November 9th, 20180DEARBORN — On Tuesday, long-time real estate associate broker Sam Baydoun was elected to the 13th District Wayne County Commission seat vacated by outgoing Commission Chairman Gary Woronchak. Baydoun ran unopposed and received 30,920 votes.
Woronchak, who mounted an unsuccessful run for State Senate, will step down in...
November 9th, 20184DEARBORN — In a dramatic contrast, all five Arab American candidates failed in the Dearborn Board of Education race on Tuesday, while other Arab Americans scored victories in Dearborn Heights' Crestwood School District and the Northville School Board.
In Dearborn, the Arab American capital of the U.S., thousands of Arab voters went...
October 21st, 20182DEARBORN — Between 1995 and 2012, thousands of people visited the capital of Arab America for a taste of their homelands' cultures and a grand celebration.
The three-day Arab festival has been called the largest gathering of Arab Americans; it drew in three times Dearborn’s population of nearly 90,000. It was also a kind of...
October 16th, 20180Reflecting that his résumé leans "toward the terrorist side of things", Egyptian American actor Zeeko Zaki couldn’t be happier with his role as FBI special agent Omar Adom "OA" Zidan on Dick Wolf’s latest crime drama FBI. Seeing someone like himself — Arab American and Muslim — as "a protagonist in law enforcement is definitely...
September 22nd, 20180DEARBORN — Arab? Arabic? Immigrant? Native born? Is American Arabia a counterculture of America?
The Statue of Liberty stands tall and high in New York, symbolizing freedom and enlightenment and is aimed towards sealing friendship. One defining metaphor known in the United States is a "melting pot" of immigrants around the globe,...
September 15th, 20180DEARBORN – More than half of the candidates running for two seats on the Dearborn Board of Education are of Arab origin, with one of them – Aman (Amy) Fidama – being the first Yemeni American woman to run for office in Michigan.
Two six-year seats are up for grabs and voters will determine who’ll fill them on November...
September 1st, 20180By Taylor Adams
DALLAS, Texas — The second annual Arab Texas Festival returns to Mesquite on Sept. 2, offering food, performers and activities aimed at spotlighting Arabic culture. And it comes with a tempting array of food, including shawarma, falafel, meat and cheese pies and Arabic desserts.
The festival is the...
August 24th, 20180TROY — The Kresge Foundation has announced that Metro Detroit native Zenna Elhasan will join the organization on October 1 to serve as its first lead attorney. In her newly created role, Elhasan will advise the foundation’s Board of Trustees and staff on legal matters, support the development and enforcement of foundation policies...
August 24th, 20180DEARBORN ― The Greater Detroit Area Health Council has awarded Hassan Abdallah, co-founder and executive director of SAFE Substance Abuse Coalition, with the Breakthrough Award. He is the first Arab American to receive that distinction from the organization.
The GDAHC is a multifaceted leading non-profit that aims to create...
August 20th, 20181CHATSWORTH, Ga. — CNN reported that the incident took place Aug. 10. in a wooded area in Chatsworth, Ga., where Martha Al-Bishara — a Syrian and who doesn't speak English — was looking for dandelions in a wooded area, which she uses to make a salad for her husband.
Police were alerted after an employee of a Boys and Girls Club...
August 17th, 20180This week, Arab and Muslim Americans scored another historic victory in Minnesota where Ilhan Omar won comfortably a Congressional primary election.
Omar, America’s first Somali American legislator, won the Minnesota Democratic primary for Congress on Tuesday. The seat she competed for in the Fifth District is currently held by U.S....
August 10th, 20180Michigan voters set a new record of involvement this historic primary election thanks in large part to the candidacy of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Progressive Movement led by Senator Bernie Sanders, and in a twisted way thanks to President Trump and his racist rants.
Energy could be felt everywhere in this election. Rashida Tlaib’s...
August 10th, 20180DETROIT – On August 7, voters in the 13th Congressional District made history by choosing former State Rep. Rashida Tlaib in the Democratic Primary. This November, Tlaib will be the first Arab American Muslim woman elected to Congress – she’ll appear on the general election ballot with no opposition from a Republican candidate and...
July 28th, 20180NEW YORK— An Arab American immigrant will play a leading role in the upcoming CBS series “FBI”, created by Dick Wolf — best known for the “Law and Order” franchise.
Zeeko Zaki, who plays Agent Omar Adom Zidan in the show, emigrated from Egypt at just 1 month old in 1990. He grew up primarily outside of Philadelphia in...
July 6th, 20180
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A federal district court here issued an entry of default against an American neo-Nazi in a lawsuit filed by an Arab American comedian, Dean Obeidallah, who said Andrew Anglin and his website, The Daily Stormer, published fabricated information claiming Obeidallah was a "terrorist mastermind."
Tuesday's default entry...
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...
