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Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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ELECTIONS
Obama campaigns with El-Sayed, Benson ahead of midterm elections Obama told Detroit crowd “enough is enough,” defending El-Sayed against attacks on his faith and loyalty
Bridgette Bol/DAILY
Former President Barack Obama speaks during a rally in Detroit Saturday afternoon.
GIA VERMA & ZAHRA KAGAL Daily News Editor Daily Staff Reporter
Former President Barack Obama took the stage at Cass Technical High School in Detroit Saturday evening before a crowd of thousands of people to rally for Abdul El-Sayed, Jocelyn Benson and other Michigan Democrats on the first day of early voting in the state. Obama opened his speech by framing the upcoming election
as Michigan voters’ chance to change the current direction of the country. “People are so ready for something new, so hungry for something better, so sick and tired of being sick and tired that everywhere you go it feels like change is in the air,” Obama said. “That’s what you get a chance to do in 10 days after ten 10 years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence, tomfoolery, nonsense, the likes of which this country has not seen in modern times at least. You get to say enough is enough.
Before Obama spoke, the crowd heard from a lineup of state Democrats, including Crystal Brock, One Team Michigan field organizer; Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield; Lakia Wilson-Lumpkins, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers; Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel; Michigan House Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri, D-Canton; Lt. Gov. candidate Winnie Brinks; Christina Hines, the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s 10th Congressional District; and U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, as well as the Democratic ticket’s candidates for governor,
ADMINISTRATION
ACLU, Amnesty International accuses UMich of suppressing Pro-Palestine protest
attorney general, secretary of state and U.S. Senate. During his speech, Eli Savit, Democratic nominee for attorney general, said he and the other Democratic candidates in statewide races will protect Michiganders. “I do not care who it is that is harming the people of the state of Michigan,” Savit said. “Whether it’s your boss stealing from your paycheck, a corporate polluter, a criminal on the street, a corporation price gouging you or the president of the United States himself, if you come to Michigan,
I will see you in court, and that is what this entire ticket represents.” Garlin Gilchrist, Democratic nominee for secretary of state, then took the stage. Gilchrist said, if elected, he aims to use his power to stand against other powerful people who aim to exploit Michiganders. “Powerful people never pass up a chance to use and show that they are powerful,” Gilchrist said. “If you don’t use your power to win, the other side will use theirs to ensure that you lose. This is why I’m running to be your next secretary of state of Michigan to protect that power, to expand that power.”
Following Gilchrist’s speech, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson said voters must make a choice on who and what they stand for. “(There are) just ten days to show who we are, what we stand for and what we’re fighting for,” Benson said. “This election is a choice between leaders who will show up every day — as I will and as everyone you’re hearing from tonight will — and who will work to bring down costs, raise wages and end corruption.”
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ANN ARBOR
City Council passes bill of rights for the unhoused, ban on animal glue traps
The two-year investigation cited the 2024 encampment The council also rejected rezoning Woodbury Gardens clearing, trespass bans and use of private investigators and bought a flood-prone property on Felch Street CALEB OBICO
Daily Staff Reporter
The American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International USA released a joint report Sept. 23, criticizing how several prominent universities responded to pro-Palestinian student protests. The protests called for an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and demanded the universities — including the University of Michigan — divest from companies connected to Israel. The report was based on a twoyear investigation covering 46 public and 34 private university and college campuses. In most cases, the report found evidence of suppressed student speech, which it alleged has aided in President Donald Trump’s administration’s crackdown against higher education. “Colleges and universities violated basic free speech, association, and assembly rights
and caused serious harm when they summoned campus police and local law enforcement, resulting in arrests and unlawful and unnecessary use of force,” the report read. “Universities’ responses to campus-related Palestine advocacy and proPalestinian demonstrations have been more punitive in comparison with their historical responses to other comparable demonstrations over decades.” The University was explicitly named for allegedly suppressing freedom of speech. The report described “harsh” methods, including disciplinary action against students, legal prosecution and surveillance through private investigators. The University was also used as a case study in the report, detailing the history of negative interactions between the administration and protesters. The report cited a variety of incidents, including 17 student activists being barred from entering the Alexander G.
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Ruthven Building, where the University’s Board of Regents convenes; the clearing of the 2024 encampment by Division of Public Safety and Security officers using pepper spray, tear gas and batons; University contracts with surveillance and private security companies, culminating in an ongoing 2026 lawsuit filed by a student who alleged private investigators had conducted prolonged intrusive surveillance of him; and FBI raids against student organizers, among many others. The report also discussed an ongoing 2025 lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Michigan and the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice against the University for banishing students from campus via trespass bans, effectively barring their presence on the Ann Arbor campus under threat of criminal trespass charges.
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DOMINIC APAP Daily News Editor
During Monday’s meeting, the Ann Arbor City Council approved a resolution establishing a bill of rights for people experiencing homelessness. The resolution outlines the right to use public spaces, ask for disability accommodations, keep personal information private, register to vote and receive emergency medical care. It also reaffirms the right to fair treatment by city employees and fair employment opportunities. Jonathan Laye, director of Ann Arbor’s Supportive Connections program, said the resolution will help the unhoused maintain their right to exist in the city. “It reinforces that enforcement should be based on conduct, applied fairly and consistently, and never based solely on someone’s
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housing status,” Laye said. “This resolution will not create any additional shelter beds tomorrow (or) immediately expand affordable housing. … (But) it affirms that we can maintain public safety without criminalizing homelessness.” City Councilmember Cynthia Harrison, D-Ward 1, said the resolution will prevent unhoused people from accumulating citations for simply existing in public spaces. “When someone is sleeping outside because they have nowhere else to go, a citation or a night in jail doesn’t fix any of that,” Harrison said. “It doesn’t create a bed — it creates a record, and a record makes it harder to rent, harder to get hired.” The council also defeated a rezoning ordinance at Woodbury Gardens, which would have allowed for a new proposed housing development. Additionally, City Council purchased a property at 124 Felch St. — located in the Allen
Creek floodway — with plans to demolish the current structure to reduce flood risks. City Council also approved a ban on glue traps, which are strong adhesive traps designed to capture rodents or other small animals. The ban does not apply to traps meant to capture insects. Resident Crysania Dangoor said glue traps inflict unnecessary pain on animals, and this ban helps protect local wildlife. “Glue traps are an extremely cruel way to catch animals — they can suffer for hours or days while they suffocate,” Dangoor said. “Small birds can get attached to them, even endangered species, and some domestic animals like cats and dogs — very small ones — can also get injured by glue traps. They’re also not effective. There are plenty of humane ways to catch and relocate rodents that work just as well, if not better.”
NEWS...................1 OPINION...............8 INDEX ELECTION GUIDE......3 M I C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 0 Vol. CXXXVII No. 26 ©2026 The Michigan Daily A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1
2 — Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Election Guide
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
2 0 2 6 Meet Republican nominee Mike Rogers E C T EI L EN C T I N G G U I D E U I D E 2026 U.S. Senate
VOTE NOW THROUGH NOV 3
VOTE NOW THROUGH NOV 3
Mike Rogers, a former member of the United States House of Representatives, ran unopposed in the Republican primary and has received endorsements from Republican politicians, including President Donald Trump. Rogers, a Michigan native, grew up in Livingston County and attended Adrian College while working in the
automotive industry. He studied criminal justice and sociology while remaining active in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, and joined the Army after graduation. Following his service, he worked for the FBI as a special agent for five years. Rodgers was elected to the Michigan Senate in 1994, representing the 26th District, where he became majority floor leader in 1999. In 2000, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in Michigan’s
8th District, rising to chairman bring manufacturing jobs back of the House Permanent Select to Michigan, make housing more Committee on Intelligence. affordable and lower healthcare Rogers’ time in the House was costs. He has pledged to work with defined by post-9/11 security Trump to return manufacturing legislation, co-sponsorship of jobs to Michigan. While he has 106 bills primarily focused on defended Trump’s tariffs, he called healthcare and education and for an end to the trade war with opposition to former VOTE President NOWCanada in his final debate against THROUGH Barack Obama’s tax policies. Rogers El-Sayed. NOV 3 also opposed the Affordable Care His housing plan targets Act and voted against allowing support for first-time homebuyers, Medicare to negotiate prescription proposing expanding tax-free 529 drug prices. savings accounts for families to Rogers’ campaign promises to use for down payments, cutting
E L ECT I N Key endorsements GU I D E
regulations and offering incentives for new construction. Rogers has proposed requiring hospitals and insurers to post their prices and expanding TrumpRx, a platform that sources prescription drugs at discounted prices. Rogers is pro-life and opposes gun control legislation. He supports sending aid to Israel and originally supported the U.S and Israel’s war in Iran, though he has recently called for an end to the war. He supports Trump’s immigration enforcement and a secure border.
U.S. President Donald Trump
Michigan Farm Bureau
Detroit Regional Chamber PAC
President Donald Trump endorsed Rogers in July 2025, three months after Rogers announced his candidacy. Rogers has made Trump’s endorsement a centerpiece of his campaign,
Michigan Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization, endorsed Rogers in June 2026. The private, member-run nonprofit lobbies for farmers and agriculture in Lansing and Washington, D.C. The endorsement came specifically from AgriPac,
The Detroit Regional Chamber PAC endorsed Rogers in September. The chamber is the state’s largest local chamber of commerce and organizes the annual Mackinac
Policy Conference. According to the Rogers campaign, it was the chamber’s first endorsement of a Republican U.S. Senate nominee in more than 30 years.
repeatedly expressing his commitment to Trump and his agenda. In an August post to Truth Social, Trump highlighted Rogers’ military service and commitment to affordability.
described as MFB’s nonpartisan political action committee. The MFB’s endorsement gives Rogers credibility within the farming community at a time when Trump’s trade war with Canada is putting financial pressure on Michigan farmers.
Meet Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed Abdul El-Sayed is a progressive former public health official who has never held elected office. He narrowly defeated U.S. Rep Haley Stevens, D-Birmingham, in the August primary, despite facing nearly $65 million in outside spending. If elected, he would be the first Muslim U.S. senator. After the primary, prominent Democrats who backed Stevens, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Peters, endorsed El-Sayed. They joined earlier supporters, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and the United Auto Workers. El-Sayed is a Michigan native. He was born in Rochester Hills and raised in the Detroit area by his
father, an Egyptian immigrant who came to the U.S. to study at Wayne State University, and his stepmother. El-Sayed attended the University of Michigan as an undergraduate and began a combined medical and doctorate degree program, before pursuing a Rhodes Scholarship and earning a doctorate in public health at the University of Oxford. He later earned his medical degree from Columbia University but never completed a residency — a point Rogers has repeatedly attacked. He then taught epidemiology at Columbia. In 2015, then-Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan appointed El-Sayed to rebuild the city’s
health department, which was privatized following Detroit’s 2014 bankruptcy. At 30, he became the youngest health official in a major American city. In 2017, El-Sayed unsuccessfully ran for governor, finishing second to Whitmer in the 2018 Democratic primary. He began directing Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human and Veteran Services in 2023, before resigning to run for Senate in 2025. At the county, he oversaw a medical debt relief program that aimed to erase $700 million in debt, which has so far only paid off $57.4 million of its goal. El-Sayed’s campaign centers three priorities: barring corporate
money from influencing elections, prescription drug prices. improving affordability, and On foreign policy, passing Medicare for All. He also El-Sayed breaks with proposes abolishing the Senate much of his party. He filibuster, ending gerrymandering opposes unconditional and taxing billionaire wealth. military aid to any He has not accepted corporate country, including PAC donations. Since the August Israel, and has said primary, he has focused on the Israel is committing cost of living, healthcare access a genocide in Gaza. and Michigan’s housing crisis. He During the October specifically wants to eliminate the debate, he said the war NOWwith Iran “makes no sense,” cap on payroll taxes, offerVOTE property tax relief to seniors and THROUGH ban large pointing to diplomacy under NOV 3 corporations from owning single- former President Barack Obama. On family homes. He has also targeted immigration, El-Sayed has called Rogers’ healthcare policies, airing a for abolishing U.S. Immigration $2.3 million ad campaign critiquing and Customs Enforcement since Rogers’ record on opioids and 2018, arguing the agency cannot
be reformed or retrained, though he says he supports a secure border and comprehensive immigration reform.
in the race and criticized the tax policy of congressional Republicans under President Donald Trump, saying El-Sayed is well-equipped to fight for working families.
The United Auto Workers endorsed El-Sayed on June 5 — before the primary — and has continued to back him in the general election. The Detroit-based union represents more than 400,000 workers nationwide, including more than
300,000 Michigan auto workers. In Michigan, the endorsement carries particular weight, where one in five jobs belongs to the auto industry. The union cited El-Sayed’s refusal to accept money from corporate political action committees.
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., endorsed El-Sayed on Aug. 5, the day after the primary election. Peters, whose retirement opened the seat, had endorsed Stevens in July after initially saying he would stay neutral in the race. Since
the primary, Peters has also helped El-Sayed raise money in Washington, D.C., and he and Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., asked the Senate Democratic Caucus in September to give El-Sayed financial and fundraising support.
He won the Republican nomination on Aug. 4, 2026, defeating businessman Perry Johnson. On Aug. 13, James announced he selected state Rep. Jay DeBoyer, R-Clay Township, as his running mate in the Michigan gubernatorial election. DeBoyer has represented Michigan’s 63rd House District since 2023. His district encompasses southern St. Clair County and northern Macomb County. He currently serves as chairman of the House Oversight Committee. Before running for public office, DeBoyer worked as the St. Clair County clerk. He also owns a small
business specialized in engineered lumber based in St. Clair County. James has proposed cutting Michigan’s state income tax by 25%, with hopes of phasing it out entirely, as well as lowering property taxes to help lower cost of living. James plans on reinstating Michigan’s former third-grade reading retention law, which required students who were behind in reading to repeat the grade. With respect to immigration, he has asserted that state agencies and local law enforcement should cooperate with federal immigration enforcement and that Michigan should not adopt sanctuary policies that prevent said cooperation.
Majority Leader, being the first woman to hold the rank. Brinks has made clean drinking water, including efforts to address PFAS contamination, a major focus of her legislative work. Benson has built a platform on eight pillars: affordability, housing, healthcare, childcare, energy costs, education, data centers and environment. Her proposals include streamlining construction rules and regulating corporate investors who buy homes to generate affordable housing, as well as creating an independent Prescription Drug Affordability Board, bringing Rx Kids — an infant cash program — statewide, and increasing
transparency in medical billing and medical debt relief. She has also called for a moratorium on any new data center developments. James and Benson will be on the ballot this Nov. 3 in the race for Michigan governor.
2026 E L ECT I N Key endorsements G U I D E Former U.S. Vice President United Auto Workers U.S. Senator Gary Peters Kamala Harris
Former Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed El-Sayed on Aug. 7, three days after the primary, in a press release shared by El-Sayed’s campaign. Harris pointed to the cost of living as a central issue
Michigan Governor
Meet Republican nominee John James
U.S. Rep. John James, R-Mich., has represented Michigan’s 10th congressional district, which covers parts of Macomb County and Oakland County in Southeast Michigan, since 2022. James was born and raised in Southfield, Michigan. He graduated
from the United States Military Academy at West Point and served eight years in the U.S. Army as a helicopter pilot. After the military, James earned a master’s degree in supply chain management from The Pennsylvania State University and a MBA from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Before entering politics, James served as CEO of Renaissance Global Logistics and president of James Group International, a Detroit-based supply chain management company founded by his father. James first ran for public office in 2018, securing the Republican
nomination for U.S. Senate before losing to incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. He ran again in 2020, winning the Republican nomination a second time but ultimately losing to incumbent Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich. In 2022, James won the midterm election to the U.S. House of Representatives, defeating former Macomb County Circuit Court judge and Democrat Carl Marlinga to represent Michigan’s 10th congressional district. He won re-election in 2024. In Congress, James voted to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a sweeping spending and tax bill
backed by President Donald Trump. He also introduced legislation to reverse electric vehicle regulations, fund sickle cell disease research and increase efforts to combat human trafficking. He launched his gubernatorial campaign on April 7, 2025, and entered a competitive Republican primary. President Donald Trump endorsed James on June 22, 2026, after which some of his competitors, including Michigan Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, R-Van Buren, and former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, suspended their campaigns and endorsed James.
Meet Democratic nominee Jocelyn Benson Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has served as Michigan’s secretary of state since 2019. Born in Pennsylvania, Benson earned her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College before attending Magdalen College at Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar for a Master of Philosophy in sociology. She earned her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. She served as dean of Wayne State University Law School from 2012 to 2016, the youngest woman to lead an accredited U.S. law school. There, she led a tuition freeze, increased scholarship offerings and lowered tuition to help make the university more affordable to students.
In 2012, she also cofounded and served as president of Military Spouses of Michigan — a network dedicated to supporting military spouses and their children — following her husband’s enlistment. As secretary of state, Benson updated Michigan’s motor vehicle department, which previously had some of the longest wait times in the country. Now the department has average wait times of 20 minutes or fewer. She also created 150 Secretary of State self-service stations at branch offices and grocery stores like Meijer and Kroger and implemented technological updates that increased the number
of completed online transactions by 32%. Benson has overseen three statewide elections, including the 2020 election, when President Donald Trump attempted to overturn the results. As a result, Republicans have frequently sued Benson and the Michigan Department of State, and Benson has won 57 cases and lost five. Benson also created an Election Security Advisory Commission in 2019 to help prevent election fraud and ensure voter security. Benson launched her bid for governor in Jan. 2025 and defeated Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson during the Aug. 4 primary, receiving 83.2% of the
vote. Following her nomination, she announced state Sen. Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, as her pick for running mate. She has received endorsements from several key Democratic figures, including Whitmer; U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Mich.; Michigan House Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri, D-Canton; and the United Auto Workers. Brinks, her running mate, served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2013 to 2018, representing District 76. Currently, she represents District 29 as a state senator. Brinks also served as Senate Democratic Whip from 2019 to 2022 and is currently the Michigan Senate
Election Guide
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Wednesday, October 28, 2026 — 3
2026 Amir Makled Paul Brown E L ECT I N I N GU I D GU I D E University of Michigan Board of Regents
VOTE NOW THROUGH NOV 3
The Board of Regents is the governing body of all University of Michigan campuses including Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn. The board consists of eight elected officials serving for overlapping eight year terms. They are elected two at a time in staggered, two year cycles. The regents have general supervision over the university, including oversight over the university’s president. The Regents additionally oversee budgeting, divestment and investment of university funds, construction and tuition.
Amir Makled, a Democratic candidate, is running for regent for the first time. A civil rights attorney and a University of Michigan-Dearborn and Wayne State University graduate, Makled’s platform is largely focused on affordability, and aims to instill a tuition freeze on all U-M campuses and increase the threshold of the Go Blue Guarantee. While on the campaign trail, Makled has also been an outspoken opponent of the University’s planned data center in Ypsilanti Township and the Trump administration. Makled is currently a partner at MakledHall.
Paul Brown, a Democratic candidate and the only incumbent on the ballot, is running for his second term. A University of Michigan and Wayne State University alum, he has helped codify policies like the Go Blue Guarantee, increased the presence of labor unions on campus and repeatedly spoken out against the University’s planned data center in Ypsilanti township. Brown is also a founder and managing partner of eLab Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on artificial intelligence.
Michael Schostak
Lena Epstein
Lena Epstein, a Republican candidate, is running for regent for the second time. A Harvard and University of Michigan alum, she served as co-chair of Trump’s 2016 Michigan campaign before running for the Board in 2022 and losing by a 0.7% margin. Epstein’s campaign focuses on increasing affordability via budget oversight and advocates for an apolitical board supporting free speech on campus. Epstein is the co-owner of Vesco Oil Corporation
Andrew Chadderdon
Andrew Chadderdon, a libertarian candidate, is running for regent for the first time. Chadderdon is a University of Michigan alum looking to strengthen constitutional rights at the University. His platform focuses on equal application of the law to all University personnel and places emphasis on the First, Second and Fourth Amendments. Chadderdon previously served as Chair of the Michigan Libertarian Party.
Michael Schostak, a Republican candidate, is running for regent for the first time. A University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan alum, his platform focuses on accessibility and affordability, emphasizing in-state students. Schostak supports raising the Go Blue Guarantee threshold, redefining assets so home equity value is no longer counted and increasing the amount of in-state student threshold to approximately 70% of the student body. He also supports capping tuition and promoting free speech on campus. He is the current treasurer of Bloomfield Township.
Kyle Maas
Kyle Maas, a U.S. Taxpayer candidate, is running for regent for the first time. His campaign is focused on affordability, two-way dialogue and student employability post graduation. He has spoken in favor of financial transparency while on the campaign trail and supports free speech and raising the standards required for graduation.
Supreme Court
The State Supreme Court is the highest court in the state. It has discretionary authority to review cases directed to it from the Michigan Court of Appeals and oversees the state’s lower courts. The State Supreme Court consists of 7 justices who serve 8-year terms. Candidates are nominated by political parties at conventions but elected on a nonpartisan ballot. Six candidates are running for two seats on the court in the 2026 midterm elections.
Megan Cavanagh
Casandra Morse-Bills
Chief Justice Megan Cavanagh is running for re-election to retain her seat on the Michigan Supreme Court. The Michigan Democratic Party endorsed Cavanagh at its convention in April. She graduated from the University of Michigan and earned her law degree from Wayne State University Law School. She practiced appellate law in Detroit for more than 15 years before being elected to the Michigan Supreme Court in 2018 and was unanimously elected by her colleagues as Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court in March 2025.
Judge Casandra Morse-Bills is one of the Republican candidates endorsed for the Michigan Supreme Court. After earning her law degree from Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Morse-Bills began her career as a private practice attorney before serving as the elected Oscoda County prosecuting attorney. She currently serves as presiding judge in the 23rd Judicial Circuit after being elected in 2018. Morse-Bills also serves as a member of the Michigan Judicial Council.
Justice Noah Hood is running to retain his seat on the Michigan Supreme Court. The Michigan Democratic Party endorsed Hood at its convention in April. After earning his law degree from Harvard Law School, Hood started his career practicing commercial litigation in Detroit. He then served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in both Toledo and Detroit before being appointed to the Third Judicial Circuit Court in Detroit in 2019 and to the Michigan Court of Appeals, where he served from 2022 to 2025. Hood was appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2025.
Judge Michael Warren is one of the Republican candidates running for the Michigan Supreme Court. He has served on the Oakland County Circuit Court for over 20 years and presided over more than 400 jury trials. Warren graduated from Wayne State University before getting his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School. After law school, he served on the Michigan State Board of Education before beginning his tenure as an Oakland County Circuit Court Judge. Outside of the courtroom, Warren has authored several books and worked as a business law professor at Wayne State University, also teaching constitutional law at Western Michigan University Cooley Law School.
Noah Hood
Jody White
Jody White is running for a seat on the Michigan Supreme Court as one of the U.S. Taxpayers Party nominees. She is a Livonia resident and works as a real estate agent. She served as the Executive Secretary and State Committeewoman for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District Republican Committee from 2014 to 2018.
Michael Warren
Thomas W. How
Thomas Howe is running for a seat on the Michigan Supreme Court as one of the U.S. Taxpayers Party nominees. He is a resident of Fenton and he works as a mechanical engineer.
Secretary of State
The Michigan Secretary is the head of the Michigan State Department, which has jurisdiction over elections, DMV operations, vehicle titles and branch offices across the state. It is a statewide elected official that serves 4-year terms, limited to two. As the state’s Chief Election Officer, the SoS oversees the Michigan Bureau of Elections and maintains the statewide voter registration database. They also supervise the city and township clerks who run elections locally.
Garlin Gilchrist
Garlin Gilchrist is the Democratic candidate for Michigan secretary of state. He has served as Michigan lieutenant governor since January 2019 alongside Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, becoming Michigan’s first African American lieutenant governor. A University of Michigan alum, Gilchrist served as chair of the National Lieutenant Governors Association and has led task forces on jail and pretrial incarceration, juvenile justice and COVID-19 racial disparities. Gilchrist founded the University of Michigan Center for Social Media Responsibility. If elected, he aims to advocate for dark money out of politics, modernize licensing and registration, stand against big tech and hold auto companies accountable.
Anthony Forlini
Anthony Forlini is the Republican candidate for Michigan secretary of state and currently serves as the Macomb County Clerk and Register of Deeds, since elected in 2020. He previously was Harrison Township supervisor and a state representative for Michigan’s 24th House district from 2011 to 2016. Forlini’s platform is centered around election integrity, and government transparency. Forlini says if elected, he will protect voter information from third-party groups, require watermarked ballots, cut office wait times and audit county clerks to maintain consistency.
Attorney General
The Michigan attorney general is the state’s highest law enforcement officer and chief lawyer. The office is elected statewide with four-year terms, limited to two. The AG has many roles, including acting as the state’s lawyer, suing on the state’s behalf and investigating unfair business practices. While county prosecutors handle most criminal cases, the attorney general’s office prosecutes certain statewide crimes, such as public corruption and human trafficking.
Eli Savit
Eli Savit is the Democratic candidate for Michigan attorney general. Since 2021, Savit has been the prosecuting attorney of Washtenaw County. Savit worked as Senior Legal Counsel for the city of Detroit before he was elected Prosecuting Attorney for Washtenaw County. As prosecuting attorney, he instituted special-victims and domestic violence units and Washtenaw County’s first conviction integrity and expungement unit to remedy wrongful convictions and help clear old criminal records. Savit’s campaign focuses on defending workers’ rights, protecting consumers and holding commercial polluters accountable.
Doug Lloyd
Douglas Lloyd is the Republican candidate for Michigan attorney general. Since 2013, Lloyd has served as Eaton County’s chief law enforcement officer. Lloyd previously practiced private law, specializing in criminal defense and real estate, and worked as a senior assistant prosecutor for the Economic Crimes Unit and as chief assistant prosecutor. In 2013, Lloyd was appointed to the Organized Retail Fraud Advisory Board. He also served on the Insurance Task Force established in September 2013 by Secretary of State Ruth Johnson. Lloyd’s campaign focuses on prosecuting criminals fairly without political bias, rooting out corruption and protecting Michigan against political overreach.
U.S. House of Representatives
Debbie Dingell
Debbie Dingell, Michigan’s 6th Congressional District Democratic candidate and incumbent, has represented the district since 2015, succeeding her late husband, former U.S. Rep. John Dingell. In the House, Dingell has focused on protecting the Great Lakes, rebuilding domestic manufacturing — including renegotiating the United StatesMexico-Canada Agreement and shaping tariffs to help U.S. industry — strengthening Social Security and expanding access to long-term and mental healthcare for seniors and veterans.
Heather Smiley
Heather Smiley, Republican candidate for Michigan’s 6th Congressional District, previously worked at Ford Motor Company for 32 years. Smiley’s platform spans 19 issue areas, including calling for eliminating wasteful government spending, balancing the budget and protecting election integrity. She also supports term limits for elected officials and pushes for energy infrastructure improvements.
VOTE THRO NOV
Election Guide
4 — Wednesday, October 28, 2026
DATA
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Can Abdul El-Sayed win over Michigan voters who skipped the August primary? 2026. Voter turnout rates depend on many factors — geographic location, party affiliation and the age of voters all factor in, though lower voter turnout rates in midterm primaries are generally expected. However, the midterm elections themselves tend to garner higher turnout compared to their primaries. With the 2026 midterms being consequential in determining the next two years’ Congressional majority, particularly in Michigan, analysis of exactly who didn’t vote in August could provide context to answer the question: Who’s going to vote in November? For its part, the proportion of Michigan voters in the primaries tends to be above the national average. Turnout of votingeligible residents in the 2026 primaries was about 34% for Michigan, a jump from 29% in the 2022 midterm primaries. However, in that year’s general midterms, 57% of the votingage population cast a ballot — a 33-percentage-point difference in turnout. Even for a state with a relatively high primary turnout rate, a large share of voters only turn out in November. Among counties in Michigan, turnout at this year’s primaries ranged from just 18% of registered voters in Sanilac County to about 46% in Leelanau County. Generally, lower turnout of registered voters is concentrated in Southwest Michigan along the MichiganIndiana border. Higher turnout of registered voters was clustered around Southeast Michigan.
High voter turnout rates are concentrated in Southeast Michigan
The left bar for each county represents the percent of registered voters who voted in the 2022 primary, while the right bar represents the percent of registered voters who voted in the 2022 general election
Difference in total voters in the 2022 general versus the 2022 primary election
MAGGIE CHRISTOFFERSEN Daily Data Journalist
In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate by just one percentage point, in an election where only about a third of Michigan’s voting-eligible population participated. Looking back, in the last midterm election in 2022, turnout rose by about 28 percentage points between the primary and general elections. Whether that happens again could decide El-Sayed’s hotly-contested race against Republican senate nominee Mike Rogers. Comparing census and voting data, we found that counties with large vote-count gaps between the primary and general midterm elections tend to be highly-populated, urban and suburban communities that lean blue. Additionally, higher differences between turnout of registered voters occur in numerous counties home to universities, meaning they have a substantial 18-24 aged population. Together, each of these facts point to El-Sayed winning over Michigan voters who skipped the primary in August. But a bigger November electorate does not automatically favor Democrats, as 2022 and 2024 showed. Though 2026 has brought the highest primary election turnout of the last four midterm elections, average voter turnout across states hovers at about 23% as of
Wayne, Washtenaw, and Ingham counties are among the counties with the highest percentdifference in turnout for the 2022 primary versus general elections
Voter turnout for the 2026 midterm primaries compared to the number of registered voters in each county
More Michiganders vote in the primaries than the average American In the last five primaries, the primary turnout was higher in Michigan than on average in the United States
Maggie Christoffersen/DAILY Source: Bipartisan Policy Center
Maggie Christoffersen/DAILY Sources: US Census 2024 (Counties), US State Population Estimate (2024) (Points), Michigan Voter Information Center. Note: US Census Counties geometry was clipped for major water bodies and coastline estimate. The cities represented are the cities with the top-6 highest populations overall.
Party affiliation also plays a role in who chooses to vote in primary elections: Michigan has open primaries, meaning any voter can participate in any party’s primary election. Research shows that open primaries often lead to a more
representative sample of the actual outcome of an election. While Republican turnout matched that of previous years in Michigan’s open primaries this year, Democratic voters turned out at a record high. However, Rogers won the Republican
Of the nine counties that Harris won in 2024, seven are among the counties with the highest number of voters who voted in the 2022 general election but not the primaries
nomination uncontested, meaning that he was the only candidate on the ballot — though he still received 883,328 votes, fairly close to the 879,569 votes cast in the contested 2024 Republican primary. Looking back to 2022, the largest jump in vote count between the primaries and the elections occurred in a solidly blue area — Wayne County, home to Detroit and its metropolitan area. The highest vote-count differences tended to occur in counties that vote blue. The counties with the highest vote-count differences between the primary and midterm elections are, for the most part, also the counties with the highest populations in the state of Michigan. Highly populated, urban counties usually lean left due to the social impact of dense living environments. Wayne, Oakland, Kent, Washtenaw, Genesee, Kalamazoo and Ingham counties are among the 10 highest-populated counties in Michigan. Additionally, because of El-Sayed’s left-leaning beliefs, Michigan’s senate race is an experiment in whether leaning further left can provide a unique advantage in swing states. Notably, many young people are moving leftward in terms of their beliefs, especially within the Democratic Party. For Michigan, this means that El-Sayed could see a surge in support from young
people in counties dominated by college students. Washtenaw and Ingham counties both house a significant out-of-state student population since they are home to the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, respectively. The approximately 16,500 domestic non-residents at U-M and 10,000 domestic non-residents at MSU are eligible to register to vote in their respective counties as well, and this demographic may increase the gap between the primary and general elections — especially because August primaries occur when most students are away. In 2022, many of the gains the Republican party made in the broader midterm elections came from the drop-off of younger age group voters, whose votes tend to benefit the Democratic party. Furthermore, the conventional wisdom that high turnout advantages Democrats was also challenged: Analysis of the 2024 election, which brought relatively high voter turnout, showed that high turnout, especially in swing states, actually helped deliver the Republican win. As primary turnout increased from 2022 to 2026, anticipation for a similar jump in turnout may also indicate an upper hand for Rogers and the other Republicans on the midterm ballot.
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Scan the QR code to visit the online version of this article to see interactive charts with more detail.
6 2026 E L ECT I N E L ECT I G UStatewide G I D E Ballot Proposals VOTE NOW THROUGH NOV 3
Maggie Christoffersen/DAILY Source: MVIC. The selected counties are the top ten with the highest differences in primary versus general election turnout.
Maggie Christoffersen/DAILY Sources: MVIC, Politico. The counties represented had the top-25 highest differences. Red colored bars represent counties that Trump won in 2024, while blue colored bars represent counties that Harris won in 2024.
What is Prop 1?
Michigan voters will decide whether to hold a state constitutional convention in the midterms Michigan voters will decide in the Nov. 3 midterm election whether to hold a constitutional convention, potentially allowing delegates to rewrite the state’s governing document for the first time since 1961. Proposal 1 asks voters whether Michigan should convene a constitutional convention to revise the state constitution — a question that appears on the ballot every 16 years — and is experiencing mixed support. If approved, Proposal 1 would allow Michigan voters to elect 148 delegates from state House and Senate districts to draft a new constitution. The delegates would convene in Lansing starting October 2027 and work until they produce a proposed constitution to submit to voters who can then ratify or reject the amendments. The Protect MI Constitution coalition — a campaign against the proposal — includes Voters Not Politicians, the Michigan AFL-CIO and the Michigan
Chamber of Commerce, among other groups. The opposition includes labor unions, business organizations, civic engagement groups and both Democratic and Republican politicians, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Eric Lupher, president of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan — an organization that has researched Proposal 1 — told The Daily Michigan’s current constitution does not appear to have the same systemic problems that prompted the previous convention in 1961. “Compared to then, our constitution doesn’t seem to have any of the issues that really rise to the level of crisis of needing to blow things up and start over,” Lupher said. “But there’s a number of issues in just about every article of the Constitution — things that could work better — things that might help Michigan state and local governments operate better and have the resources to perform the services that the citizens need.”
LSA junior William Luebkert, a policy chair for the Michigan Institute for Progressive Policy, said he plans to vote against Proposal 1 because a convention could jeopardize constitutional protections approved by voters in recent elections like the independent citizen redistricting commission, reproductive freedom, and early in-person voting. “Over the past couple election cycles, Michigan voters — through ballot initiatives — have adopted a number of various protections into our state constitution,” Luebkert said. “While holding a constitutional convention wouldn’t necessarily mean that those protections would go away, it sort of feels like a gamble to potentially put all of those recently voter-approved protections on a single ballot.” Public Policy student Isabella Martinez, incoming social chair for Women and Gender in Public Policy, said she is also concerned about reproductive freedom being affected.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
What is Prop 2?
Exploring ‘Money Out of Politics’: The citizen-led proposal to limit corporate campaign spending Michigan voters will decide Nov. 3 whether to approve Proposal 2 — also known as the Michiganders for Money Out of Politics Initiative — a citizenled proposal seeking to limit corporate influence in politics. If passed, the proposal would ban utility companies, contractors who receive more than $250,000 annually from the government and organizations or individuals with “substantial connections to those utilities and contractors” from making contributions to campaigns that could benefit them. The ban would apply to races for governor, attorney general, secretary of state, the state legislature and certain local offices, as well as ballot measure committees. The proposal would also expand transparency regulations on political communication spending by requiring disclosure of donor information for online ads — even those that do not expressly tell voters who to vote for. Michiganders for Money Out of Politics initiated the proposal.
Since their formation in July 2025, the group has gathered more than 560,000 signatures in support of Prop 2. According to a WDIV/Detroit News poll conducted in early September, the proposal is overwhelmingly popular, with 71.5% of Michigan voters planning to vote yes. Business sophomore Aarzu Patni, an early voter, told The Daily she voted yes on Prop 2 because it will increase transparency around campaign finance. “I was thinking that funding for political parties shouldn’t come from things like that that might have hidden motives,” Patni said. “That’s why I put yes for it. … In general, as much control as there is around funding that political parties receive, the better, because you know (it) can kind of influence their decisions a lot.” In an interview with The Daily, LSA senior Aaron J. Puno, who is currently running for Ann Arbor School Board, said he supports Prop 2 because he believes elections should be based on ideas rather than funding and connections.
“I will be enthusiastically voting yes on November 3, and I don’t know a single person in my life who plans to vote and isn’t going to vote for this thing,” Puno said. “These elections ought to be campaigns of ideas, as opposed to campaigns of how big your ad budget is and what favors you can call in.” Puno criticized companies like DTE Energy, saying they are more focused on generating shareholder value than on investing in better infrastructure for Michiganders. Similar companies that would be impacted by the campaign restrictions include Consumers Energy and Xcel Energy. “Instead of investing these profits into shoring up their infrastructure to provide a more reliable product for the people of Michigan, which would in turn increase their profits, they’ve chosen to prioritize short-term — short-term interests, short-term profits by buying back stocks,” Puno said.
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Election Guide
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Local Ballot Proposals
Wednesday, October 28, 2026 — 5
2026 I NE L E C T I N GU I D E GU I D E VOTE NOW THROUGH NOV 3
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Ann Arbor voters will decide on five local proposals in the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The local proposals will implement taxes for the repair and construction of sidewalks; change how nomination petition signatures are counted; when elected officials’ terms begin; and the creation of a city-run electric utility grid. The Michigan Daily spoke with elected officials, public employees and residents to explore the pros and cons of each local proposal and what is at stake.
Proposal A:
Proposal B:
Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 734-418-4115 www.michigandaily.com
Charter Amendment Tax for Street, Bridge, and Sidewalk Repair and Replacement
Charter Amendment Tax for the Construction of New Sidewalks
ZACHARY AJLUNI and EDITH PENDELL
Proposal A would renew the existing mill rate tax, which determines a property owner’s tax bill based on their property’s assessed value. The proposal would maintain the current rate of up to 2.125 mills by extending the timeline of the expiring 2022-2026 cycle to the new 20272032 period. Revenue from this tax would continue to fund construction projects including street, bridge and sidewalk repair and replacement. It is expected to raise approximately $19,236,316 within the first year. In an interview with The Daily, Robert Kellar, Ann Arbor Public Services Administration communications specialist, said if Prop A fails, road resurfacing initiatives will slow down and work on underground infrastructure, such as water mains, sewers and stormwater drainage, will suffer.
Proposal B would authorize a tax up to 0.20 mills for the construction of new sidewalks from 2027 through 2032. This amendment would replace the previous tax of up to 0.20 mills from 2021 through 2026 and is expected to raise about $1,809,900 within the first year. Kellar told The Daily this millage is meant specifically for the construction of new sidewalks in parts of Ann Arbor that lack them. In an interview with The Daily, University of Michigan Art & Design sophomore Karina Calderon said sidewalks seem important to student accessibility around campus. “I think it just gives students more mobility around campus,” Calderón said. “They can reach their classes and be on time.”
CICI COPENHAVER
Proposal C:
Proposal D:
Amendment to Modify the Terms of Office for Elected Officials
Proposal C would change how signatures on nomination petitions are counted. If someone were to sign more than one petition for more than one candidate seeking the same office, only the first signature will count. If two or more petitions were signed on the same date, neither count. Currently, if an individual signs multiple petitions, every signature is discarded. In an email to The Daily, City Clerk Jacqueline Beaudry wrote Prop C would help prevent the disqualification of an accepted petition because of one individual signing multiple candidates’ petitions. It would also prevent any efforts to disqualify a candidate’s petition sheet through the collection of duplicate signatures. “The proposed change resulting from Prop C would help ensure that a petition that was already accepted and checked wasn’t later disqualified due to rejected duplicate signatures on a subsequent petition filing by another candidate,” Beaudry wrote.
Proposal D would amend the start date for elected Ann Arbor officials’ terms. Currently, elected officials take office on the first Monday following their election. The proposal would push back the start date to noon on the first Monday of the month following their election. The proposal would allow more time for certification of the election before the candidate takes office. Beaudry wrote the amendment also complies with a new state law regarding when candidates can be sworn in. “The newly enacted state law now says local candidates can take office no sooner than December 1. Proposal D, if approved, would move our term start date to the first Monday in December,” Beaudry wrote. “We chose this language for consistency in the transition of new members, continuing to start on a Monday, as opposed to whatever day of the week December 1 might land.”
Proposal E:
Charter Amendment for the Creation and Governance of a Municipal Electric Utility
Ann Arbor for Public Power successfully gathered more than 5,000 signatures on a petition to place a utility governance proposal on Ann Arbor’s 2026 midterm ballot, offering residents a chance to replace DTE Energy’s electrical utility with a city-run power grid. If voters approve the proposal on Nov. 3, the city would elect a public utility board by 2028, which would guide a city-wide power supply transfer toward collective ownership. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, A2P2 Executive Director Brian Geiringer said the proposal would establish this new board. From there, the group would then advocate for the city to issue a feasibility study into purchasing DTE’s power utility, including an estimation of the up-front utility purchase cost and continued maintenance costs. The Ann Arbor Responsible Energy Coalition, a DTE-funded group that opposes municipalizing Ann Arbor’s electrical grid, has attempted to block A2P2’s proposal through the courts twice, alleging invalid petition signatures. Both times, the case was dismissed. In an interview with The Daily, mechanical engineering professor Volker Sick, the DTE Energy professor of advanced energy research — a position funded by DTE, though with freedom to express contrary perspectives — said the push to change Ann Arbor’s energy system is understandable in the face of frequent outages.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
The mayor of Ann Arbor presides over City Council meetings and votes on all council business as one of its 11 members. The mayor also nominates residents to serve on city boards and commissions, subject to council approval, while the city administrator, hired by the council, oversees day-to-day city operations. The mayor is elected citywide to a four-year term.
Yousef Rabhi
Yousef Rabhi, the Democratic mayoral candidate, is running unopposed. Rabhi served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2017 to 2023, and served two stints on the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Rabhi defeated incumbent Christopher Taylor in the primaries with a platform focused on creating more affordable housing for residents at or below 60% of area median income as opposed to market-rate housing. He plans to build more affordable housing through revenue bonds. He wants to expand the Ann Arbor Housing Commission, build more cooperative housing and expand the city’s Community Land Trust — a nonprofit providing affordable housing to working-class residents. He also is running on strengthening city unions, proposing a moratorium on data centers and supporting the municipalization of the city’s electrical grid. He supports forcing the University of Michigan to dedicate more money to the city government.
Ann Arbor City Council
The Ann Arbor City Council is the governing body, consisting of the mayor and ten council members, two from each of the city’s five wards. The council sets city policy and the budget, approves development projects, oversees zoning changes and is in charge of city services. Members serve staggered four-year terms, with one seat in each ward up for election every two years. Strong Democratic voting trends in the city mean the August primary effectively decided every seat. Republicans have not won a local office in the city since 2003.
Ward 1: Cynthia Harrison
Cynthia Harrison, the Democratic incumbent of the Ward 1 seat on the Ann Arbor City Council, is seeking reelection. Her platform centers around affordability and increasing the city’s housing supply. During her time on council, she helped pass a study to investigate the city’s history of discrimination and a Driving Equality Ordinance, which prevents the Ann Arbor Police Department from pulling people over for low-level violations.
Ward 2: Sandy Aldrich
Sandy Aldrich is the Democratic nominee for the Ward 2 seat on the Ann Arbor City Council. Her campaign focuses on affordability and improving basic city services. She emphasized building a variety of different housing types at different price points. She also wants to increase the transparency of the city government, ensuring her colleagues listen to local residents.
Ward 3: Ryan Bartholomew
Ward 3: Kenneth Arthur Leicht Jr.
Ryan Bartholomew is the Democratic nominee for the Ward 3 seat on the Ann Arbor City Council. His campaign focuses on housing affordability, renters’ protections, climate law, government transparency and defending Ann Arbor from federal overreach. He also proposed a city-run childcare program, and he supports municipalizing the city’s electrical grid.
Kenneth Arthur Leicht Jr. is an independent candidate for the Ward 3 seat on the Ann Arbor City Council. Leicht, a maintenance and repair technician, touts himself as an outsider with a criminal record. His campaign focuses on transportation policy and fiscal responsibility. Leicht states he would listen directly to the Ann Arbor community to inform his policy-making decisions.
Ward 4: Aidan Sova
Ward 4: James Trost
Aiden Sova is the Democratic nominee for the Ward 4 seat on the Ann Arbor City Council. Sova was endorsed by Mayor Christopher Taylor before the primary election and defeated U-M lecturer Dave Zeglen. Sova’s campaign focuses on modernizing public services, transit infrastructure and sidewalks. He wants to build affordable housing and community land trusts while also building housing for middle class residents.
James Trost is an independent candidate for the Ward 4 seat on the Ann Arbor City Council. Trost’s campaign focuses on education, job growth and fiscal responsibility. Trost is running as an independent because he opposes the city’s party designation of councilmembers. He wants to increase affordability and communication for Ann Arborites.
26 E L ECT I N GU I D E Ward 5: Jenn Cornell
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Arts HYBE’s obsession with techno is ruining K-pop
6 — Wednesday, October 28, 2026
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ADA MOORE
Daily Arts Contributor
Devoted K-pop fans and KATSEYE listeners alike have no doubt noticed the recent shifts in visuals, sound and lyricism within their beloved groups that are managed under South Korean music industry giant HYBE. Following the global success of KATSEYE’s “Gnarly” and “Internet Girl,” a noticeable redirection has emerged across the rest of HYBE’s girl groups. Although these groups belong to separate sub-labels within the company’s enormous entertainment ecosystem, they have converged on a fresh, fasttempo and beat-driven electronic sound, marked by highly saturated production, repetitive hooks and unconventional lyrics. HYBE was the first South Korean entertainment company to be designated as a conglomerate by the Korea Fair Trade Commission after its total assets surpassed the 5 trillion won threshold in 2024. Its subsidiary labels include BigHit Music (BTS, TXT, CORTIS), ADOR (NewJeans), SOURCE MUSIC (LE SSERAFIM), BELIFT LAB (ENHYPEN, ILLIT) and HYBE X Geffen Records (KATSEYE). Many of HYBE’s most successful groups rose to fame through distinct concepts, such as NewJeans’ refreshing Y2K-inspired sound, ENHYPEN’s vampiric lore and ILLIT’s blend of dreamy innocence and eerie undertones. However, in April 2026, “sister” groups KATSEYE, LE SSERAFIM and ILLIT released back-to-back comebacks, all within the techno or hardstyle genres. Each song featured a similar anti-drop structure, a chant-heavy chorus and
Maheen Rashid/DAILY
electro-pop production. While the tracks were successful, fans started expressing concern online that HYBE’s groups were gradually losing their individual identities, with some theorizing that this trend began with the release of KATSEYE’s “Gnarly” in April 2025. “Gnarly” initiated the dramatic departure from KATSEYE’s original aesthetic of softer, sweeter pop (e.g., “Touch”) into a chaotic, maximalist electronic sound. While fans were originally startled by the group’s drastic change in concept, it kept listeners hooked, with the track accumulating more than 638 million streams on Spotify.
This particular single embodies the abrasive hyperpop production and ridiculous lyrics that define the viral formula that HYBE is now increasingly interested in reproducing for its other artists. But when the same sonic tricks are pushed onto groups with completely different aesthetics, the experimentation starts to feel like an intentional corporate formula that undermines one of K-pop’s biggest strengths: the ability for every group to develop their own niche. Known as the leaders of fifthgeneration K-pop, ILLIT has one of the most unique concepts in the genre, juxtaposing the innocence of girlhood with
unsettling horror elements known as “dreamcore.” The girl group’s music videos take place in liminal spaces, such as abandoned hospitals, to evoke an eerie feeling of being trapped in an endless dream or alternate reality. These uncanny videos contrast sharply with ILLIT’s bubbly, lighthearted sound that includes layered harmonies, youthful vocals and dreamy electronic pop beats. Since the group’s debut in March 2024, their music has retained this aesthetic, with particular examples being their debut single “Magnetic,” “Billyeoon Goyangi (Do the Dance)” and viral single “Not Cute Anymore.”
However, everything shifted in April 2026 when the group released their album MAMIHLAPINATAPAI, with an electronic, hard-house track “It’s Me.” The song features a driving, heart-pounding beat, sparkling synths, rave-style beat drops and recurring spoken lyrics like, “I’m your bias” and “It’s me.” In an interview with Teen Vogue, member Wonhee said, “For this album, especially with the new genre we are trying, it was very new to us.” Member Minju shared the same sentiment: “When I first heard it, I was very surprised because it gave us a feel that we have never tried before.” Many listeners were unsatisfied after their first listen of “It’s Me,” commenting that it pivoted too sharply away from the whimsical, magical girl concept that fans know and love. Fourth-generation girl group LE SSERAFIM was also affected by HYBE’s hyperpop wave. Their core concept revolves around fearlessness and personal ambition, with their group name being an anagram of “I’m Fearless.” The group’s visuals are also inspired by the multi-winged celestial beings known as seraphim. While their branding has always been more flexible than KATSEYE or ILLIT — usually evolving with current cultural or musical trends — their sound often anchors itself within the house genre, as with tracks “Crazy” and “Made My Night.” They broke this tradition with their release of “Celebration” on April 24, 2026. This headbanging, high-energy song meshes hypertechno and neo-rave and is known for its excessively repetitive chorus and hair-whipping choreography routine. Fans remain divided online over the sudden change
from carefree dance pop to overproduced hardstyle. Concepts are arguably one of the most significant aspects of K-pop. Defined as the overarching visual, musical and thematic identity a group adopts for their debut or a specific “comeback,” concepts are what allow K-pop groups to stand out in a crowded musical market. They also allow for greater fan engagement, especially if the group has a fictional backstory or lore that is maintained throughout their future releases. These consistent aesthetics also greatly affect marketing and merchandising; a well-defined identity will dictate everything from album packaging and promotional materials to light sticks and stage design. If HYBE groups lose their own personal identities and merge into one corporate sound, fans will quickly become fatigued, and a crucial part of K-pop will be lost. Ultimately, the issue is not that HYBE’s artists are experimenting with similar techno production and eccentric lyricism — “Gnarly” proved that taking a creative risk can pay off with its shock factor. However, the more that HYBE attempts to replicate this reaction across its roster, the less startling and less distinctive it becomes. K-pop has thrived for decades on its ability to build one-of-akind worlds around each group. When melodic styles become increasingly interchangeable, a group’s individuality that once drew in millions of fans starts to disappear. Rather than chasing the next viral sound and compressing idols into the same overused concepts and formulas, HYBE should return to what made its groups successful in the first place: authentic and engaging music that showcases the pure talent of its artists.
‘East of Eden’ is not a perfect adaptation, and that’s okay LEO CURRAN
Daily Arts Contributor
With every adaptation, there are hard decisions that need to be made. When adapting a novel as famous as “East of Eden,” those decisions become even more difficult; there are plot lines that need to be cut, characters who need to be reshaped and new elements that should be added for a novel to function in visual form. This seemingly impossible task was what writer and co-show-runner Zoe Kazan attempted to take on with her Netflix adaptation. Now that the show has been released, the only question to be asked is: Did she succeed?
John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel “East of Eden” reimagines the biblical story of Cain and Abel as it follows the Trask family through the late 19th and early 20th century. Kazan’s show specifically follows Adam Trask (Christopher Abbott) and his wife Cathy (Florence Pugh) as they move west to California to get away from his childhood home in Connecticut, and by extension, his brother, Charles (Mike Faist). The brothers’ relationship never recovered after the two were pitted against each other throughout their childhood by their abusive Civil War veteran father, Cyrus (Tracy Letts), in a competition for his praise and approval. In the safety of California, the couple are finally able to start a family
together, leading to the birth of their twin sons, Caleb (Joseph Zada) and Aron (Joe Anders). “East of Eden” takes its greatest inspiration from the iconic Bible story’s theme of “timshel,” a Hebrew word meaning “thou mayest” — referring to the human capacity to triumph over sin. The original novel focuses deeply on the concept of timshel, and Kazan preserves this key element perfectly. Her adaptation visualizes the tragedy of Caleb and Aron as they’re damned to retell the classic biblical tale, while utilizing Cathy in novel ways. Kazan makes the decision to center this adaptation around Cathy, a choice that ultimately pays dividends. While she is not featured as prominently in the
original novel, Cathy is positioned as an integral part of the adaptation and the recurring theme of triumphing over sin. Cathy’s new role in the story allows the audience to ingest all of her eccentricities. Even in the original novel, Cathy is a psychopath who manipulates and deceives others to protect herself. But Kazan’s directive choice would not have worked if it weren’t for Pugh’s flawless execution — she provides a captivating performance with the incredible attention to detail necessary for faithfully portraying Cathy’s character. Unfortunately, Kazan’s dedication to preserving Steinbeck’s ideas on “timshel,” primarily through the brother’s
relationship, comes at the expense of the novel’s other plot threads. One of the most notable cuts from the original story was the Hamilton family, who are neighbors to the Trasks. In the original novel, the nine Hamilton children, alongside their father, Samuel (Ciarán Hinds), play a large role in the central plot, providing deep emotional storylines that are completely absent in this adaptation. Although many moments like these were completely missing in the Netflix series, they were all sacrificed in service of emphasizing “timshel.” The Hamiltons are sacrificed so that scenes depicting Cathy’s ability for compassion and her choice to be evil can be greater emphasized. This further demonstrates timshel
in how she is not just born evil, but choosing to be. “East of Eden” is not a perfect adaptation. Many aspects of the novel were changed or cut entirely — but what makes a good adaptation is maintaining the themes and messages of the original work, and “East of Eden” does just this. I cried several times when I read the novel for the first time, and I cried several times watching this show. If you loved the book, there might be some creative decisions you disagree with — but you’ll find some new elements to love, too. And if you haven’t read the book, watch the show. Then, thou mayest read the novel and appreciate this incredible show even more.
‘Heavy Cream’ excels in cuteness yet falls short in character depth CLARA KANTER
Daily Arts Contributor
The phrase, “You’re ruining my life!” followed by a slammed door to the face often come to mind when discussing a classic motherdaughter relationship. Unfortunately for 16-yearold Gerry — protagonist of Sarah Blakley-Cartwright’s “Heavy Cream” — this angsty rite of passage is not an option. Instead, Gerry’s childhood and early adolescence are spent trying to appease and soothe her undiagnosed, mentally ill mother, Helene, before the ticking time bomb goes off. When Gerry’s mother unexpectedly leaves for Australia, trailing behind a recent college graduate she met at a San Diego motel, Gerry is left to navigate her adolescence under the supervision of three women, a suburban single, an artsy free spirit type and a high-class Manhattan socialite. Before her mother leaves, Gerry’s childhood is spent on the roads of the American West. In an unorthodox coming-of-age, Gerry survives on 7-Eleven sandwiches, sports pearl necklaces stolen from thrift shops, learns how to avoid the upcharge for chicken on a Caesar salad and is deterred from participating in her homeschool lessons, all under the guidance of her mother. Gerry likes what her mother likes, does what her mother does and that’s about it. When she is dropped in Connecticut under the supervision of her first of three caregivers, Bonnie, she is left to her own devices to find out who she is
— an “identity shopping spree,” as Blakley-Cartwright writes. Bonnie is a well-meaning, yet bland friend of Helene’s from college who falls short in many regards. Her character has minimal depth and relies on tropes of a sad, single suburban American woman that you cannot help but feel bad for. While her characterization gives the readers poignant images like her fuzzy sock addiction, marathons of “The Bachelor” and her cabinet stuffed with Weight Watchers protein bars, her lack of depth gives the storyline an unfinished feeling. Blakley-Cartwright gives the reader a witty commentary on American suburbia, but Bonnie’s storyline is missing tension. Instead of Gerry following along blissfully in her new life spent bouncing from the spa, to the club, to Bonnie’s couch, it feels like she’s in need of an internal reckoning with embracing a lifestyle so different from her mother’s, the only meaningful influence in her life up until this point. Gerry strays even further from her mother’s lifestyle at her next stop in Greenwich Village, N.Y., staying with her estranged aunt, Nell. Nell is eager to take Gerry under her wing and infuse her with “culture,” going as far as providing her a downtown loft and internship at the Guggenheim Museum. Like Bonnie, Nell’s character relies heavily on tropes, though she is the cookie-cutter image of the downtown-artsy-liberal aunt: She carries a squeeze bottle of oat milk for her coffee at Grumpy Cafe and canvasses for Zohran Mamdami when she is not working in her
Cover art for ‘Heavy Cream’ owned by Simon & Schuster.
studio. While these details provide comic relief to the novel, the reader never gets to know Nell beyond this constructed caricature. Yet again, Gerry seems to fully immerse herself in this world, with little internal or interpersonal conflict about how it feels to be under the care of a woman her mother has years of twisted, complicated history with. At the climax of the novel, Gerry is taken under the wing of Finley Albright, an elite Manhattan socialite who Gerry befriends at one of Nell’s art shows. Finley enrolls
Gerry in a prestigious Manhattan private school, compliments her on her new lime green cashmere sweater set (despite the Goodwill price tag) and urges her to “come out” at the upcoming debutante ball. Gerry proceeds happily, feeling as though she’s finally made it. Predictably, though, following the trend of the novel, there is a lackluster nature to Finley’s character and her relationship with Gerry. Nothing in Finley or Gerry’s character exploration makes the reader believe that such a private, wealthy widow would willingly
take in a newly orphaned 16-yearold. Or that Gerry, again, would seamlessly adapt to a world whose values of conformity, tradition and proper conduct directly contrast all of the ideas she was raised upon. Blakley-Cartwright paints Gerry and Helene’s relationship as, at best, ride or die, and at worst, co-dependent. As a result, the lack of character development between Gerry and her three new mother figures feels unrealistic — would she be so willing to throw away her mother and their life just like that?
Gerry is flung from the backseat of her mother’s beat-up Mitsubishi Diamante to the platonic idea of upper-middle-class suburbia in Connecticut, the grungy downtown arts scene of Manhattan and then makes the trip uptown to the coveted Upper East Side. It is hard not to root for Gerry, with her sparkly Mrs. Potato Head shirts and her insistence on “finding out who she is,” but the reliance on long-standing tropes and lack of internal, emotional exploration makes it hard to remain steadily invested in Gerry’s journey.
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The apathy at the heart of the COVID-conscious lesbian bar drama HARRISON SLUTZKY Daily Arts Contributor
Warning: This article contains mentions of bombings, hate speech and sexual assault. Have you been hearing about the “COVID-conscious” lesbian bar drama happening in Massachusetts? Maybe you have, or maybe it sounds like I’m putting together words from a random word generator. Well, I hadn’t, up until about two weeks ago. To catch you up: The Boston Globe published a story on Sept. 22 detailing how a change in the mask mandate at the Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue in Greenfield, Massachusetts, spiked outrage from the local community. On Aug. 31, the Last Ditch posted on their Instagram that they would be making Saturdays at the bar mask-optional, a change from their previous rules, which required KN95 or higher level masks everyday. The article by Annalisa Quinn, deputy editor of The Boston Globe Magazine, went viral on TikTok, Instagram
and X, and as a Boston Globe spokesperson told The New York Post, “It is now one of the mostread stories we’ve published, and has already garnered many thousands of subscriptions.” What grabbed the attention of readers and news outlets were the specific messages from the angry patrons about the mandate change. The Globe highlighted comments like: “people like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience” and “I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists. …” But this particular comment, which has been in the title of several articles, was not even made by someone in the local community. The X commenters and news commentators alike are mostly focused on the issues discussed in the article itself. Some people are offering up opinions on the bigger questions of safe spaces for immunocompromised people in a post-COVID-19 world and the discourse of Queer leftist spaces,
while others are just talking down to liberals. However, there have been no conversations from the same major news sources about the apathy at the heart of it all. While to some, this piece may reveal how the left is “too woke,” what can be seen across all political lines is how online anonymity is the true villain in this narrative. In a video titled “The Masked Lesbian Psyop,” Matt Bernstein, a political commentator and LGBTQ+ advocate whose infographics often go viral on Instagram, used the Globe piece to delve deeper into how it is vitally important that our digital consciousnesses aren’t separated from our physical ones. With Guardian writer Moira Donegan and Spitfire News writer and Youtuber Kat Tenbarge, Bernstein argues that while the people in the report are bad actors, they lack real power in the social hierarchy. Bernstein, Donegan and Tenbarge claim that this is a “family problem” that was put on a national stage by a major media outlet that wields the power of a large audience.
It is a human interest article at heart and does not provide any content that is necessary to national interests. As Donegan states, “Do these people who are talked about in this story act badly? Yeah. … Does it matter or does it deserve to be this national news story where they are mocked endlessly and made into these symbols of a bigger culture war? No.” Here, Donegan begins to chip away at the thesis of the video. Although it’s not right, it can be easy to sit behind a screen and punch down on people who behave in ways that we believe to be crazy or ridiculous. What is at the heart of the problem, however, is the major news outlet that left this story — and, by extension, these people — out to be eaten by the wolves. By the conclusion of the video, all three commentators make appeals to those who have seen this article not to use it as a vessel to put down those featured in it. Specifically, they cite one of the people quoted in the original report, Soe Noire, who is a member of the local community and has been receiving
Ella Flores/DAILY
death and sexual assault threats on their website and Instagram. Many argue that the point of the Globe piece was specifically for audiences to make fun of those within it, who have now been receiving hate and threats in their personal lives. The Last Ditch drama is a symptom of larger problems in our digital and cultural spaces. By breaking the story down into the categories of who has power and who doesn’t, Bernstein, Donegan and Tenbarge are able to analyze the severity of the situation. The
No one knows James Mangold
BEN LUU
Daily Arts Writer
No one’s favorite filmmaker is James Mangold — the director and producer of “A Complete Unknown” and “Ford v Ferrari,” as well as screenwriter of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” That might sound bullish given that Mangold has a largely acclaimed filmography. He directed
one of the best superhero films of all time with “Logan” and contributed to this new era of musician biopics with “Walk The Line.” Many have praised Mangold for his versatility and talent, and the typical narrative will have you convinced that there is no box this man can’t escape and no label he can’t rip off. After his most recent film on Bob Dylan, Mangold is slated to direct the DC Universe’s “Swamp Thing” and a Star Wars prequel project — which, if he
Foster Douglass/DAILY
were to complete, would mean that Mangold’s fingerprints would be on almost every major film franchise of the 21st century. Yet, no one ever screams Mangold’s name. There is no doubt that the director of “Girl, Interrupted” earned respect and recognition for his monstrous work ethic and fruitful relationship with collaborators — many of whom repeatedly work with him. But if one were to look beyond the surface, beyond all the acclaim, profitability and genre diversity, we can begin to understand why no one really cares about Mangold. Mangold debuted at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, a breeding ground for strong independent voices, with the chamber drama “Heavy,” which immediately won him the Special Jury Prize for Directing. Many critics lauded the performances in the film, especially Liv Tyler’s and Pruitt Taylor Vince’s, and credited them to the director’s minimalism and patience. Ron Cowan points out that “Mangold often eschews dialogue … detailing his story with gestures, glances and touches.” This approach gives the actors more space to work within
will track a user’s eye movements and render the center of their vision with a higher quality than the peripherals of their vision. Not only is this a fascinating process, it also helps improve the system’s performance by lowering the amount of graphics it needs to process all at once. Beyond the built-in foveated rendering, the Steam Frame also beats out competing systems in a few other categories. The Steam Frame is most often compared to the Meta Quest 3, Meta’s most recent VR headset. Since its release in 2023, the Meta Quest 3 has seen very little competition in the VR market. However, due to their similar demographics and variety of playable games, the Steam Frame has become a worthy rival. The Steam Frame beats the Meta Quest 3 in terms of RAM — Valve’s 16 gigabytes of random access memory versus Meta’s 8 GB of RAM — a slightly higher image resolution and a wider variety of streamable games. Furthermore, the Steam Frame comes with a wireless adapter that can be plugged into a user’s WiFi router in order to streamline connection speed and prevent lagging — an issue common in other VR headsets that lack a direct connection to the internet. How might the Meta Quest 3 beat the Steam Frame? It is nearly half the price at only about $600. A price that, in this economy, is much more approachable to the average consumer, especially considering that number actually includes the device’s charger, unlike the Steam Frame’s $1,060 base price. That being said, it is important to remember that the money being spent on a Steam Frame is not simply wasted. Valve is a significantly smaller company than Meta, and their products are likely to cost more against market competition that could stomp them out quickly. Besides, this
difference in price may also speak to a difference in quality. After playing Half-Life: Alyx on the Steam Frame, the expense can potentially be justified through the sheer quality of its gameplay. Immediately after launching a game on the Steam Frame, users will feel like they are stepping into a brand new world. The game opens with the player standing on a balcony, and with the hyperrealistic portrayals of depth, it is sure to make your knees quiver. The intensely immersive quality of the Steam Frame makes the mundane setting of a dingy balcony feel exciting and worthy of exploration. Thanks to the foveated rendering and optimized connection speed, every aspect of gameplay on the console feels seamless. From a simple menu screen to a massive game like Half-Life, there is no noticeable difference in the device’s ability to run smoothly and without lag. Not to mention, the lightweight nature of the Steam Frame itself makes it easy to forget you’re even wearing it. The gameplay is smooth and mind-bogglingly realistic, the graphics are beautiful and the device is comfortable and easy to use — but is it worth the money? The Steam Frame is grotesquely expensive. The idea of spending more than $1,000 on a piece of gaming equipment sounds absolutely preposterous to most people. For casual VR users looking to play around with Beat Saber and have usable hands in a Roblox game, the Steam Frame may be a bit excessive. However, to a VR enthusiast, the innovative operating techniques and optimization of the Steam Frame undeniably make it a worthwhile investment. For those with keen eyes for detailed, optimized VR gameplay who wish to escape into a nauseatingly realistic virtual world, the Steam Frame may be something worth saving up for.
Valve’s new Steam Frame: The price of optimization ELI KEVARI
Daily Arts Contributor
A new addition to Valve’s gaming system catalog has hit the market: the Steam Frame. This highly anticipated release has taken Valve’s lineup in a new, incredibly immersive direction, as the virtual reality gaming headset is making waves, for good and for bad. The quality of the product is undeniable overall; however, the price of the Steam Frame is questionable at best. For the low, low price of $1,059, the Steam Frame can be yours — but that’s the cheaper version with hundreds fewer gigabytes of storage. If you want the extra storage, the Steam Frame will instead cost you nearly $1,300. Keep in mind, those prices do not include the Ergonomic Accessories Kit ($59), the accessories replacement kit ($49) or even the charger for the device ($29). Apparently, Valve believes in their customers’ dedication so much that they assume buyers of the Steam Frame already have their hand-held gaming device, the Steam Deck, and could use the same charger for both devices. On their website, Steam says that the “Steam Frame doesn’t come with a dedicated PSU (Power Supply Unit). A Steam Deck charger or equivalent will work!” They do affirm that any 45 Watt USB-C charger will work, but it should be considered that buyers are already spending a thousand and some dollars on the system. This price may seem steep, and that’s because it is. Fortunately, many aspects of the Steam Frame do set it apart from other VR headsets on the market. Most notably, it comes with something called “foveated rendering,” an optimization technique used that mimics the way a human eye perceives. This means the headset
the scene. Mangold’s talent for story and his eye for performances did not go unnoticed, leading directly to “Cop Land.” A slow-burn through and through, Mangold’s stylish patience allowed the sophomore director to highlight his remarkably star-studded ensemble of Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro. Mangold’s heady script was just creative enough for the cast to iterate on and create something wholly unique. “Cop Land” was not an unsuccessful film either, breaking even at the box office. At this point, there was great reason to be excited about a new, young American filmmaker with a vaguely European approach — no doubt inspired by his mentor Miloš Forman. He had clearly proven himself as a capable director with indie clout and decent mainstream appeal. This led to “Girl, Interrupted,” which Winona Ryder — a huge name at that time — asked Mangold to helm after the project went through five years of pre-production hell. The end result is one of 30 major releases in the final weeks of 1999 based on literary works. Best described
anonymity of online spaces allows us to say things to others that we wouldn’t if we were face-to-face; it allows us to break down our larger communities into factions and determine who is better by stepping on those we feel are worse. Most of all, it allows major media outlets to turn local human interest stories into national headlines, and makes small-town community members discussing local issues into national celebrity targets for people to aim their digital bullets at.
as “Oscar bait,” this period drama allowed two famous actors to flex their creative muscles in an attempt to flip the public’s perception of them. Indeed, Angelina Jolie and Ryder garnered great reviews for their performances, and “Girl, Interrupted” might as well represent the peak of their acting careers. But I also believe this film represents the last successful breath of Mangold. If his style thus far could be considered minimal and perhaps complementary to actors, then “Girl, Interrupted” is the last time Mangold makes an impression, evoking a deep sense of paranoia and gravity through his precise filmmaking. After “Girl, Interrupted” begins a head-scratching stretch of films. In 2001, Mangold directed a romcom with Hugh Jackman and Meg Ryan (“Kate and Leopold”). In 2003, he directed the gritty slasher film “Identity” that uses reverse-chronological sequences interspliced with a chronological plot. In 2005, he wrote and directed the music biopic “Walk The Line.” In 2007 and 2009, Mangold was signed on to fix two other films stuck in pre-production hell: the
remake of “3:10 to Yuma” and “Knight and Day.” The surface-level similarities among these films are, at this point, expected. From Hugh Jackman and John Cusack to Christian Bale and Tom Cruise, critics praised all the leading performances and, of course, Mangold for stoking their flames. But a growing choir of critics began to point out (what is now) his most defining trait: versatility. Based on genre alone, these films seemingly have nothing to do with each other, and a person capable of such variety simply demands admiration. Yet now, just as it was then, this regard failed to generate fanfare. Mangold himself has attributed it to the fact he’s not a “box-set filmmaker” — meaning he doesn’t have aspirations to be an auteur, to have a recognizable signature across all of his works. He rejects “being artistically pigeonholed in such a manner, but he also understands how it happens, and how easy it is to get caught up in that straitjacket.” Instead, he makes films out of a desire to explore character.
makes “Resident Evil” unique. Audiences might have expected yet another feature of the games’ popular characters, like federal special agent Leon Kennedy or corporate spy Ada Wong; meanwhile, Cregger gives us Bryan, a civilian with no special credential other than being — in Bryan’s own words — a “glorified Postmates driver.” He instead pays homage to the games in a different way: by reproducing the underlying tones and ambiance that imbue the Resident Evil franchise. We clearly see this in Cregger’s decisions with the cinematography — from the movement of the camera to the set design — that achieve the dingy, foreboding and claustrophobic environment that makes the video game terrifying. The movement of the camera ominously trails behind Bryan, reminiscent of the movement in third-person games. When he panics, the camera breaks off from its steady ground and follows his frantic running. In the underground sewer, the steel of the pipes glints with a video game-like plastic sheen and dead bodies are bathed in the hard shadows of Bryan’s flashlight. Combined with the nail-biting sound design that emphasizes the creaking of wooden panels and the crunching of dead leaves, “Resident Evil” leaves you in suspense with every step Bryan takes. Cregger’s decision to pay homage to the original franchise — not through lore accuracy but through his subtle craftsmanship — is certainly an ambitious one. Bryan’s role as a protagonist in the film is another primer on how to make a video game adaptation feel refreshing. The horror movie genre has seen its fair share of clueless protagonists, to the point of testing the audience’s patience beyond their limits. Video games
— particularly those that blend horror and action together like “Resident Evil” does — do the opposite. They give their main characters — the players — weapons, abilities and sometimes even an invincible plot armor to give audiences the fantasy of power. Where “Resident Evil” stands out, as a video game and movie hybrid, is that the clueless actionhorror protagonist is given a reason to be clueless. Bryan is a stand-in for the audience. He stumbles through doors, mumbles his way through panic attacks and survives purely on luck and sometimes a sliver of wit. For instance, after four flights of stairs, Bryan would rather take his chances to ride a rapidly decaying elevator than climb 20 more. The sheer mundanity of Bryan as a protagonist makes the movie a fun time at its best moments and claustrophobic at its worst. While the film sticks out among the other “Resident Evil” installments, it falls short when compared with other movies of the horror genre released this year. “Resident Evil” is a horror movie that doesn’t truly say anything new, and its mediocrity is perhaps the reason why so many reviews focus on the movie’s quality as a game adaptation and not as a movie of its own. Yet, despite this, “Resident Evil” is a work of innovation in its own domain of video game adaptations. It proves that the issue with film adaptations or reboots isn’t their lack of originality, but rather the uninspiring approach behind the camera that tends to accompany most retellings. It’s safe to say that, while not a masterpiece by any means, Cregger’s “Resident Evil” defines what “good” means amid the sea of uninspiring adaptations that we see today.
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‘Resident Evil’ is an adaptation that doesn’t retell
NATASHA SHIMON Daily Arts Writer
Ask a random person on the street what the Resident Evil series is about, and you’ll probably get an answer ranging anywhere from “scary zombie games” to “those action movies” with some cheeky “residents who are evil?” answers in between. Some might not even know that Resident Evil originated as a video game franchise before it became a series of the popcorn flicks that fans know and don’t love today. Rarely will these people speak to what makes Resident Evil so quintessential of the horror genre, unless they’ve been a longtime fan. Luckily for us, Zach Cregger, the film’s producer, is a longtime fan. Shortly after releasing the award-winning 2025 film “Weapons,” Cregger went on to co-write and direct 2026’s “Resident Evil” as the 8th movie adaptation of the franchise, a brave and controversial venture considering the lukewarm to downright hostile reception of the past adaptations. However, unlike its predecessors, “Resident Evil” is an adaptation that does not retell. Instead, it focuses on a completely original character, Bryan Hodukavich (Austin Abrams), a medical courier tasked with delivering a mysterious package to a hospital halfway across the city in the middle of a mysterious outbreak. In true Resident Evil fashion, the movie is full of infected humans turned into grotesque creatures; upon dying, bodies fuse with each other, resulting in an amalgamation of half-formed corpses that vaguely resemble ginormous snowballs with limbs. The choice to sever the movie entirely from the games’ lore
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The ugly product of capitalism: for-profit healthcare SETH GABRIELSON Opinion Columnist
E
very month, working Americans prioritize paying their health insurance company over almost anything else. In 2025, healthcare premiums — the monthly charge for coverage whether or not you actually get sick — averaged more than $9,000 a year for a single person and nearly $27,000 for a family. Every year, that same industry also collects billions directly from the federal government through programs
like Medicare Advantage. Insurance companies get paid twice over: once by the people who need care and once by the government that is failing to protect these people. Yet, neither payment is tied to how much care anyone actually receives. The entire system is flawed, and it works exactly as designed. For-profit health insurance cannot be reformed into something good because a forprofit insurer only has two ways to grow its profit: charge people more, or pay less for their care. The health insurance industry has spent decades suppressing
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the one real alternative which would benefit the people — a public insurance option that would let anyone buy into a Medicare-style government plan instead of a privatized one. Federal regulation was supposed to combat this. The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to spend 80% to 85% of every premium dollar on actual medical care, capping the rest for overhead and profit. It sounds like a real limit; it backfired. Profit under this rule is a percentage of a number, and that number is total healthcare spending. So insurers make more money every time care costs rise, whether because treatments get pricier or because insurers raise what they charge for coverage. And premiums have kept climbing: the average family plan through an employer cost $15,073 in 2011, the year the rule took effect, and nearly $27,000 in 2025. Under this exact rule, UnitedHealth’s profit grew 231% from $4.5 billion in 2011 to nearly $15 billion in 2025. A regulation meant to control costs gave the industry a reason to raise them instead. Even the 80%-85% cap gets gamed. In a 2022 lawsuit, the Louisiana state attorney general
alleged UnitedHealth paid inflated rates to its own pharmacy subsidiary — Optum Rx — then counted the overpayment as a medical expense, so money that never actually left the company was counted as money spent on patients. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger, insurers selling plans on HealthCare.gov denied 19% of in-network claims in 2023, and patients appealed only about 1% of those denials. That gap is not an accident. It quietly saves the company money from everyone who gives up first. This is the standard playbook of for-profit healthcare, and hospitals ran it first. In 2019, the American Hospital Association sued to block a new federal rule forcing hospitals to publicly post their real prices for items and services. The AHA lost, and the rule took effect with the fine for violating transparency law set at just $300 a day, cheap enough for a large hospital to treat as a cost of doing business. When the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — the federal agency that administers Medicare — later proposed a tougher, up-scaled penalty reaching up to $5,500
a day, the AHA argued in its official comments that there was no evidence the original fine had affected compliance, so it should stay as is. CMS raised it anyway, to as much as $2 million a year for the largest hospitals. Even so, a 2026 report found that approximately 51% of hospitals remained noncompliant, which means a fine many times larger than the original is still not costly enough to make transparency worth more than opacity. Health insurers play the same game, but instead of fighting a fine, they fight the competition. America’s Health Insurance Plans , the industry’s main lobbying group, has spent almost $65 million lobbying Congress and the White House since 2020, and the seven largest forprofit insurers and their allied groups spent about $476 million from 2020 through March 2025. That money buys a seat at every healthcare fight in Washington, including the fight over whether a public option, a governmentrun plan patients could choose instead of a private one, ever gets a vote in Congress. The industry’s opposition to alternate healthcare options is more about competition than
it is about patient care. AHIP has argued there is no fair way to compare a taxpayer-backed government plan against private insurers, since a public option could set premiums that do not have to cover its own costs the way a private insurer’s must. But when the government actually compares the two for the same patients, the private plans are the expensive ones. MedPAC, a nonpartisan agency that advises Congress on Medicare, found that the federal government will pay private Medicare Advantage insurers $76 billion more in 2026 than it would cost to cover those same seniors through traditional Medicare. That is roughly $2,660 extra for every enrollee, money that goes to the insurer rather than the patient. In April 2025, CMS approved another $25 billion increase in those payments after insurers lobbied for it. This is not a hypothetical claim about what a public option could do. It is a direct, applesto-apples comparison for the exact same patients in which the government-run option would be the cheaper one.
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Your vote should be worth more BRODERICK JUSTIAN Opinion Columnist
O
ur government was built on the principle of adequate representation: the idea that elected officials should know and reflect the needs of the people they serve. When the House of Representatives was established in 1789, this system worked. Each district held roughly 60,000 people, small enough for a representative to understand their community and for constituents to be heard. Today, districts average 761,000, too large and varied for one person to speak for. Winner-take-all elections dilute the power of voters further, as votes for losing candidates change nothing and those voters are left without a voice in Congress. The Electoral College extends this problem to the presidency, where the winner takes all the votes in nearly every state. Ranked choice voting offers a fix, since a vote for a losing candidate moves to the voter’s next choice. Restoring the promise of adequate representation requires making every person feel represented, and that means expanding the House, adopting ranked choice voting as the national standard and abolishing the Electoral College. At the heart of this issue is a basic question: Are we adequately represented by our current system? The answer is no. Until the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, Congress periodically increased the number of seats in proportion to the increases in population. In 1929, the House of Representatives was capped at 435 members and has remained unchanged since. This means that the U.S. has the same number of representatives as it did when it had about 200 million less people, increasing the distance between voters and their representatives. The larger a district is, the harder it is for a single representative to reflect the diverse ideologies and needs of their constituents. One district can stretch across cities, suburbs and farm towns
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— communities that rarely want the same things, yet one person is expected to speak for all of them. This comes at a time when lawmakers are becoming harder to reach: Between 2017 and 2024, town halls between legislators and their constituents fell by 70%. As congressional districts grow, it becomes harder for constituents to have their voices heard. Michiganders witness firsthand how this affects them. After the 2020 census, our state dropped from 14 congressional districts to 13. Although the state’s population exploded between 2010 and 2020, Michigan lost representation after redistricting. One proposal to bridge this divide is the Wyoming Rule, which would divide the total U.S. population by the population of the smallest state to determine the size of Congress. If put in place today, this system would add about 140
Find time to vote! LAURA CENCER – Opinion Cartoonist
seats, bringing the House to 582 and cutting the average district to about 590,000 constituents compared to the current 761,000. Under this formula, Michigan would gain five seats rather than losing one. Expanding the House would not shift the power between states, as each state’s share of the seats would stay proportional to its population. What changes, however, is the relationship between the representatives and the people they serve. Smaller districts mean a more accurate voice in Congress, and expanding the House under the Wyoming Rule is a necessary start to improve representation in the U.S. However, this is only one piece of the representation puzzle. Better representation should also include giving voters more options at the polls, which can be achieved through ranked choice voting.
Under a ranked choice system, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate secures a majority of votes, the last place candidate is eliminated and the voter’s next choice is counted. This process repeats until someone has majority support. Ranked choice voting would fix the spoiler effect, in which a thirdparty candidate changes the result of an election by simply running. In the 2000 presidential election, former President George W. Bush won Florida by just 537 votes, while nearly 97,000 Floridians voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. As the Green Party is a left-leaning political party, it is likely that a majority of these votes would have trickled down to former Vice President Al Gore in a ranked choice system, giving him the win in this election. With ranked choice ballots, those voters could have both backed their first
choice and still have a say in the final outcome. New York City, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Cambridge and other U.S. cities have used this system for local elections for years, and advocates say it can increase voter turnout. Voters like this system, too: 76% of New Yorkers want to either keep or expand it. While proposals such as the Wyoming Rule or ranked choice voting affect how many voters each representative serves and how fully each vote counts within a single race, neither can single-handedly fix the biggest imbalance in American elections: the Electoral College. A vote in Wyoming carries roughly three times the weight of a vote in California. Giving people more power purely because of where they live is not democratic. This system turns much of the country into an afterthought in
federal elections. Candidates spend most of their time and resources in a few swing states while voters in safe states are ignored. By abolishing the Electoral College and using the popular vote to decide elections, each vote would be counted equally. Each person would have one vote, rather than each person contributing to a state worth a certain amount of electoral votes. This system would also incentivize candidates to reach potential voters in deep red or blue states, who are currently overlooked due to living in a strongly partisan location. While these changes would increase the representation, options and equity for voters, they would not be easy to implement. Expanding the House would require every state to redraw its congressional map, adopting ranked choice voting would require re-designing ballots and abolishing the Electoral College would demand a constitutional amendment. There are also many challenges when it comes to adopting these systems in the first place: since 1800, there have been more than 700 proposals to reform or eliminate the Electoral College, and none have passed. Some barriers, however, are lower than they appear. The size of the House is set by law, not the Constitution, and states already redistrict every 10 years. Ranked choice voting has spread to multiple cities without a national push, and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact offers states the option to pledge electoral college delegates to the national popular vote winner, thus creating a feasible and workable path around the Electoral College, without a constitutional amendment. Although these measures would be hard to achieve, that is no reason to accept a system that leaves millions of voters unheard. Together, these reforms confront the same flawed system from multiple directions, putting power back into the hands of the individual voter. Your vote should be worth more, and it is up to us to demand a system that makes it so.
Higher education needs effective altruism ALEX MULDER Opinion Columnist
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few weeks ago, I was trying to finish some readings while sitting at the Ross School of Business. My peace was disturbed when a few seats away, a professional student organization began conducting interviews for their fall rush cycle. The interview questions revolved around what the interviewee wanted to do with their professional lives. “How do you think this organization will help you get to law school?” “What sorts of skills do you see in yourself that will make you a good executive one day?” The corporate LARPing upset me. Upon deeper reflection of this moment, I realized that the interview symbolizes a pervasive culture in business, one that pushes young professionals to do what’s best for them instead of what’s best for society. The interview highlighted a desire among many college students to turn experiences into money or corporate elevation. What the interviewee should have been asked was: “How will participating in our organization enable you to improve the world?” Effective altruism is a global research project aimed at identifying problems within society. Simultaneously, the project works to find solutions to these social problems based on group efforts and community participation. Put more simply, effective altruism is the practice
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of finding the best ways to help others and positively contribute to society — something colleges need more of. In an ideal effective altruist world, college graduates would immediately start addressing the needs of corporate America upon receiving their first job. The actual tasks of recent college graduates, whether that be business, engineering or social science majors, revolve around shadowing company work, information analysis or data input. While these experiences don’t inhibit someone from making larger differences in the future, busywork doesn’t intrinsically allow the young workforce to positively impact their communities. The money a person makes rarely correlates to their net benefit to society. Some of the most coveted jobs among college students are those that come with the largest financial rewards. Some figures suggest that entry-
level consulting jobs can start at about $100,000. Students with basic business degrees — those most often headed to corporate offices — will on average make just under $80,000 a year. Both statistics reveal the substantial amount of money college graduates can make immediately upon entering these fields. While these jobs may offer immediate financial stability, they do not address the needs of a society — something effective altruism seeks to do. The things society needs most are fundamental: food, shelter, water, healthcare and the innovations that make them more accessible. Because businesses work to survive and make profit, they instill those same priorities in their employees — especially those new, impressionable ones right out of school. Colleges push people into these professional environments as a result of emphasizing employment after
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graduation or first-year salaries more than social offerings. College students should consider effective altruism in all they do, both in and out of school. Positive social support is psychologically proven to increase happiness. At the end of the day, happiness should be the apotheosis of work — by helping the people around us, we elicit positivity in our own lives. Colleges and universities compete like businesses, they focus primarily on making money. By establishing a custom of profiteering, colleges develop an attitude of focusing on wealth generation instead of social impact, which subsequently gets passed down to students. More important than any research contribution or philanthropic work that a university can produce, universities have a vested incentive to point students toward profitable industries, lining alumni’s pockets and receiving donations in exchange. Outside of universities, there are many ways for young people to apply effective altruism’s teachings to their lives, like Volunteer Time Off. The action of paying employees, or alternatively getting paid, for doing volunteer work certainly has an air of monetizing altruistic behavior. However, by subsidizing volunteer work, the charitable actions of individuals increases. Universities and employers alike should use this framework to combine community service with their work occupations.
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MiC
10 — Wednesday, October 28, 2026
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The shape of love NHI VO MiC Columnist
I am on Instagram again, swiping through Reels when I should probably be doing something else. My thumb moves almost mechanically, one video after another — faces, sounds and captions blurring together until they are no longer distinct. Then, I stop on one Reel by creator Preston Rakovsky that is part of a dialogue series between strangers. My eyes scan the text on the screen: What does love mean to you? Instead of swiping past, I click the follow button and down the @prestonrack rabbit hole I go. Since then, I have seen many different answers to that pivotal question. Some people define love as sacrifice. Others say it is certainty, stability or mutual understanding. While I don’t think any of these interpretations are wrong, none of them feel as true to me as the answer I have carried subconsciously for years without realizing it had already taken shape. To me, love is asking yourself daily, In what way can I make my partner’s life easier today? I did not come to this understanding through books, podcasts or the kinds of relationships people romanticize online. I just watched my father. My dad has always loved in ways that could be easy to overlook if you were not paying attention. Sometimes it was obvious, like him picking my mom up from the airport at five in the morning or spending
JIYA PATEL MiC Columnist
A thin layer of deep red oil sat at the top of the jar, its trickled leaks almost confessing to the bloodbath it had left behind in the bag. Within the jar lay pieces of diced mango packed tightly beneath seasoned, oily paste. The sharp aroma of mustard seeds, chili and spices could finally be let free after the long hours of travel. I was impatient, often clumsy with handling the jar, digging my spoon past the oil in search of the perfect ratio of mango to chutney, sweetness to spice. A fresh batch of my ba’s achar was not easy to obtain. This mango achar is unrivaled; it’s the best side to complement any meal or snack. I made plentiful use of this seraphic substance throughout the day — with thepla, khichdi and even daal-bhat (to drown out the taste). Thus, many jars needed to be packed and transferred via the suitcases my ba brought from Ahmedabad. Even as a late teen, these jars never seemed to escape me. I can recall countless summers goofing around in my Florida apartment complex. At the ripe age of 5, I was quite the menace, climbing the roof, trees and any other structure that I could perch myself onto. The only force hindering me from eternally perching on whatever location I had selected was the sound of my ba scolding me to come eat (my grandfather was an enabler who often joined me during my antics). I would never resist. It was as if Pavlov himself had trained me. Yet, looking back, I’m not sure it was ever just the food that had me running back inside. I loved sweeping the kitchen floor. It felt grown up to be included in the sacred space that was the kitchen, where I typically had no reason to be involved. My ba never allowed the broom to touch my hands, declaring it a task that I shouldn’t worry about until marriage, although she never knew I did so in
hours repairing furnishings at her nail salon late into the night. But more often and more prominently, it showed up in smaller ways: prepping ingredients for the next day’s dinner so she could sleep a little longer, parking her car in the garage before inclement weather and always picking up her favorite ice cream when he went grocery shopping. He would inconvenience himself over and over again if it meant my mother could move through life a little more easily. His actions stood out even more because in the culture I grew up in, it was common for women to remain in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning, while the men sat around, drinking and chatting. But my father was always next to my mother, carrying dishes between floors during family gatherings so she would not have to make as many trips, fixing the ancestral altars, wiping down tables he noticed were dirty, making himself useful in ways that did not ask for praise. He never treated caring for her as extraordinary but rather as his duty — and maybe that is exactly why it meant so much. Family members would tell my mom how lucky she was to have him, and I understood why. His love was quiet and consistent, reflective of him as a person. It did not rely on declarations or performances; instead, it revealed itself in how carefully he paid attention. I felt his love that way, too. He would peel my crabs for me so I would not have to dirty my hands, shovel my car
before leaving for work, buy me bags of green grapes I had mentioned liking once and drive 40 minutes to my college apartment just to bring me food for the week. None of these things are particularly grand. They’re definitely not the kinds of gestures people usually point to when they talk about love. But maybe that’s the point. What I admire most about the way my father loves is not simply that he does things for the people he cares about; rather, it is that he knows them well enough to anticipate their needs. There is a kind of attentiveness within his actions that I believe matters more than people admit. To love someone is not just to feel deeply for them. It is to study them with your heart. To learn what burdens them, what comforts them, what eases them — and to remember it all. My parents are very different people. They come from different walks of life and have almost polar opposite personalities. That is part of why I have never fully believed in the idea that understanding one another should come naturally if your love is real. So much of what we are taught about relationships suggests that the right person will simply get you, effortlessly and instinctively, as if intimacy arrives fully matured. But the love I saw was built over time, through patience, observation and the willingness to keep learning someone as they changed.
secret. No cooking, no cleaning, no loitering in the kitchen until marriage. Live youthfully, beta. She called me her American girl, mocking the manner in which I spoke. I tried to teach her with daily English lessons, but to no avail. At home we only speak Gujarati, beta. Once I advanced to my preteen years, the gossiping began. Oh, and did she love to gossip. In one ear I had my parents — private individuals who kept to themselves, telling me it was a waste of energy to gossip — and in the other I had my ba: a strong, spearheaded woman, especially keen on speaking her truth. I quickly learned all the Memnagar society lore: the haunted house across the street, uncles who were disputing over property, hushed family drama. During the school year, my brother and I had weekly scheduled video calls with our grandparents. Sunday at 11 a.m., we would press the Skype video call button and dance to the chime of the ringtone, greeting ba with a new, ridiculous angle every week. I often wasted her time, ranting about school, friends and career concerns, all of which she repeatedly listened to with patience. Come summer, our conversations no longer required a screen. Landing alone in Ahmedabad for the first time carried an unexpected familiarity. I could already see their beaming faces, my ba almost to tears, perched patiently outside even at the latest hour — the atmosphere thick, humid and blissful. Upon reaching home, the gate and swing creaked in unison, a salutation to their yearly visitor. Pungent scents escaped the doorway — a platter of hand-cooked food had been laid out, but one aroma in particular evoked nostalgia: my mango achar. Last March, my mango achar stash became finite. It suddenly felt sinful to take another bite, to deprive my future self of having an achar stash, to potentially lose the last of what my ba’s famous recipe was. To
potentially lose the last of my ba’s famous recipe. To lose my ba. For years, I had eaten her achar with disregard for its scarcity. I had never bothered to consider the process that preceded the finished jar placed conveniently in front of me. I never asked how she selected the mangoes, what combination of spices stained the oil that deep shade of red or how she managed to recreate the same familiar taste with every batch. There was little reason to. I was far more concerned with digging around for the largest pieces of mango, knowing another jar would eventually materialize. I carried a similar conduct into the time I spent with my ba. I didn’t think twice about cutting a Sunday call short to finish homework, nor did I consider retaining the neighborhood stories she eagerly recounted each summer. These interactions were simply normal, tucked between the other events of my day with the expectation that there would always be another opportunity to continue where we left off. The last time I spoke to my ba, however, there was no such expectation. She lay in a hospital bed thousands of miles away, our conversation once again confined to the dimensions of a phone screen. This time, the tone remained solemn. Nurses greeted me, but I could sense a hesitancy in their assurances. With whatever strength she
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Losing the taste of youth had, my ba blessed me, wishing me happiness, success and a good life ahead. I listened closely, suddenly desperate to retain words I had spent years receiving so casually. There is a strange discomfort in knowing the final goodbye. I had spent much of my childhood leaving India without much difficulty, passing through the Ahmedabad airport with the knowledge that another humid summer would eventually bring me back. Sitting through that final call, there was no longer the comfort of repetition. In the months following, I couldn’t bring myself to touch the achar. Each time I opened the jar, it seemed to taunt me. The achar had been made to be eaten, yet it felt as though I was allowing another remnant of her to disappear. The contradiction frustrated me. So, I began saving it for some undefined future occasion, as though there would eventually come a meal important enough to warrant another spoonful. I had convinced myself that preservation was a form of remembrance. As long as the jar remained tucked away in the pantry, I still possessed a remnant of my youth. Yet, her achar had never been precious in our home. It was messy, frequently spilled and consumed far too quickly. Its red oil stained spoons, containers and, occasionally, whatever shirt I happened to be wearing.
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Jiya Patel /MiC
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Sports
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FOOTBALL
GRAHAM BARKER Managing Sports Editor
Jason Beck was probably grinning all week just thinking about it. A trick play out of the goal line formation, leaking junior offensive lineman Manuel Beigel out for the unthinkable play action pass; what better way to silence the vocal critics of Beck and his trademark Rhino formation than to throw a touchdown to the Rhino lineman himself. On third-and-goal from the 1-yard line Saturday, Beck called the play and Beigel was wide open. Unfortunately for Beck, Beigel and the rest of the Michigan football team, so was Indiana defensive lineman Tobi Osunsanmi — charging off the edge completely unblocked.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026 — 11
SportsMonday: Michigan has a Jason Beck problem When freshman quarterback Tommy Carr turned around to find Beigel after selling the play fake, he could barely blink before Osunsanmi was in his lap, taking him down for a loss of 13 yards and forcing a field goal that the Wolverines fittingly missed. Keeping all else the same, a touchdown and extra point on either that third down or the following fourth would’ve been enough to beat the Hoosiers in regulation. It’s a play that could’ve worked in another context, sure. But on the 1-yard line with two opportunities to score a go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter — and an offense that had already converted on fourth-and-inches earlier that drive — it’s not the time to get cute. “That was not a good football call,” Michigan coach Kyle Whittingham said Saturday. “ … Do I have the ability to overrule?
I can overrule anything in the whole program. And so, like I said, it circles back to me. But it was a very disappointing outcome and a call that I know Jason wishes he had back, because it really was damaging.” The play is emblematic of what’s gone wrong with the Wolverines’ offense in Year 1 under offensive coordinator Jason Beck. Two games ago against Minnesota, it was the failed wildcat play on third-and-1 against Minnesota drawing vitriol, a play so telegraphed that multiple Golden Gophers jumped the snap count. Getting too fancy on highleverage, short-yardage plays and making the simple things difficult have become common themes. Not that this offense can do the simple things well, anyway. One thing that should’ve been easy for Michigan since day one is running the ball. The Wolverines tallied
210 yards per game a season ago and returned junior running back Jordan Marshall, as well as most of their offensive line. Instead, Michigan ranks outside of the top-100 teams in the country with 134.7 rushing yards per game. Its longest rush by a running back against Indiana was a fake kneel handoff for 9 yards to end the first half. What should’ve been the calling card of this offense — and what has been for years — has instead become an exercise in futility, an interlude between inevitable punts. One of the only times it didn’t feel that way was the second half against Penn State, where the outside zone runs Michigan had gotten so good at last year returned after disappearing for the first five games this season. For much of the game against the Hoosiers, those plays seemed to have been reshelved. It’s not
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like the Wolverines needed a spark Saturday. It’s not a personnel issue, and it’s not like the competition has been much stiffer from last season to this one. That really leaves only one place left to look. “I’m not putting this on the players at all,” Whittingham said. “We got to be better as coaches. That’s where it starts. We got
to be better as coaches and do a better job of putting these guys in position to succeed. And that’s all there is to it.” It doesn’t help the Wolverines’ offense that an ineffective run game is one of the best ways to make things even harder on a limited, inexperienced quarterback.
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ICE HOCKEY
No. 1 Michigan remains perfect, bests No. 5 Western Michigan with last-second goal to come out on top, 3-2
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SOPHIE MATTHEWS Deputy Sports Editor
It all came down to one goal. One player who’d deliver his team the joy of a win. A one-off game means no opportunity to respond the following day, or at least not until Jan. 30. Friday night, the weekend was on the line.
In a top-five matchup, No. 1 Michigan (7-0) bested No. 5 Western Michigan (4-1) in a toeto-toe battle. While either team could’ve come out on top, it was the Wolverines’ last-second goal that snapped the Broncos’ unblemished record, 3-2. The first period offered a lackluster performance from both sides. No goals, just a few opportunities for the
special teams units to shine and a plethora of time spent on extended stoppages. Michigan possessed the higher of the two shot totals, but that only took it so far; the Wolverines needed a change in pace. However, they should have been careful what they wished for. Nine minutes into the second period, the Broncos made a push into the offensive zone, possessing a man advantage over Michigan. While unsuccessful on its first attempt, Western Michigan forward Zaccharya Wisdom picked up the rebound to shove the puck across the goal line and give his team a 1-0 lead. The Wolverines aren’t the most experienced group playing from behind. Of their six games prior, they failed to open the scoring only once. It needed to dig deep against its top-five opponent if it was to come out on top. The second period closed as yet another scoreless period for
the Wolverines. Despite having 18 shots on net — the same as the Broncos — Michigan couldn’t find a way to convert. No game is ever easy, but this one especially fit the bill. “We got away from our mentality at different sequences of the game,” Michigan coach Brandon Naurato said. “You can see when you play really good teams and there’s no space, you get away from putting pucks behind them and feeding your forecheck and getting in the O-zone. You want to just put pucks to the middle and carry them in and get in trouble. But that’s hockey. They’re going to make a push. We’re going to make a push. It’s a really good hockey team.” But who other to rescue Michigan than senior forward Jayden Perron, the nation’s leading goalscorer, with his 10th this season. It took him just 45 seconds of the third period to jolt out in front of the Broncos,
sniping a shot top-shelf to level the scoring, 1-1. And the Wolverines weren’t done yet. Surging off the energy Perron generated, senior forward Nick Moldenhauer set up another offensive opportunity. Banking off a shot from the board, the puck landed right in front of Western Michigan’s goal, waiting for junior defenseman Dakoda RhéaumeMullen to crash the net. In the blink of an eye — or rather 20 seconds — the Wolverines went from being down a goal to leading the game, 2-1. It was now the Broncos’ turn to fight back and preserve their own undefeated record. And their pressure was relentless. For every shot Michigan tallied, Western Michigan put up an equalizer. Each time the Wolverines killed off a penalty, they were unable to carry that momentum when they had the man advantage. It was only a matter of time before the Broncos
bubbled over, and eventually their short-handed goal put the game back into anyone’s hands. With 10 minutes left in the period, Michigan needed to find a way to tip the 2-2 tie in its favor. And with just .01 seconds on the clock, junior forward Will Horcoff sent in a Hail Mary shot, everyone holding their breath as it flew through the air. The goal horn blared and Yost Ice Arena shook as the puck rocketed into the net, miraculously giving the Wolverines the 3-2 lead. “Honestly, I got lucky,” Horcoff said. “When McKinney went to dump (the puck) in, it ended up landing right on my stick, and I didn’t hear the buzzer so thought I’d give it a go.” It wasn’t an easy game, and Michigan was certainly given a run for its money. But in the end, the Wolverines found a way to escape the one-game weekend unscathed, thanks to a stubborn desire to win.
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12 — Wednesday, October 28, 2026
OFFENSIVE OFFEN SIVE SPORTSWEDNESDAY
Continued offensive struggles haunt Michigan in 13-6 overtime loss to No. 6 Indiana JORDAN KLEIN Daily Sports Writer
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elieving the Michigan football team’s offensive woes would disappear with a new starting quarterback turned out to be wishful thinking. All year long, the Wolverines’ offense has struggled mightily. They entered oday’s game with the Big Ten’s second-worst scoring offense, and Michigan elected to start freshman quarterback Tommy Carr against No. 6 Indiana to try and turn things around. But even with Carr at the helm, the Wolverines’ (4-3 overall, 1-3 Big Ten) offensive struggles persisted. And on a day when Michigan’s defense was stellar, it was those offensive woes that let the Hoosiers (7-1, 5-1) come away with a 13-6 overtime victory. “We’ve got to be better than that on offense,” Wolverines coach Kyle Whittingham said. “There’s no way around it.” On its second drive of the game, even with a new quarterback at the helm, Michigan’s season-long turnover issues again came back around. While being swarmed by a few Indiana defenders on a speed option, freshman quarterback Tommy Carr’s attempted pitch to freshman running back Savion Hiter ended up on the ground, and the Hoosiers recovered and took over inside the Wolverines’ 30-yard line. With Indiana having been gifted favorable field position, Michigan’s defense buckled down on the ensuing drive. The Wolverines forced the Hoosiers to settle for a field goal to put Indiana up 3-0. Early in the second quarter, Michigan’s turnover woes struck once again. On a thirdand-7, Carr tried to thread a
pass in between four defenders to find sophomore wide receiver JJ Buchanan over the middle. Carr’s pass was tipped and then intercepted by a fifth defender behind the play. The turnover set the Hoosiers up in prime position to score, as they took over at the Wolverines’ 21-yard line. And like clockwork, Michigan’s defense buckled down, forcing another field goal that put the Hoosiers up 6-0. “Once we got up six-nothing, and I saw what kind of game it was becoming, which I kind of went into thinking it could be that kind of game, (I knew) that they’d have a hard time beating us,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said. The Wolverines’ offense did show some signs of life late in the first half, pushing into opponents’ territory. But Carr took a long sack on third down, setting up a 53-yard field goal attempt that sophomore kicker Trey Butkowski missed wide left. The Hoosiers took over with less than 30 seconds in the half and quickly got within field-goal range. But this time, Indiana missed a field goal of its own, leaving it with a only one-score lead heading into halftime. On the first series of the second half, Michigan strung together its best offensive drive of the day up to that point, as three completions from Carr helped bring it to first-andgoal. But things went downhill shortly thereafter, as Carr was sacked for a loss of 14 yards on third-and-goal from the 1-yard line. Butkowski proceeded to miss the 32-yard attempt, keeping the Wolverines off the scoreboard. Michigan’s defense gifted its offense a golden opportunity on its next series, as Berry intercepted Hoover and returned it to the Hoosiers’ 13-yard line. Expectedly, after
having gotten nothing going most of the day, the Wolverines’ offense failed to capitalize on the opportunity, as two short gains on the ground were followed by a Carr incompletion. Butkowski connected on his field-goal attempt this time around, cutting Indiana’s lead to just three. To keep the game within reach for its stagnant offense, Michigan’s defense needed to keep playing lights out — and it did. And near the middle of the fourth quarter, after two consecutive three-and-outs, the Wolverines’ offense finally started to fulfill its end of the bargain. Carr led Michigan to the 3-yard line, but another third-down sack forced the Wolverines to settle for a field goal, which Butkowski nailed to send the game to overtime. But the Hoosiers opened overtime with a bang. Hoover followed a 21-yard strike to tight end Brock Schott with a 4-yard scamper into the end zone, putting Indiana up 13-6. And fittingly, Michigan’s offense couldn’t come up with the touchdown it needed to keep the game alive. After converting one fourth down, the Wolverines’ offense stalled, and Carr’s fourth-down pass attempt fell short of freshman wide receiver Salesi Moa. “We got our work cut out for us, and that’s our job as coaches to do just that: spark the offense,” Whittingham said. “We’ll continue to search for answers and look at every possible scenario.” Michigan’s loss to the Hoosiers Saturday depicted the story of its season, even with a new quarterback. In a game where the Wolverines’ defense was dominant, their offense couldn’t do enough to get them over the hump.
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SCARS edition
2 — The Statement // Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Oh, how hard I’d fall
ANIYAH YODER
Statement Correspondent
This is the first time in my life I have been single. I have been single before, of course. There have been stretches between relationships, weeks or months when there was no one to call my partner, no one whose schedule I had to work around, no one whose future I had to consider alongside my own. But even in those in-between moments, I was never really alone in my own future. There was always someone coming next, someone I had just left, someone I was trying to get over or someone I had yet to meet. For most of my life, there has been a relationship shaping the edges of it. This started in fourth grade. I was probably 10 years old when I first learned that liking another person could become a full-time activity. I started pretending to be interested in certain things because I thought he liked them. I would play with different people at recess depending on who I thought he was interested in being around. If he jumped off the swings, then yes, Mom, I was jumping off the swings, too. I didn’t give much thought to the landing as long as I was following him. I often thought about what I was going to wear to school based on whether I thought he might notice. At night, I would lie in bed and imagine a future with him; at 10 years old, this meant a house, a dog, a married couple and some vague version of a family I had mostly learned about from children’s books and fairy tales. I was 10 years old and already becoming remarkably good at the adult habit of making another person part of every decision I made. After all, research on adolescent romantic relationships suggests these experiences can have lasting significance for young people’s development and later relationships. I didn’t know that at 10, of course. I only knew that if he liked something, I wanted to like it, too. I dated this person, on and off, until eighth grade. I got very good at noticing things about him and then incorporating them into myself. If he liked hyped-up SoundCloud rap music, I listened to it. If he thought Salt Bae was funny, I started to indulge in that kind of humor. None of this felt particularly improper at the time. I wasn’t standing in front of my mirror thinking I needed to become the kind of girl he would like. I can try to blame it on the fact that I was 10, 11 and then 12, and I thought I was simply learning about my partner, but in reality, the distinction between learning someone in and out and adjusting myself for them was not one I knew how to make yet. Then, nearing the end of seventh grade, he broke up with me over the phone. I
cried so hard that my eyes became swollen enough that I could barely see, and for the next few days, I looked and felt like something terrible had happened to me. At the time, this seemed like a reasonable physical and emotional response to what I believed was the collapse of my life as I knew it. I wasn’t thinking about what came next. I wasn’t thinking about who I would date after him or whether I would ever like anyone again. I was thinking about him — I was thinking about the fact that I wouldn’t get to talk to him at school anymore, that I wouldn’t have a reason to wonder what he was doing, that the person I had spent years thinking about was suddenly not mine. I remember wondering, very seriously, what I was supposed to do with myself at this stage. It sounds dramatic now, but I don’t think it was dramatic then. I had loved someone, or felt what I understood to be love, for years, and then one afternoon he decided he didn’t want that anymore. Of course, I was devastated. Being liked became more than something I wanted; it became a way of understanding myself. I saw that most clearly during the COVID-19 pandemic, when I was more isolated from others than I had ever been before. There was almost nobody around to impress or whose attention I could chase. In my isolation, I found my own music taste and figured out my own style. I read books, and with that, I started developing opinions that did not need anyone’s agreement. I became interested in things that had no obvious usefulness in making me more likable because there was no one around to be liked by. I had time with myself in a way I
had never really had before, and I thought that was simply what growing into myself was supposed to feel like. But that was only half of it. I was becoming myself, but I still imagined that eventually this self would be presented to someone. Even in the year when I was most removed from other people, I was not really thinking of myself as a person who was simply single. I was just in between, and in between was not a place I had learned to stay long. Soon enough, I found my ticket out. He was about as popular as a boy could be at our school. People knew him, and, most importantly, people liked him. Most of the girls at school seemed to have some version of the same opinion about him: He was our class crush. And I remember thinking, with the intensity available to a 13-year-old girl who felt very small, that I would really like to date the popular boy.
Then, only a few weeks before freshman year, he messaged me on Instagram: “hey.” I remember looking at the notification and immediately deciding that it was a prank. There was no other explanation. He was somewhere with his friends. Someone had dared him to message me. They were probably all sitting around laughing, waiting to see what I would say. I said “heyy.” The presence of a second Y mattered a lot in those days. We started dating, and for the next two years, I did a familiar thing in a more serious setting. I was older now, and the things I was willing to move around were much bigger than who I played with at recess. I started to consider what I wanted to study, where I wanted to go to college, where I might live and what kind of future could make room for both of us. If something mattered to him, I found a way for it to matter to me, too. None of this felt like losing myself in the moment. I felt like I was being thoughtful and taking the relationship seriously. I thought this was what you did when you loved someone enough to imagine a life with them: You gave things up. And because I was choosing to do it — nobody was standing over me and forcing me to make these decisions — I never thought of myself as losing anything. From this, I learned that sometimes, making yourself smaller feels like compromise, and other times, it can feel like generosity. Sometimes it can feel like a testament that you are willing to make room for somebody you love. I am here to tell you that no real love will ever make you consider being small. By sophomore year of high school, college was no longer some distant thing adults asked about to make conversation. It was beginning to feel real, and the University of Michigan was a real possibility for me. I had worked hard enough to get there, and I was excited to see who I could become there. But he was not particularly interested in academics, and so I started looking at schools differently. I looked for places where both of us might get acceptance letters so we could continue dating. The University felt
Wednesday, October 28, 2026 // The Statement — 3
like the obvious choice for me, but I was factoring a high school relationship into a decision that would stay with me long after the relationship ended. By the time applications were due, we were no longer together. I applied to the University without a second thought. I got in, and now I sit here writing this. I think about how little it took for that decision to go one way instead of the other. If we had still been together, I don’t know if I would have applied at all. I did not make this decision because I had miraculously become more independent once we broke up. I just happened to make one of the biggest decisions of my life at a moment when I was no longer making decisions around him. I thought in some ways I had learned my lesson after that relationship, and for the next two years I spent a lot of time “working on myself,” which was sometimes genuine and most of the time just a more socially acceptable way of looking for another high school relationship. I made new friends because I was alone and, once again, absolutely heartbroken. I worked more, saved money and tried to make the most of high school while I waited for it to be over. College was supposed to be a fresh start, anyway. It was where I was told everyone met their husband. I put more effort into how I looked, how I presented myself and how I showed up for people. I told myself I was becoming more confident — and sometimes that was the honest truth. But there was still an audience in the back of my mind that I was becoming confident for. I found that one audience member in an introductory psychology class in freshman year. We dated until my junior year. Looking back, this relationship was quite different from the others in a way I didn’t understand until it was over. He was the first person I dated who seemed genuinely invested in me becoming more myself. He didn’t want me to become smaller so that our lives would fit together. He wanted me to want things, which was surprisingly — or maybe not so surprisingly — difficult for me. It would be easy to say that I kept choosing men who asked me to give things up, but I didn’t. My most recent relationship was, in many ways, the opposite. He wanted me to have a successful career. He wanted me to have my own ambitions. He wanted me to take myself seriously. He wanted me to want as much for myself as he wanted for himself. And I still didn’t know how to do something that, at the time, felt like such a selfish thing. I had grown up around a version of heterosexual adulthood in which selflessness was simply part of being a woman. You gave your body to have children, your time to raise them, your dreams so your husband could meet his. The men had careers, plans, places they wanted to live, things they wanted to accomplish, and the women figured out how their own lives could work around
those things. In Anna Fels’ discussion of women and ambition, she argues cultural ideals of femininity can make women feel that openly pursuing their ambitions conflicts with being feminine. Nobody had to sit me down and explain this to me. I had seen it in enough families, television shows and conversations that I had filed the concept away as an ordinary arrangement in adult relationships. I believe that is a large part of why I was so quick to give up my own ambitions for the people I loved. A good friend once told me that a sacrifice has to be equal to, or greater in value than, what you receive in return. With that in mind, I realized I was willing to sacrifice things I had never experienced. I could say I would give up a school, a place to live, a plan for my future and feel that I meant it, but I didn’t know what I was giving up. I couldn’t know what I was choosing to give up because I never had the things I was letting go of to preserve a relationship. Now I am 20 and once again single, and I keep returning to the question that has failed to follow me through almost every version of myself: What do I want? For most of my life, I found ways to answer that question with another person. I became so used to imagining my life alongside somebody else’s that imagining it only for myself felt strangely incomplete. But the change wasn’t as dramatic as I might have expected. I just started making decisions without second-guessing them, applying for things like master’s programs and internships across the country on a whim instead of telling myself that I wished I could. I gave myself permission to go where I wanted, when I wanted, with whoever I wanted, without having to consider what any of it meant for someone else. I’ve changed my major completely, and in doing so, I’ve found spaces where I feel like I belong, with people who make me feel like I don’t have to be in a relationship to have a solid place in their world. As I began thinking about what being single meant to me, I wanted to know how other people my age understood it, too. I looked through blogs, Reddit posts and Quora discussions about dating in your 20s, and I kept coming back to the same ideas. One woman wrote, “I’m not treating being single like a gap in my life that needs to be filled.” I recognized how much of my own life had been spent treating it that way, even when I wasn’t consciously looking for someone. There was always the assumption that another relationship was waiting somewhere ahead of me. And apparently, I wasn’t the only one thinking this way. In reading other young people’s thoughts on being single, I found questions I had been asking myself, too.
One woman who had been in long-term relationships since the age of 15 asked, “Is it important that I learn to be on my own without being in a
relationship for some time?” I was struck by the question because it gets at something I hadn’t known how to articulate for myself. When you’ve spent most of your life in relationships, being alone can feel like a skill you never had the chance to develop. People who had spent their teenage years in relationships wondered whether they knew how to be alone. Others were learning to stop treating singleness as a problem to solve. It seemed that, for a lot of us, learning to be single was part of learning to be an adult. Looking back, there wasn’t one breakup that taught me how to be alone. If anything, I think I have simply spent enough time repeating the same pattern to finally recognize it. I know how quickly I could make another person the answer to a question I have barely asked myself. As I read other people’s reflections on being single, I found myself thinking about how much accommodation can become part of loving someone. One writer
described being single as a time when “you don’t have to consider accommodating, compromising or sacrificing for anyone else.” I now understand why having that space for yourself matters. When you’re in a relationship, it’s easy for decisions to become shared ones, and even the smallest choices can start to involve another person. Being single offers a chance to make those choices without having to account for anyone else, to find out what you want simply because it’s what you want. Another comment offered a simpler reminder: “love is a part of life not a whole life.” I had spent so long treating romantic love as the thing my other decisions revolved around that I wasn’t sure what remained when I took it out of the center. So I am trying something different, although I am not particularly good at it yet. I am going to try to answer the question on my own. I am going to live enough of my own life to know what I have before I decide what, if anything, I am willing to give up for someone else. I want to get back to the girl I was before boys became part of every decision, when I could sit on a swing and the biggest thing I had to figure out was whether I was brave enough to let go, when I didn’t care where I would land, how hard I would fall or who I’d fall for. I know a little more about falling now, and I’ve done it enough times to know that not every landing will be pretty. But I’ve always managed to get back up. I have the scars to prove it. Audrey Rosenberg/ DAILY
4 — The Statement // Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Can you call two places home? ADEL KADDOUMI Statement Contributor
“So, where are you from?” “Jerusalem.” I thought that would be enough of an answer. It rarely was. The night I arrived in Ann Arbor — Aug. 22, 2025 — there were parties on every street. Music came from cars, houses and, surprisingly, a bar on wheels. I grew up somewhere quieter and more conservative, where streets were empty by 10 p.m., so this so-called “college life” felt like a different planet for me. And almost every introduction began with the same question: “Where are you from?” “Jerusalem.” “So, is this your first time living in America?” “Pretty much. I was born in Texas, though, so I’m kind of American, too.” And that was usually where the explaining began. I’m Palestinian. I grew up in Jerusalem, and I spent part of my childhood in Saudi Arabia. None of these questions were meant to hurt. Most came from real curiosity, but every now and then, a question felt less like an invitation to share my story and more like someone trying to fit me into a story they already had in mind. But my answers were starting to sound like a geography lesson with a few too many turns, and something about those conversations stayed with me. It’s small, but it’s like a cut I kept forgetting about until I pressed on it. I guess part of me just wished saying “Jerusalem” could be as ordinary as someone else saying “Michigan” or “Florida.” Until then, I’d spent my whole life simply being myself. I never had to explain myself too much. Jerusalem raised me. Texas was where I was born.
Palestine is my identity. Saudi Arabia held a small chapter of my childhood. None of them were wrong answers. They were parts of the same story. But in Ann Arbor, I started to notice the pause: the half-second before I answered, when I wondered how much of my life I needed to explain for someone to understand me. I wasn’t struggling to tell the truth. But I was struggling to decide how much of it could fit into one answer. That pause is the closest thing I have to a scar from my first year here. Not a dramatic one. Just a small mark I always forget has such an effect on me until someone again asks, “Where are you from?” sabah il-kheir In Jerusalem, my mornings began before I got out of bed. At dawn, the adhan — or the Islamic call to prayer — sounded across every part of the city. Later, on my way to school, church bells would ring. One call — two faiths — celebrated in a place I call home. Then came the words I said at least 10 times a day without thinking twice: “sabah il-kheir” ريخلا حابص Good morning. Both carry the same meaning. But somewhere between Arabic and English, something gets lost. In Arabic, ريخلا (al-khair) means more than just “good’; it carries a wish for peace and well-being. Growing up, when someone said ريخلا حابص to me, I felt its warmth rather than just any throwaway phrase. Moreover, Arabic is the language I talk to myself in. It’s the language I argue in and feel in. However, English is the language I learned at school, one that opened doors and let me talk to people far beyond the world I grew up in. I value it and respect its importance in the world. But speaking English wasn’t always enough for me. Sometimes, I had to translate more than words. I could translate ريخلا حابص perfectly. But I couldn’t translate everything that came with it. In Ann Arbor, I wake up to an alarm. No adhan through my window, no church bells on the way to class. Just a ringtone I picked specifically because it scares me awake. I don’t mean one morning is better than the other. Michigan has given me a variety of
experiences and people I might never have met otherwise. But sometimes, when I sit at Law Quadrangle, I think of the limestone houses of Jerusalem, the weathered arches and the narrow stone alleyways that have carried generations before mine. What I miss most are its streets in the early morning, still damp with dew and smelling like ka’ak, falafel and hummus. I miss saying ريخلا حابص without thinking about which language I’m speaking. I didn’t know how much comfort I lived in until I left the city. A Name I Had to Repeat At Michigan, I learned quickly that some introductions are shorter than others. “I’m from Pennsylvania.” “Wait, my roommate’s from there!” “I’m from the Bay Area.” “No way, I have family there!” Within seconds, people found something in common: a hometown, a mutual friend, a familiar state, a connection. Then it was my turn. “I’m from Jerusalem.” And the geography lesson started again. Even my name needed an introduction. “My name is Adel.” “Adele?” “Adam?” “Sorry — could you say that again?” No one meant anything by it. I had arrived in a country where foreign languages sound different, where people are sometimes handed a nickname because their real name is “too hard to pronounce.” But a name isn’t just a sound — it’s the first piece of who
you are that others learn, and I didn’t want to trade mine for something simpler and easier to say. During my freshman year of college, I slowly started to become friends with people I met at an organization event — people who would end up changing how I saw Michigan. They introduced me to Michigan traditions, explained the humor and filled me in on the unspoken habits of a culture I was still figuring out. I remember the first time I caught the “freshers’ flu.” I went to the doctor’s office, and the receptionist called my name, “Adel.” It was a shock for me; it was the first time since being in America that someone said my name right without being corrected. Then the question came: “Did I pronounce it right?” the receptionist asked. The answer was more than yes; it had a deeper meaning, one that
Wednesday, October 28, 2026 // The Statement — 5
came out a little differently in English. I could be far from home and still build a life that felt
touched me and reminded me how our names shape us. I still remember that one evening when I made musakhan for a friend who had never tried Palestinian food before. After his third piece, he looked at me and said, “You know, for someone who talks about missing home so much, you’ve done a pretty good job bringing it here.” I laughed and told him, “Trust me, my mother would still say I didn’t make enough.” We spent the rest of the evening eating straight from the tray, and for once, home felt less like somewhere I had left and more like something I could share. I was learning a new way of living — sometimes awkwardly, sometimes happily, but still learning. As the days of my freshman year passed, I started realizing that I could build
relationships that mattered. I could find people who got my humor, even when it
like my own. And maybe most importantly, I could do all of it without becoming someone else. There was no single moment that changed everything — no morning when I woke up suddenly feeling American enough or comfortable enough. It happened slowly, one day at a time. I had spent so long wondering whether I would fit into Michigan that I almost didn’t notice Michigan becoming part of my story. Now, when someone asks where I’m from, my answer is simpler. “I’m Palestinian, from Jerusalem and I was born in Texas.” And then I move on. Not because there’s nothing more to say — there’s so much more. I just don’t feel like every introduction has to carry my entire life story. I don’t rehearse the next explanation, and I don’t wonder whether my answer will make someone question who I am. I’m still Adel. I’m still Palestinian. Jerusalem is still home. Texas is still part of my story. And Michigan has given me things I’ll never forget. None of these truths cancel each other out. The Things We Take With Us Sometimes, I wonder what I’ll say about Michigan when I leave. A couple of years from now, someone will ask me what it was like here. “Cold,” I’ll probably say. They’ll laugh, and I’ll laugh, too. But it won’t tell them about the people I met, the late-night walks across Law Quad, or the afternoon spent sitting in the Diag,
watching students rush to class. Places I once needed Google Maps to find slowly became places I could walk without thinking about directions. It won’t tell them who I was when I arrived, or how different I am from the person who left. And just like that, I’ll be doing it all over again, trying to fit an entire chapter of my life into a few words. Except this time, I think I’ll understand something I didn’t before. Maybe the problem was never that I belonged to too many places. Maybe I expected every place I belonged to come with a simple explanation. Growing up, we generally tend to believe that one day we’ll finally know exactly who we are. We imagine
adulthood
couldn’t annoy me anymore. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe healing is quieter than that. Maybe healing is when the things that once made me question myself no longer make me feel like I need to change the way I present myself. I can’t tell you exactly when the pause got shorter. There was no moment when everything suddenly made sense. There were just normal days, and somewhere along the way, I started feeling more like myself. Jerusalem will always be the city that raised me. Michigan is becoming the place that helped me grow up. I don’t need either one to replace the other. And if someone someday asks which one changed me more, I hope I’ll have the courage to give them an imperfect answer. I would like to end by sharing this: back in
Jerusalem, we welcome people with تيبلا كتيب — “il-beit beitak.” “The house is yours” is our way of saying, “Make yourself at home.” Somewhere between those familiar streets and the unfamiliar ones of Ann Arbor, I spent so much time explaining where I belonged that I forgot I never needed anyone’s permission to be myself. And maybe that’s what healing means to me now: learning that wherever life takes me, I can still turn to myself and say those same familiar words — كتيب تيبلا. Audrey Rosenberg/ DAILY
as the point when all the questions about ourselves will somehow have answers. But the closer we get, the more we realize that we’re still changing, meeting people who challenge what we believe and discovering parts of ourselves in places we never expected to call home. I used to think healing meant reaching a point where the things that once made me uncomfortable
6 — The Statement // Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Pain beyond the skin LOLA POST
Deputy Statement Editor
The first time I interviewed for an internship, I was left walking 20 minutes home in pools of blood stemming from the backs of my ankles. I had trusted the shoes not to give me any problems, as they never had in the past, but as I sat on the red-cushioned chair and discussed my feelings on art and community, I had to strategically tuck my pant legs around my ankles to avoid any blood splattering the floor. Then, just a few months ago, I reached for those same shoes again to wear to my scholarship award brunch. They were stained on the inside, but you couldn’t see any blood on the shiny black exterior, so on they went. I was left, to no surprise, bleeding again. My mom, who attended the brunch with me, questioned my motives and asked why I wouldn’t just buy a new pair of shoes or wear a more comfortable pair. Honestly, I wondered the same thing. I think it’s because I knew the shoes gave me a tried and true professional look — but so could hundreds of other pairs, right? I don’t quite have the money to buy a new pair, but I do have seven other pairs of heels sitting in my closet. I couldn’t come to a strong conclusion other than “I did it because I wanted to, even though I knew it could hurt.” In that same vein, I am no stranger to getting a wax, straightening my hair until it starts to smell burnt or walking for hours on treadmills until my feet can’t physically take it anymore. I have never been the type of person to avoid something because of physical discomfort. My philosophy has always been to do what makes me feel best in the long term, and when it comes to physical pain, the intended result is typically appearance-based. Of course, I’ll wear the shoes that make me look most professional, no matter what. If I can avoid shaving for three weeks, count me in on getting a wax. I was on vacation this past weekend and still made sure to get my 10,000 steps in daily, even beneath the hot Texas sun. Even if this sounds extreme, I am nowhere near close to being alone in my views. The idea that “beauty is pain” has been around since the 1800s and has ruled women’s lives around the world. Pain and pleasure, activating the same part of the brain, have no choice but to be tied together. When something painful promises a desirable outcome, the discomfort itself becomes easier for our brains to accept because we associate it with the pleasure of the result. We treat pain as evidence that we are doing something worthwhile rather than a warning to stop. And since the human body starts decaying at about age 30, it starts taking pain and force to reverse that aging process and create a face and body that provide the pleasure that people are looking for. At 30, the elasticity of our skin declines and our body composition shifts, with inevitable muscle loss. These natural signs of aging are often framed by beauty culture
as flaws that need to be corrected, pushing people to endure uncomfortable procedures to maintain a particular appearance. Plastic surgery has been an increasingly available option — think of Fox’s 2004 reality series “The Swan,” which took “average” women and completely changed their faces and bodies in the span of a few months, and compare that to the approximate 38 million yearly cosmetic procedures happening worldwide now. I have even found myself looking at the slight creases appearing on my forehead and wondering when an appropriate time to start Botox might be. The fight to become — or remain — beautiful has always been present in society and very likely always will be. It’s interesting how pain is accepted with open arms only when it’s a means to stay beautiful. When considering interpersonal interactions, how common is it to avoid confrontation or hard conversations in an attempt to avoid pain? Why would someone leave a hurtful relationship when the distance would hurt, too? Why ever share our true feelings? While we go to great lengths to avoid the emotional pain of rejection and vulnerability, we rarely extend that same instinct for self-preservation to the physical pain we willingly endure in pursuit of beauty. I have done so much research on attachment styles, I’ve listened to hours of podcasts on how to reverse emotional responses I don’t value and I’ve gone through therapist after therapist fighting my emotional avoidance. But still, I refuse to get hurt. Once I catch wind that someone might be able to hurt me, if my emotions are coming on a bit too strong, I’ll leave that situation rather than allow myself to become trusting or comfortable in their presence. I have been in my fair share of longdistance relationships, and they have been my personal downfall. Once I see how much it hurts to be away from my partner for such extended periods of time, I know that they can indirectly cause me pain every day, so I respond by shutting the entire relationship down. I can’t stand the thought of one person having much power over my emotions, so I avoid that pain by leaving and getting over their absence all at once. I know that I self-sabotage in relationships, and though I’ve tried to fix it, it’s an unfortunate part of who I am. At the end of the day, no matter how many steps I take in the right direction, I still choose to avoid that pain. I think the differences in emotional and physical pain become even more apparent when I consider what I actually want from my life. In romantic relationships, I want to feel wanted and secure enough to let another person see the parts of myself that I keep guarded. But those relationships leave me with the most to lose, because the more I care about someone, the more their rejection could hurt. Beauty, by comparison, is a much safer investment. I can spend a single hour getting ready and leave the house feeling confident without anyone needing to show me that I can feel confident. I can control how I present
myself to the world, but I can’t control how someone else feels about me. I am willing to tolerate so much physical discomfort to feel good about myself because I know that the pain I feel will never be for nothing. Pain for people is risky, but pain for beauty is concrete. It’s silly to see what I’m able to go through when I think the lasting physical benefit outweighs the immense suffering, but I can’t trust people enough to allow myself the chance to have a blossoming relationship. There is an obvious disconnect in my life when it comes to what makes pain worthwhile. But I don’t think I’m alone in that either. The human brain treats social threats as immediate danger, which wires us to want to avoid having conversations that are perceived as dangerous. Stress hormones disrupt the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of language and emotions. I think back to my long-distance relationships here: Imagine sitting across from someone you care about, trying to explain how their failure to call you back has hurt you. Before the conversation even starts, you may be anticipating their defensiveness or maybe that they will decide they no longer want you in their life. Therefore, in these hard situations, you lose your ability to feel as empathetic or articulate as you would otherwise, which makes having hard conversations that much harder. We are at a biological disadvantage when pain is tied to stress rather than pleasure, because we usually do not derive immediate pleasure from a difficult talk. This kind of emotional pleasure is felt in the long run as opposed to the immediate pleasure from physical enhancement. Perhaps the difference between the two comes down to control. When I put on my painful pair of heels, I know exactly what I’m going to get out of the experience. I know what they look like, how they make me feel and how they will be perceived by the people around me. I know I’m going to be seen as a prim, proper and professional woman, and definitely not one that is experiencing pain. The pain of some bloody ankles is temporary, and the reward is something I am able to see immediately in the mirror. Even though the shoes leave me bleeding, I can convince myself that the discomfort is worth it because I got something tangible in return. Emotional pain doesn’t have that same riskto-reward ratio. I can spend months — as I have done in the past — learning to communicate more effectively, allowing myself to be vulnerable and trying to trust another person, only to have that person decide they don’t want to continue pursuing our connection. I can do everything right and still end up hurt. There is no guarantee that going through the pain to open myself up to the world will result in the relationship I want, just as there is no guarantee that a difficult conversation will
resolve the issue that prompted it. Avoiding these conversations is the easy choice, then, because there is no longer a risk of going through pain and potentially not receiving an immediate reward. This is where beauty culture becomes so successful. It’s convinced people that their pain does come with a reward — confidence, desirability, even professional advancement. Pulling and preening at our bodies can bring us closer to the things we want to see, as long as we push past the discomfort of it all. But social connections and relationships do not work like bodies. Other people have their own unpredictable feelings and desires, and no amount of pain we can go through promises us that we will get what we want out of another person. I wish I could say that recognizing this pattern has made it easier to break. It hasn’t. I can identify my self-sabotage, explain where it comes from and list all the things that I should be doing differently, yet I still find myself shying away from people who get too close. There is something almost embarrassing about knowing exactly how something will hurt you and choosing it anyway. At least with my heels, I can point to my blisters and explain why they happened. With people, I can’t say the same.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026 // The Statement — 7
My mom hates ‘ain’t’ ADELAIDE ELLIS Statement Contributor
The watered-down sun glanced off the steeple of Saint Agnes’s Catholic Church as my family and I drove closer, the colorful sounds of the “Rio” soundtrack floating throughout my childhood truck. My brother, Liam, sat to my right, happily bouncing in his car seat, perpetually in motion. The red birthmark on the middle of his forehead had yet to fade; he couldn’t have been more than 5 years old. I, two years older, sat on the driver’s side behind my mom. The passenger seat was empty because my dad didn’t go to church. I rested my head against the window and closed my eyes as I sang along. “Don’t say that,” Mom said, snapping me out of my reverie. Confused, I looked at my brother, who was sitting still. “But Dad and Grandma say it,” Liam protested through the gap in his teeth. “I don’t care. We don’t say it,” she repeated, her eyes focused on the road ahead. She was irritated, her manicured hands gripping the wheel, but I wasn’t sure why. I looked at Liam; he was looking down. “Say what?” I asked, nosy from the start. Mom’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, a flash of annoyance running across them. “Ain’t. It’s improper.” She turned away. I shut my eyes again. Contrary to this scene, I lived a cartoonishly good childhood. From the moment I was born, I was surrounded by so much love and support I could choke on it. Of course, no family is perfect, mine included. One of my mother’s “flaws,” if you could call it that, is that she was a bit of a grammar cop. Her whole side of the family was. As a result, I was constantly corrected from birth, never speaking “improperly,” even as a child. Language was always a major focus in our home, even recreationally. Holidays were spent playing Boggle, Scattergories and Cranium, though we mainly stuck to the Word Worm cards. Books covered every surface in every relative’s home, and when I was a toddler, it seemed someone was reading to me in my every waking moment until I could read myself. I don’t wish this to have been any different — on the contrary,
far from it. I have a sneaking suspicion all those letters swarming around my head in my formative years contributed to my penchant for writing today. My mother’s side of the family is filled with light and laughter as well as words. I was blessed with many cousins, myself born exactly in the middle of the line so I could hang out with the older ones when I wanted to feel cool and the younger ones when I wanted to feel important. Crowded family gatherings were spent playing Super Smash Bros. and Ghost in the Graveyard for hours, while Christmas Eve always ended with a new ornament from my Aunt Lizzie after Mass. Sound was constant and everywhere, from my aunts arguing about recipes to my little cousins hawking “tickets” to our selfproduced plays. I remember thinking my family was perfect. To me, it was. I never asked why grammar was so important to my mom. If I had to guess, I would say it would have to do with her education and upbringing. My mom and her siblings underwent Catholic schooling up until high school graduation, taught by nuns who tended to be extremely strict. I remember my mom telling me stories about her brother being locked in an old refrigerator box when he misbehaved. That, combined with having a single mom struggling to make ends meet, could have caused my mom to always want to be on her absolute best behavior, perfect grammar included. Since grammar was important to my mom, it was important to me and affected not only how I spoke, but how I
thought. I would inwardly flinch at imperfect verbiage on the playground, before pushing the thought away. Even today, I catch myself editing my words midsentence, swapping one out for one that’s “better.” I read over my texts to my mom before I send them, knowing she will call out any grammatical mistake she sees. My dad did not correct my grammar as my mother did. I love my dad. I have always loved my dad. His family is different from my mom’s. He has one brother who has no children. Visits to my Grandma and Grandpa Ellis’s house held a distinct feeling — a heavy one. Even on hot, sunny days when I would splash around their backyard pool, I felt a sense of darkness. That sense would be confirmed every time I entered the house. Unlike my mom’s family gatherings, there was barely any sound at all — much less laughter. This was partly because my grandpa was deaf and partly because you were afraid to say the wrong thing, fearful to start an argument that would leave an awkward haze hanging over the room. I have no doubt my grandparents loved me very much — and they still do — but it was hard to tell sometimes. Especially when my grandma would say things like, “Doesn’t it feel great to be thin?” when I was struggling with an eating disorder or how shocking it was that I had “beautiful green eyes” when my mom’s were “a shit brown.” My mom was sitting across the mahogany table three feet away when my grandma said that. As a child, I separated my dad from his parents in my mind. I didn’t want to think about my negative feelings toward his family in relation to him, for fear that those thoughts would seep over onto him, undeserved. Still, I couldn’t wait to leave every time I walked into my grandparents’ house. My grandma’s voice would follow as I opened the truck door, calling, “Yas ain’t staying for dinner?” My mom and I always noticed her grammar, sharing what I now know to be demeaning smiles, unbeknownst to my dad. The way my grandma spoke marked something to my mom and me, a divide I was taught to notice but wasn’t able to put into words. I was a bit of a confidante to my mother when it came to dealing with her in-laws, even as a child. From exchanging eye rolls and knowing glances when my grandma said something outlandish to comforting her in her endless, impotent — but oftentimes valid — frustration, I was there to nod and agree. I was too young to grasp the inner mechanisms of why my dad’s family operated the way it did, but I now realize that the problems my dad’s side was dealing with
primarily stemmed from untreated mental health issues, which in turn led to frustration and anger that projected onto those who didn’t deserve it (typically, my mom). I couldn’t understand this as a child, but I knew my dad’s family was sometimes mean to my mom. That was enough for my childhood self to justify following my mother’s lead in poking fun at their vernacular, which, as I naively thought, was the main issue that caused such a rift between the two sides of my family. Looking back, I see just how wrong it is to judge someone’s character or mock them based on their choice of words. As I grew older, I began to understand the nuances of both sides of my family. My mother’s side turned out to be far from perfect — despite their immaculate syntax — and though my dad’s side was definitely flawed, they were not much more so than your typical Midwestern family tree. A product of their time, they were left without access to mental health resources, only knowing the stigma behind them. I began to realize the effect of my and my mom’s animosity on my dad. He called his mom every day after work and often told me stories of growing up with his cousins, mirroring the wonderful memories I have of spending time with my own. He always seemed so happy when he told me those stories, tinted with nostalgia and love for his family that now felt so far away. I felt guilty knowing I was, at best, complicit in this distance and, at worst, an instigator. I realized the divide I felt in my youth was one of class, manifesting in spoken language. As the years went on, I began to analyze just why I felt that way, and started to realize just how unfair it was. I reflected on memories of my own, for once not focusing on anger or self-righteousness. The more I thought about the past, the more I remembered: my uncle tossing me around in the pool for hours, my second cousin teaching me how to do my makeup for the first time, my grandpa’s homemade pizza and booming laughter, my great-aunt gifting me my blue cashmere scarf I still wear almost every day in the winter. I finally understood that my grandparents’ home wasn’t so silent after all, as long as I was willing to listen. The grammatical habits from my youth still show up in my thoughts today, and I don’t think that they will ever go away. But now, after my inward flinch, I feel a pang of shame and regret, thinking of how I spent so many years using something as meaningless as grammar to justify contempt toward my family. Strangely enough, I’m grateful for this sting. Afterward, I consciously reorient my thoughts into positive memories of my dad’s side. My current favorite is my grandpa pushing my bike down his street, laughing as he lets go. Ella Flores/ DAILY
8 — The Statement // Wednesday, October 28, 2026
SARAH PALUSHI
Statement Contributor
What actually leaves a lasting impression? Probably my Instagram likes. The ability to see what someone has liked online acts as a gateway to their personality. There have often been times when a mutual’s Instagram likes have left me proud of my association with them, or questioning who they really are. Lately, I’ve been confronted quite frequently about what I’ve liked on Instagram. But, more specifically, it’s about the volume of what I’ve liked. My friends can, and frankly will, tell you that I’ve liked everything on Instagram. I could practically guarantee that every other scroll on the app’s Reels tab is sure to have the red-hearted seal of approval: “liked by sarpalushi.” Maybe I should be concerned. At first, it was funny. One or two people I knew would consistently mention my alleged Instagram addiction. But it’s honestly become a character-defining thing. Every person I meet brings up my online presence, and I must begin to wonder why this has become what I am known for. Quitting is almost certainly not an option — if this has become my trademark, what am I without it? Who exactly am I without the traces of myself scattered around as little hearts across the internet? My whole generation has been scarred by the pervasiveness of the internet. My own digital footprint has been in business for half of my life — a whole decade of scrolling. This era has been characterized by realizations of social media’s harm, but there are minimal reactions and corrective methods. Algorithms have become more addictive, but lawmakers are only now taking measures to do something about it. In February 2026, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed two bills into law effectively banning cell phone use in the classroom. While an important preventative policy, you can still log back on once the school day’s over. Once that glowing screen powers on, what on these apps is protecting children from addiction? What about my generation, the last one to see what life was like without the persistent use of cell phones, but is now left to their own devices? There is an intense fear of missing out that comes with being offline as well. Social media has shaped significant aspects of
Liked by @sarpalushi Generation Z’s culture. The very words we use to communicate are changing rapidly and simplifying because of social media. You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve had to explain “chud” to someone who isn’t as chronically online as I am. Communication with my younger brothers — one of whom is Generation Alpha — almost solely relies on how hip I am to online culture. I got my phone at the beginning of sixth grade, and I’ve seen hundreds of interpretations of what is trending, what is funny and what is socially acceptable online. Without liking everything I see, there is no way my algorithm will know what exactly I’m looking for. Just liking the Reels of an account I admire will push their posts to my algorithm more consistently than just following them, making me more inclined to continue engaging with my algorithm through likes. I then get similar content boosted to my feed, and it’s a constant cycle of having to like the next thing I see. With every like I leave, I am creating a trail of breadcrumbs totaling who I am as a person. There are times when scrolling and double-tapping have become second nature, and it’s less about the content I consume and more about the repetitive action itself. In this way, it’s become less about creating a persona than maximizing the amount of time I spend on the app. It’s how I show my appreciation. If I don’t like a post, then who will? And because of my reputation as a chronically online individual, if I don’t like a post, then people will think something is wrong. The internet is supposed to make us more connected to others, but it doesn’t feel that way. If anything, I feel more disingenuous in my online interactions. When I like a post, I wonder if someone else will notice and say something, that there will be something to start a conversation about. It’s much easier to indirectly spark something like that than to independently walk up to a mutual on the street. It’s a constant performance, and the impression I am leaving on others makes me more disconnected from who I am without other people’s content. What might be more wrong is the reputation itself. For each Reel I’ve watched, I’m sure I could be reading more books. I used to be a reader, you know. Each night I would immerse myself in whatever text I could find, and it would be finished in a day or two. I grew up on fantasy novels and eased my way into fictional classics and introspective memoirs. The 30-second gloving video that just took my attention away from writing this piece could not be more different. My dedication to the literary grind was once my identifier. It was how my friends and family would refer to me, and it was such an integral part of my identity that it was my first-ever Instagram username:
bookiecookie. Obviously, the bookie was my love for reading, followed by my love of cookies. AllegedInstagramaddictcookie does not sound as good. It doesn’t look all that good either. An obsession with literature means you’re well read and engage in academic pursuits — the same pursuits that one might assume got me into the University of Michigan in the first place. An obsession with social media means I am rotting away on my phone as the world passes me by and consuming degenerative meme content, which doesn’t necessarily require intellectual stimulation. At a time in our lives when a literacy crisis is ravaging the nation, surely it would be much more productive to be a part of the solution than become the problem. My attention span is fried. The average attention span is eight seconds, so you might not even end up finishing this article. The time it would take to rebuild my attention span would almost certainly cut into my Reel-watching time, and this is a tough sacrifice to make. The instant dopamine hit of a 30-second video is easier to obtain than the hours it takes to read a book, or the time put into planning a friendly outing. I average about three hours a day on Instagram alone. The dedication alone doesn’t read as someone with issues committing to media. Never mind the insistent need in a movie theater to reach for the ’gram, or the persistent feeling of my phone in my back pocket, even when I know it isn’t. Nothing to see here, folks. I try to make myself feel better about it by not downloading TikTok, which is for people who really can’t quit. I think a lot about those people — the ones who have an obvious addiction to social media but just can’t see it. I hope they get better soon. It’s difficult to break a habit that has been a part of me for so long. The routine of it all stays the same against the stress of my classes and the uncertainty of the world around me. I feel guilty about it all — about feeling left out without it, about the selfdoubt I carry with me in person that doesn’t get represented online. I want to be the same,
secure person in every setting, but it seems like a tall order. I think, one day, I will be better about my time. I won’t be wasting it away on a billionaire’s attention trap, and I’ll spend more time outside with my friends or family. I think there is a solution in the mix that includes healthy moderation or just simply logging off. But in the meantime, you can catch me on Instagram watching who knows what and leaving a little heart to the right. Ella Flores/ DAILY