Community

It’s a rare metro Detroiter who hasn’t questioned: Can the city survive? Will its turnaround happen in my lifetime?

When CNN.com trumpets “Heidi Montag’s plastic surgeon dies in Malibu crash,” and that story becomes one of the most popular articles of the week, you know we’re living in plastic-surgery obsessed times.

We may think our national borders are porous today, but they were virtual sieves in April 1942. Four months after Japanese planes pummeled Pearl Harbor, a sworn enemy of the United States easily slipped into Detroit.

Although we “gain” an hour when we fall back on Nov. 7, the end of daylight saving marks four months of elusive sunlight. But one local business has found a way to help us maximize sunlit time.

Despite having a successful solo career since the 1990s, Brendan Benson has enjoyed the spoils of mainstream success, mostly in the shadow of Jack White in the band The Raconteurs.

It’s dwarfed by the towering RenCen hovering over it, but Mariners’ Church of Detroit on East Jefferson is a giant in its own right.

Betty Fox fearlessly executes one of her famous “split jumps” high above downtown Detroit.

ART Anton Art Center: The Christmas Market show begins Nov. 19, featuring pieces for sale by Michigan artists. 125 Macomb Place, Mount Clemens; 586-469-8666; theartcenter.org.Art...

Truth Beauty & Wellness puts on a fresh new face in Birmingham.

Web writers post news and views on the city.

The former manager of Sippie Wallace has  bright ideas.

An interview with Michigan’s long-serving attorney general.

The premise of the show is simple. We follow the homicide unit of the Detroit Police Department in a city with “one of the highest murder rates in the country,” as the opening voice-over explains. “Every murder tells a story.”

A new volume by Richard Bak explores metro Detroit’s cemeteries and burial customs.

Bryan Gruley's novel creates a dark mystery around Starvation Lake.

Patricia Majher details devoted women lighthouse keepers.

Edward Keyes, a New York journalist who died in 2002, presents an eerily suspenseful chronicle of Collins’ brutal rampage (the murders were all marked by unspeakable savagery), and he re-creates the panic of the time almost palpably.

Ashton Kutcher, Neil Patrick Harris, Erin Cummings, Hugh Jackman, Anne Heche make the scene and tweet about the Motor City.

Plant and environmental estrogens may contribute to breast cancer.

Midtown’s Sugar Hill takes shape as an arts center.