Volunteers with the Michigan-based nonprofit Rank MI Vote have been working hard to get ranked choice voting on the general election ballot in November.

Their effort just passed the state board of canvassers on Friday. Now they need to get hundreds of thousands of signatures over the next 180 days to get the initiative on the ballot. If passed, voters would be able to rank political candidates by their preference.

Pat Zabawa, executive director of Rank MI Vote, joined The Metro on Wednesday to make the case for ranked choice voting and why he says it would more accurately reflect the will of Michigan voters.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Detroiters have so much LOVE for where they live. That’s why when the city falls on hard times, it’s often community members stepping up and holding down their blocks. 

This is true of the Hubbell-Puritan neighborhood and surrounding area. It’s an area that residents love, but one that doesn’t offer people all the services they need. While there are six schools within a mile and a half, there are zero public libraries and very few community parks nearby.

Many people living and working in Hubbell-Puritan-Schaefer are trying to change that. Among them are Jerjuan Howard, founder and executive director of  Umoja Village and the Umoja Debate League; and HUG Haven Founder Chelsea Walker, who will be leading Peace on Puritan yoga classes at Umoja Village this summer.

Umoja Village will be hosting "7-2 Day" — an annual event celebrating community pride on Puritan Avenue — on July 5-6, featuring a 5K run, a neighborhood cleanup, little library installations, mural painting and more.

Howard and Walker joined The Metro on Wednesday to talk about 7-2 Day and their shared goals of driving positive change and unity within their community.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Last week, Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin gave a speech at a progressive think tank where she gave a stern warning about America’s shrinking middle class.

She says the middle class has been shrinking since the '70s, making it more challenging for young Americans to become as affluent as their parents. Part of the reason for that, she says, is how much the economy has changed structurally, and the failure of government to change along with it.

"We were already taking on water as the middle class, and now we're about to hit a Category 5 hurricane in the form of artificial intelligence," she said. "We gotta reset on how we do the basics of government and of our lives and focus on those essential things."

Slotkin says part of the solution is to build more housing, expand access to health care, invest more resources in small businesses and to ban donations from corporate Political Action Committees. 

Metro Producer Sam Corey spoke with the senator about her "economic war plan" to build up the middle class, and why she says Democrats should be on the offense right now. 

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Southwest Detroit native and entrepreneur Arnold Boyd is one of two write-in candidates competing against nine others in the city's mayoral race.

Boyd, the founder of a school bus transportation company, launched his campaign in May and was one of the last to join the packed field of candidates facing off in the upcoming Aug. 5 primary.

Running on a platform of expanding skilled trades, making it easier to start a business, offering legal aid to senior citizens facing foreclosure and more, he says he would bring something new and different to the city.

"I'm running for mayor because I feel the city...all too often we vote for people that have name recognition or people that are career politicians," Boyd said. "It's time for the city to vote for people that come from their own."

Boyd joined The Metro on Tuesday to share more details about his vision for Detroit and how he plans to achieve it.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Longtime musician and event promoter Hugh Leal has been curating jazz events in the Windsor area since 1976.

Thanks to his efforts, established jazz artists from Detroit, New York, Chicago and beyond came to Windsor to perform, including some of the last surviving jazz musicians of the 1920s and '30s.

Leal has continued to promote jazz performances in Windsor over the years, going on to help launch the nonprofit Windsor Jazz Concert Series — the latest in a string of jazz concert series that have taken on various names — now considered the longest-running jazz concert series in Canadian history.

He joined The Metro on Tuesday (Canada Day!) to talk about his extensive efforts to bring live jazz music to Windsor, and to discuss the upcoming Port Windsor Jazz & Arts Festival in Sandwich Town this Sunday.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Ever since President Donald Trump started floating the idea of making Canada the 51st state in the U.S., the relationship between the two countries has been on a downward trend. Then came the tariffs that President Trump put on foreign goods.

These moves made national headlines, but their effects will likely be felt first here in Detroit and across the river in Windsor-Essex more than anywhere else. WDET’s Senior News Editor Russ McNamara has been paying close attention to the relationship between Canada and the U.S.

He joined The Metro on Tuesday to discuss how the strained relationship could affect summer tourism in Detroit, and what changes local businesses have noticed.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Today on The Metro, we continue our coverage on the fight over public media funding and what's at stake for local news and music stations across the country.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) due to alleged bias. Now, in the House Rescissions Act of 2025 — which narrowly passed the House last month — he's asking Congress to claw back CPB funding that has already been approved.

The Senate Appropriations committee held a hearing on the bill last month, and the Senate will need to vote on the package by July 18.

If passed, local stations — including WDET and the programs you love — would face profound impacts. At WDET, about 6% of our annual budget comes from CPB.

Kelly McBride, senior vice president at the Poynter Institute, serves as NPR’s public editor. She says in her role with NPR, she serves as an independent critic of NPR reporting, engaging with listeners and critiquing public media stations when appropriate.

McBride spoke with Metro co-host Robyn Vincent about how public editors at major media outlets help hold journalists accountable, and how NPR could improve its coverage of federal funding cuts to public media and allegations of bias.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

In Detroit, three of the city’s seven city council districts have a community advisory council (CAC). The body helps advocate for residents’ issues and gives them direct access to city council members. 

Unfortunately, due to confusion around filing deadlines in the city clerks’ office, anyone who wants to run for  a CAC  will have to run as write-in candidate because their names won’t appear on the ballot. This includes incumbent candidates who have been serving on these councils for several years. 

To help us break down what CACs are, why only some districts have them and what exactly happened that led to candidates missing the filing deadline, Metro Producer Jack Filbrandt spoke with Detroit Documenters Coordinator Noah Kincade and Outlier Media Civic Life Reporter Briana Rice.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

A judge is set to decide whether low-level radioactive material left over from the creation of the first atomic bomb can find its forever home in a metro Detroit landfill.

The state of New York wants to send about 6,000 cubic yards of tainted soil and 4,000 gallons of contaminated groundwater to a waste disposal site near Belleville, Michigan.

It’s one of a handful in the country licensed to dispose of such waste.

Communities near the site, including Canton Township, filed a lawsuit to stop shipments of the toxic material from New York. WDET's Quinn Klinefelter spoke with Canton Township Supervisor Anne Marie Graham-Hudak about the lawsuit and why she says the shipments put public health at risk.

Also, Metro producer Cary Junior II spoke with Carol Miller, a professor of engineering at Wayne State University, about how landfill sites are built and how they attempt to prevent contaminants from impacting its surrounding areas.

A newly founded Black-owned magazine in Detroit is trying to show its readers that everyone can live a life of luxury. 

Divine Magazine highlights Detroit’s creatives and fashion designers, at a time when the fashion world is paying more and more attention to what’s being made in Detroit. 

Charde Goins, Detroit native and editor-in-chief of Divine Magazine, says she has always expressed herself as a creative through her clothing, and she got the idea to start a fashion magazine after graduating from Central Michigan University. 

Goins joined The Metro to share what inspires her about Detroit's fashion scene and the journey of launching her own fashion magazine.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.