For the second time this week, a traffic crash in Commerce Township resulted in serious injuries.
The more recent collision happened shortly after 11 a.m. Friday on West Pontiac Trail near Huntley Drive involving a 2022 Tesla and a 2010 Honda Odyssey, according to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.
A preliminary investigation indicates that the Tesla driver, a 24-year-old Dearborn resident, crossed the center yellow line and crashed into the Honda, driven by a 73-year-old Walled Lake resident, the sheriff’s office said. Both drivers were transported to Henry Ford Providence Novi Hospital where the Walled Lake resident was listed in critical condition and the Dearborn resident was in stable condition as of mid-afternoon Friday, the sheriff’s office said..
Both drivers had been wearing their seatbelts at the time, the sheriff’s office said.
While an investigation continues, alcohol and/or drug use aren’t suspected as contributing factors, and speed doesn’t appear to have been an issue in the crash, the sheriff’s office said.
The crash happened three days after another involving a passenger vehicle and semi-truck in Commerce Township caused injuries to an 87-year-old man who was pinned inside his car, officials said.
According to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, the elderly man was operating a Chevrolet Malibu on Dec. 30 when he struck the rear of a semi-truck trailer as it was entering eastbound Pontiac Trail near Haggerty Road from the Walmart Supercenter parking lot at around 7:15 a.m. He became trapped inside the Malibu but was subsequently extricated by a crew from the Commerce Township Fire Department.
He was transported to Henry Ford Providence Novi Hospital and evaluated for injuries believed to be minor, the sheriff’s office said. No other injuries were reported.
The semi-truck driver was issued a citation in connection with the crash.
It won’t be long before the burned-out remains of Fork n’ Pint are cleared away, according to Waterford Township officials and a demolition contractor.
Bob Hoffman, an Oakland County commissioner whose business portfolio includes the demolition company American Recycling, said he expects to sign a contract with the restaurant’s owners soon.
Doug Young, one of the restaurant’s owners, and manager Bill Schwab did not respond to The Oakland Press’ requests for comment.
Gene Butcher, Waterford’s deputy fire chief and former fire marshal, investigated the fire and said neither he nor the insurance company’s investigator could find a definitive cause, likely because of the intensity of the blaze. He said it was clear that the fire started outside, at the back of the building at 4000 Cass Elizabeth Road, but is not considered suspicious.
As far as timing for work on the site, Hoffman said, he can’t “say the exact start date of demolition, because we’re waiting on notifications from Consumers Energy and DTE that services are disconnected for safety reasons,” adding “it should be relatively soon.”
Hoffman said he grew up near the restaurant when it was called Mitch’s and owned by a local family. Mitch’s and Fork n’ Pint were community favorites, he said.
Township Supervisor Anthony Bartolotta said he was relieved to learn the building would come down sooner rather than later.
“Why it took so long, I have no idea,” he said, adding that he was glad to see a long-empty Don Pablo’s Mexican Kitchen at 513 N. Telegraph Road, demolished after a significant fire in August.
Bartolotta said Fork n’ Pint officials told him that an insurance dispute was behind the delay in removing the debris from the May 1 fire
The township’s building division superintendent, Rick Hutchinson, told The Oakland Press he’s been in regular contact with the restaurant’s owners, brothers Doug and Burge Young, and was aware of the insurance dispute. Hutchinson said he learned Tuesday afternoon that the Youngs plan to apply for a demolition permit this month.
Based on Tuesday’s conversation with the restaurant officials, Hutchinson said, “this isn’t something they are just telling me to make me go away.”
A May 1, 2025, fire destroyed Fork n' Pint, a popular Waterford Township restaurant, but debris remains almost eight months later. (Peg McNichol/MediaNews Group)
Michigan endured a turbulent year in 2025, marked by acts of violence at places of worship and businesses. The year also brought high-profile oustings and departures at several universities, the auto and battery industries tapping the brakes on electric-vehicle investments, and the state emerging as a prime target for AI companies seeking to build massive data centers.
From a historic ice storm in northern Michigan to severe flooding in Detroit early in the year — and a bomb cyclone to close it out — Michigan’s calendar was bracketed by harsh and often punishing winter weather.
But not all the news was grim. There was plenty to celebrate, including a compass university team finding national success on the ice and a Detroit rock band earning induction into the music industry’s most prestigious hall of fame. And some of the year’s most captivating moments were delightfully unexpected, from a small houseboat’s improbable voyage across the Great Lakes to other stories that charmed and amused us.
The past 12 months hold a lot to unpack. Here’s a look back at 25 memorable stories that made Michigan’s year truly one of a kind.
Big House bombshell
The University of Michigan fired its head football coach Sherrone Moore this month after an investigation found he had an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. Moore, 39, was then arrested at the Pittsfield Township apartment of the staffer, jailed and charged with third-degree felony home invasion and misdemeanor stalking and breaking and entering. Players said they were shocked by the scandal. Former coach Jim Harbaugh described it as a tragedy and recommended Moore take care of his family and get spiritual guidance. Moore was eventually replaced by Kyle Whittingham, 66, who spent most of his career at Utah, including since 2005 as head coach.
A pair of church attacks unfolded in Michigan in 2025. A member of CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne ran over a gunman on June 22 after seeing 31-year-old Brian Anthony Browning, of Romulus, drive erratically toward the church, then exit the vehicle in a tactical vest carrying a long gun and handgun and start shooting at the church. Two church members shot at Browning and killed him. Wayne police Chief Ryan Strong credited them with preventing a mass shooting.
Three months later, four people were killed and others wounded on Sept. 28 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township by 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford of Burton. Police say Sanford drove his truck into the side of the church, set the building on fire using gasoline and fired several rounds. The attack was motivated by Sanford’s anti-Mormon beliefs, the FBI later said. Church leader Bishop Jeffrey Schaub said their members were shaken and hurting after the attack but said they could find joy again through faith.
Up north, 11 people were injured in a mass stabbing at a Walmart store near Traverse City on July 26. The attacker, 42-year-old Bradford James Gille of Afton has struggled with serious mental health issues. Police say he swung a 3.5-inch blade at shoppers before others stopped him in the store’s parking lot. Gille was declared incompetent to stand trial. Gille’s mother, Beverly Gille, said she is sorry for the fear and violence he caused and described her difficulty finding him mental health care throughout much of his life. “I’m his mother,” she said of Bradford. “I love him. … The mental health thing has been dropped, and this is what we’re going to continue having until they resolve it.”
Former Detroit Pistons star Malik Beasley was caught up in a federal gambling investigation amid financial problems worth more than $8 million, Detroit News reporting revealed. He was then investigated by the NBA for gambling improprieties. Beasley’s lawyer said he “has not and will not cooperate with any pending federal investigations” and did not provide information to the FBI, which later brought federal charges against former Pistons point guard Chauncey Billups or others accused of profiting off a sprawling gambling scheme impacting the league.
Santa Ono announced in May that he would resign as University of Michigan president to seek a position as head of the University of Florida. He made the announcement after less than three years in Ann Arbor and after campus unrest over student protests of Israel’s war in Gaza and Ono’s dismantling of UM’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The Florida Board of Governors blocked Ono’s appointment, citing his former embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Ono later joined the Ellison Institute of Technology, founded by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
To the north east, Wayne State University moved to oust its first female president, Kimberly Andrews Espy, in September after she had been on the job for two years. University leaders and some senior faculty were dissatisfied with her performance. Some on the university board of governors were upset with Espy’s communication with them after placing former School of Medicine Dean Dr. Wael Sakr on administrative leave without disclosing her reasoning. The board agreed to pay Espy roughly a year’s salary, $760,449, and two years of health care coverage as part of a separation agreement after she resigned.
Six Chinese nationals tied to the University of Michigan were charged in 2025 with federal crimes related to smuggling biological material into the country. The criminal cases unfolded as President Donald Trump’s administration moved to revoke Chinese student visas nationwide. One of the students, Chengxuan Han, in September was sentenced to time served and returned to China. Some of the researchers are tied to UM life sciences professor Shawn Xu’s campus lab. Xu is cooperating with investigations into his laboratory and has not been informed that he is the target of any investigation, his lawyer said.
Ford Motor Co. is relocating its headquarters to its new product development center west of Oakwood Boulevard in Dearborn, called the Hub. Local leaders cheered the move as a sign of the automaker’s commitment to the city. The company will demolish its nearby Glass House headquarters and turn the area into an outdoor community space. Bill Ford, executive chairman, said announcing the move was an emotional moment.
Boy dies in Oakland County hyperbaric chamber explosion
Thomas Cooper, 5, was killed after the hyperbaric chamber he was receiving treatment in exploded Jan. 31 at the Oxford Center in Troy. Prosecutors allege three employees and the owner of the Oxford Center disregarded safety protocols and failed to follow the manufacturer’s recommended guidelines for that type of treatment. The owner of the Oxford Center, Tamela Peterson, safety director Jeffrey Mosteller and primary manager Gary Marken are charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in connection with Thomas’ death. Chamber operator Aleta Moffitt is charged with involuntary manslaughter and intentionally placing false information on a medical record.
The federal government formally accused former University of Michigan co-offensive football coordinator Matt Weiss of hacking into college athletes’ accounts and stealing photos of students, primarily female, engaging in explicit sexual acts. UM surveillance footage shows him entering team offices at Schembechler Hall seconds before investigators said he hacked into the accounts and stole photos. Weiss is charged with unauthorized access to computers and aggravated identity theft.
Michiganders captivated by small houseboat that reached Lake Huron harbor
An Ontario man’s hand-built houseboat, Neverlanding, kept afloat by 110 plastic barrels, captivated Metro Detroiters’ attention as he navigated it from Harrow, Ontario, to the tip of Michigan’s Thumb. Pilot and boat builder Steve Mylrea had a dream of meeting a poor fisherman in Africa and giving him a houseboat. It inspired him to take the estimated 10-year voyage through the Great Lakes and across the ocean to Africa. For now, the ship is on shore.
Michigan companies of all stripes felt the pain of higher import costs amid President Donald Trump’s import tax hikes that took effect in the spring — from toy stores, to pet food suppliers, to bridal shops. And perhaps no industry was scrambled more than Michigan’s all-important auto sector, thanks to its layered North American supply chains that have long relied on parts and vehicles crossing the Canadian and Mexican borders. Still, the tariffs’ impacts on the overall economy and inflation have been milder than many experts and executives predicted. The Trump administration reined in some of the highest tariff rates that were briefly in effect early on, or provided other avenues for savings, while automakers and other firms also have been quick to adapt.
Tariffs and lower-than-expected demand for electric vehicles contributed to major strategy pivots by the Detroit Three automakers. General Motors Co. announced a $4 billion investment in Michigan, Kansas and Tennessee to move production of full-size SUVs and trucks to the United States from Mexico and Canada.
It also canceled production of electric Chevrolet BrightDrop commercial vans in Canada and cut jobs at U.S. EV plants. Ford Motor Co. announced $19.5 billion in special charges starting in the fourth quarter and extending into 2027 with the cancellation of F-150 Lightning production and a next-generation electric full-size truck and commercial van. Stellantis NV announced a record $13 billion U.S. investment to shift production to the U.S. and away from Mexico and Canada. The automaker also canceled plans for an all-electric Ram 1500 REV pickup.
It was a year with ups and downs for Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as she broke with the strategy of other high-profile Democratic governors in 2025 and attempted to establish a positive relationship with Republican President Donald Trump. Whitmer appeared with Trump to announce a new fighter mission at Selfridge in April. That came a few weeks after a photographer caught Whitmer covering her face with a blue folder while appearing in the Oval Office with Trump. Later in the year, a semiconductor project that Whitmer hoped would come to Michigan, with federal incentives, fell through.
Iggy Pop inducted Jack and Meg White of Detroit garage rock duo the White Stripes into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this fall. Jack’s thank-you speech at the ceremony doubled as a love letter to Detroit — and his absent “sister” Meg, who chose not to attend, but helped him with his speech. “I thank you and all of Detroit,” said White, name-checking a mélange of city favorites such as Gold Dollar, the Gories, the Dirt Bombs, the Hentchmen, Coney Islands and the Detroit Zoo.
Two Detroit children, 2-year-old A’Millah and 9-year-old Darnell Currie Jr., died Feb. 10 of carbon monoxide poisoning while staying in a van with their family in a Greektown casino parking lot. Their mom had reached out to Detroit’s homelessness hotline several times. The children were among 45 homeless Detroit residents who died this year, according to the Pope Francis Center. Their tragic deaths became central in the conversation about affordable housing in Detroit and took place as Census data showed Detroit’s child poverty increased to 51% last year.
LIV Golf hosted its first competition in Michigan this year at The Cardinal at St. John’s Resort in Plymouth Township in August. The resort built the course with exactly this in mind — hosting an elite professional golf tournament. It was controversial because LIV Golf is funded by Saudi Arabia, a nation with significant human rights abuses, yet more than 40,000 people attended over the tournament’s three-day run. Compared to the Rocket Classic at Detroit Golf Club, the LIV tournament felt akin to a festival, with thumping electronic music, pyrotechnics and lots of beer.
Mary Sheffield, 38, made history as Detroit’s first female mayor in November when 77.4% of voters chose her over the Rev. Solomon Kinloch Jr. The three-term city councilwoman will succeed Mayor Mike Duggan, who is leaving office to run for Michigan governor. Sheffield is a fourth-generation Detroiter who comes from a long line of civil rights advocates. She is considered more politically progressive than Duggan and has vowed to keep the city’s momentum moving forward while spreading its fortunes to more neighborhoods, residents, and businesses. “At the end of the day, we all want the same thing: a Detroit that works for everyone,” Sheffield said at her victory party.
On a picture-perfect late September evening in Ann Arbor, a record-setting 112,408 fans filed into Michigan Stadium for Zach Bryan’s sold-out concert, making the first show at the storied venue the highest attended ticketed concert in U.S. history. The 29-year-old Oklahoman’s show set a second record to boot, with $5 million in merchandise sales, according to the promoter. The set followed appearances by openers John Mayer and Albion, Michigan, country/Americana duo the War and Treaty.
The Broncos made history when Western Michigan University’s hockey team clinched a national championship title in April after besting Boston University in a 6-2 game at Enterprise Center in St. Louis. Linemate Iiro Hakkarainen said it was the best moment of his life. Kalamazoo residents welcomed the team back with a parade.
An East Lansing couple, Dawn and Greg Williams, made a $401 million commitment, the largest private one of its kind in the university’s history, in December. The couple earmarked $290 million specifically for athletics and another $100 million for a new initiative that aims to boost NIL offers to student athletes. University officials and athletics leaders said they are grateful to the Williams family and said the money will strengthen the school’s commitment to its student athletes.
In June, Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office raided the Lansing headquarters of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation in an ongoing investigation into a $20 million state grant awarded to Democratic donor and Metro Detroit businesswoman Fay Beydoun. Nessel said the raid was necessary because the MEDC was stonewalling the investigation and suggested the agency’s funding should be cut off until it can improve its oversight. The agency has said it has been cooperative with the attorney general’s probe.
The raid came amid building criticism in the Legislature of the agency’s handling of legislative earmarks and large jobs-for-cash incentive programs.
Later in the year, the state’s economic development arm lost out on a multibillion-dollar semiconductor development in Mundy Township, and, in October, the MEDC announced a controversial battery parts plant planned by Gotion in Big Rapids was in default of its agreement with the state. In the annual budget passed in early October, the Legislature and governor cut off additional funding for the state’s flagship economic development program, the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve (SOAR) fund.
Immigration crackdown sparks outrage
President Donald Trump’s escalation of mass deportations and border enforcement impacted Michigan, especially in Metro Detroit, where there are immigrant enclaves and international border crossings. Immigration advocates in April said more than 90% of foreign nationals stopped by U.S. agents at the Detroit-Windsor crossing were stopped after taking wrong turns onto the Ambassador or Detroit-Windsor tunnel, and some families, including with children, were held without access to attorneys. In December, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement officials said a Bulgarian man, Nenko Gantchev, died in custody at the North Lake Processing Center in northern Michigan. Thousands of people in Michigan joined protesters from across the country in No Kings rallies in protest of Trump’s immigration policies and authoritarian governance.
A sales and use tax for data centers passed by Michigan lawmakers in 2024 kick-started data center development in 2025, raising fears among Michiganians about the facilities’ potential impact on electricity prices, water supplies and land use in rural communities. More than a dozen data center projects have been unveiled in Michigan so far, and more are expected as tech companies seek to build the facilities that power the internet and burgeoning artificial intelligence industry. The biggest and most controversial data center project is in Saline Township, where 250 acres of farmland will be converted into a facility used to train artificial intelligence products. The Saline Township project will move forward after a contract between the developer and DTE Energy Co. won approval from the Michigan Public Service Commission in December.
A district court judge decided in May that former Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, a Republican from Levering, and his wife, Stephanie Chatfield, should stand trial on felony charges that they embezzled political funds. Meanwhile, Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office reached plea deals with two of Lee Chatfield’s top aides, Rob and Anne Minard, who are expected to testify at the trial in the fall of 2026.
Around 2 a.m. Feb. 17, some southwest Detroit residents on Beard and Rowan streets heard a “loud bang,” according to city officials. A 54-inch steel water transmission line that lay underneath this dense residential area had burst. About one square mile, filled with some 400 homes, was awash in icy water, flooding streets and basements. Members of the Downriver Dive Team rescued dozens of residents and pets by boat. Hundreds, if not more, local residents rushed to help during the weeks of cleanup. Residents from about 200 homes were put in hotels at the city’s expense. Besides replacing the water line, clearing the streets of water and debris, the city replaced 118 furnaces and 118 water heaters. The cleanup took about two months and cost about $8 million to $10 million, according to officials from the city and the Great Lakes Water Authority. It was one of the largest water main breaks in a neighborhood in at least 10 years, officials said.
A water main break in February 2025 flooded a portion of southwest Detroit and affected hundreds of residents, who ended up receiving aid from the city of Detroit. (Andy Morrison, The Detroit News/The Detroit News/TNS)
A 75-year-old Wixom man was left unconscious in the roadway after an alleged assault by a Door Dash driver on Dec. 28, officials said.
According to the Wixom Police Department, the victim, Lloyd Poole, was hospitalized in serious condition following the attack in the area of Barberry Circle and Windingway Drive in the Hidden Creek subdivision. The alleged assailant, Ryan Daniel Turner, 40, of Wixom reportedly admitted to striking Poole with a closed fist, claiming he had felt threatened after Poole confronted him about speeding, police said.
Poole fell and hit his head on the roadway after being struck, police said, and Turner drove away, leaving him there.
Turner subsequently came to the Wixom police station and spoke with officers about the incident. Charged with misdemeanor aggravated assault, he was booked into the Oakland County Jail on Dec. 29 and released three days later after posting a $3,500 bond — 10% of the $35,000 bond set at his arraignment. His next court appearance is pending.
A nearly four-decade-long business partnership between The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press ended Sunday, Dec. 28, pitting the newspapers against each other financially at a time when few other U.S. cities support two major papers.
Free Press owner USA TODAY Co., formerly known as Gannett Co. Inc., and MediaNews Group — owner of The News — in June opted against renewing the longstanding agreement, thus ending among the last such tie-ups in the country. The companies have not provided further reasoning behind the split.
The News announced Friday it will launch a Sunday edition Jan. 18, at which point it will once again print newspapers all seven days. Other changes include makeovers for the detroitnews.com website and mobile app, an updated print design and a refreshed eNewspaper, Editor and Publisher Gary Miles said. The changes are expected to take place during a roughly month-long transition period.
The end of the Detroit joint operating agreement (JOA) marks the end of an era in U.S. newspapers. Aside from a contentious Las Vegas partnership that was ruled invalid earlier this year, the Detroit JOA was the last major JOA still in existence, and the only one in which both newspapers emerged to print seven days and compete on all digital platforms.
“To the JOA’s credit, there are two newspapers to this day in metropolitan Detroit,” said Mark Silverman, who was editor and publisher of The News from 1997 to 2005. “So that’s clearly a positive. And both newspapers had very different editorial page positions. That’s a positive for a community.”
Joint operating agreements were cost-saving measures allowed by the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970, which permitted two newspapers in the same city to merge their business operations to protect diversity in opinion and newsgathering. If approved by the federal government, the newsrooms continued to compete, but companies saved overhead costs associated with newsprint, printing presses and distribution.
“Even in the federal government, there was some understanding of the value of journalism and the value of preserving those voices,” said Carole Leigh Hutton, a former Detroit News editor and the Free Press’ former editor and publisher.
In virtually all cases outside of Detroit, newspapers concluded their partnerships with mergers, one partner shuttering its operations or the smaller paper dramatically curtailing operations.
Bitterly contested in court when it was first proposed in 1986, the Detroit joint operating agreement remains a subject of debate over whether it was a success, although its primary stated goal — preserving two editorial voices — was fulfilled.
“Ultimately, what it intended to do was to keep two papers in Detroit,” said the Poynter Institute’s Kelly McBride, who advises news organizations on best practices. “So yeah, I guess that means it was successful. Clearly, I don’t think Detroit would have two papers now if the (joint operating agreement) had not existed.”
But McBride and former editors of both papers said it’s difficult to separate the role of business partnerships in the survival or death of newspapers compared to the existential loss of funding widely blamed on digital advertising.
“It’s been a really tough environment for newspapers,” Hutton said. “And they have gone to online-only in a lot of places. Many have just gone away. So it’s not far-fetched to think it would have been tough to continue to have two nameplates in this particular area, and I think the JOA probably did keep two nameplates alive. But again, it’s hard to know.”
Ed Wendover, a former Plymouth newspaper publisher who fought the Detroit papers’ partnership in court, said the outlets survived in spite of their agreement. Free to compete on all levels without being tethered financially, the papers “would be stronger than they are today and have more circulation,” Wendover said.
Silverman expressed a similar sentiment, saying that “the business aspect of the JOA was a hindrance to both newspapers.”
“The positive was that it kept two newspapers going,” he said. “The negative was that the business staff tried to serve too many masters and didn’t serve either very well.”
In addition, a bitter newspaper strike marked the early years of the JOA, costing the publications both subscribers and brand loyalty.
“The mismanagement under the JOA drove readers away, and advertisers will always play follow-the-readers. It’s a double-edged sword seeing the JOA end,” Wendover said.
Why did the Detroit papers partner?
In the years before the joint operating agreement, The News and the Free Press were locked in a financially draining, “old-fashioned, intense newspaper war,” said The News’ editorial page editor Nolan Finley, who at the time worked as an editor on the paper’s city desk.
Lucrative ad sales were at stake, and advertising rates were based on circulation, said former News reporter Bryan Gruley, whose 1993 book “Paper Losses: A Modern Epic of Greed and Betrayal at America’s Two Largest Newspaper Companies” details the path toward the joint agreement. Both papers steeply discounted subscription prices to beef up readership numbers and increase the prices they could charge for ads.
“You couldn’t throw a stone in Detroit without meeting someone who got a free Free Press or a free Detroit News that they never paid for and that landed on their doorstep every morning,” Hutton said. “Everybody knew that was part of the war.”
In response, The News ― then owned by Gannett (recently renamed USA TODAY Co.) ― and the Free Press ― then owned by now-defunct Knight Ridder ― in 1986 filed for federal approval to merge business operations in a 100-year partnership, leaving separately owned and competitive newsrooms.
Wendover, the former Plymouth publisher, led opposition to the partnership and sued to block it. He said vying for permission from the Reagan administration reflected poorly on the newspapers’ editorial independence and would reduce journalistic competition between them.
Once the deal was before federal judges, scrutiny increased over claims that the Free Press was in imminent danger of failure if not for the agreement. The reason: federal law on joint-operating agreements required one paper to be failing.
“They were saying these are not failing newspapers,” said Gruley, who covered the legal battle. “They’re not failing because the economics are bad. They’re failing because they’re choosing to fail, knowing that maybe we can push the other guys out and then maybe we get the whole banana, the whole enchilada.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled 4-4 on the case, allowing the agreement to take effect in 1989. The pact was renegotiated as a 20-year deal in 2005 when newspaper ownership changed; Gannett bought the Free Press and sold The News to MediaNews Group.
“I remember that when it came about, it was a matter of survival,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor. “And I think local media matters. I think it’s important that there are two newspapers with different perspectives, and I’m someone that thinks we need more media, not less. People need to be able to go to places where you can really get the facts. And I hope both papers survive.”
Although the rise of digital advertising at the expense of newspapers wasn’t what prompted the tie-up, former Free Press publisher Dave Hunke said the timing of the agreement was unwittingly prescient.
“The JOA was necessary from an economic standpoint to keep two newspapers in place,” Hunke said. “We were within a couple of years heading into the deepest financial crisis this country had seen since the Great Depression, and the business was not good.”
The role of journalism and how to pay for it
The papers’ upcoming split once again raises questions about the market for two dailies and whether current economics can support both outlets.
“People wanted two fiercely independent competitive newspapers in that town,” said Hunke, who became president of the joint business operations when the partnership was reconstituted in 2005. “People wanted their newspapers. And they wanted them competitive, and they wanted them separate.”
Throughout the agreement, Detroit maintained its rare status as a two-paper town.
“It kept two fairly strong newspapers in Detroit with opposing … editorial page viewpoints,” Finley said. “So we’re the only market you could say that about in the country, where you have two competitive, fairly equal newspapers, one on the right (and) one on the left that people can choose from.”
Silverman said both papers served readers well during the JOA.
“The News always had a certain journalistic personality embodied by its name: The News,” he said, adding that during his time in Detroit, the Free Press was known as “the friendly Freep.”
Both newspapers won Pulitzer Prizes during the partnership and “changed lives in the community,” Hutton said. She cited coverage of former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was convicted 12 years ago of federal racketeering and tax evasion charges after being accused of running a criminal enterprise out of City Hall, rigging bids and pocketing more than $840,000 in bribes and kickbacks.
“Even though there’s a whole political entity out there that likes to trash it and say that journalism is harmful and anti-American, it’s quite the opposite,” she said. “If you think about it, journalism is about preserving the ideals and making sure that people know what’s happening because it’s our money, and it’s our government, and it’s our right, and it’s supposed to be our decision. And it’s just not possible for the average person to oversee what’s happening in the world the way journalists should be overseeing it for them.”
Leadership at The News has said the split will allow the outlet to operate more closely with its sister papers in Michigan, including the Macomb Daily, The Oakland Press, The News-Herald in the Downriver area, and The Morning Sun in mid-Michigan, which share the same ownership as The Detroit News.
Hutton said the success of the papers “all comes down to: What do the advertisers think?”
“You got to unlock the business solution, somehow,” Hunke said. “But you cannot take the shortcuts on the news side. Good journalism, in the end, I swear it will win. I just wish somebody could find a way to unlock the economics.”
Staff of The Detroit News works in the newsroom at 6001 Cass Ave. in Detroit. (Kevin J. Hardy/The Detroit News/Kevin J. Hardy)
A year ago, Zohran Mamdani was a backbench state assemblyman who had just launched a bid for New York City mayor that many saw as a long shot because of his unabashed left-wing politics.
But on Thursday afternoon, Mamdani was inaugurated as the city’s 112th mayor with a vow to “govern as a democratic socialist,” a sign that he sees his upset election victory as a mandate for his leftist affordability agenda, which has resonated with many New Yorkers reeling from skyrocketing costs of living.
“We will govern without shame and insecurity, making no apology for what we believe. I was elected as a democratic socialist, and I will govern as a democratic socialist,” Mamdani, who at 34 is the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century, said in an inaugural address on the steps of City Hall to thunderous applause from thousands of supporters.
“I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical.”
Mamdani, who’s also the city’s first Muslim mayor, delivered his speech after taking the oath office on a Koran held by his wife, graphic artist Rama Duwaji. The oath was administered by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who, like Mamdani, is a democratic socialist and is seen as a grandfather for the modern American left.
“All of us have heard that Zohran’s opponents have called the agenda that he campaigned on ‘radical, communistic,’ oh, and ‘absolutely unachievable’ — really?” Sanders said before administering the oath. “That’s not what we believe.”
Thursday’s public ceremony came after Mamdani officially was sworn in as mayor at midnight Wednesday during a private ceremony with his family.
Evan Simko-Bednarski / New York Daily News
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is sworn in by New York Attorney General Letitia James shortly after midnight Thursday morning at a ceremony in the abandoned original City Hall subway station. (Evan Simko-Bednarski / New York Daily News)
Having promised to make the city more affordable for working-class communities, Mamdani is entering office with high expectations on his shoulders.
His mayoral campaign centered on three key promises: freeze rents for the city’s 2 million rent-stabilized tenants, make public buses free, and drastically expand fully subsidized child care so it covers every child in the city between 6 weeks and 5 years old.
Each of those pledges comes with its own set of serious challenges.
The bus and child care proposals are contingent on billions of dollars in new funding Mamdani wants to allocate from tax increases — which would need to be enacted by the state — on millionaires and corporations. Gov. Hochul, a more moderate Democrat who was seated on the dais behind Mamdani as he delivered his speech, has openly voiced skepticism about raising taxes this year, throwing a potential wrench into Mamdani’s core agenda.
Mamdani also faces myriad other challenges, including a looming city budget deficit and the responsibility of managing the NYPD, a department he has harshly criticized throughout his political career. Additionally, critics have voiced concern about potential negative fallout from higher taxes, such as an exodus of major business from New York.
But in his inaugural speech, Mamdani reaffirmed he remains committed to all of his agenda items, including taxing millionaires at a higher rate, and vowed not to water down his messaging or promises.
“I have been told that this is the occasion to reset expectations, that I should use this opportunity to encourage the people of New York to ask for little and expect even less. I will do no such thing,” he said. “The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations.”
Barry Williams/ New York Daily News
Zohran Mamdani is sworn in by Senator Bernie Sanders at his ceremonial inauguration at City Hall on Thursday. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
During Sanders’ speech, the inaugural ceremony crowd, which featured dozens of Mamdani supporters donning red Democratic Socialists of America beanies, erupted in a “Tax the rich!” chant.
Thousands more Mamdani supporters who crammed the streets around City Hall for an event his team billed a “block party” joined in on the same chant.
“We’ve got your back, we’ll move those establishment politicians, we’ll tax the corporations, we’ll get it done,” said Paul Nagle, a 67-year-old Chelsea resident.
Hochul declined to take questions after the event.
Asked how Hochul can be persuaded to back Mamdani’s taxation agenda, Sanders told the Daily News after the ceremony that continued public pressure is key. “I hope she’s heard from the people here and the people all over this country,” he said. “It is the right thing to do, and it is what the people want.”
Besides Hochul, Mamdani’s inaugural ceremony dais was a veritable who’s who of New York politics, featuring U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio and several members of Congress, as well as key advisers to Mamdani, including his chief of staff Elle Bisgaard Church and First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose upset 2018 election to Congress was a harbinger of sorts for Mamdani’s defeat of ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in June’s Democratic mayoral primary, delivered the introductory speech at the inauguration. She suggested Mamdani’s election should serve as an inspiration for more left-wing electoral campaigns across the country.
“If we can make it here, we can make it anywhere,” she said.
Fresh off his inauguration, Mamdani got to work, appointing housing advocate Cea Weaver as his new tenant protection czar, and issuing a slate of executive orders that, among other things, directed his administration to identify more city government-owned land that can be used for affordable housing development.
He also held an evening press conference at an apartment building in Brooklyn, where he announced his administration will get involved in a bankruptcy case filed by Pinnacle Realty, a firm that has faced accusations of neglecting its buildings. Though he and his team provided few details, Mamdani said the purpose of his administration’s involvement in the case will be to seek relief for Pinnacle tenants facing hazardous living conditions.
Barry Williams/ New York Daily News
Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, attend his ceremonial inauguration at City Hall on Thursday. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Eric Adams, whose first and only mayoral term came to a close at midnight Wednesday, was also on the dais during Mamdani’s inauguration.
Having dumped his bid for reelection this fall under a cloud of controversy related to his federal corruption indictment, Adams was a thorn in Mamdani’s side on his way out of public service, taking a number of actions in the past few weeks directly aimed at stymieing the new mayor’s agenda.
Among other actions, Adams made last-minute appointments to the Rent Guidelines Board in an effort to at least temporarily block Mamdani’s promised rent freeze for stabilized tenants.
Despite the tensions, Mamdani offered Adams thanks during his inaugural speech, drawing boos from the crowd.
“He and I have had our share of disagreements, but I will always be touched that he chose me as the mayoral candidate that he would most want to be trapped with on an elevator,” Mamdani said, prompting Adams to chuckle.
Actor and comedian Richard Kind was among the revelers who attended Mamdani’s inauguration. He said he was excited for Mamdani to take over from Adams when asked if he thought the new mayor would be better than Adams.
“Anybody would be,” he said, “but especially Mamdani.”
Zohran Mamdani is sworn in during his ceremonial swearing in at City Hall Thursday, Jan. 1, 2025 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Rescue workers pulled a man out of Pleasant Lake in Waterford Township on Wednesday after his snowmobile broke through the ice, and neighbors aborted a rescue attempt when they became disoriented amid a driving snowstorm, Oakland County Sheriff’s officials said.
The victim survived the incident, but suffered hypothermia and other injuries, according to a Thursday release from the Sheriff’s Office.
The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue Team responded to the emergency dispatch at 5:44 p.m., the release said.
“The call was made by the rider’s wife, who reported that her husband had fallen through the ice while operating the snowmobile,” the release said. “Two nearby neighbors went onto the ice in an attempt to locate him. They became lost and disoriented in the whiteout conditions. Both neighbors were able to safely return to shore.”
The sheriff’s rescue team, aided by the Waterford Regional Fire Department, searched for the man.
“He was located and brought safely to shore,” the release said. “Our team then recovered the snowmobile from the water.”
The victim was transported to St. Joseph Hospital, where he was treated for injuries and hypothermia.
“This incident is a stark reminder that ice conditions can change rapidly and remain unpredictable, even during sustained cold weather,” sheriff’s officials said. “We encourage extreme caution around frozen lakes and ponds and to avoid traveling on ice unless conditions are clearly known to be safe.”
When he was to gather with family at his grandparents’ house for Christmas dinner this year, Edward Constantineau of Sterling Heights planned to be surrounded by the people who pushed him to fight to recover from the hardest thing he’s ever faced in his young life, a hurdle he’s still working to overcome.
Constantineau was just 19, working out at his local gym in March of this year, when he suffered the unimaginable for a teenager: a stroke. He underwent immediate surgery on a bleed in his brain and later went through six weeks of inpatient rehab at a facility in Detroit, learning how to move again, talk and regain fine motor skills.
But through it all, Constantineau said his biggest motivator as he’s gone through rehab and fought to recover has been “my family and friends.”
“My family was always there,” said Constantineau, now 20. “I mean, my mom never left my side.”
Henry Ford Health officials say Constantineau’s story highlights the importance of early detection and rapid treatment of strokes, only about 10-15% of which occur in people younger than 50. Constantineau’s stroke was caused by a rare condition called arteriovenous malformation, in which arteries and veins mesh together without capillaries connecting them, said his neurologist, Dr. Mohammed Rehman.
Constantineau didn’t know he had the malformation at the time, but it ruptured.
Rehman said that in Edward’s case, the gym receptionist called 911 “right away.”
“If you ever have a neurological deficit … or you think something is going on and something is off, don’t hesitate” to call 911, Rehman said.
Looking back on her son’s ordeal and how it started, Stephanie Constantineau, Edward’s mom, thinks he “saved his own life” by asking for help when he was in the gym and felt his arm weaken. He was the one who asked the receptionist to call 911.
“I definitely believe there was a stronger force with him, watching over him,” she said. “I don’t know, a guardian angel, if you will.”
And Rehman believes Constantineau’s steadfast support system and drive to get better have played a role in his “remarkable” recovery.
“That’s a very rare thing I see, because at his age, when you face something like this, it’s very tough to cope with a lot of things,” Rehman said. “And I could tell, Eddie was driven.”
The stroke
Constantineau, a 2023 graduate of Henry Ford II High School, where he played varsity baseball, said he doesn’t have any memory of the stroke, but he has been told that it started soon after he got to his gym, The Edge Fitness Clubs, on March 14.
As he was doing lat pulldowns, an exercise that involves pulling down a weighted bar attached to a gym machine while seated, he felt his left arm go weak. He asked the gym’s receptionist to call 911; she also called his parents.
Paramedics brought Constantineau to Henry Ford Macomb Hospital in Clinton Township, where they quickly performed surgery.
The next couple of days were “kind of a blur,” Stephanie Constantineau recalled. She describes them as “emotional” and “hard.” She felt helpless as a parent.
“I think the first 48 to 72 hours were really touch and go with him, like it was just like getting him through those first three days to see how, if he was going to recover from the surgeries,” she said.
A rare medical condition
Rehman, a neuroendovascular physician at Henry Ford Health, said most strokes are caused by a blockage of a blood vessel, while others are caused by a bleed in the brain. He said one of the rare causes of a bleed in the brain is an arteriovenous malformation.
Capillaries connect arteries to veins in the body. An arteriovenous malformation (AVM) is a jumble of arteries and veins with no capillaries between them, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The incidence of the condition is around 1 in 100,000 people. The malformations typically occur in the brain, and they’re usually present from birth, according to Henry Ford Health.
Rehman said AVMs often present in young people, and bleeding most commonly occurs between the ages of 10 and 40. He said the Henry Ford Health system sees three to five ruptured arteriovenous malformations a year, and it also sees around 40 to 50 people a year whose malformations haven’t ruptured. AVMs cause symptoms such as severe headaches, seizures or weakness as damage builds, he said.
Dr. Mark Goldberger, a neurosurgeon, did the initial surgery on Constantineau, removing a significant amount of blood from the brain. In the following weeks, his doctors did a few angiograms, or blood vessel tests. In the second angiogram, they discovered the AVM, Stephanie Constantineau said.
Rehman said it took Constantineau at least five to seven days to wake up from the initial surgery ― he was in a coma. Overall, he spent 27 days in the intensive care unit.
“It’s heartbreaking to see your son go through something like this and not know how it’s gonna end up,” Stephanie Constantineau said, tearfully. “Like I say, ‘You just put all your faith in God and the doctors, and just trust that everything’s going to be OK.’ But it’s hard, because we have two other kids.”
She said she never left her son’s side. She spent every night at the hospital and would return home briefly to shower.
The therapy process
After leaving the hospital, Constantineau spent 43 days in inpatient rehabilitation. He said the beginning of the recovery process was “the toughest.”
“I was at a stage where I couldn’t even sit up straight,” he said, referring to when he was in the hospital and the early days of rehab. “I had lost all my muscle and was just sitting in a wheelchair, which was tough every single day. I just felt like stuck in a place where I couldn’t even move.”
He said therapy was “intense” and “very constant,” occurring five or more days a week. He underwent occupational, physical and speech therapy, the latter of which was necessary because he had “no voice after coming off of intubation,” he said.
Constantineau said fine motor skills were “the most frustrating” part of therapy, and he’s still working on it.
“He still doesn’t have, like, mobility of his left hand, like the wrist and fingers, yet,” said Stephanie Constantineau, adding that the recovery takes “a good 18 months.”
“I mean, we haven’t lost hope,” she said. “He works hard every single day.”
At home, Constantineau continues to do therapy each day, he said. In his family’s basement, he does exercises his therapist has recommended and rides on a stationary bike.
“I’ve been trying to adjust to getting back into my regular life by hanging out with friends” and taking an online class at Macomb Community College this fall, he said.
The signs of stroke
Rehman said in an email that strokes can affect anyone at any age, though the likelihood of it increases with age. He said about 10-15% of strokes occur in people under 50. He urged everyone, including young people, to be aware of the signs of a stroke and shared the acronym F.A.S.T. It stands for “Facial drooping, Arm weakness, Slurred speech, Time to call 911.”
He said that if you or anyone around you experiences these symptoms, you should seek medical attention immediately.
“The fact that Eddie sought help immediately when he began experiencing symptoms is incredibly important,” he said. “That allowed 911 to be called and emergency care to be administered quickly. When a stroke occurs, every second counts. The faster a person seeks treatment, the better their outcome.”
His plans for the future
In January, Constantineau will resume in-person classes at MCC, where he is studying exercise science. He plans to re-do the classes he was taking when the stroke occurred earlier this year.
After finishing his associate’s degree, he plans to transfer to Oakland University and is planning to go into health care, either as a nurse or a physician assistant. Constantineau said he originally wanted to go into health care because of his interest in sports, but after everything he’s experienced since his stroke, it has reinforced his decision to go into the field.
Looking back on his experience, Constantineau said the early days of his recovery were “rough” — “I think I was stuck in that ‘why me?’ mentality” — but is now “very confident” with the progress he has made. But he also knows that recovery takes time.
“I think that’s the tough part … just waiting all that time, but … I’m definitely optimistic for the future,” he said.
Constantineau plans to resume in-person classes at MCC, where he is studying exercise science. (David Guralnick, Detroit News/The Detroit News/TNS)
NEW YORK (AP) — Enhanced tax credits that have helped reduce the cost of health insurance for the vast majority of Affordable Care Act enrollees expired overnight, cementing higher health costs for millions of Americans at the start of the new year.
In the end, no one’s efforts were enough to save the subsidies before their expiration date. A House vote expected in January could offer another chance, but success is far from guaranteed.
The change affects a diverse cross-section of Americans who don’t get their health insurance from an employer and don’t qualify for Medicaid or Medicare — a group that includes many self-employed workers, small business owners, farmers and ranchers.
It comes at the start of a high-stakes midterm election year, with affordability — including the cost of health care — topping the list of voters’ concerns.
“It really bothers me that the middle class has moved from a squeeze to a full suffocation, and they continue to just pile on and leave it up to us,” said 37-year-old single mom Katelin Provost, whose health care costs are set to jump. “I’m incredibly disappointed that there hasn’t been more action.”
Some families grapple with insurance costs that are doubling, tripling or more
The expired subsidies were first given to Affordable Care Act enrollees in 2021 as a temporary measure to help Americans get through the COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats in power at the time extended them, moving the expiration date to the start of 2026.
With the expanded subsidies, some lower-income enrollees received health care with no premiums, and high earners paid no more than 8.5% of their income. Eligibility for middle-class earners was also expanded.
On average, the more than 20 million subsidized enrollees in the Affordable Care Act program are seeing their premium costs rise by 114% in 2026, according to an analysis by the health care research nonprofit KFF.
Those surging prices come alongside an overall increase in health costs in the U.S., which are further driving up out-of-pocket costs in many plans.
Some enrollees, like Salt Lake City freelance filmmaker and adjunct professor Stan Clawson, have absorbed the extra expense. Clawson said he was paying just under $350 a month for his premiums last year, a number that will jump to nearly $500 a month this year. It’s a strain for the 49-year-old but one he’s willing to take on because he needs health insurance as someone who lives with paralysis from a spinal cord injury.
Others, like Provost, are dealing with steeper hikes. The social worker’s monthly premium payment is increasing from $85 a month to nearly $750.
Effects on enrollment remain to be seen
Health analysts have predicted the expiration of the subsidies will drive many of the 24 million total Affordable Care Act enrollees — especially younger and healthier Americans — to forgo health insurance coverage altogether.
Over time, that could make the program more expensive for the older, sicker population that remains.
An analysis conducted last September by the Urban Institute and Commonwealth Fund projected the higher premiums from expiring subsidies would prompt some 4.8 million Americans to drop coverage in 2026.
But with the window to select and change plans still ongoing until Jan. 15 in most states, the final effect on enrollment is yet to be determined.
Provost, the single mother, said she is holding out hope that Congress finds a way to revive the subsidies early in the year — but if not, she’ll drop herself off the insurance and keep it only for her four-year-old daughter. She can’t afford to pay for both of their coverage at the current price.
Months of discussion, but no relief yet
Last year, after Republicans cut more than $1 trillion in federal health care and food assistance with Trump’s big tax and spending cuts bill, Democrats repeatedly called for the subsidies to be extended. But while some Republicans in power acknowledged the issue needed to be addressed, they refused to put it to a vote until late in the year.
In December, the Senate rejected two partisan health care bills — a Democratic pitch to extend the subsidies for three more years and a Republican alternative that would instead provide Americans with health savings accounts.
In the House, four centrist Republicans broke with GOP leadership and joined forces with Democrats to force a vote that could come as soon as January on a three-year extension of the tax credits. But with the Senate already having rejected such a plan, it’s unclear whether it could get enough momentum to pass.
Meanwhile, Americans whose premiums are skyrocketing say lawmakers don’t understand what it’s really like to struggle to get by as health costs ratchet up with no relief.
Many say they want the subsidies restored alongside broader reforms to make health care more affordable for all Americans.
“Both Republicans and Democrats have been saying for years, oh, we need to fix it. Then do it,” said Chad Bruns, a 58-year-old Affordable Care Act enrollee in Wisconsin. “They need to get to the root cause, and no political party ever does that.”
FILE – Pages from the U.S. Affordable Care Act health insurance website healthcare.gov are seen on a computer screen in New York, Aug. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File)
Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram dealers were in open revolt against parent company Stellantis NV for much of last year.
Poor corporate decision-making had tanked sales, the retailers said, while a mishmash of overpriced vehicles piled up on their lots and their profits plummeted to Great Recession-era lows. They sent sharply worded letters and publicly griped that the once-proud company had lost touch with the American consumer.
Much has changed since then. A new CEO, Antonio Filosa, is in charge and based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, not Europe. He’s promised to listen to the U.S. dealer body’s input, unlike former chief Carlos Tavares. The company has adjusted prices and streamlined trim levels, and is launching a series of new and refreshed models that dealers say better align with an American audience that appreciates V-8 engines and hybrids.
The automaker has launched a hiring spree to better support its more than 2,000 U.S. stores in sales, parts and service, and has also pledged to spend more on local advertising.
Stellantis dealers have cheered many of the changes and are finally starting to feel optimistic about the future of their businesses, according to multiple interviews this week.
However, recent sales and market share figures show the company’s turnaround effort remains stuck in first gear.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done still — got to get through some bad product, and praying that the R&D comes through,” said Jerry Romano, a Hawaii dealer. “But I think that they’re making the right moves. It’s definitely a better position than it was last year at this time.”
Romano and several other dealers told The Detroit News that their monthly sales are essentially flat from a year ago, though others said they are starting to see growth in recent months. In the third quarter, Stellantis’ overall U.S. sales increased 6%, snapping a series of quarterly declines that stretched back two years; full-year sales will be released in the coming days.
“Sales have been, I don’t want to say stagnant, but year-over-year it’s pretty similar,” said Mark Trudell, general manager at Extreme Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram in Jackson, Michigan, who added he’s found some momentum in December and is optimistic about 2026. He said corporate communication with dealers has improved, as have the automaker’s vehicle incentive programs.
Stellantis U.S. market share has fallen sharply in recent years — from 12.5% in 2020 to just 7.7% through the first 11 months of this year, according to car-shopping firm Edmunds.com Inc. That’s a lower share than predecessor Chrysler Group plunged to during the Great Recession when the company went through bankruptcy.
Filosa told investors earlier this month that the company’s U.S. market share has improved slightly for the second half of the year, and that the company has “fixed the dealer inventory management issue that was so bad last year.”
The Edmunds data confirms that Stellantis models aren’t usually sitting as long on dealer lots as they did in 2024. But the company’s vehicles still take many more days to sell than the industry average, with Rams and Chryslers moving especially slowly in recent months. In October and November, for example, Ram’s trucks and vans were taking more than twice as long as the industry’s 63-day average to sell, the Edmunds data shows, which is substantially worse than earlier in the year.
Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds, said he expects the automaker’s U.S. turnaround to take several years as it slowly seeks to win back customers that it increasingly lost to competitors over the last half-decade.
“It’s not gonna happen overnight,” he said. “It’s not gonna happen from one or two products, or a few motor swaps, things like that. It’s gonna be incremental. It’s gonna be potentially painful.”
Stellantis executives have acknowledged the recovery will take time but stress they are laying the groundwork and listening to dealer input in a bid to rebuild trust.
After cutting dealer support staff in recent years, the automaker said it has added 200 people to support sales, service and parts field operations across the country. In 2026, it will also reopen physical business centers around the country that support dealers and add a new business center location in Chicago, spokesperson Ann Marie Fortunate said.
The dealer-focused hiring spree is part of a larger push to add about 2,000 positions in areas also including manufacturing, quality and engineering. Much of the hiring focus has been centered on the automaker’s Michigan headquarters, which dealers see as a welcome shift after Tavares had focused on American job cuts and outsourcing.
Fortunate also confirmed that the company will increase its local advertising spending to support dealers in 2026. It recently brought back dealer ad associations, a system where the company pools resources with dealers in certain large markets and makes collective decisions around advertising, incentives and stocking levels. Dealers said the automaker ditched the regional associations years ago as a cost-saving measure, and they view it as a positive sign that the organizations are back.
Mike Bettenhausen, a Chicago-area dealer who heads the company’s national dealer council, said retailers appreciate Filosa’s willingness to try out new strategies to bring more customers into stores. He said dealers “desperately need the traffic.”
Stellantis is launching several new vehicles in the coming months, including the redesigned Jeep Cherokee and gas-powered versions of the Dodge Charger, both of which are shipping to dealer lots now.
Retailers said these vehicles will start to fill glaring holes in the automaker’s lineup, and ideally, they can “provide that much-needed boost to dealer profitability that has been missing for some time,” Bettenhausen said.
Stellantis’ models had become too “vanilla” the last few years, said Randy Dye, who owns a Florida Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram dealership. “Our cars are not just appliances, they’re fun,” he said, yet the company’s past leadership “took all the fun out.”
Now that’s starting to change — including as Dodge brings back its loud, gas-powered muscle car and as both Ram and Dodge put Hemi V-8s back inside pickups and SUVs: “These are car people running this company now,” Dye said.
“The more we get these cool vehicles into our lineup … that’s a big deal,” said Ralph Mahalak Jr., who owns Stellantis dealerships in Michigan, Ohio and Florida.
He’s instructed his team to heavily promote the new models on social media as they land at his stores. Models like the Charger might not sell in huge numbers, he added, but can bring “some enthusiasm to my showroom.”
One vehicle dealers do anticipate can juice sales: the reintroduced Cherokee, which, for now, is offered solely as a hybrid, part of a wider push into hybrids underway inside Stellantis.
The company ended production of the last generation of the Cherokee about three years ago and didn’t have a replacement, a move that flummoxed dealers, considering the model competes in the best-selling midsize SUV segment.
“Cherokee, Cherokee, Cherokee — I’ve been missing that one, big time,” said Bill Golling, who operates Stellantis stores in Metro Detroit. Under Tavares, he said, “we discontinued too many car lines, too soon. How do you not have a Cherokee for three years?”
Other reinforcements will take longer to arrive. Ram plans to introduce an all-new midsize truck that dealers expect to sell in large numbers, but it won’t be ready until 2027. Jeep is soon releasing an all-electric model called the Recon. Still, the retailers say they are most looking forward to when the brand offers the same boxy off-roading model in a gas-powered variant, which they expect will be more popular; timing for that isn’t yet available.
Drury said he expects it will be a slog for Stellantis to once again approach double-digit market share in the United States — especially at a time when the overall new car market is expected to shrink next year. But it can make some gradual improvements.
“This has been a rough year for them, right?” he said. “But I do think that next year, at least, there’s some light there. There’s at least something to look forward to.”
Homer Sterner of Monroe, left, speaks with Chad Regime, a sales and leasing consultant at Monroe Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram Superstore in Monroe, Michigan, as he shops for a new Jeep Wrangler on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (Andy Morrison/The Detroit News/TNS)
Presidents of Michigan public universities aren’t sticking around as long as they once did.
At least, it seems that way. Two high-profile research university presidents departed in 2025: University of Michigan’s Santa Ono and Wayne State University’s Kimberly Andrews Espy. When UM-Dearborn’s Chancellor, Domenico Grasso, filled in as interim president of UM with plans to retire after his term, another public university lost a president.
“It’s always been a difficult job. You run basically what are equivalent to small cities,” said Robert LeFevre, president of the Michigan Independent Colleges and Universities association. “The demands are ever-increasing. Presidents are fundraising non-stop; they’re on the road a lot.”
And it’s not just public universities that have experienced more leadership loss this past year. Six community college presidents left their roles for retirement or other jobs, including at one of Michigan’s public universities.
Private universities, however, have largely been spared the leadership changes this year. One reason for this is that the presidents of those institutions don’t typically leave for another job, LeFevre said. Instead, presidents stay in the job until retirement, or in the rare cases, dismissal, he said.
The longevity of Michigan’s higher education leaders is largely in line with national trends, said Erica Orians, vice president of the Michigan Community College Association.
Nationwide, university presidents are sticking around for less time as a result of the challenges that affect the entire sector. Enrollment decline, lingering post-pandemic burnout and increasing concerns about federal funding for operations and student financial aid are all top of mind for leaders in higher education.
Despite this, the job is as rewarding as ever, said Dan Hurley, president of the Michigan Association of State Universities.
“(Michigan’s) institutions have missions that excite and drive those who want to serve as presidents,” he said. “… Leading the change is one of the most impactful things someone can do.”
Why presidents leave
Higher education sectors can have varying missions and different ways of operating. Public universities tend to be larger, for example, and independent colleges do not receive direct state or federal appropriations. However, all are impacted by a decade of declining enrollment, decreasing funding for operations and student aid and leadership burnout.
Fewer students are graduating high school because of decades of declining birth rates in Michigan, and some high school graduates are choosing to join the workforce immediately, rather than earn degrees. However, schools are finding their footing. But Michigan has experienced enrollments inching up as of late after a decade of decline.
Universities in Michigan experienced millions in research funding losses from President Donald Trump’s administration’s shift in priorities for higher education. This impacted public universities, like the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, but also, to a lesser extent, independent colleges, like Alma College and Lawrence Technological University, the Center for American Progress reports.
Orians said turnover in community college presidencies was the highest since she began at the Michigan Community College Association a decade ago. However, she said there has been a wave of retirements this year that left more schools looking for leaders, and she doesn’t think the trend will continue.
“No one is running away from the challenges of higher education,” she said. “That’s why they’ve gotten into this work.”
But it’s hard for a president to pass up an opportunity they might see as a better fit.
Russ Kavalhuna left his role at Henry Ford Community College for the presidency at Western Michigan University. Mike Gavin left his role at Delta College to continue his work “defending equity in higher education,” Inside Higher Ed reported in October.
Adding to this, tensions with a governing board might cause a president to feel pressured to leave. All of the last permanent presidents at Michigan’s top research universities, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University, left after reported disputes with their boards.
LeFevre said that although presidents at Michigan independent schools don’t typically leave for other jobs, it didn’t mean that the sector hadn’t had its own massive vacancies in leadership in the past year. A couple of years ago, seven presidents either retired or were dismissed, he said.
“Once presidents fit with their boards, the school and the community, they have a tendency to stay,” he said.
How long presidents stay
Of all sitting university presidents in Michigan, the average length of tenure is about three years, with most having been in the role for about 18 months, an analysis of presidential term lengths by The Detroit News shows. Three presidents have been hired this year.
Hurley attributes this to a “cyclical” transition over the last 12-18 months. While the number of public universities that have looked for a permanent president in 2025 is higher than in previous years, he doesn’t believe it’s a trend that is here to stay.
Independent college and university presidents who are currently in the role have stuck around a little longer, a review shows. The average tenure for a sitting president is a little over five years, with most having served for three.
Four private university presidents have been in the role for over a decade: Adrian College’s Jeffrey Docking, Kettering University’s Robert McMahan, the University of Olivet’s Steven Corey and Spring Arbor University’s Brent Ellis.
The length of tenure for sitting community college presidents is longer, at about seven years, with most presidents having served for about five, a review shows.
Two community college presidents in Michigan have some of the longest tenures of any higher education president in Michigan. Daniel Phelan of Jackson College has held his role since 2001, and Curtis Ivery of Wayne County Community College has served since 1995.
“When I talk about curriculum and outcomes, it’s not abstract to me,” he told the magazine. “Nothing replaces the passion and love I have for people. I really sincerely believe that education is the only way out. And I don’t stutter about that. I am so committed to that.”
Orians said the Michigan Community College Association’s Leadership Academy tries to prepare potential community college presidents who are administrators or senior faculty to take on the role if the current president leaves. Those who’ve been through the academy have found work as presidents at colleges in Michigan or other states.
“Future leaders are equipped to lead (through the academy),” she said. “And they know the schools, the community … it’s a real hallmark of community colleges.”
A Harvard-trained biomedical researcher, Samuel Stanley Jr. earned a reputation at Stony Brook as a leader who strengthened the university, especially in science, technology, engineering and math, but struggled with transparency and communication skills at MSU. (David Guralnick/The Detroit News/TNS)
By Craig Mauger, Chad Livengood, Beth LeBlanc, MediaNews Group
Lansing — A group of seven Michigan House Republicans introduced bills this month that would exempt land owned by people without children in public schools from property taxes that benefit public schools.
The legislation, which has little to no chance of passing the state Legislature this term, would lead to significant funding cuts for K-12 schools in the coming years. However, the supporters of the proposals contended that it was unfair to require property owners who don’t directly use public schools to fund them.
“It’s fundamentally unjust to force people, including seniors, empty-nesters, those who pay for private school, and those without children, to subsidize a government education system they do not use,” Rep. Steve Carra, R-Three Rivers, argued in a press release. “This is especially unfair because our broken system spends a record amount of money, yet results continue to plummet.”
The exemption, under Carra’s proposal, would be phased in starting with a 40% drop in taxes in 2027 and then expanding by 15 percentage points annually until the school-connected property taxes were eliminated in 2031.
Among the other six lawmakers who co-sponsored the measures were Rep. Matt Maddock, R-Milford, vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Jim DeSana, R-Carleton, who also serves on the appropriations panel.
About 72% of Michigan households do not have a child in government schools, according to Carra’s press release.
Jess Newman, deputy political director for the advocacy group United for Respect, labeled Carra’s proposal an “unconscionable bill” and “a move to defund our public schools.”
“The result for our communities will be nothing short of devastating,” Newman added. “Families are already stretched thin by rising housing, health care and child care costs. Making parents shoulder the cost of education alone would be unbearable.
“We all benefit from healthy, well-funded schools, whether or not we have children attending, and this move will only further widen inequities between wealthy and low-income districts.”
Newman is part of the Invest In MI Kids campaign, which is seeking to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2026 that would impose a 5% tax on income over $500,000 to increase funding for K-12 schools.
House GOP leaders sent the property tax exemption bills to the Government Operations Committee. In addition to the House, the Democratic-controlled Senate would have to approve them for them to become law, and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would have to sign them.
Democrats in the Senate and Whitmer have promoted their efforts to increase K-12 school funding over the years.
Senator asks for AG convention opinion
State Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, has asked Attorney General Dana Nessel for an official opinion on whether it’s legal for political parties to hold early nominating conventions to make binding picks of candidates for attorney general, secretary of state and other statewide offices.
Both Michigan Republicans and Democrats have scheduled nominating conventions for the spring of 2026, as a strategy to give their nominees an early start on the fall campaign. The parties have done the same thing previously.
However, Michigan law says each political party must nominate a candidate for lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general at fall conventions after the August primary.
“It has come to my attention that one of the state’s major political parties intends to convene a separate ‘endorsement convention’ several months prior to the August primary election,” McBroom wrote to Nessel “Under the adopted party rules, only a person who has (a) obtained prior endorsement at that separate “endorsement convention” and (b) paid a fee of $10,000 to appear before the ‘endorsement convention; may be considered for nomination at the post-primary state convention.”
McBroom specifically asked Nessel to decide whether a political party may lawfully conduct an endorsement convention that “purports to bind, limit or otherwise condition the constitutional authority of the post-primary state convention to nominate candidates for attorney general and secretary of state.”
Duggan moving downtown
After 12 years of living in the Manoogian Mansion on the banks of the Detroit River, outgoing Mayor Mike Duggan is going to get a better view of downtown Detroit each morning.
Duggan and his wife, Dr. Sonia Hassan, are moving into a rental condo in the 33-story Book-Cadillac Hotel building on Washington Boulevard.
The one-time Livonia resident confirmed his post-mayoral residency plans in a Dec. 18 interview with The Detroit News editorial board.
“My wife and I are looking forward to being able to just walk out to dinner downtown like normal people, which we will be able to do in two weeks,” said Duggan, who is running for governor next year as an independent.
With his eyes set on moving into the governor’s residence in Lansing in 2027, Duggan said he and his wife got a one-year lease in the Book-Cadillac, which houses both luxury condos and a Westin hotel.
Duggan has lived at the Manoogian Mansion on the city’s east riverfront since he was first elected mayor in 2013. Detroit’s official residence for the mayor is named after its one-time owner, the late construction materials magnate Alex Manoogian, who donated it to the city in the mid-1960s.
A nonprofit group reportedly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on improvements to the 4,000-square-foot home while Duggan has lived there.
Duggan told The News he expects Mayor-elect Mary Sheffield to make additional improvements to the century-old mansion.
“It’s in good shape now and Sheffield (will) fix it up even more,” Duggan said. “… It is a great place to live. I will miss the house.”
Andy Levin’s new (ad)venture
Former U.S. Rep. Andy Levin appears to be living his best life — and perhaps pinching himself.
Instead of trying to mount a comeback in Michigan politics, the former two-term congressman from Bloomfield Township has bought a cross-country skiing and snowshoeing resort in northern Ontario.
In a Dec. 20 post on LinkedIn, Levin divulged that he and his wife, Mary Freeman, are the new majority owners of Stokely Creek Lodge in Goulais River, Ontario, about 25 miles — or 41 kilometers — north of the International Bridge connecting Sault Ste. Marie with its sister city of the same name in Canada.
“We’ve been snowshoeing, skiing, canoeing and hiking in the Algoma region of Ontario since before we were married. In fact, I proposed to Mary on snowshoes high atop the Awausee Trail in Lake Superior Provincial Park,” Levin wrote.
The former congressman described the lodge in the foothills above Lake Superior as “a mix of unfussy, down-home comfort with high standards.”
Levin and Freeman still run their Detroit-based energy-efficiency consulting firm, Lean & Green Michigan. In his announcement post, Levin suggested they might use the resort to host retreats for progressive political allies.
“As we move into the holiday season in a world plagued with violence, greed and corruption, I’m grateful for the curveballs life throws our way.” Levin wrote. “Watch out: some of them just might open doors to adventures you didn’t even know you wanted to undertake!”
Whitmer calls Michigan troops
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Tuesday called Michigan National Guard troops deployed to Germany, Kuwait and the southeast border to wish them well ahead of the holidays and New Year’s.
More than 800 Michigan National Guard members are serving away from their families and homes of the holidays, according to the Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
“As we celebrate the holidays and gather with family, friends, and loved ones, I encourage every Michigander to take a moment to acknowledge the selfless sacrifices that these individuals make every day and pray for their safe return home,” Whitmer said in a statement Tuesday.
The members she spoke with over video calls included those from the 217th Air Operations Group, 110th Wing, from Battle Creek; Alpha Company, 3-126 Infantry Battalion from Detroit; Bravo Company, 3-126 Infantry Battalion from Wyoming; and the 1430th Engineer Company from Traverse City, according to a statement from the governor’s office.
Pure Michigan plate wins in a landslide
The basic white Pure Michigan license plate will continue to carry the mantle of being the most popular license plate design in Michigan into 2026. The license plate adorns about 8.3 million vehicles and trailers, accounting for about 71.5% of license plate sales in Michigan, the Secretary of State’s office said last week.
Among the state’s standard plate options, the blue and yellow Water-Winter Wonderland plate is the second most popular, with 1.27 million plates or 10.9% of plates issued, and the multicolor Mackinac Bridge plate comes in third, accounting for 10.7% of plates issued at 1.25 million vehicles and trailers.
About 453,000 of the discontinued white, green, and blue Spectacular Peninsulas plates remain in circulation, as well as about 218,000 green and white Water Wonderland plates.
About 122,586 university fundraising plates are still on the road, with Michigan State University topping the list at 55,413 and the University of Michigan in second with 28,194.
The University of Michigan-Flint came in last with 536 fundraising plates in circulation.
Tweet of the Week
The Insider report’s “Tweet of the Week,” recognizing a social media post that was worthy of attention or, possibly, just a laugh, from the previous week goes to the Pure Michigan account on X, formerly Twitter.
On Christmas Eve, the state’s tourism organization posted a bird’s-eye view of a snow-covered Mackinac Island, proving the island is much more idyllic when covered in snow during the winter than when it’s filled with politicians and lobbyists in the spring for the Detroit Regional Chamber’s annual Mackinac Policy Conference.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan says he and his wife, Dr. Sonia Hassan, are moving into the Book-Cadillac Hotel building in downtown Detroit after he vacates the Manoogian Mansion, the official residence of Detroit’s mayor. (David Guralnick, Detroit News/The Detroit News/TNS)
Three more dog breeds joined the American Kennel Club’s roster of recognized breeds on Tuesday, making them eligible for many U.S. dog shows and likely increasing their visibility to the pet-loving public.
One of the newcomers is a terrier named for a U.S. president. Another is a toy dog from Cold War-era Russia. The third is a centuries-old French hunting hound. Here’s a closer look:
The basset fauve de Bretagne
The stats: 12.5 to 15.5 inches (32 to 40 centimeters) at the base of the neck; 23 to 39 pounds (10.5 to 17.5 kilograms)
The topline: A hardy, sociable, compact hound that can hunt all day — and needs mental and physical activity.
The pronunciation: bah-SAY’ fove deh breh-TAHN’-yeh
The translation: Fawn-colored, low-set dog from Brittany
The history: Versions of these coarse-coated, tan-hued hounds go back at least as far as 16th-century French aristocratic circles. The breed has been championed in the U.S. in recent years by Cindy Hartman, a South Carolina service dog trainer who brought a pair of fauve puppies back from France in 2001. She has since trained and placed about 20 fauves as medical alert dogs for people with diabetes, she said.
The quote: “They’re wicked smart, and so if you’re wanting a dog that’s just going to lay around all day long, a fauve is not for you,” Hartman said. “But yet, when challenged mentally and physically, they’re happy to come in with you and curl up on the sofa for the evening.”
The Teddy Roosevelt terrier
The stats: 8 to 14 inches (20 to 36 centimeters) at the base of the neck; 8 to 25 pounds (3.5 to 11 kilograms)
The topline: A solid, energetic small canine that will rid your barn of rodents, alert you to strangers, do dog sports — or just entertain you with its antics.
The history: Originally seen as a short-legged variant of the rat terrier, these dogs were deemed a breed of their own in 1999. The breed was named for President Theodore Roosevelt because of his fondness for dogs, including terriers.
The quote: “They know how to get you to laugh,” says Cindy Rickey of Waynesville, North Carolina, the secretary of the American Teddy Roosevelt Terrier Club. While many terrier breeds are known for being independent-minded, her Teddy competes in obedience. “They’re terriers, no doubt about it, but they also have this tremendous desire to please,” she explains.
The Russian tsvetnaya bolonka
The stats: Up to 10¼ inches (26 centimeters) at the base of the neck; 7 to 9 pounds (3 to 4 kilograms)
The topline: A sweet but clever little companion that wants playful interaction, not just snuggling (though it likes that, too).
The pronunciation: zvit-NEYE’-ah boh-LON’-kah
The translation: Russian colored lapdog
The history: The breed was developed in Soviet-era Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) after World War II as a pet for apartment dwellers. American fans have been working to establish bolonki (the proper plural) in the U.S. since the early 2000s.
The quote: “Having a bolonka is like having a 3-year-old kid running around your house. … They can enjoy their time lying on the couch with you, but you’ve got to be prepared to play with them and keep them entertained,” says Denise Dang of Oklahoma City, the secretary of the Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka Club of America. Owners also need to care for a thick, wavy coat that’s low-shedding but can get matted. Even if it’s cut fairly short, a bath every couple of weeks is wise, Dang says.
The big picture
The AKC recognizes 205 breeds, including these three newcomers. Fanciers of many others — though, as yet, no “doodles” or other popular poodle hybrids — have voluntarily entered a pipeline that takes years of breeding, documentation and consensus-building.
The club doesn’t limit the number of breeds it might eventually recognize. Spokesperson Brandi Hunter Munden says it’s not “adding dogs indiscriminately,” but rather providing “an established framework for growth, breed standards, competition and education in the U.S.”
The controversy
Animal-rights activists have long deplored dog breeding and the AKC for supporting it, and the criticism hardened this year into a lawsuit over the health of French bulldogs, pugs, dachshunds and Chinese shar-peis. The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is seeking a court order to stop the AKC from continuing to promulgate the current “standards,” or ideal characteristics, for those breeds.
PETA accused the kennel club of providing “blueprints for the breeding of deformed, unhealthy dogs.”
The AKC denies the allegations and has asked a court to dismiss the case, calling the suit frivolous. The club said it “has been — and remains — firmly committed to the health, well-being and proper treatment of all dogs.”
A Basset Fauve De Bretagne stands for photographs during a Meet the Breeds event February 22, 2022 in San Diego. (David Woo/American Kennel Club via AP)
The Michigan Department of Transportation has awarded $133 million in grants to upgrade transit vehicles and facilities across the state, including $59.8 million for the Detroit Department of Transportation.
MDOT said the funds, which will go to more than 20 transit agencies in Michigan, will help modernize the state’s bus infrastructure, reduce traffic congestion and “help people travel more efficiently and affordably.”
The Detroit Department of Transportation is receiving the largest grant, receiving $9 million in state match funds and $50.9 million in federal funds. The agency announced last month that it would use the federal money to purchase 53 new buses.
The Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, which serves Metro Detroit’s suburban communities, meanwhile, will get $1.56 million, which includes $312,375 in state match funds and $1.25 million in federal funds.
“These competitive grants strengthen Michigan’s thriving intermodal transportation network connecting our communities,” said Jean Ruestman, administrator of the MDOT Office of Passenger Transportation, in a press release about the grants across the state. “Both grant programs have innumerable positive social and economic impacts ranging from improving mobility to advancing green innovation in public transit.”
The federal funding comes from the Federal Transit Administration’s Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities Program and Low or No Emission Grant Program, the latter of which is funding the 53 new Detroit buses. Those buses will be in addition to 76 buses awarded over the last two years in Biden administration grants, bringing Detroit’s total new bus purchases to 129 ― or 44% of the entire fleet, according to the city of Detroit.
One-third of the Detroit Department of Transportation’s buses were routinely in disrepair as of 2024. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan attributed part of the issue to the city getting behind on purchasing new buses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bus operators, passengers and some mechanics who work on buses said last year that the shortage of working vehicles affects the entire system’s ability to operate. Some said part of the problem is hiring mechanics without enough experience. At least one expert said the pandemic upended public transportation in many big cities.
SMART Chief Marketing Officer Bernard Parker said the agency is receiving grant funds to purchase new vehicles for three of its community partners: the North Oakland Transportation Authority, the OPC Social and Activity Center, and the Pointe Area Assisted Transportation Services.
“These grant funds allow SMART to put resources directly into the hands of our community partners,” he said in a statement. “By supporting local agencies with reliable vehicles, we’re helping them extend their reach and better connect people to services and opportunities.”
Some of the grant recipients are transit agencies in rural areas, including the Cadillac/Wexford Transit Authority. It is receiving over $6 million for various projects, including expanding its bus garage and offices, constructing a bus wash facility and purchasing 14 new vehicles.
Meanwhile, the Capital Area Transportation Authority, which serves Greater Lansing, is receiving $8.7 million to buy new hybrid buses to replace older buses that have reached their useful life. Jackson Area Transportation Authority is receiving $2.37 million for hybrid buses.
Guests check-out one of the new buses at the new DDOT Coolidge Terminal inside the new garage on November 24, 2025, in Detroit, MI. (Clarence Tabb Jr./The Detroit News/TNS)
The holiday season will soon come to a close, but the busiest time of the year for product returns is just beginning.
The National Retail Federation estimates 17% of holiday purchases will be sent back this year. More retailers are reporting extended return windows and increased holiday staff to handle the rush this year.
A major driver for returns is uncertainty. When we buy for other people, finding what they want is a bit of a guessing game. Online purchases have higher return rates because finding the right size and color is tough when you’re just staring at images on screens.
“Clothing and footwear, as you can imagine, because fit is such an important criteria, they have higher rates of returns,” said Saskia van Gendt, chief sustainability officer at Blue Yonder, which sells software designed to improve companies’ supply chain management.
Returns come with an environmental cost, but there’s a lot consumers and companies are doing to minimize it.
The impact of returns
If a company sells a thing, it’s probably packaged in plastic. Plastic is made from oil, and oil production releases emissions that warm the planet. If that thing is bought online, it’s put on a plane or a train or a truck that usually uses oil-based fuel.
If you buy a thing and return it, it goes through most or all of that all over again.
And once those products are back with the retailer, they may be sent along to a refurbisher, liquidator, recycler or landfill. All these steps require more travel, packaging and energy, ultimately translating to more emissions. Joseph Sarkis, who teaches supply chain management at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, estimates that returning an item increases its impact on the planet by 25% to 30%.
Roughly a third of the time, those returns don’t make their way to another consumer. Because frequently, it’s not worth reselling.
If, for example, you get a phone, but you send it back because you don’t like the color, the seller has to pay for the fuel and equipment to get the phone back, and then has to pay for the labor to assess whether it has been damaged since leaving the facility.
“It can be quite expensive,” said Sarkis. “And if you send it out to a new customer and the phone is bad, imagine the reputational hit you’ll get. You’ll get another return and you’ll lose a customer who’s unhappy with the product or material. So the companies are hesitant to take that chance.”
Something as expensive as a phone might get sold to a secondary or refurbishment market. But that $6 silicone spatula you got off Amazon? Probably not worth it. Plus, some stuff — think a bathing suit or a bra — is less attractive to customers if there’s a chance it’s been resold. The companies know that.
And that’s where the costs of returns are more than just environmental — and consumers wind up paying. Even free returns aren’t really free.
“Refurbishment, inspection, repackaging, all of these things get factored into the retail price,” said Christopher Faires, assistant professor of logistics and supply chain management at Georgia Southern University.
What consumers can do about it
If you want to reduce the impact of your returns, the first move is to increase their chances of resale. Be careful not to damage it, and reuse the packaging to send it back, said Cardiff University logistics and operations management lecturer Danni Zhang.
If you have to return something, do it quickly. That ugly Christmas sweater you got at the white elephant office party has a much better chance of selling on Dec. 20 than it does on Jan. 5. Zhang said it’s not worth the cost to the company to store that sweater once it’s gone out of season.
Another tip: in-person shopping is better than online because purchases get returned less often, and in-person returns are better, too — because those items get resold more often. Zhang said it reduces landfill waste. Sarkis said it reduces emissions because companies with brick-and-mortar locations spread out across the country and closer to consumers thus move restocked goods shorter distances.
“If I can return in-store, then I definitely will,” Zhang said. “The managers can put that stuff back to the market as soon as possible.”
Obviously the best thing consumers can do is minimize returns. Many shoppers engage in “bracketing behavior,” or buying multiple sizes of the same item, keeping what fits, and returning the rest.
“This behavior of bringing the dressing room to our homes is not sustainable,” said Faires.
If you’re buying for someone else, you can also consider taking the guesswork out of the equation and going for a gift card.
“I know we do really want to pick up something really nice to express our love for our friends or our family. But if we are more sustainable, probably the gift card will be much better than just purchasing the product,” Zhang said.
What businesses can do about it
Sarkis wants to see companies provide more information in product descriptions about the environmental impact of returning an item, or how much of the purchase price factors in return costs.
“But I don’t know if they want to send a negative message,” he said. “If you’re telling someone to stop something because of negative results, that’s not going to sell.”
Sarkis and Zhang both say charging for returns would help. Already Amazon is requiring customers pay in certain situations.
On the tech side, Blue Yonder’s recent acquisition of Optoro, a company that provides a return management system for retailers and brands, uses a software to quickly assess the condition of returned products and route them to stores that are most likely to resell them.
“Having that process be more digitized, you can quickly assess the condition and put it back into inventory,” said van Gendt. “So that’s a big way to just avoid landfill and also all of the carbon emissions that are associated with that.”
Clothing is returned most often. Many sizes do not reflect specific measurements, like women’s dresses, so they vary a lot between brands. Zhang said better sizing could help reduce the need for returns. On top of that, Sarkis said more 3D imaging and virtual reality programs could help customers be more accurate with their purchases, saving some returns.
FILE – A person carries a shopping bag in Philadelphia, Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – Like millions of other Americans, Stacy Newton turns to Healthcare.gov to shop for health insurance for her family. The Affordable Care Act website, according to the government, is where consumers are supposed to find “a menu of health insurance plans.”
But for the Newtons and many others in the country, next year’s menu is severely limited: There is only one company offering ACA plans here – and costs have risen steeply.
To continue health coverage for themselves and their two teenage children, the Newtons would have to pay an annual premium of $43,000 – about a third of their gross income. It is the price of the cheapest plan available to the family from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming, the only ACA insurer left in Teton County.
This year, millions of American families that have relied on ACA, popularly known as Obamacare, are being squeezed on multiple sides: Premiums are rising, the covid-era subsidies that helped pay for those policies are shrinking, and there are fewer choices with insurers pulling out of some markets.
The squeeze here is a symptom of broader trouble in American health care. In western Wyoming and other regions, the expected rollback of enhanced subsidies has destabilized the economics of Obamacare, pushing some insurers to retreat from the government-supported market because it won’t be profitable.
That is leaving consumers such as the Newtons with little choice but to buy a pricey, unsubsidized policy from a local monopoly.
Next year, the number of counties with only one company providing Obamacare will jump from 72 to 146, according the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. That number is expected to rise further if, as appears likely, Congress fails to renew the enhanced subsidies.
Newton and her husband, Derek, each run a small business – she is an independent sales representative, and he outfits vans – and like many entrepreneurs, they have relied on the ACA for health insurance. But this year, the price of their policy rose 34 percent, and the federal subsidy that helped them pay for it is due to go away. At the same time, they know they will need medical care: Last year, Newton, 51, was diagnosed with chronic leukemia.
“It’s terrifying,” she said. “We’re not rich, we’re not poor. We’re a standard, middle-class family, and somehow now I can’t afford health insurance.”
This year, the enhanced subsidies that helped middle-income people afford Obamacare plans have been stuck in partisan congressional deadlock. The subsidies expire Dec. 31, and Republicans, who hold the majority, have opposed extending them.
Anticipating that sticker shock will induce healthy people to drop out of insurance and saddle health plans with a higher proportion of the sickest, costliest patients, insurers say they must dramatically raise ACA prices or pull out of Obamacare marketplaces altogether.
Without the enhanced subsidies, “I would expect more insurers to retreat, to exit,” said Katherine Hempstead, a senior policy officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “People will see less choice and higher prices.”
According to economic studies conducted in 2017 and 2018, another turbulent period when Obamacare insurers faced losses and political uncertainty, prices rose between 30 and 50 percent when an area was reduced to only one ACA insurer.
The problem here in Teton County began in August when the only other insurer providing ACA coverage, Mountain Health Co-op, announced it was pulling out, citing the looming expiration of the enhanced subsidies. Of the roughly 46,000 people on Obamacare in Wyoming, about 11,000 are expected to drop coverage, according to insurers.
“The basic problem with reducing the subsidies is that healthier people say ‘we can’t afford insurance’ and drop out, while the sicker population are, like, ‘Oh, my God, I still need it,’” said Alexander Muromcew, a board member of the Mountain Health Co-op. “As an insurer, you end up with a smaller and higher-risk membership, which is not sustainable.”
Muromcew said competition had been good for consumers, noting that when Mountain Health entered the market here a few years ago, Blue Cross Blue Shield dropped its prices. Now, as a monopoly, he said, Blue Cross Blue Shield has more power to dictate prices.
“Without competition, I worry that it’ll be easier for Blue Cross Blue Shield to raise rates even further,” Muromcew said.
Diane Gore, president and chief executive of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming, said she understands the frustration of people getting hit with rising premiums and lowered subsidies.
“I get it, I completely get it,” Gore said.
The company says its prices are the same across most of Wyoming, regardless of whether there is a competitor. Gore attributed this year’s price hikes, which she said were 25 percent on average, to the expectation that the remaining Obamacare customers will be sicker, and to the rising cost of medical care in rural areas, where health care providers are scarce and competition is often limited. Of every premium dollar the company collected last year, she said, 95 cents went to direct medical care.
Insurance companies don’t always find Obamacare markets profitable. Aetna, one of the largest insurance companies, announced earlier this year that it was dropping ACA coverage in 11 of 15 states. The move affected about a million Obamacare customers.
“I understand that there is rhetoric from the Beltway that the insurance companies are getting rich off of Obamacare,” Gore said. “But that’s not this insurer in Wyoming.”
‘Clearly, the system is broken’
Many people in this resort town are seasonal workers, self-employed or small-business entrepreneurs. Lacking employer insurance plans, they have come to rely on Obamacare. Among them, the anxiety is widespread.
“Clearly, the system is broken,” said Heather Huhn, an insurance broker in Jackson.
On her desk, she has a stack of files with the applications for about 30 families that she calls the “Hold Tight” pile. They are mainly people who have ongoing medical needs, such as chronic conditions or expensive prescriptions, and can’t afford to pay for health insurance at the current costs. For weeks, she said, they have been desperately waiting to see whether the government will extend the enhanced subsidies that began during the pandemic.
“They sit across from my desk and say, ‘I just don’t know what to do,’” Huhn said. “I tell them not to have a mental breakdown just yet. People are having to suffer because the government can’t figure out how to fix it.”
Sophia Schwartz, a professional skier and health care administrator here, senses similar apprehension. For years, she has been inviting groups of “ski friends,” many of whom have irregular jobs, over for dinner to counsel them on how to get health insurance.
“This was the scariest year I’ve ever done it,” said Schwartz, a former member of the U.S. ski team and now a big-mountain skier. “People came to me in pure panic.”
Considering ‘BearCare’ and other options
In desperation, many are turning to stopgap measures.
Some, especially skiers, were looking at policies at a company called Spot Insurance that cover reimbursement of medical bills incurred after accidents on the slopes. Others were looking at “healthshare” groups in which members contribute monthly to cover each other’s eligible medical bills; among the drawbacks of these programs is that elective surgeries and nonemergency treatments might not be covered.
And some were considering “short-term” insurance policies. Those are closer to conventional health insurance, but those insurers might reject applicants with medical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease or cancer.
With so many in Wyoming searching for answers, even the state is jumping in. State officials have proposed “a major medical plan” they have called “BearCare.” The policies would, at “a significantly lower price,” cover emergency situations such as “being attacked by a bear” and other more common medical catastrophes. It would not cover ongoing or chronic medical needs.
Some of those looking for conventional health insurance say the state proposal is woefully inadequate.
“I don’t worry about being bitten by a bear, I worry about getting cancer,” said Margie Lynch, 58, an energy efficiency consultant based here. For the cheapest Obamacare plan, she would have to pay $1,585 a month. Its benefits would not kick in until she paid a deductible of $10,600.
“The cost of the premium is almost as much as my mortgage,” Lynch said. “I’m lucky enough to be able to pay for it if I have to. But there are so many people out there who won’t be able to.”
Newton, Lynch and others here have shared their concerns with Wyoming’s representatives in Congress: Sen. John Barrasso, Sen. Cynthia Lummis and Rep. Harriet Hageman. All three Republican lawmakers have opposed Obamacare and criticized Democrats, who have pushed to extend the enhanced subsidies.
“Stacy’s story and experience is one of the many heartbreaking examples of how Obamacare has failed families across Wyoming,” a statement from Barrasso said. “Instead of working with Republicans to make health care more affordable for all Americans, Democrats would rather use more taxpayer dollars to bail out Obamacare and hide its failures.”
A spokesman for Lummis said, “The health care problem Americans are facing is a direct result of the Democrats’ failed Affordable Care Act – Sen. Lummis had the foresight to oppose this misguided legislation from day one.”
A spokesperson for Hageman said in a statement that “Rep. Hageman knows there are many people struggling with the weight of medical expenses, and the catastrophic failure of Obamacare is making it far worse.”
The squeeze
For years, Obamacare had worked well for the Newtons.
In 2017, when the couple were starting their businesses, their income was low – about $56,000. The price of their policy was $1,585 a month, but the standard ACA subsidy covered most of that, and the couple had to come up with only $332 monthly.
Since then, however, the prices of the premiums have risen steadily, and now, because of the expected subsidy reductions, they would no longer qualify for government help. They would have to pay full price – $3,573 monthly for the cheapest option. Even at $43,000 a year, the plan carries a $21,200 deductible, according to the paperwork Stacy Newton showed The Washington Post.
This month, the couple struggled with whether to pay that to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming, go without health insurance or find some other stopgap option. Newton was getting notices that said, in bold red lettering: “Important – You’re about to end (terminate) this coverage. If any of the people above get health care services or supplies after 12/31/2025, they’ll have to pay full cost.”
Eventually, Newton knows, she will need leukemia treatment. She’s just not sure when.
“If my leukemia acts up, I’m up a creek,” she said this month. “I just don’t have a solution yet.”
On Monday, she sent a text.
“I just officially canceled my ACA marketplace insurance for 2026,” she wrote. “How on Earth is this going to unfold for millions of people in America?
A suspect accused of shooting up a home in a Shelby Township mobile home park was arrested Friday as he walked to his vehicle miles away.
According to a news release from Shelby Township police, officers responded about 6:30 a.m. Dec. 26 to Dequindre Estate Mobile Home Park, located off Dequindre Road near Hamlin.
“A resident had called 911 after their home was struck by gunfire originating from the street in front of the residence,” police said in the release.
When police arrived, they confirmed the home had been hit multiple times.
The news release made no mention of anyone inside the house being injured.
The scene was secured as the investigation continued throughout the day.
In an update Friday afternoon, police said investigators had developed information on the shooting suspect and vehicle information.
Detectives located the vehicle unoccupied in a parking lot in St. Clair Shores. They waited and watched the vehicle until the suspected shooter returned to the car and was taken into custody without incident, authorities said.
The investigation is ongoing, according to the release.
Shelby Township police said they were sharing the information with the public to let the community know that an arrest has been made and there is no threat to the public.
A Shelby Township police vehicle restricts traffic to the Dequindre Estate Mobile Home Park following reports of shots being fired. (PHOTO COURTESY OF MACOMB COUNTY SCANNER)
NEW YORK (AP) — The shopping rush leading up to Christmas is over and in its place, like every year, another has begun as millions of people hunt for post-holiday deals and get in line to return gifts that didn’t fit, or didn’t hit quite right.
Holiday spending using cash or cards through Sunday has topped last year’s haul, according to data released this week by Visa’s Consulting & Analytics division and Mastercard SpendingPulse.
But growing unease over the U.S. economy and higher prices in part due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs have altered the behavior of some Americans. More are hitting thrift stores or other discounters in place of malls, according to data from Placer.ai. The firm tracks people’s movements based on cellphone usage.
And they’re sticking more closely to shopping lists and doing more research before buying. That may explain why returns so far are down compared with last year, according to data from Adobe Analytics.
Here are three trends that defined the holiday shopping season so far:
A weaker holiday season for traditional gift giving
Americans are still spending on gifts, yet increasingly that shopping is taking place at thrift and discount stores, according to data from Placer.ai.
That’s likely forcing traditional retailers such as department stores to fight harder for customers, Placer.ai said.
Clothing and electronics that traditionally dominate holiday sales did have a surge but struggled to grow, according to Placer.ai. Both goods are dominated by imports and thus, vulnerable to tariffs.
For example, traffic doubled in department stores during the week before Christmas, from Dec. 15 through Sunday, compared with the average shopping week this year. But traffic in the week before Christmas this year fell 13.2% compared with 2024.
Traffic surged 61% at traditional sellers of only clothing in the week before the holiday compared with the rest of the year. But again, compared with the runup to Christmas last year, sales slid 9%.
Some of that lost traffic may have migrated to the so-called off-price stores— chains like TJ Maxx. That sector had a sharp seasonal traffic bump of 85.1% and a gain of 1.2% in the week before the holiday.
But it was thrift stores that were red hot, with traffic jumping nearly 11% in the week before Christmas compared with last year.
“Whether hunting for a designer deal or uncovering a one-of-a-kind vintage piece, consumers increasingly favored discovery-driven experiences over the standardized assortments of traditional retail,” Shira Petrack, head of content at Placer.ai, said in a blog post Friday.
Thrift stores broaden their appeal
In the past it may have seemed gauche to gift your mother a gently used sweater or a pair of pants from a local thrift store, but seemingly not so amid all of the economic uncertainty and rising prices, according to Placer.ai.
Through the second half of 2025, thrift stores have seen at least a 10% increases in traffic compared with last year. That suggests that environmental concerns as well as economic issues are luring more Americans to second-hand stores, Placer.ai said. Visits to thrift stores generally do not take off during the holidays, yet in the most recent Black Friday weekend, sales jumped 5.5%, Placer.ai. reported.
In November, as customer traffic in traditional apparel stores fell more than 3%, traffic in thrift stores soared 12.7%, according to Placer.ai.
The thrift migration has altered the demographics of second-hand stores. The average household income of thrift customers hit $75,000 during October and November of this year, a slight uptick from $74,900 last year, $74,600 in 2023 well above the average income of 74,100 in 2022, based on demographic data from STI:PopStats combined with Placer.ai data.
U.S. sales at thrift chain Savers Value Village’s rose 10.5% in the three months ended Sept. 27 and the momentum continued through October, store executives said in late October.
“High household income cohort continues to become a larger portion of our consumer mix,” CEO Mark Walsh told analysts. “It’s trade down for sure, and our younger cohort also continues to grow in numbers. ”
Fewer returns, so far
For the first six weeks of the holiday season, return rates have dipped from the same period a year ago, according to Adobe Analytics.
That suggests that shoppers are doing more research before adding something to their shopping list, and they’re being more disciplined in sticking to the lists they create, according to Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights.
“I think it’s very indicative of consumers and how conscientiously they’ve purchased,” Pandya said. “Many of them are being very specific with how they spend their budget.”
From Nov. 1 to Dec. 12, returns fell 2.5% compared with last year, Adobe reported. In the seven days following Cyber Week — the five shopping days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, returns fell 0.1%.
From the Nov. 1 through Dec. 12, online sales rose 6% to $187.3 billion, on track to surpass its outlook for the season, Adobe reported.
Between Dec. 26 to Dec. 31, returns are expected to rise by 25% to 35% compared with returns between Nov. 1 through Dec. 12, Adobe said, and it expects returns to remain elevated through the first two weeks of January, up 8% to 15%.
This is the first year that Adobe has tracked returns.
Still, the last week of December sees the greatest concentration of returns: one out of every eight returns in the 2024 holiday season took place between Dec. 26 and Dec 31, a trend expected to persist this year, Adobe said.
Post-holiday shoppers pass a Christmas tree and festive display at Calef’s Country Store, Friday, Dec. 26, 2025, in Barrington, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Freezing rain and ice created hazardous conditions Friday in southeast Michigan, causing flight cancellations and vehicle accidents across the region.
The National Weather Service had issued a winter weather advisory for Metro Detroit north through the M-59 and Interstate 69 corridors, including St. Clair, Washtenaw, Genesee, Saginaw, Tuscola and Sanilac counties.
According to the weather service’s storm report map, Saginaw recorded the most freezing rain on Friday, with just over a quarter-inch. Detroit got about 0.14 inches.
The agency received reports of downed tree branches in areas including Bay City and Port Huron.
The ice accumulation caused several accidents, including multiple crashes on I-75 near Saginaw. The Michigan Department of Transportation’s Bay Region, which covers the Mt. Pleasant, Saginaw, Flint and the Thumb areas of the state, reported at least six crashes that temporarily closed lanes along the freeway on Friday.
Among them were collisions on the Zilwaukee Bridge, which was closed in both directions, according to MDOT. WNEM Saginaw reported that multiple semi-trucks jackknifed on the Saginaw River span due to slippery conditions.
By 11:30 a.m., both directions of the bridge had reopened to traffic, MDOT reported.
On Facebook, Saginaw County 911 Central Dispatch wrote that I-75 was “completely shut down” in both directions due to the crashes. The agency warned drivers to avoid the area if possible and drive carefully.
Traffic on the Mackinac Bridge slowed to 20 miles per hour due to ice on the bridge deck, according to the Mackinac Bridge Authority website.
As the rain arrived early Friday, more than 40 flights scheduled to depart from Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus have been cancelled, according to its flight status website. The cancellations may impact travelers returning home from the Christmas holiday.
“Currently, we’re not experiencing icy conditions at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. Flight delays or cancellations are determined by the airlines,” Cortez Strickland, a DTW spokesperson, wrote in an email.
“In anticipation of icy conditions, our Airfield Operations and Maintenance teams have pre-treated the runways and taxiways. Crews will continue to monitor the situation.”
Ice continued to fall in some areas into the early afternoon hours, according to NWS data.
“Untreated surfaces will be coated with ice, and we should see more freezing rain throughout the day,” said Kevin Kacan, a meteorologist with the NWS Detroit office.
“The big thing is travel. Any roadway not treated with salt can be slick and dangerous to drive on.”
Temperatures in southeastern Michigan just cracked the freezing point Friday afternoon. In Detroit, which tends to be the warmest point in the region, highs peaked at 34 degrees Fahrenheit around 4 p.m.
On Saturday, temperatures will continue to hover around freezing, up to 35. But it will warm up more on Sunday, with a high of 49, according to the NWS.
Both branches of the West Bloomfield Township library were closed on Friday due to the rain, according to an email from the library system.
Power outages were reported across the area after ice accumulated on tree limbs and other surfaces.
The Consumers Energy power outage map showed that more than 4,000 customers lost power Friday morning along the I-75 corridor near Prescott in Ogemaw County. The map reported the cause of the outage as “storm damage.” By Friday evening, more than 25,000 Consumers customers were still without power, mainly in the central part of the Lower Peninsula. As of Saturday mid-morning, Consumers showed 14,667 customers without power from 303 outages, mostly in central Michigan.
Early Friday afternoon, nearly 30,000 DTE Energy customers were without power across southeast Michigan. By the evening hours, that number was down to about 13,000 with Lake Orion and other parts of northeast Oakland County among the hardest hit in the region.
bwarren@detroitnews.com
mreinhart@detroitnews.com
Tree branches were weighted with ice throughout Michigan on Friday, Dec. 26, 2025. (Stephen Frye / MediaNews Group)
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