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JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s biggest bank, will provide $100 million to help debt-ridden Detroit with housing repairs, blight removal, job training and economic development projects over the next five years, according to two people with direct knowledge of the plans. The investment, a mix of loans and grants, will add to a growing pile of money from outside private institutions as the city nears the final, painful stages of the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy proceeding. Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection in July, with an estimated $18 billion in long-term debt. This summer, a federal judge will decide whether to approve...

ALLEN PARK, Mich. — Protesters descended on a Lowe's store in one of the country's largest Arab-American communities on Saturday, calling for a boycott after the home improvement chain pulled its ads from a reality television show about five Muslim families living in Michigan. About 100 people gathered outside the store in Allen Park, a Detroit suburb adjacent to the city where "All-American Muslim" is filmed. Lowe's said this week that the TLC show had become a "lightning rod" for complaints, following an email campaign by a conservative Christian group. Protesters including Christian clergy and lawmakers called for unity and...

DETROIT (WXYZ) - It was a deadly night in the city of Detroit. From 6:00 am Friday, August 12th to 6:00 am Saturday, August 13th, a total of fifteen people were shot in the city. Six of those victims died at a total of 9 separate shooting scenes. Mayor Dave Bing's office released the following statement: "Reducing violent crime is our number one priority. Chief Godbee and the men and women of the Detroit Police Department are working around the clock to bring these criminals to justice. Our community must continue to work with us to stop this kind of...

Chris Hansen traveled to Detroit, Michigan for a Dateline special that aired tonight on the state of what is probably America’s most desolate city. And in aerial footage—devastation porn at its best—Detroit’s grim plight was revealed. Video inside. “Today, from the air, parts of Detroit look like a war zone,” Hansen said in a voiceover near the beginning of the special, before he listed some of the most shocking facts about the city’s current state—the population is less than half of what it was decades ago; there are 400 liquor stores there, but only eight supermarkets—all while panning shots of...

Indianapolis - Metro police are investigating a bar fight involving two members of the Indiana Pacers at a west side nightclub. According to police reports, Jamaal Tinsley and Marquis Daniels allegedly punched a manager of the Eight Second Saloon early Tuesday morning. Police say Pacers guard Keith McLeod was inside the Tremors nightclub but was not involved. Police say the fight started between a manager and an individual suspected of stealing coats from a coat check area. According to police reports, Tinsley and Daniels punched the manager and Daniels threatened to kill him. The bar manager appears to have suffered...

There is poor reasoning, and then there is head-spinningly, jaw-droppingly poor reasoning. U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's angry 44-page ruling against NSA terrorism surveillance is the latter, and constitutes little more than a political stunt, with ever-so-helpful declarations like "There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution." The American Civil Liberties Union forum-shopped this lawsuit, handed it to a reliably left-liberal Jimmy Carter appointee in Detroit and got its desired result.

(Enter, Stage Right, the AG) Song: I’ve Made a New Trial Motion Tune: I Second that Emotion Maybe you’d like terrorists in our streets But I don’t want a 9/11 repeat Maybe you’d throw away a tapped phone call, But the smart money says your decision’s gonna fall Oh little girl Chorus In this case, right from the start “Standing” is a charming term of art And if you feel like doubtin’ me ’Mongst all this commotion, I’ve made a new trial motion Maybe you think Hezbollah runs Motown. Since you owe your job to that Carter clown. Maybe you...

SONG: My Law School Told Me You Better Shop Around. (Tune: My Momma Told Me You Better Shop Around) Just because you've briefed a big case now There's still some things that you must understand now Before you step into court with demands now Make your choice nonrandom as you can now My law school taught me: You better shop around There's some knowledge I want to bestow now Know which way that the wind's gonna blow now Judgments come and judgments are gonna go now The more you look, you’ll find one apropos, now My law school taught me:...

Halal Chicken McNuggets at Detroit McDonald's WASHINGTON, July 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - McDonald's restaurants in the Detroit area have started to provide halal Chicken McNuggets for the growing population of Muslim customers there, an online American daily reported Tuesday. The large Arab Muslim population of the Dearborn area was initially seen as the impetus for the move, but store supervisor Maurene Smith, of Dearborn's Michigan Ave. McDonald's, said she gets Muslim customers from many different ethnic backgrounds and cultures, according to the article published on The Freep, the online version of the Detroit Free Press. Islamic rulings stipulate...

DETROIT - The city embraced its hometown Super Bowl heroes on Tuesday, even presenting Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis with a key to the city. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and the City Council gave the ceremonial key to Bettis at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center and declared this week "Jerome Bettis Week." "Jerome is a shining example of what a kid with a dream from Detroit can accomplish with hard work and determination," Kilpatrick said in a statement. "He has carried his Detroit pride at every level of his career, always looking to give back to the city that...

DETROIT - Before the Super Bowl kickoff this weekend, private planes will land here, limousines will clog the streets, and lavish parties will be thrown for those with famous names or lots of money. The kitchens of Ford Field will be stocked with two tons of lobster. Much of the rest of Detroit, though, is a landscape dotted with burned-out buildings, where liquor stores abound but supermarkets are hard to come by, and where drugs, violence and unemployment are everyday realities. Officials in the nation's poorest big city see hosting the game as a huge boost. They say it will...

Islamic Terrorism's Fave Coffee Opens in Detroit's Airport By Debbie Schlussel If you live in one of the many areas around the U.S. (and elsewhere in the world) where Caribou Coffee is sprouting, please don't patronize this coffee chain. That includes people waiting at baggage in Detroit Metro Airport's McNamara terminal, where the store has now been awarded the exclusive, coveted slot. In the past, I've written about Caribou Coffee's ties to Islamic terror in the New York Post (a version of the article appears here)and discussed it on Fox News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor" and MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews."...

If you reside in Detroit, as I do, your radio and TV broadcast airwaves are dominated by live coverage of Rosa Parks' funeral. All other programming is pre-empted -- so we can be lectured by racists and race merchants. Right now, I'm listening to Louis X a/k/a Louis Farrakhan. Why is this racist loon a prominent speaker at this woman's funeral? If he had it his way, Catholics and other Christians, Jews, Whites, Asians, Gays, Arabs, and anyone not Black Muslim would not be riding in the back of the bus: they'd be dead. Is Rosa Parks' funeral the place...

DETROIT, United States (AFP) - Former president Bill Clinton and African-American leaders joined thousands of mourners who swayed in their pews, singing "We Shall Overcome" and other gospel standards in a final tribute to Rosa Parks at the funeral of the civil rights icon. Thousands who were unable to squeeze into the huge church's overflow rooms waited patiently outside for a chance to say goodbye to Parks, known as the "mother" of the US civil rights movement, who died on October 24 aged 92. Inside the church, soul music legend Aretha Franklin hushed the assembly with her moving rendition of...

Need Help Voting?: Detroit Votes for You By Debbie Schlussel Need help voting? In a solution to the Palm Beach fiasco (butterfly ballots with old people who couldn't figure it out), the City of Detroit "pre-votes" for you. As reported by Detroit's ABC news affiliate, some Detroit voters received their absentee ballots with the votes already cast for Detroit City Clerk Jackie Currie and her buddy, embattled Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick ("the Hip Hop Mayor"). Strangely, Currie--who administers all elections in Detroit and distributes the ballots--got more votes than any candidate in the August primary. Gee, I wonder why. All of...

Shrinking, Detroit Faces Fiscal Nightmare By JODI WILGOREN ETROIT, Jan. 29 - In the decade after he finished law school, Dan Varner watched with mounting exasperation as his black, middle-class peers defected from Detroit, beloved city of his birth. He was the relentless city booster telling college-bound teenagers to come home after graduation, the one urging far-flung friends to move here, the man always talking about rebuilding the city while others abandoned it. Then, one day, Mr. Varner said he realized "there was really no one to have dinner with." He said he "could count on one hand in the...