Here at 7 News Detroit, we want to make sure you start your day off on the right foot, informed about weather, traffic, the latest news and more. That's why we have the 7 Morning Digest, where we'll get you out the door informed and ready to go.
What's the weather for today?
Another chilly start on Friday. Winds will create 3'-7' waves on the Great Lakes. Watch for rip tides.
Today: Partly sunny and windy with a slight shower chance around I69 and north. Highs will be back in the upper 60s and low 70s with 72° in Detroit. Winds SW 15-30 mph.
Saturday: Partly sunny with highs in the mid 60s and 67° in Detroit. Winds: W 10-20 mph.
The top stories to know about
Feds charge 8 metro Detroit men in alleged international smuggling & car theft ring
Eight men from Garden City, Detroit, Dearborn Heights and Harper Woods are facing federal charges after investigators say they ran a car theft and international smuggling ring.
According to a federal indictment, the Department of Justice is accusing the men of conspiring to receive stolen vehicles for one of four commercial lots, dating back to July 2023. According to the indictment, the four commercial lots were located in Detroit – on Greenfield Rd., Fullerton Ave., Tireman Ave. and Nelson St.
Feds claim the men would then pack two or more vehicles in shipping containers and work with a freight forwarder, providing the forwarder false information before shipping them to port cities, via freight or rail.
"The smugglers coordinated the precise arrival of stolen cars with the presence of shipping containers in order to avoid stolen cars being exposed to public view for long periods of time," the indictment reads. "Oftentimes, the brokers escorted the car thieves and the stolen vehicles to the lot. Either upon delivery or shortly after delivery, the smugglers would pay the brokers (or the thieves directly) for the stolen vehicles."
"This has been an investigation ... that’s been going on for nearly two years. They seized over 400 vehicles and almost $40 million in assets. It actually started with an officer seeing one stolen vehicle getting loaded into a container and from there it just networked and spidered for two years. Cars were stolen all over SE Michigan and these were high end vehicles, too, for the most part that were stolen from people’s driveways, auto lots, rental vehicles," said Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin.
'This is beautiful': Sistine Chapel Choir members perform rare concert in Plymouth
Hundreds of people from all over packed a ballroom in metro Detroit for a chance to see the Pope’s Choir up close and personal Thursday night.
Five members of the Sistine Chapel Choir visited St. John’s Resort in Plymouth from Rome to provide a rare performance of the Vatican sound.
“They said the choir was coming from Rome and I knew I had to be here,” Deborah Whitney of Detroit said.
Many said they couldn’t pass on the rare opportunity to hear the Pope’s Choir perform.
“I saw this on TV on Sunday and sounds like a good idea,” Jerome Rush of Southfield said.
The harmonious and angelic sounds carry the weight of centuries of tradition in every note.
“This doesn’t happen very often. The last time they were here was ’17,” Carol Ready of Rochester said.
It's a sound that draws people in.
Shelby Twp. woman prepares to hike Grand Canyon to raise awareness for kidney donations
It has been seven years since a Shelby Township organ donor saved a father's life. We talked to Emily Polet-Monterosso in 2022, after she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise awareness of life after donation surgery. Thousands of Michiganders are still in desperate need of a new organ, and now, Emily is preparing for another big climb.
Polet-Monterosso describes it as going up and down miles and miles worth of stairs in one day, all in the Grand Canyon. She is part of a group of kidney donor athletes whose mission is to show the world that living organ donors can do anything.
"(We're going to) drive through the heels directly to the green line," Polet-Monterosso said. “We do at least one big advocacy climb per year, Kilimanjaro, volcano climbs in Guatemala."
"We're descending and ascending at like 7,000 feet," Polet-Monterosso said.
One donation was enough to save Ryan Stanford's life in 2019. She said the father of three was facing a challenging future.
Dr. Rohini Prashar is the Medical Director for Henry Ford's kidney transplant program. She said the wait for a deceased donor kidney is 2-5 years, and many people simply do not have that time.
“5-7% of people die waiting for that kidney that never comes," Dr. Prashar said. "Living donation changes that paradigm; with living donation, there's practically no wait time.”
But, Prashar said just 20% of kidney and liver transplants are living donations. She attributes multiple factors to that.
“There’s lost wages, there’s travel, there's child care," Prashar said.
When it comes to the actual surgery, Prashar said medical advancements have made it safer than ever.
