Last month, hundreds of Oakland County residents packed a Pontiac meeting room. They came to speak against a proposal that would put surveillance drones, built by a company called Flock Safety, into the hands of the county sheriff.

Police nationwide have used Flock cameras to run thousands of immigration-related searches on behalf of ICE.

Many residents did not get a chance to speak. Just before the discussion began, Commission Chair Dave Woodward held a vote to move public comment to the end of the meeting, after the contract had already passed.

When Commissioner Charlie Cavell asked for a roll call vote — to make every commissioner go on the record — Woodward denied it and moved on.

The drones were approved, 14-4.

After that meeting, residents launched a campaign to recall Woodward, and by late April, petition language was approved. 

Yesterday, Woodward appealed that approval in Oakland County Circuit Court. If a circuit judge upholds the petition language, organizers will have 60 days to gather roughly 9,000 signatures across Royal Oak, Birmingham, and parts of Troy.

Woodward has called the recall “a distraction.” 

He joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss the recall effort, his business connections that have prompted ethical concerns, and whether he should have handled that April meeting differently.

Editor’s note: During this conversation, Woodward said some people involved in the recall campaign are advocating for political violence. The Metro reviewed the social media posts Woodward referred to. In one, a person supporting the recall effort praised Luigi Mangione — the man charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December of 2024 — calling him “the closest thing to a superhero we have.” A leader of the recall campaign says that supporter is no way affiliated with the campaign. 

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One of the largest data center projects in the country is happening in Michigan, in the small farming community of Saline Township. Southwest of Ann Arbor, Saline Township is home to roughly 2,300 people.

Many of those residents did not want a data center. Their board voted against it, and their neighbors packed the meeting hall. Then the lawsuit came.

The companies are Oracle and OpenAI. Together, they are worth more than a trillion dollars. The township said it could not justify the fight, so it settled, and construction began.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer calls it the largest single investment in Michigan history.

It will use more electricity than an average nuclear reactor produces.

State lawmaker Morgan Foreman represents the district where it is being built. She says her constituents were not partners in this project; they were bystanders to it. She joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss how a small community of farmers and small-business owners ended up hosting one of the most consequential pieces of AI infrastructure in the country.

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A month ago, gas in Michigan was just under $4 a gallon, and small business owners were already making changes to brace for what was coming.

In the month since, the average price has climbed to nearly five dollars, with some Michigan stations already past it. The squeeze that was just beginning a month ago has settled in. The U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran is in its third month, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, and Midwest refineries are down.

For the small businesses that anchor metro Detroit, this is one more strain on top of an already heavy stack. Corner stores and landscapers are absorbing higher fuel costs to stay competitive. Restaurants are closing, and analysts say rising gas prices and declining consumer confidence are likely to accelerate the trend.

All of this comes after months of tariffs, rising healthcare premiums, and an unsettled workforce.

Mark Lee runs The Lee Group, where he consults with small businesses across Southeast Michigan. He spoke with Robyn Vincent on The Metro about what another month of pain at the pump is doing to the businesses he advises. Lee is also hosting his 12th annual Small Business Workshop on May 13 at the Corner Ballpark in Detroit — a free, half-day event for local entrepreneurs and business owners navigating exactly this kind of pressure.

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When you call 911 in Detroit, who’s paying for the ambulance? It’s a question that’s tripped up the Detroit City Council twice in two years… and the answer goes to a vote this afternoon.

Detroit pays three private ambulance companies between $500,000 and $600,000 each per year. That’s to keep a guaranteed number of rigs staged in the city.

Those same companies can also bill you — or your insurance — when they pick you up. Councilmember Angela Whitfield Calloway has called that “double dipping.” But The Detroit Documenters pulled the original 2023 contract documents and confirmed: that is how the deal is written.

So what is Detroit paying for? And what does it say about American healthcare that a city has to cut million-dollar checks just to guarantee an ambulance shows up?

Noah Kincade, coordinator for Detroit Documenters, joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to walk through what’s in the contracts and what’s at stake in a city council vote on the matter.

Editor’s Note: After this segment aired, the Detroit City Council voted 4-3 to send the ambulance contracts back to committee rather than vote on them directly. Council President James Tate was absent, and President Pro Tem Coleman Young II presided. Young, Scott Benson, Latisha Johnson and Denzel McCampbell voted to send the contracts back. Mary Waters, Angela Whitfield-Calloway and Renata Miller voted no. The Public Health and Service Committee will take the contracts up May 4 at 10 a.m.

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Four years in, the war in Sudan has produced the largest displacement crisis in the world. Nearly 14 million people have been forced from their homes. Both the United States government and a United Nations fact-finding mission have called the violence a genocide, citing a coordinated campaign by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces against the Zaghawa and Fur communities of Darfur.

In the United States, the response has been quiet.

Khadega Mohammed has spent much of her life trying to say something about that silence — through poetry, community organizing, and her work at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, where she is the only Sudanese person and the only Black person on staff.

Born in Sudan, raised in Saudi Arabia, and resettled in the United States with her family in 2007, Mohammed is a spoken word artist whose signature poem, “Between,” opens the PBS AfroPoP documentary “Revolution from Afar.”

She joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to talk about the Sudan she remembers, the America she lives in, and the in-between where her poetry was born.

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In town halls and public squares across Michigan, people are debating whether data centers should be part of their neighborhoods.

Some communities have hit pause on data center development — the massive server farms that power artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

The concerns are straightforward: these facilities can consume as much electricity as a large city. They often use millions of gallons of water a day, and critics say they deliver few permanent jobs for the enormous tax breaks they receive.

Now Detroit has entered the fray.

Last month, Detroit City Could voted 6-2 to ask Mayor Mary Sheffield to impose a two-year freeze on all new data center permits.

Detroit City Council Member Scott Benson is leading that effort. He has convened a working group of city planners, utility officials and environmental advocates with a December 31 deadline to develop zoning rules for data centers.

Benson joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss why he is pushing for a two-year pause and what Detroit needs to get right before data centers arrive.

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House Republicans want to eliminate Michigan’s clean energy law requiring 100% renewable power by 2040.

A second bill would also limit distributed energy sources, such as rooftop solar, to just 1% of a utility’s total energy sales. Democrats say that amounts to a ban on community solar programs like Ann Arbor’s Solarize, where neighbors group together to buy solar panels at bulk discounts.

Ann Arbor solar installations jumped from 17 per year to 180 after the Solarize program launched. The 1% cap could hurt that growth.

Republican Rep. Pauline Wendzel says her bill puts “reliability and affordability first.” 

On the other side of the aisle, Democratic Rep. Tonya Myers Phillips points to utilities and their frequent rate increases as the problem behind high energy bills.

Reporter Kyle Davidson from Michigan Advance joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss the battle over energy costs.

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It’s a Sunday night, and you’re sitting in the emergency room with your sick kid. The waiting room is packed — coughs and sneezes everywhere. Your child has a fever, so you wait. You worry.

Four months later, the health department calls. Your infant was exposed to measles that night. Now you’re facing weeks of medical monitoring.

That’s what happened to families at DMC Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital in Oakland County last December.

As more people opt out of vaccinating their kids, what are the costs of containing an outbreak?

In Washtenaw County, health officials have spent close to $100,000 containing seven measles cases. That’s more than $14,000 per case.

The system worked: They contained the outbreak, conducted contact tracing, and prevented it from escalating into hundreds of cases. But we are spending enormous resources to achieve what used to happen easily through herd immunity.

Oakland County saw two measles cases last year and handled them well. But the county is now spending an extra $300,000 on vaccines even as vaccination rates keep sliding — Oakland County’s childhood MMR rate sits around 81%, well below the 95% threshold needed for herd immunity.

Kate Guzmán, health officer for the Oakland County Health Division, joined WDET’s Robyn Vincent to talk about the hidden costs of outbreaks, and what communities lose when prevention falls behind.

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Usually, they are found in school gymnasiums or church fellowship rooms. Voting booths are among the most intimate spaces in American democracy.

The process is typically quiet and quick, and it is supposed to be equal. But this is not the case for people with disabilities. A new report published by Detroit Disability Power documents just how often there are barriers at the voting booth, and why it keeps getting worse.

1 in 4 Americans has a disability. In Michigan, that number is nearly 1 in 3. Yet this new report finds only 10% of the polling places assessed in 2025 were fully accessible. That’s down from 13% in the previous report covering the 2024 elections and 16% in the report covering the 2022 elections.

Detroit Disability Power has now audited more than 1,000 polling places across metro Detroit. Trained volunteers have visited precincts during early voting, primaries, and on Election Day, carrying a checklist and a mission: ensure the law is being followed.

Eric Welsby is the advocacy director at Detroit Disability Power. He serves on the Michigan Bureau of Elections’ Voting System Advisory Committee for Accessible Elections, and was recently appointed by Governor Whitmer to the Michigan Developmental Disabilities Council.

Bakpak Durden is a Detroit-born artist, disability advocate, and one of the people who actually show up to do the audits — at roughly 100 polling sites and counting.

They joined Robyn Vincent to discuss why the number of accessible polling locations continues to shrink and what it feels like to be part of a community treated like an afterthought.

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Detroit’s police department has been collecting wins. Homicides in 2025 hit their lowest point since 1965. Carjackings dropped by nearly half. 

But over the past two weeks, another picture has emerged from inside the department’s own forensic operation.

At recent Board of Police Commissioners meetings, former forensic technicians came forward to describe conditions within the Crime Scene Services unit. What they described raises questions about safety, evidence handling, and whether the integrity of criminal cases has been compromised.

A state workplace safety agency has already cited the unit. A resident has sent those findings to city councilmembers, police commissioners, and the Wayne County Prosecutor. And a commissioner who tried to visit the facility says she had to wait two weeks — and was still unsatisfied with what she saw.

Outlier Media’s March 31 newsletter first reported on these complaints. 

Noah Kincade coordinates the Detroit Documenters program at Outlier Media. He joined Robyn Vincent to discuss conditions inside the Detroit Police Department’s Crime Scene Services unit and the response from community members and stakeholders.

Editor’s Note: The Detroit Police Department is pursuing accreditation from the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police. The broadcast version of this story said the accreditation was national.

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There’s a phone call that some people in metro Detroit are dreading right now, one where you find out the place you came from doesn’t exist anymore.

Abbas Alawieh got that call recently. His 91-year-old grandmother’s home in Lebanon was destroyed by the Israeli military. She is displaced, among hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians with nowhere to go. This is not the first time his family has been through this. 

When Alawieh was 15, visiting his grandmother in Lebanon, war broke out with Israel. He spent days in a basement while American-made bombs fell around him. It changed the course of his life and put him on a political path.

Alawieh grew up in Dearborn. He co-founded the Uncommitted movement that mobilized more than 100,000 Michigan voters in the 2024 Democratic primary. 

He is now a candidate for Michigan State Senate in District 2, which covers Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, and parts of Downriver. But he did not sit down with The Metro’s Robyn Vincent to talk about his campaign. The Metro invited him because he is experiencing what other families across metro Detroit are living right now — watching war destroy the people and places they love from an American living room.

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Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield is prioritizing anti-poverty measures in her 814-page proposed budget. 

The budget comes as more than a third of Detroit residents experienced poverty in 2024, the highest rate the city has seen since 2017. More than half of Detroit’s children are living in poverty, and the poverty rate among seniors reached its highest point in a decade.

Sheffield’s budget responds with new spending on multiple fronts. It promises free year-round bus rides for kids to reduce chronic absenteeism, higher pay for bus drivers, and a new office for senior affairs, with a $750,000 food access program for older Detroiters. It includes $2.2 million for after-school programs, a $500,000 increase to the Grow Detroit’s Young Talent summer jobs program, and a new $40 million Human, Homeless and Family Services Department. It also expands the city’s affordable housing fund, and provides a living wage for city workers.

But the city has 34 million fewer dollars than it did last year. So what makes it in, and what gets cut?

Detroit Documenters are sitting in on all 47 budget hearings alongside reporters at Outlier Media and Bridge Detroit.

Noah Kincade, coordinator of the Detroit Documenters program at Outlier Media, joined Robyn Vincent to discuss.

Editor’s note: The Public Lighting Authority director who used ChatGPT to respond to councilmembers’ budget questions is Beau Taylor. The broadcast version of this story misidentified him.

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What happens when the regulatory systems we depend on to protect us break down?

In February, President Trump signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act — a wartime authority — to guarantee the domestic supply of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, the world’s most widely used weedkiller. The order extends legal immunity to its producers. It came one day after Bayer proposed a $7.25 billion settlement to resolve tens of thousands of cancer lawsuits without admitting wrongdoing.

The World Health Organization classifies glyphosate as a probable carcinogen.

Separately, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments April 27 in a case that could shut down state-level Roundup lawsuits nationwide. The EPA faces an October deadline to rule on glyphosate safety — with most of its research staff gone.

Last month on The Metro, Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes explained how the landmark safety study behind Roundup was ghostwritten by Monsanto, cited by regulators worldwide for 25 years, and finally retracted after she and researcher Alexander Kaurov documented its influence. Since then, she has identified more scientific research ghostwritten by Monsanto.

To discuss, Oreskes, author of “Merchants of Doubt,” returned to The Metro to join Robyn Vincent.

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It began in a living room in Southfield. Six people around a table in February, trying to figure out what to do about the federal lawyers who had just leased office space five minutes from their neighborhood.

Those lawyers work for the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, arguing deportation cases on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They are the legal architecture behind ICE’s immigration raids.

The building is One Towne Square, an 18-story office tower on the Lodge Freeway. The owner, a company called Redico, says the lease prohibits law enforcement or detention on the premises. In a statement emailed to The Metro, a Redico representative said violating those terms would break the agreement. 

“From the beginning, we have been in close communication with our employees and tenants and have had ongoing discussions with city officials and community leaders,” the statement reads. “We will continue meeting with city and community leaders and remain committed to transparency.”

The neighbors say that’s not enough, and the number of them pushing back is growing. Six people in a living room became 150 at a recent rally. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, State Senator Jeremy Moss, and faith leaders also showed up.

At the center of all this is Lauren Fink. She co-founded the Southfield Neighbors Action Committee in that living room in Southfield with her husband, Cameron. She joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to talk about what it means to be a good neighbor when people around you are in trouble.

This story has been updated with Redico’s statement. -Ed

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The Metro is closely watching the race for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat.

The Republican side is settled. Former Congressman Mike Rogers, who lost to Elissa Slotkin by less than half a point in 2024, is running again. This time, he wants the seat Gary Peters is leaving behind.

The Democratic side is more complicated. Three serious candidates are competing for the nomination, and the distance between them tells you something about where the party is right now.

Congresswoman Haley Stevens has Chuck Schumer’s endorsement and millions in support from AIPAC. She is running on expanding the Affordable Care Act and working within existing institutions. State Senator Mallory McMorrow wants generational change inside the party — new leadership, new tactics — but within the current system. Physician Abdul El-Sayed is running to the left of both. He wants Medicare for All, the abolition of ICE, and says Democratic leadership has lost touch with its own voters.

They disagree on healthcare. They disagree on immigration enforcement. They disagree on Israel and Gaza, on whether billionaires should exist, and on who should be leading their own party.

WDET’s Russ McNamara sat down with all three — same questions, same mic — and the answers lay out a party in the middle of an argument with itself. The Metro listened back to that story, then Russ joined Robyn Vincent for some analysis about this moment.

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For tens of thousands of people across metro Detroit, this past weekend wasn’t spent relaxing. It was spent in the dark, listening to 70-mile-per-hour wind gusts. Others were likely watching the water line creep up in their basements after days of rain.

When we talk about environmental risk, we’re talking about the collision between volatile weather, intensified by human-caused climate change, and fragile, aging infrastructure. It is the risk your lights won’t stay on, your basement won’t stay dry, and your utility bills will keep rising.

Nearly 95,000 households lost power in this latest storm. While many of the lights are back on, the frustration hasn’t dimmed, especially since DTE Energy’s $242 million rate hike just went into effect earlier this month.

Today marks the start of Severe Weather Awareness Week. Governor Gretchen Whitmer is urging you to “know your plan.” But for many metro Detroiters, that plan is at the mercy of a grid and a regional geography that feels fragile. 

To help us look past the downed limbs and into the systems that are failing, Nicholas Schroeck joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro. Schroeck is the dean of the University of Detroit Mercy’s School of Law and a leading expert on environmental policy.

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The Metro team has been noticing a chilling effect as we dig for answers and information: some sources who used to talk to us are not picking up. Community members, advocates, and elected officials are going quiet. But silence is only one side of the story. The other side is a deliberate wall of noise.

Washington Post reporters obtained thousands of internal Department of Homeland Security messages and found a taxpayer-funded media operation embedded in immigration raids. Producers were told to flag “cinematic scenes” for the camera. When someone arrested had no criminal record — and nearly 74% in ICE detention don’t, according to government data — officials were told to find something else “newsworthy.”

At the same time, DHS has sent hundreds of administrative subpoenas to Google, Meta, Reddit, and Discord demanding the identities of people who criticize ICE online. 

Maria Hinojosa has spent decades fighting against the silence and the noise. The Pulitzer Prize-winning host of Latino USA and founder of Futuro Media joined Robyn Vincent to talk about the federal government’s information war on immigration.

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The United States has a long history of deciding what Iranians want. Saturday, it happened again.

Without Congressional authorization, President Trump and Israel launched strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader and hundreds of civilians, including as many as 165 children at a girls’ elementary school. Trump says he is giving Iranians a chance at freedom. But 92 million people live in Iran, and reducing them to a single story is something the United States has done before, with devastating consequences.

Saeed Khan, associate professor of Near Eastern Studies at Wayne State University, specializes in the politics and history of the Middle East. He joined Robyn Vincent to discuss the history the U.S. tends to ignore and the costs of reducing Iranians to a single story.

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If you have lived in Detroit for a while, you’ve heard the city’s revival narrative. The magazines, the national news, the awards —they proclaim Detroit is back. Many Detroiters have bristled at this. Back from where? They never left.

That phrase — “Detroit never left” — is the counter. It is emblazoned on T-shirts, stickers, and murals. Detroiters utter these words to take back the narrative. But from whom?

In her new book, “Detroit Never Left: Black Space, White Borders, Latino Crossings,” Nicole Trujillo-Pagán makes the case that powerful outsiders have long defined Detroit’s problems at the expense of residents. 

She argues foundations, banks, the state, and national media used words like “blight” and “vacancy” to define the city’s problems in ways that benefited themselves while excluding Detroiters.

She joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss how Detroit’s comeback has looked different depending on where you stand.

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