The Metro

Today on The Metro, we share highlights from this week's episodes, including a chat with Detroit’s Renaissance High School assistant girls basketball coach about the teams recent championship win; a conversation with a Michigan veteran laid off from the VA due to DOGE cuts and more.

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

Loneliness in America is bad and getting worse. Today on The Metro, we’re looking at the treatment for isolation: connecting with people. And while it seems like a no-brainer, society and our built environment have changed in ways that make seeing our neighbors, friends, family and even meeting strangers more difficult.

Director of Entrepreneurship and Wealth Building at the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation Anita Savala joins the show to discuss how they're connecting the community in Southwest Detroit.

Professor Eric Klinenberg also joins the show. He led a widely-cited study on the 1995 Chicago heat wave, revealing how crucial our social connections really are. His most recent book is “2020: One city, seven people, and the year everything changed.”

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

In her second-to-last State of the State speech, Governor Gretchen Whitmer focused on funding the roads, spending on education and limiting cell phone use in schools. To discuss what Democrats and Republicans made of the speech, Russ McNamara of WDET’s All Things Considered joined The Metro.

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

WDET's Ryan Patrick Hooper spoke with Anthony Roth Costanzo about the story behind "Rinaldo" and the power of opera in 2025. It follows a trend at Detroit Opera to find new ways to present old operas. The last two shows of "Rinaldo" are on Friday and Sunday. 

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

Black History Month is almost over. But at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, everyday is a good day to celebrate Black History. Manager of Community Engagement Yolanda Jack joined The Metro to talk about the significance of the museum for Detroit.

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

A new exhibit at the Arab American National Museum gives us a window into Dearborn’s Southend neighborhood. It’s an area that Arab Americans fought to keep amid a zoning battle that lasted from the 1950s to the 70s. The exhibit features photographs of Yemeni and Lebanese people in the Southend neighborhood taken by Tony Maine during the 1960s and 70s. Exhibit Curator Dean Nessredine and Rasha Almulaiki of Adala PR Agency joined The Metro to discuss.

On March 6, Almulaiki is also moderating a conversation about the exhibit at the museum. 

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

NASA scientists determined that Asteroid 2024 YR4 had little to no chance of hitting Earth, but the moon should watch out. 

President and CEO of the Michigan Science Center Dr. Christian Greer is no stranger to asking questions about the mechanics of the world we live in. He’s a graduate of Morehouse College with a degree in Physics and a Doctorate of Education in learning technologies from Pepperdine University.

Greer wants to share his love of science with people across the board, but especially the next generation of curious thinkers. 

Many of those young, curious thinkers spend a lot of time on social media and Youtube. Recently, the news of a possible asteroid impact on Earth in 2032 sent folks into a frenzy. Greer joins the show to let us know what’s up with asteroids and our solar system.

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

Court-ordered minimum wage and sick leave laws were set to take effect Friday, but Michigan lawmakers struck a deal changing the laws again.

The minimum wage did rise and it’s expected to reach 15 dollars an hour in 2027. Tips earned by some wage workers will stay intact under this court order, which would have phased out over time. There were also changes to paid sick leave laws.

The result is a win for people who argue that eliminating the tipped wage would hurt businesses and discourage tipping. 

The President of One Fair Wage Saru Jayaraman joins the show to discuss how supporters of the court-ordered laws are feeling. The organization is advocating for a 15 dollar minimum wage for workers nationally.

Losing a job is hard. It can make you question your self-worth, strain relationships, upend plans for the future and make it hard to pay bills and get by. 

A lot of federal workers could now be confronting some of these predicaments. From the National Park Service to FEMA, thousands of people have been laid off as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to “make agencies more efficient.” 

Under the leadership of Elon Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency is slashing jobs across more than a dozen agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

Ten year Marine Corps veteran Andrew Lennox joins the show. He was working as an administrative officer in the primary care department in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Ann Arbor and is now without a job due to DOGE cuts.

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

President Donald Trump has put Elon Musk in charge of getting government workers to leave their posts and jobs. Already, the Office of Personnel Management has said that 75,000 federal employees accepted a deferred resignation proposal. 

There are pending freezes for funding to government agencies, including money that funds critical research and money that would otherwise fund programs and services related to food, housing, healthcare and infrastructure. 

Today on The Metro, we’re looking at whether Trump’s actions are good-old fashioned conservative values in action or if there’s something fundamentally different and dangerous. 

Guests: 

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