Childcare & Early Education: Michigan’s new FY2027 budget targets high childcare costs with $30 million to expand Great Start Readiness Program access and a new $5 million ongoing childcare fund, plus added support for Early On services for infants and toddlers with developmental delays. Local Business Resilience: After an anti-Islam rally in Dearborn drew hundreds and led to 22 arrests, local Arab American business owners reported a “business as usual” rebound—plus extra community support and foot traffic. Surveillance & Privacy Fight: Madison Heights is set to vote on cementing the removal of a controversial Flock camera outside a JARS dispensary; the dispute centers on privacy backlash and whether the store ever had access to the device. Labor Market Watch: Initial jobless claims ticked up to 206,000, while broader signals point to a more fragile labor market even as Michigan showed notable declines. State Economic Relief: Michigan’s MI Affordable Loan program RFP seeks lenders for same-day, on-demand small-dollar loans up to $1,200 with an APR cap of 36%, aiming to close equity gaps in access to credit. Brownfield Jobs: EGLE awarded a $470,000 grant to clean up a contaminated Lansing industrial site, paving the way for two businesses and about 30 full-time jobs. Tech & Infrastructure: US Signal expanded its OpenCloud platform with ARM compute for AI inference and small language model workloads, reflecting continued Michigan-area interest in data centers and AI infrastructure.