Michigan Matters: Trump's impact and Motor City sporting events
With President Trump's trip to Michigan on Tuesday to mark his 100th day in office, Glenn Stevens Jr., Executive Director of MichAuto, Mark Truby, Chief Communications Officer of Ford, and Bill Wild, CEO of Midwest Independent Retailers Association, appear on CBS Detroit's Michigan Matters and discuss the current state of business in Michigan.
Glenn Stevens Jr., Mark Truby and Bill Wild.
Tim Lawlis/CBS Detroit
They talk about tariffs imposed by the White House on other nations and the potential impact on manufacturing. The trio also talked about how selectively using tariffs might help American companies.
Then it's a focus on sports as Claude Molinari, President/CEO of Visit Detroit, and Dave Beachnau, Executive Vice President of Visit Detroit, talk about how the Motor City's reputation as a place for hosting major sporting events and conventions got a boost with the 2024 NFL Draft held last April.
Claude Molinari and Dave Beachnau.
Tim Lawlis/CBS Detroit
Molinari and Beachnau have worked with other leaders as they continue to pitch for major events. The NCAA Final Four basketball tournament will be held in Detroit in 2027.
Molinari also talked about Detroit going for a Super Bowl — something it has not hosted since 2006.
(Watch Michigan Matters at its new time: 5:30 a.m. Sundays on CBS Detroit, 9:30 a.m. Sundays on CW Detroit 50 WKBD).
(Carol Cain is the 13-time Emmy-winning senior producer and host of Michigan)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
14 minutes ago
- Forbes
Declining Birthrates Are Breaking The Economy. Can We Fix It In Time?
Fertility rates are in free fall, with no clear solutions having emerged as of yet. A handful of ... More CEOs are up for the challenged. Look closely and you'll notice it. The subtle pull of gravity after a long sprint towards the edge, the tiny tremor in our economic step as it fails to find solid ground underneath, the mounting silence where there used to be the noise of new life. We are on what animators call Coyote Time: the few fleeting seconds between sprinting off the cliff and looking down, when gravity hasn't quite caught up but the fall is inevitable. The global economy, led by the aging West and now followed by much of East Asia, has sprinted confidently into the abyss of demographic collapse like Wile E. Coyote in pursuit of our very own roadrunner that Emile Durkheim presciently described a century ago as the 'malady of infinite aspiration.' Birthrates are in freefall, and while we're saying the words out loud more often, we've yet to process what this means for our societies, our businesses, or the very survival of the economic model our current form of civilization depends on. Toby Ord and others in the longtermist camp have been sounding the alarm for years. In The Precipice, he outlines a spectrum of existential risks facing humanity, from engineered pandemics to unaligned AI, but undergirding many of these is the quieter collapse of our demographic engine. If there are no people, there is no future to protect. While longtermism has found its home in academic circles and a handful of venture capital firms thinking centuries ahead, the population crisis hasn't yet pierced the mainstream with the same urgency. But Ord's insight remains prescient: if humanity fails to invest in the conditions that allow it to continue, reproduction among them, then even the most sophisticated civilisations will eventually be reduced to footnotes in someone else's survival story. This is the abyss we are levitating over, still in chase of greater affluence regardless of how sternly Galbraith and others have warned us to still our all-consuming hearts. The demographic cliff will end us, unless we act quickly. As Cole Napper, VP of Research at Lightcast puts it, 'You can't have an economy without people, and right now, we're losing both.' According to Lightcast's latest report, the U.S. population is growing four times faster than its labor force. That gap is barely held together by immigration, and increasingly, by duct tape. The prime-age male labor force is eroding particularly fast, lost to disillusionment, systemic failures, substance abuse, and in many cases, sheer hopelessness. And it's not just an American problem. Japan is decades into its population contraction. China's demographic decline has officially begun. Even the Nordic countries, long viewed as social policy success stories, are struggling to reverse the trend. The demographic future isn't looming. It's here, even if our earlier momentum still keeps us going. 'This isn't hyperbole,' Napper adds. 'It's not that we're all going to die. But your needs are not going to be met in the ways they are today. The expectations we've built into every institution, every business model—they just won't hold any more.' We have not faced an existential threat with such clear implications for our economy before. There's no precedent for what happens when an entire economic system built on constant growth finds itself with fewer hands to work, fewer children to teach, fewer buyers for the homes, and fewer taxpayers to sustain the state. Faced with a future as bleak as this, it's only natural to ask what is driving it, and what could we do about it? There's no singular villain here. The decline in birthrates isn't the result of one policy or one cultural shift; it's a slow-motion trainwreck caused by everything, everywhere, all at once. 'We've tried paying people,' Napper says. 'But money doesn't fix this. It's not just an economic decision or a transaction the government or employer can influence with just money. It's personal. People are making very deliberate choices about the kind of life they want, and many are deciding not to replicate the one they've lived.' In part, we've overoptimized for affluence. Modern life is a relentless treadmill of degrees, performance reviews, debt, and the promise that things will get better if you just stick it out. But what if better never comes? What if the very structure of our success makes having children feel like a selfish, impossible luxury? And yet, some make it all happen. Dr. Dara Spearman had her twins during residency, a time most physicians would call the peak of professional chaos. 'It was insane,' she says, not with regret, but clarity. 'I was seeing patients, studying, and barely sleeping. There were no policies that accounted for women like me. I just had to make it work.' She did more than make it work. Spearman went on to have another child, build a thriving dermatology practice, and become a role model for the kind of life that dares to exist because of work, not in spite of it. 'I didn't have the luxury of waiting for things to be perfect,' she reflects. 'If I had waited until my career said I was 'ready,' I'd probably still be waiting, and my life wouldn't be half of what it is today. ' What sets those like Spearman apart is not that she balanced motherhood and medicine, it's that she refused to treat one as the cost of the other. 'Women are often asked to delay, to sacrifice, to optimize every aspect of life before they consider becoming a parent. But that logic folds in on itself. You wake up one day and realize the thing you were waiting for might never come.' Now, as the owner of Radiant Dermatology Associates she's doing things differently. Spearman intentionally built her clinic around flexibility and sustainability, for her patients, yes, but also for her staff. 'I want people who work with me to feel like they can live a life, take time with their families, show up at school plays, go on vacation without guilt. Otherwise, what are we even doing this for?' She's right. In the U.S., puppies legally get more time with their mothers before they can be separated than most newborns. In a world where everything demands 110%, parenting often feels like subtraction from a life you've worked hard to build. And for many, it's not just a question of whether they want to add kids to that equation, it's whether they can afford the tradeoffs. In a sense, declining fertility rates are only the tip of the iceberg where rising maternal health risks, lack of access to basic reproductive education are what drives the trends underneath. As usual, where institutions lag, entrepreneurs leap, with many having found productive niches in addressing the underpinnings of the demographic cliff. It's no surprise, then, that some of the most compelling responses to our demographic dilemma are coming from founders who saw a problem not because they studied it, but because they lived it. Ayla Barmmer's company, FullWell, was born out of personal frustration and professional observation. A reproductive health expert and maternal nutritionist by training, she was struck by how disconnected the journey to pregnancy still is from what we know about health and biology. 'We treat conception like a light switch,' she says. 'You flip it on when you're ready and expect everything to work. But that's not how the body works. There's a whole ecosystem that has to be nurtured long before someone takes a pregnancy test.' Her own path to pregnancy revealed something sobering: even well-informed, resourced women were navigating it blindly. 'I was shocked by how many gaps there still are in basic education. Most OBs don't talk about preconception health. And men? Men don't even get mentioned. But they're half the equation by design.' Barmmer and her team is building an evidence-based reproductive health company that flips the model by tackling the cohesive whole of the experience instead of offering a point solution. 'We've got apps for hydration and step-counting,' she says, 'but nothing that helps you prepare for the most biologically complex, emotionally taxing, socially transformative experience of your life? That's absurd. We need a new standard where preparing for pregnancy is just as normalized as preparing for a marathon.' Where Barmmer tackles the front end of the journey, Shaker Rawan is focused on what comes after: the parenting spiral where joy, exhaustion, and panic blur together in real time. As co-founder of Woddle, Rawan wants to rebuild the village that modern parenthood has lost. 'We expect parents today to carry more weight than any generation before them, with less help, more judgment, and higher stakes,' he says. 'It's a cruel setup that can turn many off from the experience just by witnessing others go through it.' He's not exaggerating. In many developed countries, the average number of caregivers per child has dropped drastically in just two generations. What once was a multigenerational web of care is now two exhausted adults, often in nuclear households far from extended family, juggling careers and survival. 'People look at new parents and they don't see inspiration, they see burnout,' Rawan adds. 'They see the stress, the anxiety, sometimes even tragedy. And they think, 'Why would I sign up for that?'' Woddle offers a digital scaffolding: evidence-based resources, mental health support, and community features that connect parents in real time. But Rawan is adamant that solving this will need more than just high-tech products. 'We can't solve this with gadgets. What people need is permission to not be perfect. They need community, emotional safety, and to be told that it's okay to ask for help. Because the alternative is watching future generations opt out before they even opt in.' He's also acutely aware of the modern cognitive burden. 'Our parents raised us with Dr. Spock and a pediatrician. Today's parents are drowning in TikTok experts, Reddit forums, and ten thousand parenting philosophies. They're expected to have encyclopedic knowledge and zero margin for error.' Which brings us to Omri Stivi, who's trying to turn the flood of chaotic information into a navigable system. His new company, EraBorn, aims to do for fertility and parenting what GPS did for navigation: offer clear, contextual, step-by-step guidance through an overwhelming journey to parenthood . 'Right now, we raise kids with vibes and Google searches,' he says. 'We trust data to decide our ad spend, our workouts, our business models, but not our parenting or fertility journeys?' Stivi is building a platform draws on clinical research, pediatric consensus, machine learning, large language models and behavioral science to help parents make informed decisions. Instead of replacing parental instinct, he strives to support it. 'We've heard heartbreaking cases of individuals and couples who arrived at a clinic only to be told it was too late-, they would never become parents,' Omri shares. 'We strive to prevent that. Era provides smart, informed navigation and timely decision-making, along with personalized referrals to relevant professionals and resources, before and during pregnancy, so no one misses their window of opportunity.' 'We're not here to tell parents what to do,' Stivi clarifies. 'I'm here to give them the same tools and transparency they expect everywhere else in life. If you can benchmark a company, you should be able to benchmark a fertility protocol, pregnancy plan or feeding schedule.' He also challenges the cultural assumption that parenting is just 'natural.' 'It's the most complex thing we do as humans. It's also the least supported, least structured, and somehow the least personalized and professionalized. That has to change.' Like Rawan, he sees this lack of structure as a deterrent for would-be parents. 'If you saw what your friends went through, and all you have is guesswork ahead of you, why would you do it?' All three of these founders circle the same core insight: parenting doesn't need to be easy. But it should be less opaque, less isolating, and less punishing. 'We built a society that treats children like private decisions instead of public investments,' Barmmer says. 'And now we're surprised people are opting out.' Whether through better preconception health, richer support networks, or clearer information systems, each of these entrepreneurs is laying a stone on the path back from the cliff. Not because they have all the answers, but because they refuse to accept the current default. As Rawan puts it: 'We talk about population collapse like it's inevitable. It's not. But we have to make having kids make sense again. Not as sacrifice, but as fulfillment. Not as martyrdom, but as meaning.' If you're one of those who believes the birthrate panic is overblown, you're right. Humanity is not going extinct. Within every country, every culture, there are subgroups having 2.1 or more children per woman. In the U.S., that might be Orthodox Jews or certain Mormon communities. In the Middle East, the Taliban is outpacing the liberal West demographically. In Africa, the birthrate remains high, even if the economies haven't yet caught up. As Napper puts it: 'All of this is individual decisions, playing out at scale. And it's not distributed evenly. Some groups are growing. Others are vanishing. The future will belong to the ones who choose to build it.' What's changing is the composition of those who will inherit the Earth. And maybe that's the part that should give us pause. The future belongs not to the smartest or the richest, but to those who are willing to invest in it through children, communities, and sacrifice. Demographics do not have to be destiny. What we do now, how we support families, how we shift work, how we make room for joy and rest and generational care, will determine what kind of civilization makes it through this bottleneck. The abyss is real. But so is the ledge on the other side. The question is, will we build a bridge? Or wait until we run out of Coyote Time and fall?
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Opinion - Only the Senate can stop the largest wealth transfer in US history
Last week, the House Republican majority passed what can only be called their 'Big Billionaire Bill' — a budget reconciliation measure that amounts to one the largest transfers of wealth in American history. This measure literally steals from the poor and the working class to give to the ultra-rich. As a member of the Ways and Means Committee, I know firsthand how this bill would take from working people and give to the ultra-wealthy. The consequences will be staggering if it becomes law. Republicans promised tax cuts for all. But under their bill, families making $30,000 or less will actually pay approximately $20 billion more in taxes cumulatively over the next decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. That's not even counting the impact of losing Medicaid or the higher cost of living caused by Trump's tariffs. Meanwhile, billionaires will pocket an average tax break of $255,000 a year. I grew up working class, working jobs at Target and Subway. Republicans want to make people like me believe that they're helping while raising taxes on them, cutting Medicaid and SNAP, and then telling them to have more babies. That's insulting. My Republican colleagues moved their second attempt at a House Budget Committee hearing to the dead of night — after a failed first try and following late-night markups in several committees the previous week. Alongside my Democratic colleagues, we spent nearly 30 hours grinding their agenda nearly to a halt, from Wednesday at 1 a.m. to to 11 p.m. in the Rules Committee and on the floor. The fact that they had to move their last hearing before it could move to the floor at 1 a.m. tells me they're ashamed of themselves. And they should be. Working families want billionaires to pay their fair share, not to lose their health care and nutrition programs for their kids. I hear it from Americans at town halls, on social media, and even at the grocery store. Millions across the country could lose Medicaid coverage: 3.4 million in California, 400,000 in North Carolina, 250,000 in Minnesota, 380,000 in Texas, 390,000 in Virginia, and 1.2 million in New York — moms, kids, and seniors who could be left without health care. These are real people in every district, many represented by Republicans who voted for this bill. Nearly half of new moms and their babies in California rely on Medicaid and could lose their care. Seniors who can't get enough coverage through Medicare will lose. Sons and daughters who can't afford their parents' nursing home care will lose. People in rural communities, where hospitals are already closing, will lose too. Republicans claim to be the party of families. But their bill makes it harder for working people to get by — harder to welcome a new child, get postpartum care, or afford basic medical needs. Worse, Republicans will make it harder for millions of families to afford groceries every month thanks to cuts to nutrition assistance programs. When billionaires can get richer at the expense of working families, what does that say about us as a nation? I fear America's promise of hope and opportunity will dim if this administration keeps pushing us to the point where no one sees a future here anymore. But I refuse to accept a future where America's greatness is measured by the size of its tax breaks for billionaires instead of the strength of our working families. I call on the Senate to reject this bill and protect the American Dream for everyone. Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat, represents California's 34th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump's new travel ban takes effect as tensions escalate over immigration enforcement
President Donald Trump's new ban on travel to the US by citizens from 12 mainly African and Middle Eastern countries took effect Monday amid rising tension over the president's escalating campaign of immigration enforcement. The new proclamation, which Trump signed last week, applies to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also imposes heightened restrictions on people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela who are outside the US and don't hold a valid visa. The ban does not revoke visas previously issued to people from countries on the list, according to guidance issued Friday to all US diplomatic missions. However, unless an applicant meets narrow criteria for an exemption to the ban, his or her application will be rejected starting Monday. Travelers with previously issued visas should still be able to enter the US even after the ban takes effect. During Trump's first term, a hastily written executive order ordering the denial of entry to citizens of mainly Muslim countries created chaos at numerous airports and other ports of entry, prompting successful legal challenges and major revisions to the policy. No such disruption was immediately discernible at Los Angeles International Airport in the hours after the new ban took effect. Haitian-American Elvanise Louis-Juste, who was at the airport earlier Sunday in Newark, New Jersey, awaiting a flight to her home state of Florida, said many Haitians wanting to come to the US are simply seeking to escape violence and unrest. 'I have family in Haiti, so it's pretty upsetting to see and hear,' Louis-Juste, 23, said of the travel ban. 'I don't think it's a good thing. I think it's very upsetting.' Many immigration experts say the new ban is more carefully crafted and appears designed to beat court challenges that hampered the first by focusing on the visa application process. Trump said this time that some countries had 'deficient' screening for passports and other public documents or have historically refused to take back their own citizens. He relied extensively on an annual Homeland Security report of people who remain in the US after their visas expired. Measuring overstay rates has challenged experts for decades, but the government has made a limited attempt annually since 2016. Trump's proclamation cites overstay rates for eight of the 12 banned countries. Trump also tied the new ban to a terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado, saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. US officials say the man charged in the attack overstayed a tourist visa. He is from Egypt, a country that is not on Trump's restricted list. The ban was quickly denounced by groups that provide aid and resettlement help to refugees. 'This policy is not about national security – it is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the United States,' said Abby Maxman, president of Oxfam America, a nonprofit international relief organization. The inclusion of Afghanistan angered some supporters who have worked to resettle its people. The ban does make exceptions for Afghans on Special Immigrant Visas, generally people who worked most closely with the US government during the two-decade-long war there. Afghanistan had been one of the largest sources of resettled refugees, with about 14,000 arrivals in a 12-month period through September 2024. Trump suspended refugee resettlement his first day in office.
