Tagged: Detroit

Who doesn't love that quintessential story of the underdog who battles and claws his or her way out of some apparently impossible challenge. David and Goliath,  Rocky Balboa, the 'Miracle on Ice' are all great underdog stories that never cease to captivate the minds of people.

Will Detroit be the next great underdog story to make the list?

Former New York Times reporter, current Fox TV reporter (WJBK), and author  Charlie LeDuff appeared on Comedy Central's Colbert Report last night to promote his book Detroit: An American Autopsy.

When Colbert asked "what is the cause of death" in Detroit, LeDuff responded:

"White flight, black flight, business flight, job flight, we even have dead flight.”

"Dead people will not stay in Detroit?!"

"It's gotten so bad... people who grew up in Detroit and who now live out in the suburbs and are afraid of it - about 1,200 in the last five years - they've gone and got grandma, exhumed her, and brought her out to the suburbs to visit her."

Here's the video:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,Video Archive

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - A lawsuit seeking to block the appointment of Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr has been dismissed.

Activist Robert Davis said Monday that the lawsuit became "moot" when a Lansing Circuit Court judge refused last month to hold a hearing before Orr's hiring by the state's Emergency Loan Board.

Davis says both parties stipulated that the suit be dismissed "based on a pending case" before another judge to invalidate Orr's appointment.

DETROIT (AP) - Marathon Petroleum Corp. has bought two-thirds of the homes in an area of southwest Detroit where the oil company is carrying out a $2.2 billion expansion.

The company announced in November 2011 that it wanted to create a buffer area between its growing refinery operation and residential areas.

The Detroit News reported Sunday that Marathon has bought 205 homes so far. The company began with a list of 296 homeowners, and 265 of them agreed to discuss terms for a possible sale.

The company made offers to 258 of them.

DETROIT (AP) - The closings of three air traffic control towers in Michigan are among 149 nationwide that will be delayed.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it needs more time to deal with legal challenges to the closures announced because of government-wide spending cuts.

The planned tower shutdowns include those at W.K. Kellogg Airport in Battle Creek, Coleman A. Young in Detroit and Sawyer International in Marquette County's Sands Township.

This weekend an international heavy metal conference for academics and researchers is happening in Bowling Green, Ohio. It's called "The Heavy Metal & Popular Culture Conference," and organizers say it's the first of its kind in the U.S.

It will feature presentations by heavy metal scholars from around the world about race and gender in the genre, and about its growing popularity in places like Finland and Puerto Rico.

The highways around Detroit are being used for displays of civil disobedience over the emergency manager law.

It started last month, and has carried to opening day.

MLive's Gus Burns writes that he was on his way to cover opening day for the Tigers this morning when he decided to tag along with the protestors.