Joselyn Walsh was working from her Pilsen home last month when her phone began to ring. It was a special agent from the FBI, the caller said, and they needed to speak with her.

Unfamiliar with the number, the 31-year-old part-time researcher, part-time garden store worker dismissed the call as spam. But then her cell sounded again. This time, Walsh googled the 10 digits flashing up at her.

Sure enough, it was the FBI headquarters in Chicago. And they had a warrant out for her arrest.

“How is this possible?” Walsh wondered.

Walsh is among six protesters facing federal conspiracy charges in one of the most high-profile cases to emerge from Operation Midway Blitz, the Trump administration’s mass deportation mission in Chicago this fall. They are accused of conspiring to forcibly impede a federal immigration agent at a September protest at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview.

Charged alongside four Democratic politicians and one political staffer, Walsh is arguably the least known of the group, known as the ‘Broadview Six.’ She said she doesn’t know her co-defendants and still doesn’t know why, among the hundreds that went to protest outside of the west suburban processing center during the two-month operation, she’s been singled out in federal court.

The case stands to test the impact and bounds of protest in the second Trump administration. 

“I think (conviction),” said Steven Heyman, a law professor with the Chicago-Kent College of Law, “would send a real strong message that the government is capable of taking severe measures to suppress, I would say, legitimate dissent.”

Walsh remains confident in her innocence. But she’s keenly aware of what’s at stake.

“There’s the reality of wow, years in prison are on the line here,” she said. Still, the charges have also sharpened her resolve, spurring her to speak louder.

Weeks after her indictment, she continues to use her voice, often performing as part of a protest music collective and sometimes, returning to Broadview. Her co-defendants, by themselves and through attorneys, have denounced the charges as an attack on the First Amendment and maintained they will not be deterred. They’re not alone.

After an arraignment hearing in the case outside of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse downtown just over a month ago, dozens of protesters gathered under the red sculpted arches of Federal Plaza.

“We support the Broadview Six!” they chanted.

Almost immediately after the Department of Homeland Security announced the launch of Operation Midway Blitz in early September, protests grew outside Broadview’s ICE processing center, where the federal government held detainees for days in what a class-action lawsuit described as dirty and unsafe conditions. The near daily confrontations brought tear gas, baton rounds and dozens of arrests.

The conspiracy charges against Walsh and her co-defendants stem from a protest outside the building nearly three months ago. Alongside Walsh, charged are congressional candidate Katherine “Kat” Abughazaleh, Cook County Board candidate Catherine “Cat” Sharp, 45th Ward Democratic Committeeman Michael Rabbit, Oak Park Trustee Brian Straw, and Andre Martin, who is Abughazaleh’s deputy campaign manager.

The group is accused of surrounding and damaging an ICE vehicle during a Broadview protest on the morning of Sept. 26. An 11-page indictment alleges the group “crowded together in the front and side of the Government Vehicle” and pushed against it “to hinder and impede its movement.”

Prosecutors further allege protesters scratched the car’s body, broke a side mirror and a rear windshield wiper and etched the word “PIG” into the paint.

The indictment includes the conspiracy count — which carries a maximum sentence of six years in federal prison — as well as several other counts of impeding a federal officer, each punishable by up to one year in federal prison.

Walsh started protesting in Broadview early on into the blitz. She flocked to the facility to sing.

A lifelong musician from rural Missouri, Walsh said she’d often read about the goings-on in the world growing up. But she was inspired to start taking action after 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, while she was at college in St. Louis.

“(It) was this moment of, I think, recognizing how … power and control works in our country and in our world,” she said.

Since moving to Chicago six years ago, Walsh has grown into her advocacy. After working at a food and farming nonprofit in the city — work Walsh says was, and still is, important to her — she found herself wanting to delve into community organizing. She hit her stride through music.

For the past two years, Walsh has performed in a citywide collective of people working to bring “the power of music to protests,” she said. Called Songs for Liberation, the group includes musicians and non-musicians alike (even “shower singers,” Walsh noted). The group started as Songs for Ceasefire in support of Palestine but has grown to encompass a broader mission to dissent through song.

“Protests don’t necessarily have a lot of music,” Walsh said. “But (we think it’s) a really powerful thing.”

 The collective often performs at events and protests, sometimes by invitation and sometimes just by members’ interest, with appearances ranging from marches outside the Democratic National Convention last year to caroling outside Christkindlmarket.

The Broadview protests, which became a flash point against the Trump administration’s crackdown, were a natural fit for the collective. For weeks through the blitz, and even still today as immigration enforcement continues, some amalgamation of members would travel out to the facility and through the clashes and commotion and force, perform.

“No human is illegal here,” Walsh sang with the collective one morning in Broadview, her performance captured in a video posted online. A gas mask hung around Walsh’s arm as she strummed a guitar. “We refuse to be controlled by fear.”

Andrew Walsh isn’t surprised by his daughter’s activism. While she was a shy kid, he recalled that she’s always been fiercely compassionate. And she’s long been privy to conversations about morality and politics. Her mother is a minister. Andrew is a religion professor at a small college in Missouri, whose research focuses on the intersection of religion and social issues.

Andrew said he’s proud of his daughter. And terrified.

“(But) we can’t simply submit in fear,” he said. “Because if we all submit in fear, we’ve seen in history how that turns out.”

Sept. 26 started out just like any other day of protesting and singing, Walsh recalled, but what did stick out to her was that it felt like “there was a whole other level of random impunity.”  That morning, federal agents fired baton rounds, tear gas and other less-lethal ammunition at about 200 people gathered outside the Broadview processing center, the Tribune reported at the time.

Walsh remembered leaving early after a foam baton round struck and put a hole in her guitar.

“We’re just singing and then all of a sudden, I feel this impact,” she said. After a moment of disbelief, Walsh walked away, drank water, spoke with some friends and ultimately, went home.

Walsh, on the advice of her attorney, couldn’t speak to the crux of the indictment, though she did call the government’s allegations “totally baseless.”

In a video of the confrontation cited by the Department of Justice, a black SUV is seen slowly rolling through a crowd of people as they chant, “up, up with liberation, down, down with deportation!” As the car inches forward, footage shows some protesters hitting the hood and windows as they try to block its movement. In another video that has circulated widely online, a guitar briefly flashes into frame.

A request for comment sent to the Department of Justice was forwarded to an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago, who declined to comment because the case was pending.

“Federal agents perform dangerous, essential work every single day to enforce our immigration laws and keep our communities safe,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an October statement when charges were announced. “When individuals resort to force or intimidation to interfere with that mission, they attack not only the agents themselves but the rule of law they represent.”

The FBI called Walsh a month later. She’d been continuing to protest, while balancing her research job and taking shifts at a Humboldt Park garden store. Also due to get married in June, Walsh and her partner have been planning a wedding and had a tasting set for the day the FBI rang. They canceled their appointment.

The news of her arrest warrant left Walsh shocked and confused.

“I’m just sitting here, wracking my brain, like what possibly could have happened?” she said. 

There’s been a growing trend in protests giving way to conspiracy charges.

Last year, San Francisco prosecutors charged 26 protesters with federal conspiracy after they allegedly blocked the Golden Gate Bridge for hours to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Amid the immigration protests in Los Angeles this summer, an activist was indicted on a federal conspiracy charge after he was accused of handing out face shields during an anti-ICE demonstration, though the charges have since been dropped. In Washington, nine people are facing a federal conspiracy charge tied to an immigration protest outside a Spokane DHS office earlier this year.

The First Amendment protects individuals’ right to express their views on the government, said Heyman, the Chicago-Kent College of Law professor. Those protections do not extend to “true threats of violence” or false and defamatory statements — but they do extend to sharp criticism, Heyman said.

In his estimation, “most of the kinds of criticisms that these protesters are making about ICE and the Trump administration (are) 100% protected by the First Amendment,” Heyman said.

Where problems arise is that, generally, conduct is not constitutionally protected, he said.

“If they’re physically blocking an ICE vehicle and surrounding it and trying to prevent it from passing and so forth, basically that’s not protected under the First Amendment,” he said. Still, he said he believes that prosecuting the protesters for felonies, especially for conspiracy, is “an extreme overreaction.” 

But with Walsh’s case, there’s also the matter that two criminal laws are at issue — impeding by force and conspiracy — and the burden is on the government to prove the statutes were violated, Heyman said.

Recent weeks have seen other cases out of the blitz fail to hold up in court. Last month, a federal judge dismissed charges against a woman shot by a Border Patrol agent after she allegedly rammed his vehicle in Brighton Park. And this month, a case was dismissed against Lakeview comedy club manager whom federal authorities had accused of slamming the door on the leg of a Border Patrol agent during an October immigration arrest.

For the higher charge against the Broadview protesters, prosecutors would have to show that they actually engaged in a conspiracy, Heyman said. That could be done in two ways, by demonstrating protesters had an outright agreement to conspire or had reached an implicit understanding they were going to commit a crime, according to Heyman. He noted the latter is vague and could be hard to prove.

Joshua Herman, who is representing Abughazaleh in the case, wrote in an email statement to the Tribune that the particular statute invoked by prosecutors in their conspiracy charge also does not require proof of an “overt act” — only an unlawful agreement.

“How these specific individuals,” he stated, “who were amongst a crowd of other (protesters) could spontaneously form such an unlawful agreement is a question the government will need to answer.”

He added that the statute cited is also rarely used and, to his knowledge, hasn’t been employed to prosecute protest activity in this way, despite it being on the books for well over a century.

Heyman said it’s unlikely Walsh and her co-defendants would receive the maximum sentence should they be convicted. But the case in itself, he added, conveys intimidation.

“The Trump administration is trying to send the message that they will tolerate no opposition to their immigration crackdown,” Heyman said.

He compared the case to prosecuting political opponents.

At a status hearing for the legal battle earlier this month, defense attorneys asked federal prosecutors to turn over White House communications related to a “selective prosecution” argument. 

Brad Thomson, Walsh’s attorney, contends that with this case, the government is prosecuting people for protesting together.

“That’s a real danger,” he said, “when you’re trying to have a society that has a robust discourse about the actions of the government.”

When the indictment against Walsh came to light, “it definitely rocked our community,” said Jack Sundstrom, a musician who’s performed with Songs for Liberation for the past six months. Sundstrom, like Walsh, performed with the collective in Broadview.

“It’s scary and terrifying, and it would be a lie to say that this isn’t something that keeps me up at night sometimes,” the 25-year-old Glenview resident said. But in his circle, he went on, there’s also “very much a sense of we’re going to keep doing this work.” He especially intends to keep organizing through music.

“As the song goes, the people united will never be defeated,” he said. “So I am going to continue doing what I do for as long as I can.”

Walsh hopes this doesn’t keep people from speaking out.

For her and her fiancé Joseph Ozment, it’s been a surreal few weeks since her charges were unsealed. But while scary, it’s been motivating, said Ozment, who’s also involved with Songs for Liberation.

“If they’re angry at us for this,” he said, “I think it’s for a good cause.”

They’ve also been reconciling what they’re facing with what they’re fighting for.

“I get to sleep in a warm bed,” Ozment said. “I know that … I’m not going to be whisked away in the middle of the night, and my family aren’t going to know where I am.”

The parallel, Walsh said, has only emboldened her more.

“It’s great that some of us have these rights,” she said, “and it’s awful that not all of us do. We need to keep fighting for that.”

By JAMES POLLARD and LINLEY SANDERS The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Most Americans aren’t making end-of-year charitable giving plans, according to the results of a new AP-NORC poll, despite the many fundraising appeals made by nonprofits that rely on donation surges in the calendar’s final month to reach budget targets.

The survey, which was conducted in early December by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that about half U.S. adults say they’ve already made their charitable contributions for 2025. Just 18% say they’ve donated and will donate again before the year is over. Only 6% report they haven’t given yet but will do so by December’s end. The rest, 30%, haven’t donated and don’t plan to.

Everyday donors faced competing priorities this year. President Donald Trump’s social services grant cuts, severe foreign aid rollbacks and November SNAP benefits freeze — plus natural disasters like Los Angeles’ historically destructive wildfires — left no shortage of urgent causes in need of heightened support. Trump’s tax and spending legislation offered an extra incentive to give, too; most tax filers will see a new charitable deduction of up to $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for married couples.

But weaker income gains and steep price inflation meant that lower-income households had less money to redistribute. Other surveys have also found a yearslong decline in the number of individuals who give.

December still serves as a “very important deadline” for donors, according to Dianne Chipps Bailey, managing director of Bank of America’s Philanthropic Solutions division. She cited estimates from the National Philanthropic Trust that nearly one-third of annual giving happens in the final month.

“December 31 does provide a target to make sure that they’ve given what they intended to give before the year is over,” Bailey said.

Few donate on GivingTuesday

Perhaps no day is more consequential for fundraisers than GivingTuesday. Beginning as a hashtag in 2012, the well-known celebration of generosity now sees many nonprofits leverage the attention to solicit donations on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Americans donated an estimated $4 billion to nonprofits this most recent GivingTuesday.

But Americans were much more likely to make a Black Friday purchase than a GivingTuesday gift this year. Just under half say they bought something for Black Friday, according to the poll, compared to about 1 in 10 who say they donated to a charity for GivingTuesday.

“Black Friday gets the lion’s share of things,” said Oakley Graham, a 32-year-old from Missouri. “And then you’ve got GivingTuesday a couple days later. Most people have probably spent all their spending money at that point.”

Graham said his family has “definitely tightened the financial belt” in recent years. He and his wife are dealing with student loan debts now that the Trump administration suspended their repayment plan. Their two young children are always growing out of their clothes. It’s good if there’s anything left for savings.

He still tries to help out his neighbors — from handiwork to Salvation Army clothing donations.

“Not that I’m not willing to give here and there,” he said. “But it seems like it’s pretty tough to find the extra funds.”

Checkout charity proves more popular

Another avenue for nudging Americans to give is more widely used, even if individual donations are small. The AP-NORC poll found that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they donated to a charity when checking out at a store this year.

Graham is among those who reported giving at the cash register. As an outdoorsy person who enjoys hunting and fishing when he can, he said he is “always susceptible to giving for conservation.” He said he likely rounded up once or twice at Bass Pro Shops for that reason.

“With the finances, I don’t do a lot of buying these days. But a couple cents here or there is like — I can do that,” he said. “It doesn’t sound like much. But I know if everybody did it would make a difference.”

The poll found that older adults — those over 60 — are more likely than Americans overall to donate at store checkouts.

One Texas architect’s unusual process for year-end donations

About one-quarter of Americans plan to donate in the last weeks of the year, and Chuck Dietrick is one of them. The 69-year-old architect applies what he calls a “shotgun approach” as the year comes to a close.

He and his wife give monthly to Valley Hope, a nonprofit addiction services provider where their son did inpatient rehab. And then there are eight or so organizations that they support with end-of-the-year gifts.

“We’re doing our own thing,” he said. “I don’t do Black Friday or Cyber Monday, either … So, I don’t do the GivingTuesday thing.”

Dietrick estimates their household donated somewhere between $501 and $2,500. The Dallas-Fort Worth area couple mostly contributes to organizations that have touched their lives or those of their friends.

There’s the Florida hospice that Dietrick said did a “super job” caring for his mother. He has relatives and friends who served in the military, so he also gives to the Disabled American Veterans and the Wounded Warrior Project.

“I would rather give a smaller amount of money to a variety of institutions that I care about rather than giving a big chunk of money to one,” he explained.

Giving plans went unaffected by federal funding cuts or the shutdown

Most 2025 donors say the amount they gave wasn’t affected much by this year’s federal funding cuts or the government shutdown, according to the AP-NORC poll, although about 3 in 10 say those situations did impact the charities they chose to support.

The survey suggests that, while private donors mobilized millions to fill funding gaps and hunger relief groups saw donation totals spike last month, many Americans did not respond with their pocketbooks to the nonprofit sector’s newfound pressures this year.

Jeannine Disviscour, a 63-year-old Baltimore teacher, is among 2025 donors who say the cuts prompted them to give more.

“I did not donate on GivingTuesday,” she said. “But I did donate that week because I was feeling the need to support organizations that I felt might not continue to get the support they needed to get to be successful.”

She estimates her household gave between $501 and $2,500. That included support for National Public Radio. Congress eliminated $1.1 billion allocated to public broadcasting this summer, leaving hundreds of NPR stations with some sort of budget hole. She said she wanted to ensure journalism reached news deserts where residents have few media options.

Living in an area that is home to many refugees, Disviscour also donated her time and money to the Asylee Women Enterprise. She said the local nonprofit helps asylum-seekers and other forced migrants find food, shelter, clothing, transportation and language classes.

“There is a gap in funding and there’s more need than ever,” she said. “And I wanted to step up. And it’s in my community.”

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Sanders reported from Washington.

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,146 adults was conducted Dec. 4-8 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

By Charles E. Ramirez, cramirez@detroitnews.com

The Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills is waiving the admission fee to its museum through Jan. 2.

Officials for the center said they are offering free general admission to encourage reflection, learning, and community engagement during the holiday season, and especially after a mass shooting during a Hanukkah celebration last week in Australia.

“In the wake of the antisemitic attack in Australia, we’re again reminded how hate left unchecked can escalate to violence,” Eli Mayerfeld, the center’s CEO, said in a statement Friday. “We remain committed to educating, engaging, and empowering people of all backgrounds to stand up against hatred. If the cost of admission has ever been a barrier, we hope this opportunity encourages everyone to visit.”

The center invites visitors to explore its redesigned core exhibit, which centers on the personal experiences of Holocaust victims and survivors, many of whom rebuilt their lives in Michigan. It features immersive video testimony, archival footage, and artifacts to bring personal stories to the forefront and preserve these voices for future generations. The redesigned exhibit opened in early 2024.

The museum’s hours of operation are 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday. Special programming, including additional public tours and survivor presentations, is held daily between 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. The center is closed on Saturday.

Admission is $8 for adults, $6 for senior citizens and college students, and $5 for students with identification.

Located at 28123 Orchard Lake Road north of 12 Mile Road, the Zekelman Holocaust Center was founded in 1984 and receives about 100,000 visitors annually.

Garo Danayan learned what it’s like to have an extra $1,000 to spend at Christmas on Wednesday.

“It’s already spent,” he joked. The Huntington Woods resident won the top prize, a $1,000 check, by entering Oakland County’s annual Local Gems contest. For the third year, the county’s economic development department invited people to take selfies at local businesses and share the images with the county to enter a random drawing for cash prizes. Genisys Credit Union supplied the cash.

More than 1,000 people submitted contest entries from some of the county’s estimated 35,000 small businesses.

Danayan took his selfie at a Ferndale gift store, The Rocket, where Local Gem winners were announced on Wednesday.

The Rocket’s owner, Eli Morrissey, said he was grateful for people who spend money locally and have supported his shop for 12 years.

“We need to save our brick-and-mortar businesses,” Morrissey said. “They are the character of our communities … I appreciate the support so much.”

Bret Rasegan of Rochester Hills won $500 for his selfie at McCauley Chiropractic in Rochester and Julie Decker of Oak Park won $250 with her selfie at The Vintage Farmhouse in Holly.

County Executive Dave Coulter said he was very proud of small businesses for all they do to support the community.”

Small businesses, he said, “give back to the community in a way Amazon never could.”

ROCHESTER HILLS – The height and length advantage Stoney Creek held over Rochester Adams translated in expected ways when the two rivals met Friday night.

Toss in the benefit the Cougars had of already playing two games compared to the fact that it was the Highlanders’ season debut, and it all helped Stoney leave Adams with a 43-32 road victory in the crossover matchup.

With the win, Stoney has nine in a row over Adams, who last beat the Cougars 43-27 on Jan. 24, 2020 at Oakland University.

It would have been the second game of the year for the Highlanders, but the cancelation of Wednesday’s game with Bloomfield Hills due to the wintery conditions eliminated a chance to get some more reps in before facing one of their city rivals.

“I won’t make any excuses for our unforced turnovers and things like that we could have done better,” Adams first-year head coach Justin Howard said. “But I would have loved to have one game under our belts so we could go to the drawing board before (this). But (Stoney’s a) great team. They’re tall, they rebound, move the ball very well.”

The Cougars, on the other hand, had the fortune of already playing two games this week — both wins — against Walled Lake Northern and Lakeland before this.

“Oh yeah, it helps,” Cougars head coach Columbus Williams said. “We went out and played a tough Northern team, which gave us a gritty win. Then we went to Lakeland and had another gritty win, and it just got us prepared for the moment and got us prepared for when they had that little rush at the end. We didn’t panic. It’s just normal basketball.”

Stoney’s lead grew to as large as 16 points in the fourth, but as Williams referenced, Adams made a late push in the final 2:30 that began with a 3-pointer by senior Nora Camaj, one of just two triples in the entire game by either team.

Two more turnovers forced by Adams led to baskets by junior London Guthrie and senior Nadia Heppner and allowed the Highlanders to get it within nine points on several occasions, but the Cougars never let it get within two possessions in the final minute.

“You gotta love rivalry games,” said Williams, indicating it played a part in the fight Adams showed to make it a game late. “I think when he called a timeout, it got his girls up, especially the seniors. We’ve been blessed to knock them off the last couple years, and I know they wanted to beat us, so they gave us a good little push there.”

The reason for so few 3-pointers? Stoney is happily to utilize its frontcourt advantage (provided by Calista, Izzy and Abby Ivezaj) against most teams, and that length led to four or five shots by Adams that were blocked or altered around the perimeter.

Howard and the Highlanders won’t see too much verticality like that in the OAA Blue this season, but regardless, it provides a good test. “Early in the year, you don’t even want to talk about moral wins, but we did a lot of positive things tonight, especially (against) a team a couple of levels above us … And I think, too, trying to change the system a little bit from last year is tough on a new coach and players that are used to moving a certain way, so I’m trying to add a little bit movement to it. Just a little more practice (needed),” he said.

Senior Faith Zoldos led the Highlanders with eight points, while classmates Raegan Jerrell and Alyssa Stephens added six. Stoney Creek senior Jadelynn Freeman led all scorers with 16, and junior teammate Samantha Fulkerson added nine in the win.

Photo gallery of Rochester Adams vs. Stoney Creek in OAA girls hoops crossover action

"We've just got to keep cleaning up on our guards," Williams said. "We've got a young point guard in Samantha, teaching her the ways. She's the next one up and we've just got to keep working with her, keep getting her to identify the defenses and where we need to go with the basketball, where to go with the hot hand, just kind of get her going."

Stoney finished third in the OAA Red last season, but should contend for the title this year with the teams it finished behind last winter, Clarkston and West Bloomfield.

"Man, it's going to be tough, but I'm excited for it," Williams said. "I think we've got a good group and we'll give it a good battle this year. That's one of our goals, to win the Red."

Adams ended last year 10-11 and right in the middle of the OAA Blue standings. It figures to be a deep, competitive division again.

"I think the expectation is, if I can get the players to run the offense, simplify it a bit, we should be able to compete in the Blue this year," said Howard, who was the program's JV coach previously. "I love what I saw tonight, now we're just going back and fixing one thing at a time."

Howard's Highlanders are back in action Monday at home against Utica. The Cougars get back on the court when they travel to Goodrich next Wednesday.

BIG RAPIDS – Ferris State’s football program, built on strong play in the trenches, has a rich history with accomplished players being nominated for — and several times winning—  the Gene Upshaw Lineman of the Year Award.

Past Bulldog recipients of the prestigious award, which is given to the top lineman in NCAA Division II football, include Austin Edwards, in 2019; Dylan Pasquali, in 2021; and Caleb Murphy, in 2022.

This season, Ferris State offensive lineman Tim Anderson has become the latest Bulldog nominated for the award as one of eight 2025 national finalists, putting him on a short list for Friday’s announcement, when it was revealed that the Rochester Adams graduate was named this year’s winner.

Anderson, a 6-foot-6 senior, 305-pound senior, didn’t hesitate in his response when asked about becoming one of the final eight for the award.

“This means a lot, and I’m super thankful, but I know I wouldn’t be there without the other guys on our offensive line,” he said. “The only reason that I’ve gotten noticed is because all five guys on our offensive line are out there and playing dominant football. I hope this shows how good our offensive line is, because it’s not just me. It’s about everyone on our offensive line and everyone on our offense working together.”

That starting lineup for “The Nasty Boys,” the name that the offensive line has embraced, includes Tim’s twin, Bob Anderson, with Dayne Arnett, Jarvis Windom and Ben Przytula. Tim shared the pride he feels in the depth the unit has developed that has helped fuel the team’s scoring punch. The Bulldogs are the nation’s leading scoring offense, averaging 53.8 points and totaling 751 points this season through 14 games.

Ferris State’s offensive numbers have contributed to the announcement of Tim as a finalist for an award named in honor of the late Gene Upshaw, who was not only an All-Pro lineman for the Oakland Raiders but also later served as the executive director of the NFL Players Association for 25 years. A former standout offensive lineman at Texas A&I University (now Texas A&M Kingsville), Upshaw was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987 in his first year of eligibility.

The Gene Upshaw Award is presented annually by the Manheim Touchdown Club.

The Bulldogs’ offensive line unit has been a big part of the Bulldogs’ offensive success.

Ferris State’s offense ranks third nationally in rushing offense, averaging 306.5 yards per game. That rushing offense also includes 63 touchdowns on 4,291 yards.

Anderson earned first-team All-Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference honors and was named the GLIAC Offensive Lineman of the Year. He further received Division II Conference Commissioners Association All-Super Region Three First-Team recognition for his gridiron play during the 2025 campaign.

Inside the Ewigleben Sports Complex walls, Anderson frequently walks past a large trophy case that includes replicas of the Gene Upshaw Award trophies won by Edwards, Pasquali and Murphy. Those honorees stand as a reminder.

“It means a lot to be in a program that has such a great history of linemen,” said Anderson, who was a decorated athlete during his prep days at Adams. “For us, being able to carry on that tradition is important. We’re thankful to be a part of it.”

During this playoff run, led by the strong line play, Ferris State scored 65 points against Northwood (Nov. 22), 56 against Ashland (Nov. 29) and 52 against Minnesota State (Dec. 6) in three wins.

The Bulldogs were scheduled to take on Newberry in the NCAA Division II National Semifinals on Saturday, Dec. 13, at Top Taggart Field.

A 39-year-old man is facing criminal charges for allegedly killing his mother who was found dead in her bed at the home they shared in Holly.

James Robert Hall is accused of strangling and suffocating Kristine Lynn Hall, 59, inside a residence on Ash Street late last month. A man who identified himself as Kristine Hall’s brother reportedly located her body when he went to the home to check on her on Nov. 25. According to Holly police, the brother said the victim allowed her son to move in with her several months ago, was afraid of him and slept with her bedroom door locked.

James Hall allegedly fled the home after stealing his mother’s car, jewelry and cash from the home, then reportedly called his father and admitted to the murder, police said. He was subsequently arrested in Kalamazoo and also allegedly admitted to police there that he had killed his mother.

James Hall was arraigned Dec. 10 in 52-2 District Court on charges of first-degree homicide, unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle and larceny in a building. He’s held in the Oakland County Jail, denied bond.

When he was still in custody in the Kalamazoo jail, Holly police investigators interviewed him and he reportedly again confessed to the murder. As stated in a news release from the Holly Police Department, James Hall told them that on Nov. 24 his mother called him into her bedroom and “began scolding him for his life choices and for not amounting to anything, which he said she was always telling him. Hall stated that he became tired of hearing it, climbed on top of her, and used a pillow to smother her to death.”

His arrest came after a party store clerk in Kalamazoo called police because he was overheard on a phone call stating he was thinking of killing himself, Holly police said. Kalamazoo officers located James Hall  in his mother’s stolen vehicle in the store’s parking lot.

As further reported by police, James Hall had rented a room in Kalamazoo and had been using the stolen money at a local casino prior to his arrest.

He was arraigned Nov. 26 in 52-2 District Court on an outstanding warrant for breaking and entering, and held in the Oakland County Jail with bond set at $100,000. Arraignment on the charges related to the slaying happened two weeks later.

“James Hall was angry his mother was parenting him…so he killed her,” Holly Police Chief Jerry Narsh stated in the news release.. He took the life that gave him life. Then he took her money, her jewelry and her vehicle because he was challenged on his life choices. Then he went to a casino.”

Hall’s next court appearance is scheduled for Dec. 23 for a probable cause conference before 52-2 District Judge Joseph Fabrizio. A preliminary exam is scheduled for a week later.

Pontiac Notre Dame Prep was rewarded with five selections on the 2025 Michigan Sports Writers Division 5-6 All-State football team after a second consecutive trip to Ford Field.

Three from the Irish – quarterback Sam Stowe, receiver Drake Roa, and linebacker Brody Sink – were first-team picks, while the duo of offensive lineman Jack Williams and defensive lineman Henry Ewles earned second-team nods. All five are seniors.

ND Prep’s QB1, Stowe threw for 2,761 yards and 41 touchdowns (with only five INTs), also finding the end zone with his legs four times. He’ll graduate as the program’s all-time leader in both career passing yards and TDs.

One of his favored targets, Roa finished the season with 70 catches, good for 975 yards and 16 receiving TDs. Another of them, Sink (who had over 100 receiving yards and a TD reception in the state final), earned plaudits on the defensive side of the ball for having over 100 tackles, as well as two sacks, one forced fumble and a pair of recoveries.

The 6-5, 225-pound Williams was a two-way player along the Irish fronts, as was Ewles, who ended the year with over 70 tackles (including eight in the state final), three sacks, and like Sink, a forced fumble and two recoveries.

In addition to the Irish handful, Hazel Park running back Montrell Parker was a first-team pick by writers.

Parker, a senior for a Vikings team that bowed out in the playoffs to ND Prep, carried the ball 179 times for 1,820 yards – amounting to over a first down per carry – and reached paydirt 23 times.

The Michigan Sports Writers all-state teams — formerly the Associated Press teams — are voted on by a panel of sportswriters from around the state.

 

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The 2025 Michigan Sportswriters Division 5-6 All-State football team, which was selected by a panel of sports writers from around the state.

 

DIVISON 5-6

Player of the year: Jacob Timmer, Grand Rapids West Catholic

Coach of the Year: Rob Beaudrie, Newport-Monroe Jefferson

First Team All-State

QB – Sam Stowe, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep

QB – Luke Beaudrie, Newport-Monroe Jefferson

RB – Montrell Parker, Hazel Park

RB – Ethan King, Belding

RB – Brody Corneau, Almont

RB – Galvin Albring, Ida

WR – Ezra Rowekamp, Kalamazoo United

WR – Drake Roa, Pontiac Notre Dame

WR – Jamison Pelt, Saginaw Swan Valley

WR – Evan Szalay, Flat Rock

OL – Sullivan Garvin, Allegan

OL – Matt Mazur, Ann Arbor Father Gabriel Richard

OL – Garrett Russell, Traverse City St. Francis

OL – Antwon Baker, Jackson Lumen Christi

OL – Luke Purvis, Frankenmuth

DL – Kenneth McClinton, Detroit Denby

DL – Andre Meade, Kent City

DL – M.J. Dailey, Montrose

DL – Corde Anderson, Whitehall

DL – Logan Evans, Richmond

DL – Calvin Marshall, Ogemaw Heights

LB – Cohen Ferqueron, Almont

LB – Jael Djouguem, Grand Rapids West Catholic

LB – Brody Sink, Pontiac Notre Dame

LB – Brayden Sweeney, Grand Rapids Catholic Central

LB – Sean Walicki, Jackson Lumen Christi

DB – Corie Kanitz, Ogemaw Heights

DB – Matthew Bacholzky, Almont

DB – Hunter Wilkinson, Kalkaska

DB – Kam Reynolds, Saginaw Swan Valley

ATH – Cash Tedford, Frankenmuth

ATH – Keegan McCue, Kalamazoo United

K – Landon Smith, Grand Rapids West Catholic

Second Team All-State

QB – Hadyn Hinkle, Michigan Center

QB – Grady Augustyn, Grand Rapids West Catholic

QB – Lleyton Hoard, Frankenmuth

RB – Kyle Greiner, Hart

RB – Jackson Malburg, Armada

WR – Austin Schwartz, Grayling

WR – Brennan Forward, Michigan Center

WR – James Milanovich, Ann Arbor Father Gabriel Richard

WR – JJ Hollister, Richmond

OL – Zack Williams, Pontiac Notre Dame

OL – Braxton O’Bryant, Ovid-Elsie

DL – Chris Fox, Michigan Center

DL – Henry Ewles, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep

DL – Cash Cooper, Jackson Lumen Christi

LB – Colton Goethals, Kingsley

LB – Elon Jones, Ogemaw Heights

DB – Razach Spillers, Flint Elite

Honorable Mention All-State

QB – Jackson Herder, Kalamazoo United

RB – Paul Sattler, Jackson Lumen Christi; Collin Abram, Grand Rapids West Catholic; Gavin Lewis, Kingsley; Ca’Mari Reese, Muskegon Orchard View; Kamall Hillard, Grand Rapids Catholic Central; Jack Deitsch, Reed City; Michael Reid, Detroit Central.

OL – Trevor Rawson, Kent City; Ethan Hock, Ogemaw Heights

LB – Isaac Fair, Whitmore Lake; Preston Six, Oakridge; Luke Joslyn, Caro

ATH – Griffin O’Neal, Montrose; Evan DellAngelo, Negaunee

Madison’s Nehemiah Patman, WOLL’s Jack Miller voted to D7-8 squad by Michigan Sports Writers

By Craig Mauger, cmauger@detroitnews.com

A Michigan judge ruled against marijuana businesses in the state Monday, rejecting their arguments that a new 24% wholesale tax on their products, imposed by the Legislature as part of a road-funding deal, should be immediately blocked.

The Michigan Cannabis Industry Association has contended that the new tax should have required supermajority support from lawmakers during votes in October, which it didn’t get, because the policy amends a ballot proposal that voters approved in 2018 to legalize recreational marijuana and set a 10% tax on retail sales.

However, Court of Claims Judge Sima Patel said in her 28-page decision Monday that the new wholesale tax bill was “consistent” with the text of the ballot proposal, which recognized “other taxes.”

“Plaintiffs have not met the stiff burden of demonstrating that they will likely succeed on the merits,” Patel wrote of not granting a preliminary injunction against the new law.

For now, her ruling allows the new 24% tax to go into effect Jan. 1.

But it wasn’t an outright victory for the Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration.

Patel said there “remain questions of fact” whether the 24% wholesale excise tax interferes with the purposes of the 2018 ballot proposal. Patel noted the businesses had argued that voters “purposefully selected the 10% excise tax on retail sales to keep retail prices reasonable” and to diminish the illicit market.

“Discovery will be required to develop the evidence needed to support the parties’ positions in this regard,” Patel wrote, rejecting the state’s pursuit of a summary judgment against the businesses on the matter.

Patel set a scheduling conference for Jan. 13 but referenced “the high likelihood that both parties will seek an appeal to the Court of Appeals.” Whitmer appointed Patel to the Court of Appeals in 2022.

In reaction to the decision, Rose Tantraphol, spokeswoman for the Michigan Cannabis Industry Association, said the organization plans a “swift appeal.”

“We don’t believe the Court of Claims made the right call,” Tantraphol said. “While we are deeply frustrated by this ruling, I can tell you this: The fight is far from over.”

The wholesale tax was at the center of a road-funding compromise that ended a months-long budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the Capitol in October.

The nonpartisan Michigan House Fiscal Agency has projected the wholesale marijuana tax would create about $420 million in additional revenue for roads annually.

Under the state Constitution, to amend a voter-approved policy, three-fourths of the lawmakers in the House and Senate would have to support the change. While the new wholesale tax wasn’t added directly to the voter-approved law, the lawyers argued the tax’s passage effectively amended it.

The 24% new tax didn’t get three-fourths support in the House or Senate. In the Senate, only 19 of the 37 lawmakers supported it.

The Michigan Cannabis Industry Association represents about 400 licensed marijuana businesses. Last year, Michigan’s recreational marijuana retail sales came in at about $3.2 billion, according to monthly reports from the Cannabis Regulatory Agency.

By Charles E. Ramirez, cramirez@detroitnews.com

A meteorite was spotted over northern Michigan’s sky on Sunday, according to a company that chases storms and follows the weather.

The fireball was seen over Michigan at about 6 p.m., Michigan Storm Chasers said Sunday on its Facebook page and on X. The southwestern Michigan company also shared video of the shooting star captured by its network of weather- and sky-watching cameras.

Company officials said the meteorite was part of the Geminids meteor shower visible this week.

The Geminids meteor shower peaks in mid-December every year, according to NASA. Its meteors first began appearing in the mid-1800s, and the shower is one of the major ones seen annually.

During its peak, 120 Geminid meteors can be seen per hour under perfect conditions, NASA said. The Geminids are bright and fast meteors and tend to be yellow in color.

Michigan Storm Chasers officials also said the object broke apart over the area between Traverse City and Gaylord.

“Our weather camera network of now 90+ cameras doesn’t let anything sneak by,” the company boasted. “At least ten of our cameras tonight (some live on our YouTube channel 24/7) caught the meteorite as it approximately broke apart somewhere over the Kalkaska county region.”

The American Meteor Society in the State of New York said it received 81 reports about a fireball seen over Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ontario, Canada, and Tamil Nadu, India on Sunday.

This isn’t the first time reports of meteorites created a buzz around Michigan.

A meteor about the size of a cargo van flew over southeast Michigan in January 2018. Meteorite hunters found bits of the space rock on a frozen lake near Hamburg, Michigan. Some of them were taken to the Field Museum in Chicago to be examined by scientists.

By Melissa Nann Burke, mburke@detroitnews.com

A compromise draft of the annual defense policy bill released late Sunday maintains authorization to spend $14 million for infrastructure upgrades at Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Macomb County ahead of the arrival of two new airframes, the F-15EX fighters and KC-46 tankers.

The provision had been included in version of the National Defense Authorization Act passed by the Senate in October. The House is expected to take up the compromise text Thursday or Friday.

The $14 million is allocated to provide $9 million for design of the runway improvements needed at the Harrison Township base, $2.8 million for taxiway “alpha” improvements and $2.4 million for the “bravo” runway improvements design, according to the bill text. The runway work is part of a realignment project at Selfridge estimated to cost $124 million.

Democratic Sens. Gary Peters of Bloomfield Township and Elissa Slotkin of Holly secured the funding over the summer as members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The text also includes $4.4 million for the Camp Grayling All-Domain Warfighting Training Complex.

The broader National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 includes an $8 billion increase in the Pentagon’s topline budget, a 3.8% pay raise for military members, puts limits on future troop reductions in Europe and South Korea and authorizes $400 million for Ukraine security assistance, according to bill summaries.

The authorization for funding at Selfridge follows President Donald Trump’s directive earlier this year for the Air Force to send 21 F-15EX aircraft to Selfridge starting in 2028 to replace the aging A-10 Thunderbolt II squadron that is set to be retired at the base on Lake St. Clair northeast of Detroit.

Trump in doing so overruled the Air Force in a gesture that the president said should “save this place.”

The NDAA compromise prohibits the Air Force from retiring the “Warthog” Thunderbolt II “early” in fiscal 2026, including those at Selfridge ― something that Michigan’s delegation had pushed for in a letter this fall to leaders of the Armed Services panels.

The lawmakers’ aim in retaining the provision in NDAA is to minimize the gap between the time when the A-10s will roll out of Selfridge and the replacement flying mission, F-15EX fighters, is supposed to arrive in 2028 in an effort to maintain the workforce of pilots and maintenance staff for the aircraft.

Led by U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett, a Charlotte Republican, Michigan lawmakers in late October wrote in the letter asking for the NDAA to use the Senate’s language that required the Air Force to maintain a minimum fleet size of 162 A-10 aircraft and prohibited the early retirement of the A-10s without the approval of Congress.

“This would basically do a transition between the two (platforms) without a significant or sizable gap between them,” Barrett told The Detroit News of the effort in October. “And that’s the big issue we’re trying to stop. Now that we have the commitment for the new F-15EX aircraft, we don’t want the A-10s to go dormant early and present a gap.”

The lawmakers have fretted that a gap of a year or two between flying missions would potentially see the staff at Selfridge devoted to pilot training, maintenance and other tasks reassigned or placed elsewhere without the aircraft at the base.

Idaho’s congressional delegation also joined the Michigan delegation’s letter, including GOP Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, whose state hosts an A-10 squadron at Gowen Field that is set to be replaced with F-16s.

The Air Force has long planned to divest the aging A-10 Thunderbolt fleet to spend instead on next-generation aircraft. The Maryland Air National Guard, based in eastern Baltimore County, deactivated its last remaining A-10s in September, sending most to a boneyard in Arizona and two to Selfridge in Harrison Township.

A general picked to serve as the next chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, Kenneth S. Wilsbach, this fall reiterated the Pentagon’s plans to send a squadron of F-15EX fighter aircraft to Selfridge on time in 2028, assuming the required infrastructure upgrades are complete.

Wilsbach said the Air Force would have to train the new crews and maintenance personnel as they transition from the A-10 to the F-15EX, a process that could take six to 18 months.

“So we’ll have to work on that timing,” Wilsbach said at the time.

Michigan’s delegation and state officials lobbied for over a decade for a fighter mission to replace the A-10 Thunderbolt II squadron at Selfridge.

By Luke Ramseth, lramseth@detroitnews.com

New car prices didn’t spike after President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs in the spring, as some experts and dealers projected.

But prices on many models are now pushing notably higher — and analysts said carmakers recouping Trump’s higher import costs is a key factor.

Consider a recent analysis that found automakers are implementing more aggressive price increases on 2026 model-year vehicles compared to when 2025s were hitting dealership lots last year.

Cloud Theory, which tracks car inventory on dealer websites across the country, found the average marketed price increase on 2026 models was nearly $2,000, compared to an approximately $400 uptick during last year’s model year changeover. This year, 23 models have at least a $2,000 price hike; last year there were just nine.

“What I think is different this year is you have a lot of cost increases that are $1,000 or $1,500 or more, $2,000 or more,” said Rick Wainschel, Cloud Theory’s vice president of data and analytics, whose analysis looked at 2026 models with at least 2,000 vehicles in inventory.

“I think that’s a big change and a big shift that’s occurred, and it’s hard to point to any other catalyst for that (except for) tariff costs that the OEMs have had to absorb for the last eight months, and will likely have to absorb going forward,” he said.

Any increase comes on top of average car prices that were already hovering around $50,000. Pair that with stubbornly high interest rates, and the average monthly car payment is now $766, according to Edmunds.com Inc., up more than 3% from a year ago. A record share of subprime borrowers has been falling behind on their auto loans this fall.

Yet the huge car sticker price increases tied to tariffs — which analysts originally warned might tally anywhere from an extra $5,000 to $15,000 per vehicle — haven’t come to pass.

Among the reasons: competitive pressures between rival automakers, concern over blowback from Trump, large pre-tariff vehicle inventories that gave companies a lag time before pricing adjustments were needed, as well as policy adjustments that reduced the pain of the tariffs themselves.

Automakers opted to absorb many of the extra costs in the near term.

But if you’re shopping for a new car right now or plan to in the coming months, experts said it is likely tariffs will cost you in one way or another, even if it’s tough to discern exactly how. Automakers haven’t been eager to publicly disclose any connection between tariffs and their pricing adjustments.

Vehicle destination charges — those mandatory fees for transporting the car to the dealership — are rising, revealing one area where automakers “might be trying to make up a little bit of the costs,” said Erin Keating, an executive analyst at Cox Automotive Inc.

There are also signs of automakers pulling features out of certain models in a bid to trim costs while holding the same sticker price, a phenomenon known as shrinkflation. And then there are indications of carmakers offsetting their tariff costs with higher 2026 model-year MSRPs.

“Automakers really held their prices throughout the ’25 model year, and we’re starting to see a bit (of an impact) in ’26,” said Stephanie Brinley, an auto analyst with S&P Global Mobility. “But it’s being wrapped up in different ways, so it’s very difficult to suss out.”

Car companies often adjust pricing on new model-year vehicles, whether due to minor repackaging of features and trim levels, or full overhauls that include new technology and freshened sheet metal. Brinley said that means there’s no clear way for consumers to figure out where those extra tariff costs might’ve been tacked on.

Keating agrees the tariff impacts have been hard to pin down. Average car prices have been rising steadily much of this year — with September reaching an all-time high above $50,000 — but she said some of that uptick would have been expected anyway because of normal inflation.

The analyst now feels confident those initial shocking projections of price hikes in the 10% to 15% range aren’t going to happen: “The market just won’t bear it,” she said.

Automakers appear to be settling into their new normal under Trump. They’ve secured at least some tariff relief on parts and vehicles imported from certain countries, while simultaneously feeling the benefits of Trump’s moves to loosen federal vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards.

A September J.P. Morgan report estimated combined tariff costs on vehicles and parts will amount to $41 billion in the first year, rising to $45 billion in year two and $52 billion in year three.

The bank expects automakers and consumers to ultimately share the burden equally, which could lead to a 3% increase in new vehicle prices: “This will hit consumers hard,” the report said, “especially as many are already struggling to afford new vehicles.”

Wainschel, the Cloud Theory analyst, said average prices listed on dealer websites have only increased a few hundred dollars per vehicle since the tariffs took effect in early April. But that’s because automakers have pushed an increasing number of affordable models and trims into the market, which has helped hold the overall average price down.

If the current mix of vehicle types listed for sale was the same as it was back in April, Wainschel said, average prices would, in fact, look approximately $1,300 higher now: “So there are some things that are masking the increases that are taking place, the segment mix being a big part of it.”

Brendan Harrington, president of Autobahn Fort Worth in Texas, which sells Porsche, BMW, Mini, Volvo, Volkswagen, Jaguar and Land Rover brands, said big price hikes didn’t occur early on as companies fretted over losing market share.

But now, carmakers are beginning to make larger changes in response to tariffs, he said, including trimming back slower-selling models and increasing MSRPs where they can. He said Porsche and Land Rover are two examples of brands that have upped prices in response to tariffs.

And carmakers are also passing through higher destination charges, he said — increases that are adding $200 to $300 to the cost of a car. Tariffs also are contributing to steadily rising costs for Harrington’s parts and service departments.

“Until now, every OEM has really tried to hold the line,” he said. “But we are seeing prices now come up.”

Multiple reports of larcenies from unlocked vehicles parked in Bloomfield Township were reported during the overnight hours from Dec. 4 to Dec. 5, officials said.

Purses, computers, shopping bags full of merchandise, and other personal property were reported stolen from eight vehicles, according to Bloomfield Township police. All the vehicles had been left unlocked in driveways, police said.

While an investigation continues, the Bloomfield Township Police Department said the community’s support is needed to thwart any more would-be thieves.

Residents are strongly urged to remove all valuables from inside their cars, keep them locked and don’t leave keys inside when they aren’t occupied.

Teen found stabbed at Royal Oak Township hotel

An investigation is underway into the stabbing of a 14-year-old boy Saturday night in Royal Oak Township.

As of Monday morning, officials hadn’t announced any arrest in the case.

According to Michigan State Police, troopers responded to the American Inn & Suites at 11000 W. Eight Mile Road just before 10:30 pm. Dec. 6 after the assault was reported. Troopers administered first-aid to the victim including applying a tourniquet to the victim’s leg, where he had been stabbed. The teen was then transported to an area hospital.

Troopers contacted his mother and brought her to the hospital, MSP stated.

MSP Lt. Mike Shaw requested further information from the public as investigators work to develop leads to the suspect.

“Anyone who has information on this incident is asked to call the Metro North Post at 248-584-5740 or Crime Stoppers at 800-SPEAKUP,” Shaw stated on X.

A 25-year-old Mt. Pleasant man is jailed in Livingston County on a $1 million bond, accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at a home as his stalking of a juvenile escalated into an attack on their home.

Authorities in Brighton Township were first alerted at 9:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 28, after several bottles of flammable materials were thrown at a house on Burson Drive, igniting fires, the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office reported Friday, Dec. 5.

Within less than a day, Mt. Pleasant police officers had the suspect in custody in mid-Michigan and he was being transported to the Livington County Jail, awaiting criminal charges in the county just northwest of Metro Detroit.

Now, Alex Buley-Neumar is being held in the downstate jail on a $1 million bond, facing four felony criminal charges.

On Monday, Dec. 1, he was arraigned in the 53rd District Court on charges of the manufacture/possession of a Molotov cocktail causing damage, a potential 20-year felony; aggravated stalking of a minor, which carries up to 10 years in prison; using a computer to commit a crime, also a 10-year felony; and accosting a child for immoral purposes, a four-year felony.

When emergency responders arrived at the Burson Drive home in a residential neighborhood, the fires had been extinguished by “alert neighbors… preventing what could have been a catastrophic outcome,” the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office said in its statement. The home is about an hour-and-40 minute minute drive from Mt. Pleasant.

Deputies found evidence of the incendiary devices and documented the fire damage. Investigators when learned the violence was connected to “an ongoing stalking and harassment case involving a juvenile victim over social media platforms.”

And the suspect was identified, prompting sheriff’s detectives to work overnight with police investigators and officers in locating him.

By 3 p.m. the next day, Saturday, Nov. 29, Buley-Neumar was being taken into custody without incident by Mt. Pleasant officers, the sheriff’s office said.

Sheriff’s officials also wanted to remind parents and families “to get involved and be aware of what their are doing on social media and who they are talking to.”

The sheriff’s office did not provide an age or gender of the stalking victim.

Buley-Neumar is due back in court for an 8 a.m. Dec. 9 hearing for a probable cause conference before Judge Shauna Murphy. A preliminary examination is scheduled at this time for Dec. 16.

He was represented by a court-appointed attorney at the arraignment and has requested one for the ongoing case, according to court records.

By Max Bryan, mbruan@detroitnews.com

Birmingham has filed a lawsuit in Oakland Circuit Court to block the sale of The Community House after its nonprofit operator announced plans to cease in-house operations in 2026.

The Community House Association announced Nov. 3 that operations in its 1930 building at 380 Bates St. will not be required as the association transitions into the Birmingham Area Community Foundation, which will provide scholarships for students and support for smaller area nonprofits. The association said in the announcement that the new owners of the building are “yet to be determined” but that current operations would cease July 1, 2026.

In response, the city filed a lawsuit on Nov. 25 “to enforce deed restrictions” that it alleges require the building “to be held exclusively as a community center for use by the residents.”

“(A sale) would permanently deprive the residents of the City of Birmingham of a unique civic and charitable asset intended for their benefit,” including 33 full-time and 16 part-time employees, the facility’s childcare program, event rentals and programs, the lawsuit reads.

The association executed a trust in 1930 to be held for the building and its operations. The trust prohibited a sale or transfer to a private interest if the association were to be dissolved, the lawsuit states.

In response to a 1989 petition to modernize the trust, the state required the association to hold The Community House in accordance with the 1930 trust. It required them to convey the land and any construction on the property to the city if The Community House were to be dissolved, the lawsuit states.

The city claims in its lawsuit that The Community House must be transitioned into either “a Birmingham charitable, benevolent, or educational organization” chosen by nearly all of the trustees or given back to the city to be used as a nonprofit community center.

Alison Gaudreau, president of The Community House, said that the organization communicated to the city could submit an offer for the building but “responded by filing a lawsuit.”

In a statement to The Detroit News, Gaudreau acknowledged there are “strong emotions” about The Community House’s future.

“There are many assumptions being made about what is happening with the sale of the building,” said Gaudreau in a statement. “We agree with the city that the building should be used for charitable purposes and those are the only conversations we are having with potential buyers. We are only speaking with non-profit organizations who would continue to use this space to benefit the community.”

The city asks in the lawsuit for Oakland County Circuit Court to issue an injunction between The Community House and its potential sale on grounds that it would violate deed restrictions and court orders.

“A private sale would permanently terminate the property’s nearly 100-year role as a public, nonprofit community center and would irreversibly extinguish the public’s beneficial interest, which is harm that cannot be remedied by monetary damages or subsequent litigation,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit was filed eight days after Birmingham Mayor Clinton Baller announced at a city commissioners’ meeting that the commission “will use each and every available means” to keep the building “a community asset.” The commission was scheduled to discuss the city’s lawsuit in closed session during its Monday meeting.

For more than a century, The Community House has hosted debates, served as a gathering place and has provided programs, events and partnerships with other nonprofits. a lawsuit on Nov. 25 “to enforce deed restrictions” that it alleges require the building “to be held exclusively as a community center for use by the residents.”

By Jennifer Pignolet, jpignolet@detroitnews.com

The three newest additions to the Detroit Zoo are working on their roars.

The zoo on Monday announced the birth of three healthy African lion cubs to 9-year-old lioness mom Amirah and dad Kalu.

“As a first-time mom, she has been wonderfully calm, attentive and nurturing, spending her days bonding closely with her little ones in a cozy, quiet den,” the Detroti Zoo said in an announcement.

A fourth cub was stillborn, the statement said, a “natural part of life for many wild species.”

The healthy cubs were born Nov. 23 and 24.

“African lions are vulnerable to extinction and endangered in some regions due to habitat loss, declining prey, disease and human-wildlife conflict,” the zoo said. “Welcoming these cubs is not only heartwarming — it’s a meaningful milestone in the Detroit Zoo’s commitment to conservation and the future of this iconic species.”

Amirah and her cubs will remain in their den away from the public for the time being, the zoo said. The other members of the pride, Kalu and Asha, will be free to roam in and out of their outdoor habitat during this period. The zoo said it anticipates it will be a few months before guests are able to view the cubs, when they are more mobile and able to roam larger spaces.

“We can’t wait to share more updates, photos and milestones as this joyful new chapter unfolds!” the zoo said.

The announcement comes less than a week after the zoo announced the birth of a baby giraffe.

Detectives with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office are seeking the public’s help in finding a Pontiac teen who didn’t return home from school on Nov. 21 and hasn’t been seen by his family since.then, officials said.

Jahlon Christopher Hamilton, 15, has had contact with his mother through text messages since he went missing, the sheriff’s office said, but she doesn’t know his whereabouts. He has reportedly stated that he’ll return home, but hasn’t, the sheriff’s office said. She believes he’s somewhere in Pontiac.

Jahlon is a student at  Arts and Tech Academy — his last known whereabouts. He’s 5 feet, 7 inches tall, weighs 140 pounds, and has brown eyes and black hair. Anyone who may have seen Jahlon Hamilton or knows his whereabouts is asked to call the sheriff’s office at 248-858-4950.

Detroiter shot dead outside Southfield hotel; second fatal shooting in Oakland County over the weekend

2 Southfield fires on Sunday leave 1 dead, several others burned out of homes

 

 

A West Bloomfield man faces nine felony charges after allegedly shooting into a neighbor’s home on Monday.

West Bloomfield Police Deputy Chief Scott Mong said Marquis Greg-Lamar Fletcher, 50, was arraigned via Zoom by a 48th District Court magistrate on Wednesday.

Fletcher was arrested on Monday in the 7400 block of Coach Lane after police were summoned by his wife, who said he was armed and having a mental health crisis, Mong said.

As police were en route to the scene, Fletcher allegedly carried firearms to a neighbor’s home, broke a window and fired several rounds inside. None of the four people inside the home were hurt, Mong said.

Fletcher faces the following charges:

•  first-degree home invasion, a 20-year felony,

•  assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder, a 10-year felony,

•  discharging a firearm in or at a building, a 10-year felony,

•  wearing body armor during the commission of a violent crime, a four-year felony,

• one count of assaulting, resisting and/or obstructing a police officer, a 2-year felony and

• four counts of possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony. If convicted, he faces two years in prison for each count.

Fletcher remains in Oakland County Jail, with bond set at $500,000 cash or surety. His next 48th District Court appearance is 8:45 a.m. Dec. 9.

Mong said suspects in any crime are presumed innocent until found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.