The Metro

There has been a lot of discussion in the recent years about the direction romance is heading. The marriage rate is lower than it was at the turn of the century, technology has shaped the way dating is measured, and people are embracing new forms of the practice.

Jessica Moorman, an associate professor of communication at Wayne State University, joined the show to discuss the state of today’s dating scene, how complicated it can be, and whether coupling should even be the goal.

In November, voters will choose a new governor. On the Republican side, the race is shaping up around Congressman John James and businessman Perry Johnson, who’s spending heavily out of his own pocket.

Last week, one of their competitors became the first to drop out: former House Speaker Tom Leonard. He was running what most observers considered the most substantive policy campaign in the field. As Speaker of the House, he ended Michigan’s driver responsibility fees, he worked with former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan on auto insurance reform, and he pushed to expand Michigan’s open records law to the governor’s office.

He says he left the governor’s race because it had gotten too negative — that he wasn’t willing to compromise who he was to win. It’s a striking claim. It’s also one worth examining. Leonard spoke about all that and more with The Metro's Robyn Vincent.

BasBlue is a community driven nonprofit rooted in Detroit. Its goal is to reimagine what opportunity can look like for women and nonbinary individuals.  

It brings together mentorship, professional development and community in one space, designed to spark growth and connection. In 2026, BasBlue celebrated five years in Detroit with more than 600 active members and counting.

Chief Operating Officer for BasBlue Ellen Gilchrist stopped by The Metro to explain how spaces like BasBlue are helping close long-standing gaps in opportunity.

Detroit pays three private ambulance companies up to $600,000 a year each to keep rigs on standby — and they can still bill patients for the ride. A council member calls it double-dipping. Detroit Documenters — the civic journalism corps that attends and documents public meetings across the region — pulled the contract and found it allows exactly that. The next deal goes to a council vote today.

Noah Kincade, coordinator for the Detroit Documenters, joins host Robyn Vincent to break it all down.

Rebecca Kosick, an associate professor of comparative poetry and poetics at the University of Bristol, is recognizing those efforts in her new book "Dispatches from the Avant-Garage.” In it she details the Mikolowski's story and their efforts launching "The Alternate Press." Kosick joined the show to discuss the publication's lasting impact.

A few years ago, Hamas attacked Israeli civilians, and Israel responded against Palestinians with what many experts call genocide. Although the violence — which is still going on — occurred in the Middle East, the actions have had reverberations for Americans. Anti-semitism and Islamophobia have grown worse. After October of 2023, the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and CAIR national recorded some of the highest levels of Islamophobic activity seen since September 11, 2001.

The Metro’s Sam Corey spoke to people practicing Islam in the area and scholars of Islamophobia to better understand why this particular form of hatred is rising.

Now, Brezzell is being honored by a state organization for her work teaching science at Detroit's Mackenzie Elementary-Middle School. One of her most interesting accomplishments is getting students to engage in a garden to learn healthy eating habits.

She is retiring in the fall, at a moment when thousands of Michigan teachers are leaving the profession, and the state is struggling to replace them. So, we wanted to speak with the science and social studies teacher about what she’s learned as a teacher, and the advice she has for new educators and parents.

Wafaa Mustafa is an Iraqi American poet from Dearborn and a teaching artist working with InsideOut Literary Arts. She is also a mentor with the Arab American National Museum Teen Writing Fellowship.

As an Arab American artist, her voice sits at the intersection of culture and history. It offers reflection in a time when many are searching for deeper understanding.

Wafaa joined The Metro’s Tia Graham to talk about poetry, identity, and what it means to hold space for youth voices in this moment.

The Detroit Youth Poetry Slam, hosted by performer and InsideOut coach La Shaun phoenix Moore, will gather 15 talented young artists together from InsideOut’s Citywide Poets after school program. 

Audiences will have a chance to support the teens as they perform their original work and compete for a spot on InsideOut’s 2026 Detroit Youth Performance Troupe. That experience includes intensive coaching and future performance opportunities.

The poetry slam is happening Thursday, May 7 at The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. 

Jassmine Parks is a program coordinator at InsideOut Literary Arts, a 2021 Kresge Artist Fellow and an award winning poet. Justin Rogers manages InsideOut's award-winning after school program Citywide Poets. Justin is also an alum of InsideOut. 

In this conversation, Jassmine and Justin explain the impact poetry has had on their lives and how they are uplifting the next generation. 

For the first time in decades, more people are seeking talk therapy over medication. The good news is there’s less stigma preventing people from accessing care. The bad news: A lot of people struggle to access therapy.

Some clinicians argue that one of the big issues is private equity. Private equity investments in health care have grown to over $750 billion over the past decade.

Linda Michaels says that’s had devastating consequences for both clients and clinicians. People are less likely to get the therapy they need, and therapists are in a worse position to offer it. That’s the premise of Michaels' talk this Sunday at a local fundraiser for a metro Detroit clinic. She is a psychologist in private practice in Chicago and a co-founder of the Psychotherapy Action Network. She spoke with The Metro's Robyn Vincent.

Located in Lower Huron Metropark, the Walnut Grove Campground features 15 ADA-accessible campsites and connects to the Iron Belle Trail, Huron River Water Trail and the rest of the 13-park, 25,000 acre Huron-Clinton Metroparks system.

While camping outdoors requires some equipment and knowledge, those resources are within reach, and the new campground is more accessible.

A number of education and community events are available for camp-curious metro Detroiters, including a Family Campout Night on July 24-25, and weekend programs for first-time campers to try out equipment for the first time.

You can reserve campsites online, with dates open early May through Mid-October.

Guests:

• Amy McMillan is the CEO of the Huron-Clinton Metroparks.
• Holly Clegg is the Park Operations Manager at Lower Huron Metropark.

Sidetrack Bookshop is an independent book store in Royal Oak. It’s nestled between Washington Avenue and the train tracks there. Jenny and Jen Carney opened the store four year ago, and decades before that, Jenny's mother operated a plant store in the very same building. 

She joined the show to share how Sidetrack Bookshop is more than a store, it's a place where community, family, and inclusivity are prioritized. 

Mark Loeb is an art fair organizer and president of Integrity Shows. He’s putting together Art and Music in the Trees at Palmer Park. He joined me to talk more about the Earth Day experience happening on Saturday, April 25.

WDET News Director Jerome Vaughn joins host Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss this reporting as a part of the ongoing series Crossing the Lines.

This month marks four years of war in Sudan. Nearly 14 million people are displaced, making it the largest displacement crisis in the world. Both the U.S. State Department and a United Nations fact-finding mission have called the violence a genocide. And yet, in America, there is a silence.

Sudanese American poet Khadega Mohammed joins Robyn Vincent on The Metro to talk about that silence, her work at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, and the identities that live in between.

The Trump administration has cracked down on immigration. President Donald Trump has conducted more ICE raids, signaled tougher security at the border, and has prevented fewer legal immigrants from entering the country. The Trump administration is also trying to end humanitarian immigration programs. One of those is Temporary Protected Status or TPS. 

The Department of Homeland Security says many countries on the TPS list are no longer in crisis. But many representing immigrants in court say otherwise.

Megan Hauptman is a litigation staff attorney for the International Refugee Assistance Project. She is fighting the Trump administration to keep TPS for over 6,000 people from Syria. Over 1,500 of them live in Michigan alone.

What exactly is TPS status? And what would happen if more people were to lose it? Megan Hauptman spoke with The Metro's Robyn Vincent about this and more.

The first exhibition upon the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit's (MOCAD) return will feature a slate of local and international artists including the renowned Olayami Dabls who is known for the Dabls MBAD African Bead Museum on the city's west side.

He is also a story teller, sculptor and painter with work spanning 45 years. His exhibition at MOCAD will be a retrospective of his work over that time. 

Dabls joined the program along with the co-director and artistic director for MOCAD, Jova Lynne to discuss it.   

Bookstock Michigan, one of the largest used book and media sales in the country is back.

Each year at Laurel Park Place in Livonia, thousands of volunteers help collect, sort, and organize hundreds of thousands of donated books and media items. The result is an affordable marketplace for readers of all ages. 

But beyond the size of the sale, the collective effort behind it, from neighbors, to educators, and community members keeps the spirit of Bookstock alive.

Proceeds from sales go directly back into literacy and education programs across the region, helping expand access to reading materials and learning opportunities.

In the last 5 years, library visits have doubled. People are coming back to libraries, and they’re getting more than books out of the experience. Tool rentals, seed sharing, and in-person community programming are all part of the equation.

Jeff Milo, from the Ferndale Area District Library, and Lisa Peers, author of "Motor City Love Song," join The Metro to talk about what's putting wind in the sails of libraries everywhere during National Library Week, April 19-26, 2026.

Founded by Detroit native Gabrielle Knox and Oakland California native Josmine Evans, The Joy Project wants to reconnect people with ancestral foodways and land practices. They aim to educate and spread joy through building historical and cultural relationships between Black, brown, and Indigenous communities and the soil.

They join The Metro to talk more about food as justice, as healing, and as identity, and what it really looks like when everyone has access to food, culture, dignity and community.

Inquiries for new electric vehicles has risen more than a quarter since America and Israel's war in Iran began. But EVs need to be charged — and that’s easier to do in some places. If you’re in China, you can charge an EV in just a few minutes. In Michigan, we’re way behind that reality. But despite the Trump administration’s distaste for EVs, the infrastructure for electricity is improving.

The number of charging ports in the state grew by about 1,800 last year — the most significant uptick in one year. So, if you’re thinking about buying or leasing an EV, what does all this mean for you? Sophia Schuster is the policy principal for the Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council. She spoke with Host Robyn Vincent.

In recent years, records have consistently generated the most revenue among all physical music formats. They leap frogged cassette tapes and CDs, which were considered more advanced than records when they were released.

Jeremy Peters, a music business professor from Wayne State University, joined the show to discuss what catapulted vinyl records back into the mainstream in the last 20 years .