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Michigan

Turning Banana Peels Into Coasters: Tales Of Food Waste Innovation

Inside the historic Book Depository at Michigan Central, now home to Newlab’s innovation campus, Brittanie Dabney is quietly building a different kind of startup. Her company, EcoSphere Organics, doesn’t make apps or mobility tech. It makes biodegradable coasters out of banana peels. Dabney and her team collect food scraps from local restaurants like Alchemy and Johnny’s Speakeasy — coffee grounds, citrus rinds and eggshells—and process them into small-batch products like compostable packaging and plant-based leather alternatives. Using dehydration and fermentation, Dabney aims to create materials that are both functional and regenerative.

Trump DOJ Sues To Block States From Holding Fossil Fuel Companies Accountable For Climate Crisis

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday filed lawsuits against Michigan and Hawaii over their planned legal actions against fossil fuel companies for the harm their greenhouse gas emissions caused by contributing to the climate crisis. The lawsuits — which are unprecedented, according to legal experts — claim there is a conflict between the state actions and federal government authority, as well as President Donald Trump’s energy agenda. The justice department is also suing Vermont and New York over their “climate superfund laws.” “These burdensome and ideologically motivated laws and lawsuits threaten American energy independence and our country’s economic and national security,” said U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a press release from the DOJ.

FBI And Police Raid Homes Of Palestine Activists In Michigan

On the morning of April 23, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies executed search warrants at multiple homes in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Canton Township, Michigan. The raids reportedly targeted a number of student organizers who were connected to Gaza protests at the University of Michigan. According to the group Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), agents seized the students’ electronics and a number of personal items. Four individuals were detained, but eventually released. TAHRIR Coalition, a student-led movement calling for divestment from Israel, said that officers initially refused to present warrants at the Ypsilanti raid. They were unable to confirm whether ICE was present at the raid.

Michigan And Neighbouring States Should Stand Up For Canada

For more than 100 years, the United States and Canada have benefitted from a peaceful 5,500-mile (or 8,900-kilometre) border and co-operation on many issues of common concern. Michigan has benefitted from this relationship and without Canada, restoration efforts in the Great Lakes would not have begun in the 1970s to transform the region’s Rust Belt legacy of industrial pollution. Michigan officials, and those of the seven other Great Lakes states, are fully aware of this history, so it is puzzling that they’ve been silent in the wake of a stream of suggestions by President Donald Trump that Canada should become the 51st state.

Detroit Protest At ICE Slams Deportations

Detroit, MI – 50 protesters gathered at the Detroit ICE headquarters, March 29, in response to Trump’s racist attacks on immigrants and to demand Detroit be declared a sanctuary city. Over the past weeks, several families in the city, including victims of the flooding in the Southwest neighborhood, have been turned over to ICE by the Detroit Police Department. Opening the rally, Kassandra Rodriguez of Detroit Comité de Acción Comunitaria spoke on the need to end all deportations, saying, “As a second generation Latina, this fight hits very close to home. I have seen the direct harm ICE causes to our community.

Michigan’s Muslims Take Matters Into Their Own Hands

West Bloomfield, Michigan — More than 100 of Nour Abubars’ relatives in Gaza have been killed by Israel over the past year, according to the grim tallies she receives from family members. Her cousin Asma and Asma’s teenaged sons were killed in the August 2024 Fajr Massacre, a bombing during prayer at a school where they sheltered in Gaza City. Two days before Election Day, Abubars, 30, sat in her home outside Detroit contemplating whether to vote, considering that America sent the bombs that killed her family. “I’m one of those people that believe that it’s very selfish not to vote, but this time around, I cannot make a decision,” she says.

Detroit’s Eastside Gets Affordable Electric Vehicle Carshare

As Loretta Powell settled into the driver seat of the Chevy Volt, she gave herself a few seconds to get acclimated to the vehicle’s settings before pressing the blue power button located behind the steering wheel. It was the second time the Detroit educator was behind the wheel of an electric car. The first time she drove the Volt, she recalled, was “nice and smooth.” “You couldn’t tell you were driving; it was very quiet and peaceful,” said Powell, as she backed out of the parking lot at community development organization Eastside Community Network‘s Stoudamire Wellness Hub. Like most electric vehicles, it emits an angelic hum as it reverses.

Workers On The Picket Line

Union workers at CVS stores in California asserted their rights by holding a three-day Unfair Labor Practice strike at seven CVS store locations in Los Angeles and Orange counties. The workers are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Not one CVS union member crossed the picket line, which represents 7,000 CVS workers in southern California. The strike came after UFCW filed ULP charges against CVS with the National Labor Relations Board, citing unlawful surveillance of workers, retaliation against union supporters and prohibiting workers from engaging in union activity.

Michigan Nurses Win The Largest Union Election In Years

It is the largest successful union election in recent memory: 10,000 nurses will be joining the Teamsters. They work for hospital conglomerate Corewell Health at eight hospitals and one outpatient facility, all in southeast Michigan. “We’re so excited we can hardly stand it,” said Katherine Wallace, a nurse at the hospital in Troy, who has been a core part of the campaign since October 2023. The union won the November election with 63 percent, with more than 85 percent voting. The union committee is Nurses for Nurses, part of Teamsters Joint Council 43.

Raising Chickens, Ducks, And Bees Allowed In Detroit

Detroiters will soon be able to keep chickens, ducks, and honeybees in their backyards under a new ordinance passed by the Detroit City Council on Tuesday. The council voted 5-3 in favor of the measure, which goes into effect in January 2025, marking a shift in urban agriculture regulations and allowing residents to raise certain animals for fresh food production, including eggs and honey, within city limits. Advocates see the new ordinance as a way to combat food insecurity and improve access to healthy, local food. Urban agriculture can also raise property values and encourage homeownership in surrounding areas, they say.

Marathon Oil Teamsters Strike

For the first time in 30 years, Teamsters at the Marathon oil refinery in Detroit are on strike. Close to 300 workers walked out September 4. Welders, firefighters, and heavy equipment operators in the union are demanding a raise that keeps up with cost of living, along with better hours. Above all, refinery Teamsters are trying to win a guarantee against outsourcing and to strengthen their union for the future. Although Michigan repealed its "right-to-work" law in 2022, Marathon managers are refusing a clause that requires every worker covered by the contract to pay their share, and they have aggressively expanded subcontracting with non-union labor.

The June Jordan-Audre Lorde Dispute, Kamala Harris, And Palestine

At a rally in Detroit Michigan on Wednesday, August 7, 2024, Kamala Harris chided pro-Palestine protesters. As they chanted “Kamala, Kamala You can’t Hide! We Won’t Vote for Genocide!” the self-proclaimed “top cop” shot back, “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.” This open contempt displayed by the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party came exactly two weeks after she met with Benjamin Netanyahu and reiterated the United States’ unwavering commitment to the right of the colonial entity (“Israel”) to exist, and by extension, to continue its war-intensified genocide of Palestinians.

Community Holds Public Hearing For Police Murder Of John Zook Jr.

On Wednesday, July 10 in Westland, MI, several organizations, along with family and community members, organized and attended a public hearing about a young Black man — John Zook Jr. — who was killed by police on June 18 after he called emergency services on himself in the midst of a mental health crisis. The event, organized and sponsored by several groups, including Survivors Speak, Black Coffee, Detroit Will Breathe, Washtenaw County General Defense Committee, and others, began with speeches by family members. Attendees heard from John’s sister, his brothers, and his father. John’s brothers were the first to arrive at the scene of the shooting.

Detroit Wayne State U Faculty/Staff For Justice In Palestine Formed

On June 4, hundreds of students, faculty, alumni and community members rallied on the campus of Wayne State University located in the Midtown District of Detroit. The purpose of the gathering was to send a clear message to the recently appointed President Kimberly Andrews Espy who ordered a Palestine solidarity encampment raided and destroyed by campus police on May 30. Metropolitan Detroit embodies the largest population of people of Arab and Middle Eastern descent in the United States. Consequently, many people within this community have direct familial and linguistic ties to the people most impacted by the settler-colonial regime occupying Palestine.

Detroit’s Wayne State University Encampment Shut Down By Police

After seven full days of an encampment at the center of Wayne State University in Detroit, campus police raided and removed the encampment which has demanded the complete divestment from corporations which have interests in the State of Israel. The encampment began with a demonstration on Thursday May 23 starting on Woodward Avenue and West Warren, which is the location of the WSU Welcome Center. Hundreds of students, faculty and community members then marched to the campus where the encampment was constructed right across from the Undergraduate Library (UGL).

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Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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