Welcome back. I’m still Malachi Barrett.
Detroit has settled a lawsuit with a former employee who claims she was fired for reporting allegations of misappropriated Motor City Match funds.
The $100,000 payout is small compared to what usually piques my interest for this newsletter, but it drew my attention for a few reasons.
The lawsuit was filed against Ryan Friedrichs, husband of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is running for the 2026 Democratic gubernatorial nomination. It is also tied to an old scandal involving Mayor Mike Duggan, who is running for governor as an independent.
Kennedy Shannon filed the lawsuit in 2019 after she was fired from the city’s Office of Development and Grants. Shannon alleged that her firing was retaliation for being a whistleblower, but city officials said it was for falsifying her timecard and storing personal files on her work computer.
The lawsuit was filed against Friedrichs, who was serving as chief development officer at the time, and Katerli Bounds, who was the city’s director of grants. Friedrichs has since left to be vice president of development at the Related Companies, a partner on the District Detroit mega project.
“The City still maintains that the actions these employees (Friedrichs and Bounds) took with respect to Ms. Kennedy were fully appropriate and justified,” Corporation...
The Iranian Embassy in New Delhi has issued a stern warning about a series of fake social media accounts impersonating official Iranian entities, allegedly aiming to disrupt the diplomatic relatio...