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.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

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The city of Detroit announced on Monday that it has received a credit upgrade from the credit rating agency Moody’s for the 11th year in a row. 

Subscribe to the Detroit Evening Report on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Detroit’s rating went up one notch from Baa2 to Baa1 with a positive outlook, the city reported. The city’s financial resiliency and its operating performance over time were key reasons behind this year’s upgrade, Moody’s said in a statement.

Moody’s cited key projects underway — such as the new Hudson’s development, the expansion of Henry Ford Hospital’s campus, and the new Water Square development — as positives, adding that the city’s tax base has more than doubled in the past five years. 

The city’s credit rating hit an all-time low at Caa3 — considered “junk bond” status — in June 2013 after declaring bankruptcy.

“This is what happens when elected leaders set aside us-versus-them politics and work together,” Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said in a statement. “Our CFO team, department heads and City Council all have demonstrated tremendous fiscal discipline over the past 11 years to help bring us to where we are today and to lay a strong foundation for years to come.”

Other headlines for Tuesday, July 1, 2025:

• Residents on Detroit’s east side are speaking out about gun violence after two young people were killed at a city playground near Denby High School on Friday. Police are still investigation the shooting, which claimed the lives of 4-year-old Samir Grubbs and 18-year-old Daviyon Shelmonson-Bey and left another teenager wounded. No suspects are in custody.
• The Motown Museum has reopened its “Motown Mile” art installation along the Detroit riverfront with a new exhibition honoring the legacy of Motown Museum founder Esther Gordy Edwards, titled “Keeper of the Dream.”
• Detroit’s neighbors across the river are celebrating Canada Day on Tuesday, commemorating the country’s “confederation.” Windsor residents celebrated with a parade down Ouelette Avenue late Tuesday morning.
• Detroit is getting a new WNBA team. The league announced the new team on Monday. Tom and Holly Gores will be the controlling owners of the new franchise, set to play in 2029. Other expansion teams will also be launched in Cleveland and Philadelphia that year. Detroit’s previous WNBA team — the Detroit Shock — played from 1998 until 2009, winning three championships during that time.

Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.

A ballot campaign plans to launch in July to ask voters to ban political donations from committees affiliated with utility monopolies and from businesses with substantial state contracts.  

A coalition of progressive organizations are behind the campaign for a voter-initiated law to reign in the influence of utilities and insurance companies with market dominance as well as contractors that do more than $250,000 in business annually with the state, which would appear to include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan — a prolific political donor.

“This isn’t just another policy tweak,” said Sean McBrearty, Michigan director for Clean Water Action, one of the groups backing the proposal. “It’s a line in the sand. We want to stop corporations from buying off our democracy.”

The Michiganders for Money Out of Politics campaign said Consumers Energy and DTE Energy, in particular, have used their clout to fend off efforts to award bigger paybacks to customers for power losses.

“One of the biggest reasons we don’t see progress in Lansing is because too many politicians are bought and paid for,” said Ken Whittaker with Michigan United. “The political will to fix this mess just isn’t there, but that’s by design. We’re not new to this.”

The campaign needs to collect almost 357,000 signatures of registered voters to qualify for the 2026 ballot. They said the signature-gathering effort will be all-volunteer without using circulators who are paid by the signature. They say the specific language will be revealed closer to having it approved by the Michigan Board of State Canvassers.

But they say it will be very similar to legislation that has stalled in the Legislature already.  

The campaign said utility influence has held back reforms that would improve service and make rates more affordable. Spokespersons for two large Michigan utilities said their companies behave ethically. They said donation decisions are made independently by political action committees run by employees and shareholders.

Statements from Consumers Energy and DTE Energy said they and their corporate political action committees strictly abide by existing campaign finance laws. DTE spokesperson Ryan Lowry noted the utility agreed to publicly disclose all political donations of $5,000 or more as part of a 2023 rate settlement agreement with the Michigan Public Service Commission.

Lowry also said political action committee decisions are made by employees and shareholders.

“These disclosures showcase DTE’s commitment to our customers and communities we serve, helping us meet our aspiration of being best in the world and best for the world,” he said in an emailed statement. “The political contributions the company makes are supported by the DTE voluntary employee PAC or DTE shareholders — not from customer revenue.”  

The U.S. Supreme Court could decide if a case involving the Line 5 oil pipeline stays in Michigan court or goes back before federal judges.

The case began in 2019 when Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sued in state court to partially shut down Line 5. Nessel cited three state laws to make an environmental case for stopping the project.

It then got moved to federal court in 2021 at the request of Enbridge, the Canadian company that operates the pipeline. That request came much later than a 30-day window to do so, partly because Enbridge says it was waiting on the result of a similar lawsuit from Michigan’s governor.

A lower federal court granted an exception to the timeline. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, didn’t buy that argument and sent the case back to the 30th Circuit Court in Ingham County where a hearing was held in January.

The Supreme Court, on Enbridge’s appeal, will decide whether there are exceptions to the 30-day period to remove a case to federal court.

Enbridge argues, while the Sixth Circuit took a narrow view of that time frame, other appellate courts have allowed exceptions. It believes the case belongs in federal court because the matter butts up against international treaty law and some federal laws as well.

In a statement, Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said the company is “encouraged” by the Supreme Court decision Monday to take up the case.

“The District Court cited the important federal issues in this case, including U.S.-Canada Treaty issues, and the fact that litigation of these issues was already pending in another case in federal court. 

However, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, deciding that district courts have no authority to give exceptions to the 30-day time limit.

The Sixth Circuit’s remand decision is in conflict with decisions from two other federal Circuit Courts of Appeals, which both held that there can be exceptions to the 30-day limit. The Supreme Court review will resolve this conflict in the courts of appeals,” Duffy said in an email.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General’s office is maintaining its position.

“The Department’s lawsuit is based on state claims and law, and it belongs before a Michigan court.  We remain undeterred in our commitment to protect the Great Lakes, especially from the devastating catastrophe a potential Line 5 rupture would wreak upon all of Michigan,” a written statement from AG spokesperson Kimberly Bush said.

If the case goes back to federal court, the proceedings that have happened in state court may be moot. Meanwhile, the legal fight between Enbridge and the governor is already playing out in federal court.

All this is happening as Enbridge tries to move forward with a project to build a tunnel around a replacement section of the Line 5 pipeline that runs through the Straits of Mackinac. That project is currently in the permitting process.

Enbridge says the tunnel would make the pipeline safer by protecting it from anchor strikes. Environmental groups are fighting it, saying it could potentially rupture and dump massive amounts of oil into the Great Lakes.

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.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

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More than 6,000 signatures have been collected by a group seeking to change Dearborn’s city council format from an at-large body to holding district-based council elections.

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Dearborn Wants Wards filed the petition with the Dearborn City Clerk’s Office on June 18. If the language is approved, the city would have council members per district and only two at-large seats, for a total of nine council members.

If the language is approved, the city would have council members per district and only two at-large seats, for a total of nine council members. 

Campaign spokesperson Mona Mawari says the changes are overdue and necessary for equal representation of the city’s east and south sides. 

“So most of the seats are won by folks from the west side; and the East End has only one person on city council, and the South End has none,” she said. “So that’s when I decided to create this campaign where we will be going to change the structure of city council to a more equitable structure.”

If all the signatures are certified and election language is approved, voters in Dearborn will see the measure on their ballot in November.

Changes to the city council and charter commission would go into effect in 2029.

Other headlines for Monday, June 30, 2025:

• A series of bills were introduced in the state Senate that aim to make renting more accessible. The bills would cap rental application fees at $25, eliminate junk fees that occur after a lease is signed, and seal eviction records.
• The city of Dearborn will be increasing its police presence this Fourth of July weekend to combat a rise in illegal fireworks usage. Parents of children caught mishandling and using illegal fireworks will also receive citations as well. Police are reminding residents that fireworks are only allowed on private property from 11 a.m. to 11:45 p.m. between June 29 and July 5.

Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.

Michigan State Police Director Col. James Grady II is expected to testify before the state House Oversight Committee this week after ongoing attempts to oust him from the role.

This week on MichMash, WDET’s Cheyna Roth and Gongwer News Service’s Zach Gorchow explain the brewing tensions surrounding the MSP director. Then later, Michigan Association of State Universities CEO Dan Hurley stops by to discuss the various challenges state universities have faced in the last several months. 

Subscribe to MichMash on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode:

• What led to the no-confidence vote of Col. James Grady II
• How state universities are navigating recent funding challenges
• A breakdown of how public universities receive funding

Earlier this month, two police unions representing state troopers and MSP command officers announced that more than 90% of their members voted no confidence in Grady and his second in command, Lt. Col. Aimee Brimacombe.

The vote was the latest in a series of tensions that have arisen since Grady’s appointment by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2023. 

Now lawmakers are getting involved, with Republican legislators beginning to call for Grady’s resignation, saying “he’s lost the confidence of his employees.”

“This week, leadership of the House Oversight Committee began deposing some members of the state police behind closed doors, in what appeared to be an effort to get sworn testimony about Grady’s performance,” Roth said, adding that Grady and the Attorney General’s office are saying the body has “no authority” to depose members of the executive branch.

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers are rallying behind Grady, Roth said, with the legislative Black Caucus this week calling Grady’s criticism “unwarranted, given Grady’s qualifications,” suggesting that he is getting criticism that a white leader of the department would not get.

Whitmer’s office has also expressed support for Grady.

“In the past when Republicans have called for a department director to resign, the governor and her staff tend to turn the other cheek thinking they don’t want to dignify those types of requests,” Gorchow said. “But her press office is making clear that Gov. Whitmer stands behind Grady.” 

Roth and Gorchow also spoke with Dan Hurley, CEO and executive director of the Michigan Association of State Universities, about the recent reductions in funding for state universities, crackdowns on DEI policies, and other challenges education institutions are currently facing.

“The one thing the universities need are sustainability, stability, and good forecasting,” he said, “and their model has been shaken up.”  

Hurley said despite the added pressures from the current administrations, these universities, collectively, have been around for a while and will weather the storm.

—WDET’s Jenny Sherman contributed to this report.

More from WDET:

• Detroit Evening Report: Federal government revokes visas for international students at WSU, universities nationwide
• Future of DEI at University of Michigan under the microscope
• Attorney for Racial Justice Project responds to report on discriminatory policing by MSP

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court on Friday ruled that individual judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions, but the decision left unclear the fate of President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship.

The outcome was a victory for the Republican president, who has complained about individual judges throwing up obstacles to his agenda.

But a conservative majority left open the possibility that the birthright citizenship changes could remain blocked nationwide. Trump’s order would deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of people who are in the country illegally.

The cases now return to lower courts, where judges will have to decide how to tailor their orders to comply with the high court ruling, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion. Enforcement of the policy can’t take place for another 30 days, Barrett wrote.

The justices agreed with the Trump administration, as well as President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration before it, that judges are overreaching by issuing orders that apply to everyone instead of just the parties before the court.

The president, making a rare appearance to hold a news conference in the White House briefing room, said that the decision was “amazing” and a “monumental victory for the Constitution,” the separation of powers and the rule of law.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “The court’s decision is nothing less than an open invitation for the government to bypass the Constitution.” This is so, Sotomayor said, because the administration may be able to enforce a policy even when it has been challenged and found to be unconstitutional by a lower court.

Rights groups that sued over the policy filed new court documents following the high court ruling, taking up a suggestion from Justice Brett Kavanaugh that judges still may be able to reach anyone potentially affected by the birthright citizenship order by declaring them part of “putative nationwide class.” Kavanaugh was part of the court majority on Friday but wrote a separate concurring opinion.

States that also challenged the policy in court said they would try to show that the only way to effectively protect their interests was through a nationwide hold.

“We have every expectation we absolutely will be successful in keeping the 14th Amendment as the law of the land and of course birthright citizenship as well,” said Attorney General Andrea Campbell of Massachusetts.

Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

In a notable Supreme Court decision from 1898, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the court held that the only children who did not automatically receive U.S. citizenship upon being born on U.S. soil were the children of diplomats, who have allegiance to another government; enemies present in the U.S. during hostile occupation; those born on foreign ships; and those born to members of sovereign Native American tribes.

The U.S. is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are among them.

Trump and his supporters have argued that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen, which he called “a priceless and profound gift” in the executive order he signed on his first day in office.

The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, a phrase used in the amendment, and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.

But states, immigrants and rights groups that have sued to block the executive order have accused the administration of trying to unsettle the broader understanding of birthright citizenship that has been accepted since the amendment’s adoption.

Judges have uniformly ruled against the administration.

The Justice Department had argued that individual judges lack the power to give nationwide effect to their rulings.

The Trump administration instead wanted the justices to allow Trump’s plan to go into effect for everyone except the handful of people and groups that sued. Failing that, the administration argued that the plan could remain blocked for now in the 22 states that sued. New Hampshire is covered by a separate order that is not at issue in this case.

The justice also agreed that the administration may make public announcements about how it plans to carry out the policy if it eventually is allowed to take effect.

–Reporting by Mark Sherman, Associated Press

Michigan’s Iranian American community is concerned about the recent escalation of hostilities with Iran. 

The U.S. bombed several sites in Iran on Sunday, joining Israel’s war aimed at destroying the country’s nuclear program. 

Camron Michael Amin, a professor of Middle East and Iranian diaspora studies at University of Michigan-Dearborn, says some people were not able to get in touch with their loved ones due to an internet outage in Iran. 

“Communication seems to have improved over the course of the week, but many people couldn’t reach anybody starting sort of a week ago,” he said. “Sunday, it was hard to reach people, and that seems to have been largely driven by internet outages.”

Amin says many Iranian Americans are nervous about any escalations in the war, especially those with loved ones in Iran.

“I can’t speak for everybody, obviously, but generally speaking, Iranian Americans are nervous about and wary of anything that escalates and prolongs the war. However they feel about the Iranian government, however they feel about the issues between Iran and the United States… because they have people they know or people they care about in Iran that might be at risk they themselves visit when they can,” he said.

Amin says recent polling shows that Iranian Americans frequently keep in contact and travel to Iran as tourists or to visit family.

“So anything that makes that more dangerous or more fraught is unwelcome,” he said.

Amin says one concern is getting dual-national Iranian Americans out of Iran during the conflict.

“Certainly, dual nationals in Israel, from several countries, including the U.S., have ways to get out of that country during the fighting. And I think there’s a similar concern about dual nationals, who are Iranian Americans, who might be stuck in harm’s way during the fighting right now,” he said. 

Amin says Iranian Americans are looking to policymakers and legislators to prioritize helping people stuck in Iran.

President Donald Trump announced Monday that a ceasefire had been reached between Iran and Israel, after the deal initially faltered. 

Michigan lawmakers went home without passing a new budget for K-12 schools Thursday night. That’s despite, both meeting for hours and a statutory July 1 deadline for getting an entire state budget done.

It appears part of the holdup is how to handle earmarks for programs like free school lunches or mental health services. The Democratic-led Senate wants them maintained while the Republican-controlled House of Representatives wants to cut them in favor of giving districts more money per student.

House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp) is also trying to get a road funding plan passed alongside the school budget.

Hall spoke to reporters Thursday night after spending hours negotiating with Senate leadership, the governor, and their teams. He said the leaders were leaving with “a roadmap” that will help them get a deal done next week.

“The House Republicans are committed to working through the weekend, working tomorrow, and working more tonight. Working over the weekend with our goal of still trying to get something done on roads and education by July 1,” Hall said.

Hall said he believed his Democratic counterparts worked better with added pressure from that deadline. He claimed the Senate adding more session days to its calendar for next week as a win.

The Senate had planned to take the first two weeks of July off.

All sides of the negotiating table say they’re optimistic about getting something done, acknowledging it would be difficult.

Reporters caught State Budget Director Jen Flood leaving the governor’s office at the state Capitol Thursday night. She said negotiators were “having great conversations,” when pressed for a comment.

Democrats, however, are still frustrated by the time crunch. They accuse House Republicans of delaying the process by waiting until a couple weeks ago to release their school budget proposal.

Rep. Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn) is the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.

“We are seeing a budget process that normally takes months to play out, playing out within a span of four to five days,” Farhat said. “We shouldn’t be in this spot right now where we’re five days before the [statutory] deadline contemplating whether or not we’ll have this budget. So school districts don’t have to keep wondering and teachers don’t have to keep wondering if they’re going to be pink slipped or not.”

Hall said he and House Republicans have been vocal about wanting to keep to the July 1 deadline for months. Democrats have as well, though some have raised doubts in recent weeks about that feasibility without having a complete budget proposal from the House.

The odds of passing a full state budget next week are dim.

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.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

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A state House committee voted Wednesday to advance legislation to blunt the impact of a Michigan Supreme Court decision on automatic life-without-parole sentences for young adults.

The bills could allow for longer sentences for 19- and 20-year-olds convicted of first-degree and felony murder, among other serious crimes, and allow prosecutors more time to review cases for potential resentencing.

“Life without parole was not given out lightly to begin with,” said Rep. Sarah Lightner (R-Springport), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee and sponsored the bills. “You have to remember these people are murderers.”

The court ruling released in April struck down automatic life without parole for 19- and 20-year-olds convicted of first-degree and felony murder as unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. It followed a similar ruling applying to defendants 18 years old and younger.

Now, people who already got mandatory life sentences are being resentenced. Sometimes, that will be to multiple shorter prison terms. The current default in Michigan is for sentences to be served concurrently.

Lightner said concurrent prison terms are not tough enough. “There’s only justice given to the first victim,” she told Michigan Public Radio. “There’s nothing in law that says you have to stack the sentences consecutively, because we have concurrent sentencing.”

Consecutive years-long sentences would effectively be life in prison in some cases.

Deborah LaBelle, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan said the Michigan Supreme Court decision is clear on young lifers. She said sentences of life with no chance of parole for young defendants should be rare.

“They should, when they have had the opportunity to mature and grow, be looked at again and determined whether in fact they have been rehabilitated and should be able to at some point rejoin the community,” she said.

LaBelle says the legislation would probably be found unconstitutional if signed into law because it would force consecutive sentences automatically without court hearings.

The bills, which now go to the House floor, were adopted on party-line votes.

Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee pushed back against the Trump administration’s bid to kill $9 billion in federal funding that Congress already has approved for public broadcasting and international aid programs.

In President Trump’s request to Congress, sent last month, he justified the cuts because the targeted foreign aid programs were “antithetical to American interests,” and because “[f]ederal spending on [the Corporation for Public Broadcasting] subsidizes a public media system that is politically biased and is an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer.”

In a hearing Wednesday, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs the committee, noted in the case of public broadcasting that 70% of the federal dollars targeted for rescission support local programming and emergency communications. She acknowledged concerns about NPR’s news coverage, which she said “for years has had a discernibly partisan bent.”

“There are, however, more targeted approaches to addressing that bias [at NPR] than rescinding all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” Collins said.

In response to a later question, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought testified that emergency broadcasting services funded by CPB would be safe. He also argued that because the CPB rescission doesn’t apply to the current fiscal year, local stations would have “ample time to adjust” and “they should be more judicious” about whom they pay for content.

Upon further questioning by Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has come out against the public broadcasting cuts, Vought committed to working with her on funding for rural stations. Yet he reiterated that Republicans have spent years trying to address public funding of content.

Murkowski later gave what she described as
“a little bit of a bird’s eye view” of the public radio situation in Alaska, which includes rural stations that receive up to 70% of their funding from the federal government. She went on to detail the vital services the station supply. “[A]lmost to a number, they’re saying that they will go under if public broadcasting funds are no longer available to them,” she said.

The vast majority of the $9.4 billion in cuts requested by the White House are to foreign aid programs addressing global public health, international disaster assistance and hunger relief.

But the package also includes a cut of nearly $1.1 billion in funding for 2026 and 2027 for CPB. The private nonprofit sends most of that money to local public television and radio stations across the country. PBS receives about 15% of its annual revenue through CPB, while NPR gets about 1% directly. Indirectly, NPR also receives some of the money going to member stations, who pay the network to air its programs.

The rescissions measure narrowly passed the House earlier this month, 214 to 212, with two key Republican lawmakers switching their votes from “no” to “yes” at the last minute to get it over the finish line. The House held a hearing earlier this year at which many Republicans accused PBS and NPR of being woke and biased against conservative viewpoints.

On Wednesday, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the panel’s top Democrat, questioned the legality of the White House’s request. Under the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, both chambers of Congress must approve such a request by a simple majority within 45 days of its submission—in this case, by July 18.

The cuts to CPB would “rip away funding that supports over 1500 local public TV and radio stations,” Murray said.

“Rural communities will be the hardest hit, not to mention our kids,” she said, adding that the cuts threaten “free, high-quality programming that is thoughtfully developed to get our kids thinking and to grow their curiosity.”

NPR in a statement said: “There is no substitute for the direct support and nationwide infrastructure and services funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that enable these noncommercial stations to serve their communities.” In a statement after the House vote this month, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger said: “Our work is only possible because of the bipartisan support we have always received from Congress, support we have earned by providing services that cannot be replaced by commercial media.”

Reporting by Scott Neuman, NPR

Detroit’s North End will soon be getting some special funds for summer events in the area. 

Subscribe to the Detroit Evening Report on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced more than $130,000 in grants on Wednesday for nine Michigan communities, including Grand Haven, Saline, and Blissfield. 

The grants of up to $15,000 are part of the Michigan Main Street Vibrancy program, with money going toward community enhancement efforts and improvement projects. 

Funding can be used for a wide range of purposes, including physical improvements such as signage, advertising or pop-up events. 

Other headlines for Wednesday, June 25, 2025:

• Former Judge and state legislator Virgil C. Smith has died at 77 years old. Smith served for more than a decade as a Wayne County Circuit Court judge. He was working as Chief of Staff in the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office when he was appointed as a judge in 2004. Before that, Smith served in the state House for 11 years, and another dozen years in the state Senate. He was Michigan’s first Black Senate minority floor leader.
• The city of Detroit will hold a mayoral candidates forum Wednesday evening to give residents a chance to interact with candidates running in the August mayoral primary.  The event runs from 6 to 9 p.m. at the 3Fifty Rooftop terrace above Music Hall, 350 Madison St., Detroit.
• The Belle Isle Park Advisory Committee is hosting a meeting Thursday to get feedback from the public about potential redesign plans on the island. Belle Isle Conservancy CEO Meagan Elliot says the organization has been attending block club meetings and encouraging residents to make their thoughts heard. The meeting will be held at 9 a.m. at the Flynn Pavilion on Belle Isle. It will also be livestreamed.
• The Detroit Golf Club is getting ready to host another national event.  The Rocket Classic kicks off Wednesday, with more than 150 athletes taking part in the tournament — including a dozen of the world’s top ranked golfers. The tournament will be televised on CBS Saturday and Sunday afternoons. 

Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.

The prosecutor who won convictions in the Oxford High School shooting trials wants to extend that work to all of Michigan. 

Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald announced this week that she’s launching a bid to become Michigan’s next attorney general. Other candidates who have entered the race include Democrats Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit and former federal prosecutor Mark Totten, as well as Republican attorney Kevin Kijewski. 

It’s an open race for the seat, as the state government’s current top lawyer — Attorney General Dana Nessel — is term-limited. 

McDonald, a Democrat, told WDET the issues facing Michigan and the nation are drawing her to serve at the state level. 

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Karen McDonald, Oakland County prosecutor: I think the answer to that is the same answer I’d give when I started my first job as an adult — as a public school teacher — really wanting to be in a place where I had the most impact and the most opportunity to do good where it was needed most. I went on to law school, was a lawyer in private practice, became a judge in the family court and then ran for prosecutor in 2020. And I think right now, given the threats that we’re facing in the state, the attorney general is more important than ever. 

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: What kind of threats are there that you think you would have to face or take on if, in fact, you were elected attorney general? 

KM: We’re facing threats to our rule of law, to the general well-being and safety of the people in the state of Michigan. The U.S. Constitution and the rights that it gives us are being dismantled, and I think the attorney general is the one that stands up for the people of this state. I also think that the role of the attorney general as the “People’s Lawyer” is something that I’ve been doing for over a decade working to serve my community, my county. Oakland County is the second largest county in the state. And that’s what I get up every day and I do. 

QK: Obviously your prosecution of the Oxford High School shooter and securing the convictions of his parents on involuntary manslaughter charges put a spotlight on your work. Are there lessons that you see from those cases that would inform you if, in fact, you were elected attorney general? 

KM: My hope is that it put a spotlight on gun violence and how critical it is that we address it like a public health crisis. It’s the number one cause of death for children in this country. Prosecuting a few individuals, or anyone for that matter, is not going to fix that. We have to treat it like a public health crisis. 

QK: Staying with the Oxford shooting, the defense attorney for the shooter’s mother, Jennifer Crumbley, has brought up issues about a proffer agreement that was made with some of the Oxford employees to testify. The judge in the trial indicated that she had some concerns about the deal. Do you have any concerns that now your opponents in this attorney general race could somehow try to use that to tarnish your efforts in the Crumbley case?  

KM: It doesn’t surprise me. The lawyer you’re speaking of has been sanctioned and fined by that same judge. And the motion for a new trial was denied. I’m focused on the victims in that case and holding the people accountable that are responsible for those kids who were killed and injured on that day (in 2021) and the hundreds of others that were traumatized. I think the focus now has to be on the victims, the families and this community. That is why I’ve dedicated so much of my time as the prosecutor, and will continue that as the attorney general, to address gun violence. Not just from the moment somebody picks up a gun, but way up-stream — what we can and should be doing to educate the public about how we can prevent that from happening. 

QK: Current Attorney General Dana Nessel has done some of that in certain aspects. But she’s also filed or joined many lawsuits that challenge the Trump administration, from threats to withholding federal funding for emergency services and limiting birthright citizenship to firing federal workers or adding restrictions on voting. Are there areas you see that as attorney general, you believe you should either continue or would institute challenges to the Trump administration? 

KM: I think that’s the responsibility and duty of the attorney general. The stakes could not be higher. We’re talking about a complete disregard for the rule of law. I’m a lawyer, I’m a former judge, I’m the prosecutor. The Constitution is our guide. Due process is afforded for all of us. We can’t just ignore that when we want to. With regard to funding, these are critical issues. The new bill that’s being proposed in Congress would make it that 700,000 people in Michigan lose access to Medicaid. We’ve had the administration take away funds for substance abuse and mental health issues at the precise time where our kids, in particular, needed it the most. This just doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make us safer. And I think the attorney general’s job is to look out for the people of the state of Michigan. So when appropriate, absolutely those lawsuits should be vigorously litigated, because that is the attorney general’s job. But it’s also the attorney general’s job to make sure that we are focusing on things that have the most impact. I’ve always been dedicated to public service and where I could do the most good. And that is protecting the rule of all law, protecting public safety and advocating for vulnerable people. 

QK: It’s a little bit unfair at this point, because only a few candidates have declared their run for attorney general yet. But what would you tell a voter that you think sets you apart from the others that possibly could try to run for the office or that are now? 

KM: While I’ve spent most of my adult life in southeast Michigan and Oakland County, I grew up in the middle of the state in a really small town that was a farming community. My dad was a construction worker and neither of my parents went to college. They were able to work hard and provide a nice life for us, not a fancy one, but a good one. And I am only here because I had the advantage of student loans. Over half of the assistant prosecutors in my office rely on the loan repayment programs because they’ve dedicated a significant period of their life to public service. These aren’t things that should be taken away. These are things that we should be saying, “This works.” We need to fight to make sure that we don’t lose it.

I’m also a mom. And I, like all the other parents, want to make sure that my kids have a safe, thriving state to live in. Look, it’s 2025, we should not have parents worried that their kids might be the victims of gun violence when they drop them off at school. I am going to fight no matter where I am to make sure that we do everything we possibly can to eliminate and prevent gun violence.  

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.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

More stories from The Metro

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.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

More stories from The Metro

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sat before the Michigan House Oversight Committee for roughly an hour and a half Tuesday testifying on glitches in the portal for elected officials to file legally required financial disclosure statements.

Benson, a Democrat, acknowledged the problems while defending her department’s work.

“There are sometimes bumps in the road and things don’t go as smoothly as I would have liked,” she said. “Transformational change does not happen easily. It is the harder path. But just because things are hard and difficult at first doesn’t mean we run away or sit on our hands and do nothing.”

Benson said it was tougher than expected to merge multiple systems with antiquated technology.

“What we didn’t anticipate is just how challenging it would be to migrate these 24 million data points from a 25-year-old system that in many ways existed on a floppy disk into a new modernized system,” she said.

She said the next round of updates to the Michigan Transparency Network (MITN) should be ready to launch next month. She also said the contractor has made a partial refund to the state for the period when the portal was not fully functional.

Rep. Jay Deboyer (R-Clay Township), chair of the House Oversight Committee, suggested maybe the state should have stuck with the old system while the bugs were worked out.

“It does not work in a manner that’s acceptable to the users,” he said. “We can sit here as government officials all day and pat ourselves on the back in what it is that we’re doing, but the reality is when you talk to the users, madam secretary –” at this point Benson interrupted and said, “We have been talking to the users.”

“As have I and they are very unsatisfied,” replied DeBoyer.

The system is part of the state’s compliance with a political transparency amendment approved by voters in 2022. The amendment also made changes to term limits for legislators.

House Republicans and Benson have had a strained relationship. They are currently in court battling over a subpoena approved by the Oversight Committee for election materials that the secretary of state says could endanger election security if released without redactions.  

At a press conference at the conclusion of the NATO summit in the Netherlands on Wednesday morning, President Trump insisted that his strikes had heavily damaged Iran’s nuclear operation, despite a U.S. intelligence report that says otherwise.

The press conference came as the world watches to see whether a ceasefire between Israel and Iran will endure. Citing that ceasefire, Trump compared his bombings to the nuclear bombs that helped end World War II.

“It was so bad that they ended the war. It ended the war,” he said. “Somebody said, in a certain way, that it was so devastating, actually, if you look at Hiroshima, if you look at Nagasaki, you know, that ended a war, too. This ended a war in a different way, but it was so devastating.”

Trump traveled to the summit the morning after announcing that ceasefire, which came days after the United States joined Israel’s attacks on key Iranian nuclear facilities. An early classified U.S. intelligence assessment said the bombs caused only limited damage, setting Tehran’s nuclear program back “a few months.”

The White House has dismissed that assessment. At the press conference, Trump slammed U.S. news outlets, specifically naming CNN and the New York Times, for their reporting on it.

Trump also cited a statement from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, which said that U.S. strikes had “set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.”

At NATO, allies agreed to commit 5% of their GDP to defense spending by 2035, up from 2%. Trump has long called for allies to boost their spending, saying that the United States was paying more than its fair share. The U.S. contributes about 3.5% of its GDP to NATO.

Before the summit, Trump told reporters that the new goal wouldn’t apply to U.S. spending. “They’re in Europe. We’re not,” he said. And he also expressed some ambivalence to Article 5, the mutual defense clause in the NATO treaty that says an attack on one member is considered an attack on all, adding to long-held fears among European allies that Trump would not back them in the event of an attack.

At the press conference, Trump seemed to suggest the NATO summit had changed his thinking.

“I came here because it was something I’m supposed to be doing, but I left here a little bit different,” he said. He later added, “I left here saying that these people really love their countries. It’s not a ripoff, and we’re here to help them protect their country.”

Immediately prior to the press conference, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump said they did not discuss a ceasefire in that country’s war with Russia.

“I just, I wanted to know how he’s doing. He was very nice, actually,” Trump said. “I took from the meeting that he’d like to see it end. I think it’s a great time to end it. I’m going to speak to Vladimir Putin, see if we can get it ended.”

He later added that he has not been able to end that war yet, in part because Putin is being “difficult.”

When asked why he and Zelenskyy did not talk to the press after their meeting, however, Trump did not answer, directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to the lectern. He did not directly answer, either, instead excoriating the media for their reporting on the Iran intelligence assessment.

Reporting by Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR. Watch the full press conference below.