Tagged: Stateside

In 2012, Grand Rapids saw an outburst of violent crime, including nine homicides in which all of the victims died from gunshot wounds.

This week, two community groups called Urban League and Network 180 are hosting a series of meetings to inform the public about possible solutions and to begin a discussion about the future of violence in the Grand Rapids community.

Raynard Ross is a resident of Grand Rapids and works with Upward Bound at Grand Rapids Community College. Ross also serves on a panel to address the issue of violence within the Grand Rapids community.

The interrupters

According to Ross, street violence has reached a level of “borderline madness.”

“There’s a lot of retaliatory violence,” Ross said. “[Grand Rapids] is relatively small, so the degree of separation with those involved is one or two degrees tops. We’ve found that a lot of this violence is occurring based on misunderstandings and things begin to snowball and escalate and next thing you know we have something that could have been squashed by some early interrupting.”

That’s where someone like Cobe Williams comes in.

The clouds have been lifting for  U.S. car makers.

With car sales and America's economy picking up, there are some who are looking further down the road.

They have been wondering  if deeper, bigger challenges lie ahead for the companies who put the world on wheels.

One of those wondering is automotive writer Micki Maynard. She recently published a couple of pieces in Forbes Magazine exploring what she calls "The Secret Fear of the World's Biggest Auto Companies".

Micki Maynard spoke with us to explain exactly what is the "Secret Fear" of the World's Biggest Auto Companies.

To hear the full story click the audio link above.

A group from Washington DC is hoping to get elementary, middle and high school students excited about playwrighting.

The group is called The Young Playwright's Theatre and the leaders of this program are launching a four-city tour, starting in Detroit.

It's aim is to reach out to key education figures about spreading the Young Playwright's Theatre model to classrooms across the nation.

Executive director of the Young Playwright's Theatre Brigitte Pribnow Moore and artist director Nicole Jost joined us on Stateside to tell us more about their Michigan tour.

To listen to the full story click the audio link above.

He has been an assistant prosecutor, Wayne County Deputy Executive under Edward McNamara, and the CEO of the Detroit Medical Center.

Today, Mike Duggan is making his next move official. He wants to become Detroit's next Mayor.

With Duggan throwing his hat into the ring,  what is he going to bring to the table that other candidates do not?

And are black residents prepared to cast their vote for a white candidate?

1973 was the last year there was a white candidate in a Detroit Mayoral race. That's when John Nichols lost to Coleman Young.

Will Detroiters be ready to vote for Duggan? He recently moved to the city from Livonia.

We spoke with Detroit Free Press writer Rochelle Riley who gave us a closer look at Duggan's mayoral campaign.

To listen to the full interview click on the audio link above.

In 2005, the Daub and Firmin Sculpture Studio of California was commissioned to create a bronze statue of Rosa Parks.

Parks, who would have been 100 this month, will be the first life-sized representation that is approved and funded by Congress since 1873.

Her likeness will also be the first full-sized statue of an African-American woman in the National Statuary Hall. 

Seven years after the commission was placed, Michigan Radio's Cynthia Canty spoke with one of her sculptors, Eugene Daub. 

You can listen to the full Stateside interview above.

On today's show, troubling headlines have been coming out of Grand Rapids in recent  months a burst of violent crime. Today we take a look at what can be done to curb the violence.

And we turn an eye to medical care: just how can we fix inequality in access to health care in Michigan.

But to start things off... he has been an assistant Wayne County prosecutor, the deputy Wayne County executive under Edward McNamara. He was the CEO of the Detroit Medical Center.Today, Mike Duggan’s is making it official, he wants to be Detroit’s next mayor.

To take a closer look at the Duggan candidacy, we spoke with Rocelle Riley of the Detroit Free Press.