Nike stock took a hit Tuesday morning after an announcement that former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has a new deal with the athletic clothing and footwear maker. Kaepernick is expected to be one of the faces of Nike's 30th anniversary "Just Do It" campaign. WWJ's Mike Campbell talked with Wayne State University Associate Professor of Marketing Jeff Stoltman about the move.

A plan being considered by Republican lawmakers to short-circuit two proposals now slated for the November ballot would be a "blatant" violation of the Michigan Constitution, several legal experts say. The two legislative initiatives in question are strongly opposed by business groups. To keep them off the ballot, some lawmakers have proposed adopting the initiatives this week and then amending them during the lame-duck session after the November election. "It would defeat the purpose of the initiative process for the legislature to turn around and amend the law at the same session," Wayne State University Law Professor Robert Sedler said in an email. 

Thousands of music fans packed Hart Plaza this weekend for the annual jazz festival, but for much of the year, Hart Plaza remains largely empty. In an important way, the problem with Hart Plaza is not just the emptiness of all that concrete but the lack of activities immediately surrounding it. Jefferson remains a barrier, while the Renaissance Center, even after its redo in recent years that saw the creation of the Wintergarden and waterfront plaza, still remains something of a fortress on the river. The great European plazas that inspired places like Hart Plaza, the civic squares in Venice and Siena and other cities, tend to be surrounded by engaging buildings that make the plaza themselves natural gathering spots. That's what's missing here. "Hart Plaza is less of a design issue and more of a demand issue — we need a reason to go there," said Robin Boyle, former chair of urban planning at Wayne State University. Now the City of Detroit is beginning to mull how to enliven Hart Plaza, including whether to scrap the current design that hails from the 1970s and start over with something entirely new.

Marc Kruman, professor of American history and director of the Center for the Study of Citizenship at Wayne State University, reflects on Sen. McCain’s legacy. Kruman says McCain’s final words remind him of George Washington's words addressed to the American people when he left office.. “We minimize what McCain was saying when we simply refer to it as his ‘final letter,’” he says. 

Eleven American colleges and universities, a mix of private and public institutions, have agreed to host at least one endangered scholar for a minimum of two years as part of the New University in Exile Consortium. Along with the New School, its organizer, the group, mostly in the Northeast, includes Barnard, Connecticut, Trinity, and Wellesley Colleges; Brown, Columbia, Georgetown, George Mason, and Wayne State Universities; and Rutgers University at Newark. 

As you watch fireflies flit around your backyard at night, do you ever wonder, "How does that firefly do it? What makes him glow?" Chemistry professor A. Paul Schaap asked himself this very question while working in his lab at Wayne State University where he was searching for the molecule at the heart of "bioluminescence."

Conversation piece by Tamara-Hew Butler

If you’re living with a chronic illness—as half of all Americans are—then you may want to check any unnecessary bickering. According to a recent study published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, the only thing worse than living with a chronic condition is fighting with your partner while living with a chronic condition. Researchers were interested in getting a better understanding of how the day-to-day interactions in a marriage impact the health of a person living with a chronic disease.

With August football practice fast approaching, every coach’s favorite cheer will be to “stay hydrated” and “keep urine clear” during the summer heat. In 2017, a University of Texas football coach created a urine-based “Longhorn Football Hydration Chart,” which labeled players with yellow urine as “selfish teammates” and those with brown urine as “bad guys.” This “hydration shaming” practice has permeated high school sports, thereby encouraging a sporting culture which equates superior performance with superior hydration.

Robert Sedler, professor of law and constitutional law expert, was a guest on the Craig Fahle show discussing recent Michigan Supreme Court decisions. Sedler said that Michigan school districts can ban the open carry of weapons on school property. Michigan law prohibits holders of concealed pistol permits from carrying them on school property except that parents picking up or dropping off children may have the pistol in the car. The Court held that Michigan law prohibiting units of local government - defined as city, village, township or county - from enacting gun regulation did not include school districts. Also discussed was the upcoming decision from the Michigan Supreme Court in a challenge to the ballot proposal for a redistricting commission. The challengers contend that it is a general revision of the constitution, which can only be done by a convention. The Court of Appeals unanimously held that it is a constitutional amendment and not a general revision. Sedler said that the decision is clearly correct, because the amendment only deals with one topic, redistricting, and does not change the form of government.

The Michigan Supreme Court decided late Tuesday to keep a proposal to change the way Michigan draws voting district lines on the November ballot in 4-3 decision released late Tuesday night. The decision came after months of contentious legal proceedings which kept the proposal, by the group Voters Not Politicians, in limbo. The opposition group, Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution,  unsuccessfully argued that the measure was too broad to legally go before voters. Instead, that group argued it would require a constitutional convention in order to make the changes. Susan Fino, professor of political science, commented to Bridge ahead of the decision last week. “It’s clearly a valid initiative petition that meets all the constitutional requirements, so unless the Court is willing to expose themselves as overtly political, they really can’t keep it off the ballot.”

Mayor Mike Duggan has selected a former UAW-Ford executive to lead the city's Department of Neighborhoods. Ex-UAW-Ford vice president Jimmy Settles Jr. is to replace Charlie Beckham, who is retiring Sept. 1. Marick Masters, director of the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at Wayne State University, said he'd intended to hire Settles at the university before Settles got a call from the mayor. "He can do a lot more good there," Masters said. "He is very good at connecting with people, but he’s also demanding. He expects a workforce to work. He realizes that you have to have high levels of productivity to compete."

Russ Carroll was a bit above it all and Dan Zowada was more down to Earth, but they shared an interest in the stars, and the two kids like that in a class will always form their own constellation. As high school ended, they took separate paths. Carroll, who is brilliant, went mostly west. Zowada, who was creative, stayed put. Then three years and two weeks ago, Zowada died — which is where the rest of the story begins. Nearly 2,000 miles away from the glow of Detroit's skyline, in the desert of southwest New Mexico, sits the Dan Zowada Memorial Observatory — Wayne State University’s gateway to the cosmos. The observatory and land were gifted to WSU's Department of Physics and Astronomy by Carroll, a retired entrepreneur and astronomer, in honor of Zowada, his late childhood friend.

US Ecology, an Idaho-based company, is close to receiving approval for a large expansion of its hazardous waste facility on Detroit’s east side, near Hamtramck. The expansion would increase the facility’s storage capacity nine-fold, from 76,000 to 677,000 gallons. Despite the facility’s spotty history, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) is completing its approval of US Ecology’s proposed expansion. Noah Hall, founder of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center (GLELC) and professor of law at Wayne State University, is a sharp critic of MDEQ. He said the agency often gives polluters a free pass in Michigan, especially “in disenfranchised communities and in populations that our political system hasn’t cared much about.”

A former labor official told federal prosecutors that United Auto Workers President Dennis Williams directed subordinates to use funds from Detroit’s automakers, funneled through training centers, to pay for union travel, meals and entertainment. Money filtered through the training centers for the benefit of UAW officials is at the center of a widening scandal that has led to seven convictions, a shakeup at the highest levels of the auto industry and raised questions about the sanctity of labor negotiations between the union and Detroit's automakers. "Maybe this is what the senior levels of the UAW were used to, but at its core, this is a significant betrayal of trust," said Peter Henning, a Wayne State University law professor and former federal prosecutor. "This is how a small fraud becomes a much bigger one."

Research conducted at the Wayne State University School of Medicine has helped confirm the effectiveness of a blood biomarker that can indicate if patients with a head injury can avoid a costly CT scan because the blood test results indicate no traumatic brain injury (TBI). The findings, published online in The Lancet Neurology on July 24, validated the use of a diagnostic blood test developed by Banyan Biomarkers Inc. to rule out the need for a head CT scan in patients 18 years and older with suspected TBI.

Many forms of childhood cancers have gone from being a death sentence to a curable disease. Thanks to advances in treatments, the overall survival rate for childhood cancers has increased from 10% a few decades ago to nearly 90% today. This means that by the year 2020, an estimated half a million survivors of childhood cancer will be living in the U.S. With more children surviving, though, it has become increasingly clear that cancer and the subsequent treatments, such as chemo or radiation therapy, can have long-term negative effects that extend beyond physical problems such as hair loss, pain, and physical disability. Indeed, similar to “chemo brain” in adults, childhood cancer and its treatment may have harmful effects on brain development, causing problems with attention, memory, and language, and also leading to depression and anxiety. Based on studies using neuroimaging to examine brain structure and function also suggest that the treatments that are needed to save children’s lives can also be harmful to neural development.

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is hoping for clemency from President Donald Trump, but he might need friends in high places to plead his case directly with the White House. The 48-year-old Democrat has filed a petition for commutation — a reduction of his sentence — but he doesn't appear to meet the Justice Department's standards for considering clemency. Kilpatrick isn’t eligible for a pardon under the department’s guidelines because he’s still serving a prison sentence. In 2016, nearly 29,000 people signed a Change.org petition asking President Barack Obama to grant clemency to Kilpatrick, arguing that while Kilpatrick was “wrong,” 28 years in prison is "excessive." “Certainly, a 28-year sentence is among the longest given for a public corruption case ever. That’s the basis for a claim of unfairness. Whether that resonates is a different question,” said Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University and a former federal prosecutor. “I think you can make an argument that he’s received a substantial punishment so far, but whether that results in a reduction in his sentence is very much an open question.” Henning added: “I suspect the local U.S. Attorney’s Office would not look upon it favorably on a pardon or clemency, but that doesn’t preclude it from happening.”

Abortion is re-emerging as a wedge issue in Michigan’s gubernatorial election amid speculation over the fate of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that invalidated broad state laws that criminalized abortion. Democrat hopefuls say they would fight for a woman’s right to choose a legal abortion if federal safeguards are overturned. Republican candidates say they would defend an old state law that would again make it a crime. Experts who say the ban would again take effect if Roe v Wade is overturned point to a Michigan Supreme Court decision in 1973. Justices blocked the enforcement of the state law against physicians but did not repeal it. The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in 1997 that there is no right to abortion under the state Constitution. Robert Sedler, a professor of law and constitutional expert at Wayne State University, agreed that if Roe were overturned, “as of that moment abortion would be illegal in Michigan.” But Sedler said he cannot imagine the high court, no matter its makeup, overturning Roe. “It would be cataclysmic,” he said. “The criteria for overturning is it has to be undercut by later decisions, and there can’t have been societal reliance on that decision.”

Co-developed in 2011 by Sarah Draugelis and two of her WSU classmates, Team fEMR is now used by at least five medical relief organizations, including doctors and students at Wayne State with the World Health Student Organization (WHSO) and International Samaritans of Ann Arbor.