Free Republic

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---It doesn't take a village to raise a child after all, according to University of Michigan research. "In the African villages that I study in Mali, children fare as well in nuclear families as they do in extended families," said U-M researcher Beverly Strassmann, professor of anthropology and faculty associate at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). "There's a naïve belief that villages raise children communally, when in reality children are raised by their own families and their survival depends critically on the survival of their mothers." Strassmann's recently published studies provide the first empirical data on...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It feels like a football Saturday at Michigan Stadium. Traffic is heavy. Fans are tailgating. Everyone is warming up for a 3 p.m. clash between rivals Michigan and Michigan State. Only this isn’t a football Saturday. It’s a hockey Saturday. When the P.A. announcer gives the attendance, he won’t tell the fans they are part of the “largest crowd watching a football game anywhere in America today,” as he usually does. He is expected to declare that they are part of the largest crowd to have watched a hockey game. Anywhere. Ever.

Any Michigan man will tell you, there is nothing quite like beating Ohio State. Every Buckeye agrees, a win over that team from up North is priority No. 1. Well, now Michigan and Ohio State could get two chances in a season to beat their fiercest rival. What would Woody and Bo have thought of that? A rematch! The Big Ten announced its divisional breakdown for football Wednesday night, and Ohio State and Michigan will be in different six-team divisions when the league expands to 12 members in 2011. Neither division has been named, but they break down like this:...

Detroit mayor to get national award DETROIT (AP) Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has been recognized as an emerging leader by the Boston-based Initiative for a Competitive Inner City. That comes just days after Time Magazine dubbed him one of the worst big-city mayors. Kilpatrick faces an election this year and he's struggling to plug a major budget deficit. He received the award today at a ceremony in Boston. The I-C-I-C cites successful development efforts in Detroit and says Kilpatrick's work is getting him noticed around the country.