After seeing hundreds of protesters outside its Detroit corporate headquarters for last year’s annual shareholders meeting, the powers that be at DTE Energy, which was recently given a “Green Leader” award for large industry, saw fit to hold their 2013 shareholders meeting among the more friendly confines of Wall Street. This begs the question: Why is DTE, a quasi-public/private entity, increasingly unpopul ...

Detroit hip hop artists are respected around the world as masters of their craft, but while much of the attention is given to the men holding the microphone, the women in the city have commanded the stage and set their own mark as leaders among a global community of artists. On May 14, the women of hip hop in Detroit will headline the stage as 5e Gallery’s The Foundation celebrates its fourth anniversary at ...

It may be less than an hour-long train ride from the Lunt-Fontanne Theater at Times Square where “Motown: The Musical” is currently in previews to The Roulette performance space in Brooklyn where gentle giant Yusef Lateef was recently in concert with percussionist Adam Rudolph, but the music was light years apart. ...

PBS and Detroit Public Television announced that the new series ‘Genealogy Roadshow,’ which premieres this fall, is seeking local participants to share their families’ stories. Final participants will be part of an episode taping in Detroit on July 14. The show producers are looking for Detroit-area residents who have a historically significant story in their family. Chosen stories will be linked to the lar ...

The Senate’s Gang of Eight have put together an 844-page monstrosity known as the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act, legislation of which President Obama says he “basically approves.” The crafters of this essentially unreadable bill was put together by senators Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Michael Bennett, D-Colo.; Marco Rubio, R- ...

Last week, 400,000 poor and underserved Louisianans, many of them people of color, were shut out of potentially life-saving health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A Louisiana House health committee voted down a measure that would have forced Governor Bobby Jindal to opt into the Medicaid expansion provision of ACA that is being subsidized by the federal government to cover vulnerable communit ...

When the sequester federal spending cuts forced flight delays because of the furlough of air traffic controllers, the normally deadlocked Congress acted in less than a week to give the Federal Aviation Administration flexibility to avoid the furloughs. The aggravations of business travelers are heard in Washington. But Congress can’t seem to hear the tribulations of the less fortunate: - Chicago hospitals a ...

As young as 5 years old, Twan Woods would wake up at night and hear his mother having a seizure. He would know exactly what to do. He would run into her bedroom, hold her, put a cold rag in her mouth, comfort her and keep her from falling until it was over, he recalls. “My Mom, she’s a sick lady. She’s like, handicapped, she’s been like that all her life,” said the 37-year-old. Woods says, his mother, Franc ...

Do you love your mother? Really? Truly? If you answered yes, you’re either a feminist or a damned liar. The word “love” evades easy definition. It is nuanced and ever evolving. It is easier to feel than to define. That’s why every pop song we sing is about feeling it, losing it or making it. America’s most popular religion even describes itself as a “gospel of love.” But regardless of how you define your be ...

When Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress comrades were plotting to overthrow the white minority-rule apartheid regime in South Africa, Lilies Farm in Rivonia, just north of Johannesburg, served as their secret hideout. Today, 19 years after South Africa made a bloodless transition to a democracy with the election of Mandela as its first Black president, the picturesque land, now called Liliesle ...