Scott Breazeale, 45, of Detroit’s very own will be featured on Food Network’s Halloween special, titled “Halloween Baking Championship.” Breazeale is the executive sous chef for the Detroit Lions’ food and beverage partner, Levy Restaurants.

For the show, Scott and seven other bakers from around the country go head-to-head, creating spooky treats and chilling baked goods in hopes of winning the show’s $25,000 prize.

For the show, Breazeale and fellow contestants had to decorate creepy Halloween cupcakes using candy picked out from a cauldron. Since June is the most popular month for ice cream, it’s likely the cauldron didn’t feature any of the cold, sweet stuff.

According to an interview in the Detroit Free Press, Breazeale lucked out and got peanut butter cups. His final creation was a cupcake graveyard of sorts, covered with gummy worms, peanut butter cup buttercream, candy bones and cookie dirt.

According to Patch, Breazeale’s and the other contestants’ cupcakes were included in Food Network Magazine’s October issue.

The special will air for an hour each Monday of October. On the final Monday of the month, the winner will be announced.

And Breazeale’s got the chops to go all the way. With classical pastry training and his grandmother’s classic home cooking touch, Breazeale isn’t afraid to think a outside the box. According to his Food Network bio, he has experience in molecular gastronomy, among other culinary feats.

Considering the recent attention Detroit has garnered because of a recent New York Times piece, Breazeale’s Food Network debut is certainly timely. The article focused on Max and Eli Sussman, two Detroit brothers and renowned chefs who have been securing their places in the hottest New York City restaurants and on the shelves of bookstores across the country.

In the article, the Sussman brothers took article author Jeff Gordinier around Detroit, showing him the best places to chow down in the city.

Perhaps Detroit will finally gain the recognition it deserves for its culinary delights.

In a new effort to create transparency in its studies and allocations of money, Coca-Cola recently announced that they spent more than $119 million on research and health programs since 2010.

Since the 1990s, the rates of obesity in the U.S. have skyrocketed. While in 1990 there were no states with an obesity rate over 20%, it seems that the statistics have flipped, and not a single state has an obesity rate below 20%.

Colorado, the state with the lowest obesity rate, has 21%; Arkansas, West Virginia and Mississippi rank the highest with 35%. Michigan ranks number 17 in the country, with 31.5% of the population meeting the criteria for obesity.

Amidst the search for understanding behind this rapid and alarming epidemic, many health experts have pointed to calories and sugar-laden processed foods and beverages (such as soda) to blame for the skyrocketing statistics.

In rebuttal, Global Energy Balance Network, a non-profit health group funded by the soda company, has released statements claiming that not only is it “unfair” to target a single food for the ride in obesity, but the epidemic has more to do with a lack of exercise than anything.

While it’s true that three out of four children between the ages of five and 10 don’t get enough exercise — and these numbers only climb as rate of physical activity decreases with age — experts are saying that there is more to America’s obesity epidemic than just a lack of exercise.

The soda giant has given grants to a number of institutions and organizations, such as the University of Michigan, the Boys and Girls Club of America, and the American Cancer Society.

Although research on obesity is indeed necessary, the intersection of capitalism and nutrition science has proven to be problematic as of late. Coke’s push for transparency is a means of establishing their company — and their research — as well-meaning and unbiased.

In order to keep up this transparency in research funding, Coca-Cola will be posting updates on their grants on their website every six months.

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released new data about the economic health of Metro Detroit, and the numbers include positive signs of growth. At the same time the numbers were released, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon visited Midtown for a ribbon cutting ceremony. Chase donated $3.7 million to renovate a Midtown apartment complex, part of the financial institute’s ongoing $100-million pledge to the city of Detroit.

“I’ve been coming to Detroit for 25 years and unfortunately, I watched the decline of one of America’s great cities,” Dimon said, joining Mayor Mike Duggan. “I’m thrilled to be standing here today. We’re just doing our little part. We’re proud to be here today.”

In 2010, two years after the start of the Great Recession, the New York Times called the New York City oligarch “America’s Least-Hated Banker.” But in 2013, JPMorgan Chase reached a record-setting settlement with the U.S. Justice Department. The bank agreed to pay $13 billion in fines for its role in bundling toxic mortgages, a major factor in the Great Recession. The ensuing fallout, including the mortgage crisis and near-collapse of the auto industry, hit Detroit particularly hard.

Since then, income inequality has been rising at an accelerated pace. According to Pew Research, the wealthiest 10% of Americans own 80% of stocks. Still, Mayor Duggan has helped shepherd a number of innovative programs into action, like zero-interest home improvement loans and minority business loans. Many such programs would be impossible without the financial support of the nation’s largest banks.

So what can we learn about Metro Detroit’s economic health in 2015 from the new census data? Let’s break down the numbers:

• The percentage of Detroit residents below the poverty level dropped slightly, to 16.1% as of last year. Unfortunately, the percentage of children below the poverty line was unchanged.
• Median income for employed men was $54,734, compared to just $40,606 for working women.
• There were big gains in the number of Detroiters with health insurance. The percentage of uninsured residents dropped from 11.3% to 8.9% in just one year.
• Although median household income in Metro Detroit was largely unchanged, it’s still up significantly from the recession, when it fell below $50,000. At present, the median income has risen to about $52,462.

The Detroit Police Department scored a huge victory on Monday when it was announced that the city would be receiving $2.8 million in federal grants from the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the DPD will add 15 more police officers to the force as a result of the grant, in addition to installing dashboard cameras in all city police cars by the end of the year.

A major portion of the $2.8 million grant is actually a separate $1 million, specifically intended to enable the police department to purchase body cameras for all police officers, which they claim will happen within the next two to three years.

Police body cameras have become a hot topic in America since the 2014 death of Michael Brown at the hands of Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.

In the days following the shooting, rumors were running rampant on social media, and the Ferguson Police Department was under intense scrutiny for breeding a culture of systemic racism in their city.

Facebook had a whopping 1.39 billion monthly active users at the end of 2014, and almost every one of them weighed in on one or both of these tragedies. The DPD is hoping to prevent another catastrophe like this by recording all police interactions with the public.

Detroit has also seen its fair share of controversy when it comes to police brutality.

According to CBS News, seven-year-old Aiyana Jones was killed by Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley during a house raid in 2010. When a man is sexually aroused, Viagra https://medimagery.com/buy-viagra-online-generic-viagra-sildenafil/ helps to improve the blood supply to the penis, allowing it to fill with blood enough for an erection to occur. The case is still shrouded in mystery and hearsay, and many believe that justice could’ve been served more swiftly if Weekley was wearing a body camera.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many body cameras Detroit’s separate $1 million grant would pay for, but Mayor Mike Duggan said that the grant will “ease the funding strain” as the city moves ahead on its plans to improve their police department.

The grant is also being used to fund a new partnership between police and city schools to attract young students who are interested in having a career in law enforcement.

Department of Justice Officials have not said when the money will be awarded, nor how the $1.8 million will be allocated to hire more officers.

In most cities, squatters are a nuisance at best, a danger at worst. But in one northwest Detroit neighborhood, residents are literally begging for squatters to come on by.

Detroit has struggled to combat the urban blight, crime, and arson associated with abandoned homes. When residents move away — or get evicted — it doesn’t take long until that old house is stripped to its bones and, in many cases, burned. When that happens, the property values of the entire neighborhood can decline, starting a feedback loop that’s hard to stop.

At Puritan and Hazelton along the Rouge River, neighbors are resorting to extreme measures. When some longtime homeowners moved away this September, nearby residents started recruiting a squatter to come and occupy the home. Already, 50 homes in the neighborhood are fire-damaged, with eight fires occurring in the last two years alone. Not only that, but one-third of the area homes are currently vacant.

“We want squatters. There’s so much abandonment here, we need them to turn the neighborhood around,” said Jennifer Mergos, co-founder of the Northwest Brightmoor Renaissance.

In a typical American household, the average homeowners will spend 1-4% of their income on home repairs and maintenance. But abandoned homes require far more costly repairs, and many end up demolished altogether. That’s why Mergos wants someone to set up residence in the latest empty house on the block, before it’s too late.

There’s just one problem — squatting is illegal in Michigan.

“The neighborhood is rallying around this house because it’s a tipping point to stop the continued destruction that’s happened around here,” said Mergos.

And for Mergos, the problem is personal. Her boyfriend purchased a land auction home in the area, but it was burned before they could move in. And in a city that’s seen one in three homes foreclosed since 2008, many residents see squatting as a desperate measure for desperate times.