July 6th, 20180PATERSON, NJ —Andre Sayegh was sworn in as the mayor of Paterson, New Jersey on Sunday afternoon, July 1, becoming the first Arab American to hold the city’s highest office.
Sayegh’s longtime political mentor, Rep. Bill Pascrell, administered the oath of office. Following his oath, Sayegh delivered a 12-minute inaugural...
July 6th, 20180FLINT — Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, known as the primary whistleblower in the Flint water crisis, documented her personal experience of seeking proof of lead poisoning in Flint’s children in her book “What the Eyes Don’t See.”
The book not only describes her struggle bringing the Flint Water Crisis to the public, but includes...
July 6th, 20181LANSING – Gov. Snyder announced on July 5 the appointment of Hassan Ahmad of Dearborn Heights to the Michigan Board of Real Estate Brokers and Salespersons.
The nine-member board, housed within the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, oversees the licensure and practice of real estate brokers and salespersons in...
July 5th, 20180GOLDEN TWP. — A 34-year-old Dearborn resident died after drowning in Golden Township's Silver Lake on July 1, according to the Oceana County Sheriff's Office.
Rabih Othman began struggling in the water at around 3:30 p.m., but a group of people he was with on a boat lost control of a safety tube and were unable to save him.
A...
June 16th, 20180DETROIT - On Wednesday, June 13, Assad Turfe was promoted by Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans to become his chief of staff.
“Assad epitomizes what a public servant should be: Selfless, hard-working and committed to getting things done with integrity,” Evans said. “He’s been instrumental to the success we’ve had over...
June 15th, 20180DEARBORN — Noor Fakih, a recent Fordson High School graduate, worked through a learning disability diagnoses during her last two years of high school and finished with offers from many top schools.
Fakih recently found out she’d been accepted to Stanford University, where she plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in computer...
June 8th, 20180Sarah Kominek
The Arab American News
MONTREAL — Lebanon's men's national hockey team is in the beginning stages of starting a women's team.
"It's official we're going to have a women's team," said Charles El-Mir, executive vice president of the Lebanese Hockey Association, who added that former Dearborn resident Sally...
June 8th, 20180SAINT AUGUSTINE, Fla - A Florida man was arrested on Wednesday after he reportedly attacked two men he believed to be Muslims or Middle Easterners. He used a stun gun and told them they didn’t “deserve to eat American food".
John Jay Smith, 60, got into a verbal altercation with the men before menacing them with a knife and...
June 3rd, 20180David Gagner was having seizures.
But he did not have nor can afford health insurance, so he sought care at a Baptist Health emergency room. There he was told he had another option in the future, the volunteer-run Muslim American Social Services, or MASS, clinic that provides free health care to uninsured, low-income adults of all...
May 25th, 20180BOSTON — Merrie Najimy, the president-elect of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), was inspired to become an educator and later a unionist after experiencing in her own youth that the curricula taught in the Massachusetts public schools she attended felt exclusionary to Arab American students. Growing up in the Lebanese...
May 25th, 20180By Sarah Kominek
DEARBORN - Maya Audi, a 15-year-old sophomore at Dearborn High School, has her eyes set on becoming an author.
In April 2016, Audi and her mother entered her story “The Raven Gem” in the National Endowment for the Arts’ (NEA) Big Read Dearborn, hosted by the Dearborn Public Library.
In partnership with...
May 18th, 20180LIVONIA — A 57-year-old Dearborn man is facing seven additional charges for allegedly inappropriately touching other men. Majed (Mark) Mohamad Wazni was charged on May 15 with seven counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy.
He’d already been charged earlier this year with two other...
May 11th, 20180"The poor turnout was due to the limited time many voters had to register and prepare necessary documents, as they had not initially expected that elections would be held outside Lebanon." -Salim Sassin, a Free Patriotic Movement leader
DEARBORN – Lebanese Americans in Metro Detroit are proud to have participated in their...
May 11th, 20181PATERSON, NJ — Andre Sayegh registered a resounding victory in Paterson’s six-man mayoral contest on Tuesday, capturing the office that he failed to gain in two previous elections.
Using the theme “One Paterson”, Sayegh converted alliances he reached with community leaders from various ethnic groups into a coalition that...
May 11th, 20180SAN JOSE, CA — A Lebanese-American police officer in San Jose filed a claim against the city and his employer after enduring years of harassment based on his ethnicity and religion.
Oakland’s KTVU reported Tuesday that San Jose police officer Nabil Haidar, a 22-year veteran of SJPD and a Muslim, endured taunts about his religion...
May 11th, 20180LANSING - On Wednesday May 9, the Michigan Bureau of Elections rejected all challenges to Abdul El-Sayed’s legal eligibility to run for governor and confirmed him eligible to run.
Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Shri Thanedar brought the challenge of El-Sayed’s eligibility forward.
“The official state Qualified Voter File...
May 11th, 20180PATERSON, NJ — Andre Sayegh registered a resounding victory in Paterson’s six-man mayoral contest on Tuesday, capturing the office that he failed to gain in two previous elections.
Using the theme “One Paterson”, Sayegh converted alliances he reached with community leaders from various ethnic groups into a coalition that...
April 27th, 20180LANSING – Republican gubernatorial candidate Patrick Colbeck outraged both Democrats and fellow Republicans when he claimed that one of his Democratic rivals, Abdul El-Sayed, is part of an organized plot to take over American political leadership positions and start a “civilization jihad.”
Colbeck, currently a state senator from...
April 25th, 20180DEARBORN – When John Salvatore Deliz, 57, did not show up in 19th District Court on April 24 for assaulting an Arab American woman in an emergency room on Feb. 10, Judge Mark Somers issued a bench warrant for failing to appear.
Police found Deliz the next day and he appeared before Judge Somers. According to Somers, Deliz hadn’t...
DETROIT – A federal jury in the Eastern District of Michigan has found in favor of former Ford engineer Faisal G. Khalaf, ruling that his superiors discriminated against him — based on his heritage and accent— and fired him after he’d attempted to come forward about what had happened to him.
Khalaf, who was awarded $16.8...
April 2nd, 20180Dearborn Heights — The police and Fire Departments recently celebrated the addition of new employees during swearing-in ceremonies at the Dearborn Heights City Hall. Two new Police Officers were sworn in at a March 19 ceremony, and one new firefighter was sworn in at a March 26 ceremony.
Police officers:
Ahmed Alhalili, a 4-year...
March 23rd, 20180STAFFORD, VA — The Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Academy graduated the first Arab American law enforcement executive.
On March 16, Mike Jaafar, chief of operations of the Wayne County Sheriff's Office, graduated from the FBI's National Academy, a professional course of study for U.S. and international law enforcement...
March 16th, 20180DEARBORN — A young Syrian refugee girl had no idea when she was selling gum on the streets of Beirut, but the cryptic expression of fear and confidence on her face would become part of a visual story of struggle that aims to connect everyone with a story to tell.
Mayssa Fakih, a 17-year-old art student at Mercy High School, an...
March 9th, 20180DEARBORN — Ali Habhab, a former east Dearborn resident who goes by the name HaBZ, released his first album, PaTHOGENS, in November. Habhab wrote all of the music on the album and got help producing it with his friend and fellow artist, Rajiv Dhall.
Habhab, 26, graduated from Crestwood High School in 2009. After graduation, he began...
February 9th, 20180
HAMTRAMCK — When Saad Almasmari made history in Nov. 2015 by receiving the most votes in the Hamtramck City Council race— making it the first City Council with a Muslim-majority in the U.S— he pledged to ensure proportional representation and that the city would handle resources well enough to move on from emergency...
February 9th, 20180This gubernatorial election has a pool of Democratic candidates who represent a diverse range of backgrounds, including an Arab American, an African American and an Indian American. If any of them are elected, it would be first for the state.
The fourth and leading candidate, Gretchen Whitmer, would be the state's second woman...
February 2nd, 20180DEARBORN HEIGHTS — Women's activist Dana Mohammad is working to form the Dearborn Heights Commission on Women and Girls. The commission would be the first of its kind in the state, according to Mohammad, who held a meeting at the Caroline Kennedy Library on Jan. 25 to gauge support, brainstorm ideas and raise awareness about the...
January 26th, 20180By Farah Harb
BANGLADESH — In light of the Rohingya refugee crisis where hundreds of thousands of refugees fearing religious prosecution in Myanmar fled to Bangladesh, the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) arrived in Bangladesh at the beginning of the current crisis to aide refugees living in conditions that...