The Ann Arbor Independent - A locally owned newspaper in Ann Arbor

The Ann Arbor Independent Editorial Team Whatever you think of TED Talks, that brand of visionary speech as performance art, you can't deny the appeal of having a group of experts in the field unpack an issue that's important to them in…

by Patricia Lesko I recently received a long email with the Subject line: City of Ann Arbor Action - MONDAY NIGHT!! from someone named Doug Selby. In his email, Mr. Selby urges me to attend the next City Council meeting to pressure Council…

Ann Arbor Independent Editorial Team At its Feb. 21, 2017 meeting, Council members voted to allocate $200,000 to hire Chicago-based consulting firm Hillard Heintze LLC to conduct an independent review of the city's police department. The…

Automatic Data Processing LLC is cutting 16 additional positions, after announcing in September that it would let go about 79 employees as it closed its Ann Arbor office. The facility at 175 Jackson Plaza will close around March 30,…

by Patricia Lesko NextDoor is a city-wide listserv where neighbors can post everything from requests for babysitters to football tickets for sale. Neighbors have also taken to posting information about local city government. In Feb.…

Part 1: Data Trends Black men and women in Ypsilanti accounted for 63% (1,179 of 1,869) of all Washtenaw County arrests in 2014 on “failure to appear” bench warrants, even though they make up less than 2% of the county’s total…

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…