In 2008, Howard Lutz watched a loved one die. The business his family tended for more than 70 years — Lutz News Co. – became a victim of the seismic shift in the ink-on-paper business. Lutz moved on to build another business – one that rests on how Michigan handles a controversial state law. Iron […]
Nancy Derringer
Nancy Nall Derringer is a former reporter at Bridge
Posted inQuality of Life
Rx drug abuse propels heroin use, too
For years, the popular perception of heroin was that of a drug consumed mainly by edge-walking musicians and people who sleep under bridges. Somewhere between Kurt Cobain and the kid down the street, that changed. Today, if heroin were a record on the charts, it would have a bullet next to it. Scott Masi, outreach […]
Posted inMichigan Government
House narrows, approves ‘4 strikes’ bill on felons
Concerns about prison costs this year have not deterred the Legislature’s appetite to tweak Michigan sentencing rules. Last week, the House, following the Senate, approved a version of a “four strikes” bill designed to put violent offenders behind bars for a minimum sentence of 25 years. Senate Bill 1109 passed the House last week on […]
Posted inTalent & Education
It's never too early to start college
Perhaps no stage of American public education is as freighted with tradition and collective memory as high school. Which is not exactly why David Dugger is tinkering with it, but it’s one reason. “Our big failing as a public school system is not believing that high school kids are capable of higher-level academic work. In […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Stirring the pot for Detroit development
One came with a poster-sized drawing of the television studio he wants to build. Another distributed a map of a light-rail system – a fantasy system, to be sure – covering much of Southeast Michigan. A third spoke of her plan to put addicts on the road to recovery via horticulture. And the last had […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Savior of Jazz Festival sees better times for Detroit
Gretchen Valade is known in Detroit cultural circles as the philanthropist whose intercession — $15 million worth and counting — saved the city’s Labor Day weekend jazz festival in 2005. Fewer know that Valade, heiress to the Carhartt clothing fortune, is as busy in her ninth decade as she’s ever been, playing a role in […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Senate poised to tweak teacher retirement plan; major shift deferred in face of cost estimates
When the Legislature reconvenes tomorrow, the question of what to do about the Michigan Public School Employee Retirement System – or MPSERS – may get a clear answer from the Senate. After failing to approve a House of Representatives reform plan on repeated occasions, or coalesce around their own change, the Senate appears ready to […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Poverty, then pregnancy for teen mothers
The Catherine Ferguson Academy is on its summer schedule, and the custodians’ floor-polishing has pushed much of what is unique about the Detroit charter high school into the halls. A line of high chairs blocks a row of lockers. A table with built-in chairs for four infants stands near a pushcart designed to hold nine […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Economic turmoil challenges Mich. seniors, too
Keep your ear to the ground, and you can almost hear a revolution coming. The New York Times outlines the very different economics of households at either end of the human lifespan in a piece headlined “Old vs. Young.” Esquire magazine declares “The War Against Youth.” The Washington Post flatly states “Young Americans Get the […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Adviser: Longer careers serve seniors, society
Like many people who visit the city, Randal Charlton fell in love with New Orleans, so much so that he thought the city’s mix of food and music would be a sure-fire hit in Sarasota, Fla., where he lived at the time. Café New Orleans was no such thing, however, and Charlton was left in […]