Laura Berman

The Detroit News Michigan has lost its “eternal general." Frank Kelley, the state’s and the nation’s longest-serving attorney general in history, died at age 96, his family announced Saturday. A political legend, the Detroit-born Democrat served 37…

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death last month unleashed an outpouring of grief and remembrance. Her life and career demonstrated how much impact one person can have when she is focused, determined, and intent on change.Ginsburg…

In this report: About Crain's Forum Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood is leading a monthly series of in-depth reports on major public policy issues and topics that relate heavily to the economy and quality of life in Southeast Michigan and the…

Months before the female victims of Larry Nassar reached a $500 million settlement with Michigan State University, administrators quietly settled a very different battle over sexual misconduct. For more than two years, the parents of a male…

The facts are largely undisputed: Two college students on summer break – he’s a sophomore; she, a freshman – make a date. It’s Memorial Day weekend, 2014, and their intentions are explicit. They meet and have sex – consensual, enthusiastic – when a…

October 2013: Nathan, a sophomore, and Melanie, freshman, meet at a Michigan State University consciousness-raising group for men supportive of feminism. When they begin dating, she says she’s recovering from an abusive relationship in high…

The Detroit News It wasn’t a lakeside cottage with a swinging screen door or an unexpected gift on Christmas morning. The childhood memory Wendy Teeter cherishes is this: the month she, her mother and siblings spent at Haven, the domestic violence…

The Detroit News On Day One of his new life in the United States, Refaai Hamo balances his words as if they fill a dainty teacup. He is “The Scientist,” a man who has touched hearts around the world with the tragedy of his life and his determination…

The Detroit News Refaai Hamo, a Syrian civil engineer with a doctorate, arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Thursday night as the nation’s newest and most celebrated Syrian refugee, insisting he wants to be regarded as a citizen, not a…

The Detroit News On Monday, Audrey Polk learned that justice — a process she thought finished — isn’t tidy, at all. The facts of the case were simple and brutal, so much so that an appeals court justice described the case as fitting the sentencing…

The Detroit News In a week when Donald Trump was winning notoriety for suggesting a national ban on Muslims entering the country, more than 125 mostly young, mostly Jewish Americans and a few Syrian refugees got together in pursuit of an improbable…

The Detroit News Off the top of my head, I can suggest a few reasons why terrorists may seek a more pleasant, or just different, place than Detroit to unleash new horror. Unlike Paris, Detroit has never been a symbol of flirtation and decadent,…

The Detroit News The problem was unique in the fundraising world: How do you create a sense of urgency around untested rape kits that lay forgotten for a decade? Or for seeking justice for assault victims — most of them low-income Detroit women —…

The Detroit News Driving south on the Lodge Freeway one day, a flash of humanity caught the eye of Danielle Kaltz. A blur of clothing, a human form hunched beneath an overpass. The next time, she slowed down enough to confirm what she suspected: A…

The Detroit News No children play outside Franklin Elementary School. Since its doors shut seven years ago, the school has been vandalized, stripped of copper wiring and plumbing, and littered with trash. On the south side of the property, a cyclone…

The Detroit News Given the swiftness of Gov. Rick Snyder’s response to the terrorist attacks on Paris, you might have assumed that planeloads of Syrian refugees were wheels-down at Detroit Metro. Michigan’s proudly pro-immigration governor has in the…

The Detroit News Here is Deonte Sparks, age 9, with a cockeyed grin and the eyes of a wise man, back from a journey photographing his dreams for the city. His mentor is a 44-year-old Detroit police officer, Sgt. Dennis Perkins, the father of a…

The Detroit News ‘You want to make a musical?” It was the spring of 2012 and the stage producer Jeffrey Seller and lyricist/performer/genius-grant winner Lin-Manuel Miranda were at lunch in New York. Miranda, who had written two handfuls of hip-hop…

The Detroit News Even when their company was small, Cynthia Pasky and Paul Huxley believed in philanthropy: Giving to others was their secret sauce, a way to remind themselves why they were working 24/7, a way to have a tangible impact beyond solving…

The Detroit News What do you do when you’re not doing the one thing you’re supposed to? Even as the roads crumble like Roman ruins, the Legislature is in a big stall. “We need to get this monkey off our back,” state Sen. Marty Knollenberg told me…