If you want to find bipartisanship, Lansing might not be the best place to look. The statehouse has been in gridlock with very few examples of the Democrats and Republicans working together to get bills passed this session.

A new budget still has not been passed, despite the statutorily-required deadline of July 1st. What’s more, only six laws have been passed in the last six months, meaning Michigan’s divided legislature is off to its slowest start in decades. 

But It turns out there’s room for negotiation when it comes to spending on kids and families.

Last week, the Michigan Senate Committee on Housing and Human Services held a hearing to discuss the expansion of Rx Kids, which offers women $1,500 during pregnancy and $500 a month during their child’s first year of life. 

One of the big supporters of Rx Kids is Republican state Senator John Damoose, who represents northern Michigan and the Eastern U.P. He says the bill making its way through the legislature celebrates kids and appropriately spends public and private funds. State Senator Damoose appreciates the program so much, he’s holding a press conference for the program this morning in Sault Ste Marie.

The program has been operating in the state senator’s district for about six months where it’s already distributed almost one million dollars to over 300 families.

Producer Sam Corey spoke with state Senator Damoose to discuss why he supports Rx Kids as a Republican, what the bill could do if it passed, and how he’s trying to overcome the partisanship choking Lansing.

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The Trump administration wants American museums to be less critical of our history. 

On Tuesday, the White House called for a “comprehensive internal review” of eight Smithsonian museums. They want institutions to celebrate American exceptionalism instead of discussing race and America’s racial history, and to avoid negatively discussing the president. 

Already, one Smithsonian museum changed its exhibit about President Donald Trump. It omitted that the president made false statements challenging his 2020 election loss, as well as a statement that said Trump delivered a speech encouraging lawless action at the Capitol. 

The current administration says it wants our museums to end partisanship and to “restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.” But many worry that, instead, the president is stoking an already-heated culture war and limiting free speech.

How should these museums respond to political pressure? How should American museums react to criticism and make appropriate changes? And, what is their role in critiquing and celebrating American life?

We asked Devon Akmon, Director of Michigan State University Museum and core faculty member in MSU’s Arts, Cultural Management & Museum Studies program for his perspective. 

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For years, pharmaceutical companies have pushed drugs onto people and doctors, increasing addiction rates and overdose deaths in Michigan and across the country.

Last month, a national settlement with Purdue Pharma created new funds for drug treatment in Michigan. The state is expected to receive $154 million over 15 years. The new funds will go to a larger pot of money from additional national settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors. 

The money comes at a really pivotal time. Michigan is set to lose over $90 million from cuts to federal grants for substance use disorder programs, according to the Michigan Health and Human Services Department. 

Where will the state’s new opioid money go? And, what do we need to do to both prevent addiction deaths in the short run, and prevent addiction entirely in the long run?

Founder of The Recovery Collective in West Bloomfield Steve Norris joined Robyn Vincent to discuss.

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The Palisades nuclear plant in Covert Township got one step closer to reopening after federal regulators allowed the plant’s owners to load fuel into the facility. Some reporting suggests that Holtec International plans to reopen the reactor by October.  

That move is part of a larger trend. 

In recent years, there’s been a lot more political energy behind opening nuclear reactors. During his time as president, Joe Biden unveiled a plan to ramp up America’s nuclear energy capacity. When he got into office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order with the goal of quadrupling nuclear power in 25 years. 

Many climate change defenders are divided on these decisions. That’s because nuclear energy could provide a ton of clean energy for Americans, but it also has the capacity to kill people and contaminate the earth. That’s why environmentalists have generally stood against the nuclear energy comeback. 

In order to assess nuclear energy in terms of risk and reward, journalist, editor, producer, and co-founder of Foxtopus Inc Laura Krantz joined the show.

She produced the 2022 podcast, “Wild Thing: Going Nuclear,” where she explored the possibilities and drawbacks of nuclear energy. Krantz spoke with Robyn Vincent about why she thinks nuclear energy is important — and what concerns her about nuclear reactors.

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The Detroit Land Bank Authority has made tremendous changes in Detroit since its conception in 2008. But without a subsidy from the city for the 2026 fiscal year and new leadership entering the conversation, the authority’s future is unclear.

Over almost two decades, the land bank has sold about 50,000 properties. That’s sometimes translated into less blight, more resident control over their own neighborhood, and more small-scale development projects. 

With over 60,000 properties left to be sold and the general mayoral election looming, many are asking: What should change about the land bank? And what should stay the same? 

Detroit Land Bank Authority CEO Tammy Daniels joined Robyn Vincent to discuss.

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When people left Detroit, the city lost a lot of momentum for development. Over the past decade, encouraging growth has often meant putting money toward large development projects in the Downtown area, including District Detroit and the Hudson’s building. These projects include a lot of money from private developers and subsidies from city residents. 

Since Detroit began increasing its population gain, smaller projects have gotten less attention. But executive director of Building Community Value Chase Cantrell wants to change that by assisting small-scale developers. 

Cantrell spoke with Robyn Vincent about why small-scale development projects matter. Namely, he wants local residents to have more autonomy over what happens to the businesses, vacant lots, and homes in their neighborhood.

Building Community Value is offering in-person real estate development trainings for residents in Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck. Applications for the training close August 27th.

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Tuesday night, Detroit got the election results that the polls predicted. Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield took the bulk of the vote. Sheffield received more votes than Reverend Solomon Kinloch, who is in second. He’ll be competing against Sheffield in the general election. 

Detroit wasn’t the only place that had elections this week. There were mayoral contests in many suburbs, but many of them didn’t hold primaries because the sitting mayors in those cities are running unopposed. 

There were no mayoral primary elections in Westland, Dearborn, Grosse Pointe, Southgate and several other downriver communities. We don’t know why so many people are running unopposed and what it means for our democracy.

WDET’s Morning Edition host and Senior News Editor Pat Batcheller joined Robyn to make sense of the election results, and why many elections were not competitive.

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Billionaires and dark money political action committees dominated spending in the 2024 election cycle. One dark money political action committee contributed over $6 million toward supporting House Republicans.

A new coalition wants to curb the influence of corporate money in Michigan politics and unveil the source of political donations. 

“Michiganders for Money out of Politics” intends to create a ballot proposal to force state-level “dark money” advertisers to disclose their donors. They also want to block powerful entities from making political contributions, like large state government contractors and utility companies. The group plans to take its language to the state board of canvassers for approval this month.

Sean McBrearty is the vice chair of “Michiganders for Money out of Politics” and the Michigan Director for Clean Water Action. He joined Robyn Vincent to discuss the initiative.

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Universities have been cracking down on pro-Palestine student protestors. In April, the University of Michigan fired a full-time employee, and suspended four people from campus jobs for participating in pro-Palestine protests last year.

In Detroit, a number of students are pushing back against university charges. In June, a group filed a lawsuit against Wayne State University,  claiming the school violated the group’s constitutional right to protest in 2024. 

How should universities treat student protestors? And, what are the principles they should be defending? Frederick Lawrence is the Secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Society and a Distinguished Lecturer at Georgetown Law school. He’s also the former president of Brandeis University and regularly consults university presidents.

Lawrence spoke with The Metro’s Sam Corey to discuss how Universities should be handling current and future protests.

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For months, Detroiters and suburbanites have had their eyes on the mayoral race. That’s for good reason: Mayor Mike Duggan is running for governor and the mayoral race is the most competitive it’s been in years. It’s also very likely that the city will have a Black mayor once again.

But other races in Detroit deserve attention. Twenty-two candidates are competing in the Detroit City Council primary races. Those seats matter — the people who win those positions are the city’s legislators. They decide what ordinances get passed, what norms are established, and which ones fade away. 

Bridge Detroit has been hosting town halls in every Detroit district leading up to Tuesday’s primary election. For more on what issues are uniting and dividing residents, The Metro brought into the WDET studios the two people leading those town halls: journalists Bryce Huffman and Malachi Barrett.

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Right now, Michigan kids are struggling with something fundamental — reading. Over the last 20 years, the state dropped from 30th to 44th in 4th-grade reading scores. Last year, only 25 percent of fourth graders were considered proficient in reading.

What can Michigan do about this? Some suggest we should be looking to Mississippi, because that state has dramatically improved its math and reading scores for 4th graders, now ranking in the top 20 after it was at the bottom a decade ago. But Mississippi isn’t flush with cash — it’s America’s poorest state. So how did they do it? And what does Michigan need to do to change its rankings?

To discuss all that, we have Adrea Truckenmiller on The Metro today, an associate professor of special education at Michigan State University.

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It’s been almost two years since Hamas’ attack on Israel, and each day, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is getting worse. The latest concern is starvation. On Sunday, the United Nations issued a grim statement on the situation: “The entire population of over two million people in Gaza is severely food insecure. One out of every three people has not eaten for days. And 80 per cent of all reported deaths by starvation are children.”

The number of people killed trying to get food in Gaza continues to grow. Since May, NPR has reported that over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces when trying to get food, often near aid sites run by an American contractor. 

Over 57,000 civilians and combatants have been killed in Gaza since the war started, October 7, 2023, according to the Gaza health ministry. There are still Israeli and non-Israeli captives being held by Hamas in that territory.

One word being used to describe the horror unfolding in Gaza is “genocide.” For a long time, Omer Bartov, a Jewish-Israeli professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, was averse to using the word to describe what’s happening against Palestinians.

But his views changed in 2024 when he says Israel’s tactics began to satisfy the United Nations definition of genocide. He joined The Metro to explain his thinking on how Israel’s role in the war constitutes genocide

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Last week, Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin gave a speech at a progressive think tank where she gave a stern warning about America’s shrinking middle class.

She says the middle class has been shrinking since the ’70s, making it more challenging for young Americans to become as affluent as their parents. Part of the reason for that, she says, is how much the economy has changed structurally, and the failure of government to change along with it.

“We were already taking on water as the middle class, and now we’re about to hit a Category 5 hurricane in the form of artificial intelligence,” she said. “We gotta reset on how we do the basics of government and of our lives and focus on those essential things.”

Slotkin says part of the solution is to build more housing, expand access to health care, invest more resources in small businesses and to ban donations from corporate Political Action Committees. 

Metro Producer Sam Corey spoke with the senator about her “economic war plan” to build up the middle class, and why she says Democrats should be on the offense right now. 

—WDET’s Jenny Sherman contributed to this report.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

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Since Oct. 7, 2023, the world has felt different for a lot of American Jews.  Antisemitism has risen. More recently, two people were shot dead outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. And a man with a flamethrower in Colorado attacked Israeli hostage advocates. 

At the same time, Israel has expanded its militarism, recently attacking Iran to destroy its nuclear capacity and potentially overturn its regime. Israel has gotten the support of President Donald Trump, as America has now also attacked Iran’s nuclear sites. 

All the while, Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has continued. There are now at least 57,000 Palestinians who’ve been killed by Israel’s attacks since October 7th, 2023. In conjunction with that, Israel’s months-long food aid blockade has put one-in-five Palestinians on the brink of starvation. 

To find out where this leaves American Jews, and what they’re meant to make of the political moment, Producer Sam Corey spoke with Rabbi Shalom Kantor from Congregation B’nai Moshe, a zionist temple in West Bloomfield. The two spoke prior to Israel’s attacks on Iran, Iran’s retaliations and America’s involvement in the war.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

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