Councilman Eric Hewitt, the first-term member from the 1st Ward, opted against filing for re-election, creating a wide-open, six-person race that features a former councilman, a former state representative and several aggressive newcomers. The top two will face each other in November.

The chairman of the Michigan State University Board of Trustees told the Michigan Gaming Control Board this week he is withdrawing his name from consideration for one of seven spots overseeing one of Detroit’s three casinos, a venture that would...

On Tuesday, it was learned Snyder, Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville and House Speaker Jase Bolger agreed on a revamped way to get rid of the Michigan Business Tax by softening the impact of the "pension tax," but what will be pushed through the Legislature is still more than 90 percent Snyder’s original plan.

Michigan is Yours! is the moniker being used by developer Tony Gray and Chief David Tomby, who tried four years ago to build a casino on top of Cobo Hall ' something he called the Xanadu Plan. Detroit radio host John Mason and music artist Morris Day also have signed on to this effort to collect 400,000 signatures by Oct.

The name "Bernero" may be showing up again on another ballot near you. This time the first name accompanying the well-known surname won’t be "Virg." It would be Kelly.

Koopsen’s mind was made up. "Most of us are students. It’s hard to get by with money and everything, but at the end of the day people who have nothing have the right to speak," said the 19-year-old Western Michigan University student. "If this is the way we speak, by being arrested, I’m willing to speak that way.

I understand Michigan has this crater-sized budget hole and everyone is getting nixed. I get it, I get it. That’s just the way it is.What I don’t understand is why conservative legislators are getting away with using these tough times as an excuse, again, to treat its public employees differently based on whom they sleep with.

Gov. Rick Snyder and the Republican-led Legislature aren’t talking about ending public employees’ collective bargaining rights like their GOP friends across the big pond. Instead, they’re setting so many little fires, labor unions are being forced to split up to put them all out.

Her problems with Snyder’s budget: The elimination of the income tax exemption on pensions and the Earned Income Tax Credit, the $470-per-pupil cut to K-12 education, the 15 percent cut to universities, a $150 million cut to local governments, the $180 million in state employee concessions.

Instead, Warner, 68, gave me what I asked for: Her sincere opinion on how Congress worked. Her most satisfying moment working for Rogers. And why, in her late ’50s, the long-time Greenville resident picked up and moved to Washington as a congressional staffer in 2001, a career choice typically reserved for wide-eyed 20-somethings fresh out of college.