ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FOUR YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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GOVERNMENT
Whitmer delivers 2025 State of the State address
‘In a divisive national moment where America needs a new way forward, Michigan can lead.’ CHRISTINA ZHANG Daily News Editor
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gave the third State of the State address of her second term from the Michigan State Capitol’s House Chamber Wednesday evening. In the address, Whitmer called attention to accomplishments from her past seven years as governor and her plans to address issues in economic expansion, education and infrastructure. In her opening remarks, Whitmer focused on political polarization and criticized tech companies for creating algorithms that exacerbate political divides. “As for politics, there’s no Holly Burkhart/DAILY sugar coating it — we seem Gov. Gretchen Whitmer delivers the State of the State address inside the Michigan House of Representatives chamber very divided today,” Whitmer at the Michigan State Capitol Wednesday evening. said. “Partisanship has affected Minnesota, two states combatting “Just like with housing, “There is a lot left to do, and every aspect of our lives, driven housing costs by altering there’s a gender gap in with Rebuilding Michigan soon by opportunistic politicians land-use policies and building education too,” Whitmer said. phasing out, we’re facing a and media figures who live by more housing, as examples for “Women outnumber men at our serious funding cliff,” Whitmer a philosophy of ‘I win if you Michigan to follow. community colleges, universities said. “To get it right, we all have lose.’ Their divisive rhetoric “We must address the core issue and most of all, in the Michigan to recognize some hard truths. is amplified by algorithms of supply,” Whitmer said. “Right Reconnect, where enrollment To my friends in the GOP, a longdesigned to make us angry and now, we are short 140,000 homes is two to one, women to men. term fix means new, fair sources keep us scrolling. We’re all being statewide, and the way forward is We’ve built these great programs of revenue. We can’t cut our way manipulated by the largest and clear: We got to build, baby, build. open to everyone, but we need to to better roads without slashing most powerful companies in the Both Texas and Minnesota built do a better job of getting more public safety, health or schools. world who profit more when more housing and drove costs young men signed up. That’s why To my fellow Democrats, cuts will we start to believe that we have down — we can too. … Let’s invest soon, I’m signing an executive need to be a part of the solution.” nothing in common. But that’s $2 billion to build, buy or fix nearly directive that will make an effort Whitmer also said she hopes just not true.” 11,000 homes.” to reach more young men and to combat the rising dependency Whitmer outlined her plans Whitmer highlighted the boost their enrollment in higher of youth on cell phones with to benefit Michiganders through investments Michigan has made education and skills-training legislation to restrict phone use three avenues: reducing costs, in career and technical education programs.” in classrooms. As of September creating jobs and delivering with initiatives such as Michigan One of Whitmer’s 2024, 15 states have passed results. With mortgage rates Reconnect, the Michigan gubernatorial campaign similar laws or enacted policies exceeding 6% and the median Achievement Scholarship and pledges was to “fix the damn that restrict the use of cell phones homebuyer age reaching Community College Guarantee. roads.” With her 2020 program in schools to mitigate the negative 56, Whitmer plans to make However, Whitmer pointed out Rebuilding Michigan coming to impacts phone use can have on homeownership for young people that women outnumber men in an end, Whitmer called attention children’s health and education. more accessible by building more both college enrollment and home to the need for funding to create CONTINUED AT houses. She cited Texas and ownership rates. long-term road solutions. MICHIGANDAILY.COM
RESEARCH
UMich Department of Astronomy will lead its first satellite launch The STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry project could pave the way to new exoplanet discoveries
ABIGAIL VANDERMOLEN Daily Staff Reporter
For the first time in its history, the University of Michigan Department of Astronomy is leading the launch of a satellite into space. The project, known as STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry, will test out a technique which, if successful, will help look for life on faraway planets and lower costs for space research. The mission, funded by a $10 million grant from NASA, is set to launch in 2029. It will send two CubeSats, satellites approximately the size of a briefcase, into space with the goal of demonstrating that interferometry, a technique in which multiple smaller telescopes act together as one larger telescope, can be done in space. In the STARI mission, the two CubeSats will gather and send starlight between each other — something telescopes within an interferometer need to do. Though the CubeSats themselves will not be doing interferometry or gathering scientific data, the technique they are testing could be used in spacebased interferometers in the future. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, astronomy professor John Monnier, leader of the project, said interferometers in space could allow scientists to study exoplanets in greater detail than they are currently able with existing technology. Space-based interferometers would be less costly to produce than traditional space telescopes with the same level of power. “In the last 20, 30 years, we’ve discovered so many thousands of exoplanets, and we’re finding
planets that we think are at the right distance from their star that they could have liquid water and could have life, but we’re still blind to go to that next step, like, ‘Is there life there?’” Monnier said. “It’s so tantalizing that … we’re so close to getting to that point. And we know how to do it. It’s just expensive right now to get there.” Monnier said the purpose of the STARI mission is to open doors for future astronomers and their research. “We want to do the astronomy,” Monnier said. “If nobody is doing this technology we need, then that’s our job to push, to try to find partners, to get help with the engineering on the aerospace side. There are currently interferometers on Earth, but the interferometers are limited by factors such as weather and light diffraction from Earth’s atmosphere. Putting interferometers in space would not only overcome these issues but also allow for the telescopes within the interferometer to be further apart, making the interferometer more powerful. However, being in space also brings new engineering challenges. The CubeSats in the STARI mission will be about a football field apart, but their location relative to each other cannot vary by more than a few millimeters. According to Prachet Jain, who is collaborating on the project as an aerospace graduate student at Stanford University, making sure the satellites remain the correct distance from each other is one of the greatest challenges with the project. “First of all, assessing how much (the satellites are) drifting
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relative to each other and then controlling that drift is actually, I think, going to be one of the biggest challenges of this mission,” Jain said. “These types of stringent requirements haven’t really been met in space before.” To help with the engineering side of things, Monnier is working with James Cutler, U-M aerospace engineering professor. In addition to working with Cutler’s lab, the group also teamed up with researchers and engineers at Stanford University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Jain, who attended the University as an undergraduate and worked with Monnier to develop the STARI mission, told The Daily each university brings a different area of expertise to the project. “No university in any of these CubeSat missions is an expert at every single subsystem, and it takes a bunch of subsystems to get a satellite mission off the ground, both literally and figuratively,” Jain said. A unique aspect of the project is that it will give students an opportunity to participate, according to Monnier. Rackham student Jacob Klinger is working with Cutler’s lab to coordinate efforts between the different universities. Klinger said it was exciting to work on something that could be used in the future. “Coming from the aerospace background, obviously, to be able to work on designing something and maybe even touching something that eventually gets put into space, is just super cool,” Klinger said. “That’s kind of like, life dream, right there.”
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Holly Burkhart/DAILY House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, talks to reporters after the State of the State address at the Michigan State Capitol Feb. 26.
CAMPUS LIFE
Candlelight vigil on third anniversary of Russian attack on Ukraine held on the Diag
‘It is important to express Ann Arbor’s solidarity with Ukraine, to express support for our sister city Lubny.’ VINCENT SIQUIG Daily Staff Reporter
More than 100 University of Michigan students, Ann Arbor residents and visitors gathered to acknowledge the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine with a candlelight vigil on the Diag and a carillon concert at the Burton Memorial Tower Monday evening. Organized by the Ann Arbor branch of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America, the vigil featured speeches by public figures and a rendition of the Ukrainian national anthem played on the Baird Carillon. The war between Russia and Ukraine began in February 2014 and escalated after Russia’s full-scale attack Feb. 24, 2022, with conflict still ongoing. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Ruth Shamraj, Michigan Medicine technical writer and coordinator of the vigil, said she felt it was important to acknowledge the violence faced by Ukrainian people over the past three years. “I think it’s important to mark the three long years of violence, aggression, the pain, the suffering, the bloodshed, the perseverance of the Ukrainian people and all kinds of people, not just Ukraine,” Shamraj said. Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor gave a speech to the audience condemning Russian hostility towards Ukraine as well as U.S. citizens’ divided perception of the war. Taylor said he wished
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criticism of Russia’s actions and Russian President Vladimir Putin were more widespread. “We condemn violence and aggression in war driven by ego and by greed and sentence thousands to death, injury, dislocation, fear and suffering,” Taylor said. “I’d like to say that our political culture here in America, … our condemnation of Putin’s war is universal, but we all know that it is not.” The city has close ties to Lubny, Ukraine — Ann Arbor’s sister city since 2024 — and members of the community have previously supported Ukraine in its war effort. In an interview with The Daily, Taylor said he felt Trump’s new administration shifted the U.S. public opinion on the war and stressed the importance of the city’s efforts to aid Ukraine. President Donald Trump recently falsely called Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator after inaccurately claiming Ukraine was at fault for starting the war. “It is important to express Ann Arbor’s solidarity with Ukraine, to express support for our sister city Lubny and to condemn both the initial aggression and the aggression apologists in Washington,” Taylor said. Taylor also told the crowd that hostility toward immigrants and refugees, including those from Ukraine, will not be welcome in Ann Arbor. “Ann Arbor is a welcoming community,” Taylor said. “We regularly welcome immigrants and refugees from all corners of the globe. We deeply welcome
INDEX Vol. CXXXVI No. 8 ©2025 The Michigan Daily
those from Ukraine who have come here to make our little corner of the earth their home. They will always have a home here in Ann Arbor.” Following Taylor’s speech, Georgia Frost, an aide to Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich, spoke at the event and said she felt trust in the federal government to provide U.S. citizens with accurate information on the RussianUkrainian war has dwindled with the new administration. “We also aren’t able to trust in our president to give us valid information about what is going on and communicate that to the American people,” Frost said. “And that is a fact that is also extremely scary for many of the people who rely on our own government to provide active and relevant information about our stance and foreign affairs. But we do not have that trust in our administration anymore.” Frost told attendees to take action and contact their policymakers to share their concerns regarding the RussianUkrainian war. “The only way we’re able to advocate amongst our colleagues and to the administration and to our senators is if we have a high number of people reaching out to us every day, telling us what’s on their minds,” Frost said. “We can say, ‘This is exactly how many people called us today concerned with the exact same thing they’ve been concerned about for years now, and things have not changed.’”
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