biased, but the Rescissions Act of 2025 would go beyond that, revoking funding already approved by Congress.

Today on The Metro, we break down what it would mean for public media organizations like WDET if the legislation gets Congressional approval.

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Since Oct. 7, 2023, the world has felt different for a lot of American Jews.  Antisemitism has risen. More recently, two people were shot dead outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. And a man with a flamethrower in Colorado attacked Israeli hostage advocates. 

At the same time, Israel has expanded its militarism, recently attacking Iran to destroy its nuclear capacity and potentially overturn its regime. Israel has gotten the support of President Donald Trump, as America has now also attacked Iran’s nuclear sites. 

All the while, Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has continued. There are now at least 57,000 Palestinians who’ve been killed by Israel’s attacks since October 7th, 2023. In conjunction with that, Israel’s months-long food aid blockade has put one-in-five Palestinians on the brink of starvation. 

To find out where this leaves American Jews, and what they’re meant to make of the political moment, Producer Sam Corey spoke with Rabbi Shalom Kantor from Congregation B’nai Moshe, a zionist temple in West Bloomfield. The two spoke prior to Israel’s attacks on Iran, Iran’s retaliations and America’s involvement in the war.

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Detroit has come a long way since declaring bankruptcy in 2013, but challenges still remain.

Residents are struggling to find affordable housing, Detroit students are not keeping pace with the rest of the state or the nation, and many long-time Detroit residents feel excluded in Detroit’s transformation. So where do we go from here? And who is the right person to lead the city into its next chapter?

Come November, Detroit residents will make that decision when they elect a new mayor. There are nine candidates, plus two write-ins, that believe they are the right person for the job. 

Life-long Detroiter and businessman Jonathan Barlow is among them. He joined The Metro on Tuesday to share why he decided to run for mayor, and what his priority would be if elected. He says the city’s next leader needs to focus on supporting families and legacy Detroiters.

“I’m recreating the family fabric; I want to make Detroit [a] community again, and make sure that we ensure that every home has what it needs to get by,” he said.

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Detroit native and “wig engineer” Darnell Davis is making a name for himself in the beauty and entertainment industries.

Designing wigs for major artists like Beyoncé, Niecy Nash-Betts, Mariah Carey and Little Nas X, he has become extremely sought after by celebrities and Detroiters alike for his meticulous hand-sewn and stitched designs.

Darnell joined The Metro on Tuesday to discuss his love for hair and wig-making from an early age, and Detroit’s rich legacy in Black hair innovation.

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Wayne State University is offering a genealogy workshop focused on the lineage of enslaved Black Americans as part of its 2025 Juneteenth programming.

At the interactive workshop, “Building Forward with Wisdom,” participants will learn practical genealogy strategies, like how to trace one’s ancestry through digital tools and historical records, under the guidance of professional genealogist, historian and researcher Dr. Carolyn Carter.

Carter says when beginning the search into family history, its important to start with what’s known.

“In genealogy, we do something called tracing from the known to the unknown,” Carter said. “You want to start with your story, or the people who are there with you.”

WDET’s Bre’Anna Tinsley spoke with Carter ahead of the workshop to discuss what attendees can expect and share tips for tracing one’s ancestry.

Carter says collecting oral histories will be the most valuable resources, and often the only resources that people may have. Once the story reaches slavery, researchers may find it more difficult to find information as enslavers did not keep detailed records of slaves.

“Because enslaved people were property, they had no rights. They were listed on the Census just by tick mark in male or female. So those stories, those histories have been lost,” Carter said.

Carter said researching the enslavers themselves can be just as crucial as researching one’s ancestors. She suggested checking wills and deeds of enslavers, as they would often leave slaves to family members after death. Some enslavers would sympathize with their slaves and leave property to them in their death, or emancipate them in their wills, she added.

According to Carter, there are many road bumps along the way when researching ancestors. One main reason she points out is that African Americans, even those who were free, were afraid of the government. They often would not give accurate information during Census counts to protect themselves and their loved ones.

“They put nicknames, they put erroneous occupations. And if you were living or visiting a relative the day that the Census takers came, you were recorded as living in that home,” she said.

Carter says it wasn’t until after emancipation that the U.S. government realized they were getting inaccurate information.

“So genealogy is detective work,” Carter said. “You’ve got to figure out some things. You got to listen and learn and and understand history and understand your family, where they came from, how they migrated, when they migrated, who they are.”

Carter also advises researchers to think outside the box when looking for names. Some people may have names spelled incorrectly, because most black people were illiterate and would spell things by how they sound. They would change their names to distance themselves from the enslaver, such as adding the surname Freeman or adding an “e” to the end of names to signify their emancipation.

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The night skies over Tehran have been flashing with fire since Israeli jets began piercing Iranian airspace. They have been targeting nuclear facilities that Israel insists pose an imminent threat. Hundreds have been killed in Iran and thousands injured. 

Iran has responded by firing missiles into Israel, where at least 24 have been killed.

An American-brokered ceasefire fell apart this morning with reports of Israeli and Iranian airstrikes coming after the announcement. 

President Donald Trump’s post on Truth Social Tuesday morning demanded Israel’s compliance: “ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!”

Meanwhile, the world has been watching anxiously. That anxiety grew Saturday when Trump escalated the conflict, deploying American B-2 bombers and launching Tomahawk missiles in an aggressive campaign. The president has openly hinted at regime change. 

Iran responded by striking an American air base in Qatar, home to thousands of U.S. troops. 

Diplomacy now teeters on a knife-edge as fears of broader conflict intensify. These fears are held among many in metro Detroit, especially among the hundreds of thousands of Arab and Middle Eastern residents here. Many have been watching violence and conflict erupt across the region and it brings back painful memories of the wars that forced them to leave their homes and flee to the U.S. in the first place.

Some analysts say this latest move by Israel is an attempt to entirely reshape the Middle East, which is stoking further tension and anxiety among people in the diaspora here.

Fariba Pajooh, an Iranian-American scholar of communication and media studies at Wayne State University, joined The Metro to help us understand this moment. Pajooh spent years working as a journalist in the Middle East covering conflicts. Some of that coverage led to her imprisonment by Iranian authorities. 

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In a nation where supermarkets are filled from floor to ceiling, a single missed phone call can empty a family’s pantry and leave children going to bed hungry.

Investigative journalist and author Tracie McMillan knows this firsthand, both from her own experience with SNAP benefits, or food stamps, and her years reporting on America’s working poor. 

In McMillan’s recent piece for The New York Times, we meet Jocelyn Walker, a mother and entrepreneur from metro Detroit who is struggling to make ends meet and is stuck in this bureaucratic maze.  

McMillan joined The Metro to discuss why hunger remains a persistent reality in America today.

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