The Ann Arbor Independent Editorial Team 2257 posts 224 comments

The Southern Poverty Law Center released a report on Feb. 23 on hate groups in the U.S. SPLC data reveal there are now more than 1,000 hate groups around the country, the first time the SPLC has seen the number of "hate groups" top 1,000…

by Suzanne Fields EVERY GENERATION confronts its own obstacles. My parents eloped because they couldn’t afford to get married, and they hid the nuptials from their families for a year. They finally bought a big bed and moved it into the…

by Nancy Derringer Hundreds of thousands of state residents would likely be affected by a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, including those in counties that went hard for the law’s critic-in-chief, President-Elect Donald Trump,…

Bob Rorke is a member of AAPS Superintendent Dr. Jeanice Kerr Swift's Blue Ribbon Commission. He is a former member of the Board of Education who stepped down in 2003. Rorke is concerned about the proposed annexation of the Whitmore Lake…

by Brian Cook THIS IS AN alternate vision of the U-M Athletic Department. First some base principles: Michigan isn’t leaving the conference and has to work within the confines of the new Big Ten. If this was “conference commissioner…

The Sierra Club, Huron Valley Group, and Sierra Club, Michigan Chapter today formally announced several endorsements of incumbent City Council members, each facing challengers in the Democratic primary in August. "We are very pleased to…

by P.D. Lesko KIRK WESTPHAL CAUSED the political firmament to tremble (convulse, really) when he was just rumored to be prepared to pitch the idea of changing the length of City Council members’ terms from two to four years. The…

by Bryan Kelly I AM ATTEMPTING every conservative’s dream: starting my own small business. However, unlike other businesses that are imagined, pitched, incubated, funded and realized by “young professionals” of my breed and disposition,…

by P.D. Lesko with reporting by Maddie Fetchiet BETWEEN DEC. 2014 and June 2015, Project Innovations, a Farmington Hills, Mich. consulting firm owned by Charlie Fleetham, was paid slightly less than $40,000 total by Ann Arbor. Despite…

by Phil Power NOT LONG AGO, most Republican lawmakers wanted to lock convicted criminals in prison and throw away the key. But that’s not so much the case anymore, in part because of a rising conservative organization, “Right on Crime.”…