News

👋 We're back with our regularly scheduled public records feature. This week, we're seeking city emails to shed light on mysterious parking tickets issued by one of Detroit's biggest developers.

How it started: Free Press columnist Nancy Kaffer wrote in March about a theatergoer who paid $20 for a spot in Olympia Development's parking lot, only to find a $50 ticket on his truck after the show.

More than 3 million visitors to Michigan's national park lands spent $294 million in 2021.

• That's more than what visitors spent at national parks, historic sites, historic trails and other units of the National Park Service in Ohio, Illinois and Indiana combined, NPS data shows.

Detroit Metro Airport is having a chaotic summer — and it's likely to get worse.

Driving the news: Delta, which has a major hub at DTW, delayed 19% of flights going through DTW on Monday and 14% on Tuesday, according to flightaware.com.

Billionaire Dan Gilbert doesn't have enough City Council support to pass a $60 million tax break for his Hudson's site development downtown.

• A vote was expected yesterday, but Bedrock, Gilbert's development company, asked for the tax break to be taken off the council's agenda.
• There is no timeline for a future vote, and Bedrock will continue lobbying for votes in the meantime.

Abortion rights in Michigan may come down to the ballot.

Why it matters: Uncertainty remains about the impending legality of abortion care in Michigan following the reversal of Roe v. Wade and an injunction against the state's long-dormant 1931 abortion ban.

Starbucks workers have overwhelmingly voted to support union representation at Michigan stores this year.

Why it matters: The national labor movement is now sweeping across Starbucks stores and other coffee shops in Detroit and across the state.

Metro Detroit ranks near the bottom nationally when it comes to building new homes.

What they found: Our metro area had 2.9 single-family building permits per 10,000 people in the first quarter of 2022, per the latest analysis from real estate company Redfin.

A temporary injunction against the state's long-dormant 1931 law criminalizing abortion is keeping the procedure legal in Michigan for now.

• Hundreds of people descended on the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse Friday for an emotional rally and march through downtown in protest of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to end federal protections for abortion.