Detroit Mi

In an abandoned warehouse, the image was shocking: two denim-clad, lifeless legs poking up through trash-choked ice. Investigators who took three 911 calls over two days before finally going out to retrieve the body will try to figure out what killed the man. But this much is clear: It has become another symbol of Detroit's decay and indifference. "Most of us grew up with this," said Mike Corbin, 34, pointing toward the old warehouse and the dilapidated Michigan Central train depot nearby.

General Motors Corp. kicked off this year's North American International Auto Show with an opulent party in a giant heated tent alongside the Detroit River. Coming on last after several other acts, Michigan's own Kid Rock took the stage, singing as a pack of runway models escorted a Corvette ZR-1 muscle car down a catwalk. "Let me tell you about Michigan," he shouted into the microphone to the crowd of reporters, politicians and society elites. "We don't buy [expletive]. . . . We build it!"

Millions of fingers scurrying over mobile electronic devices probably paused this week as news emerged of a trove of text messages containing flirty and sexually explicit chat between Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick and one of his top aides. Even those engaging in more wholesome dialogue would be wise to wonder: Do text messages disappear -- like oral conversations -- or are they permanently logged somewhere for potential retrieval -- as e-mail usually is?

Five months ago, Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick and chief of staff Christine Beatty testified that they did not have a romantic relationship. They continued to deny a relationship out of court as well, as they had for several years. But that was before the Detroit Free Press published a cache of text messages between the two, many of them flirtatious or sexual, and others referring to meetings in hotels.

In a city that routinely sees more than 400 homicides a year, the 2003 slaying of Tamara "Strawberry" Greene was an easily overlooked crime. Few people initially took notice when the 27-year-old stripper was found slumped over the steering wheel of her green Buick Skylark. But soon the city was buzzing with rumors that she had danced at a party at the mayor's mansion -- a story that has never been proven.

The civic soap opera engulfing Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick took a new plot twist Monday when a county prosecutor charged the onetime rising political star with obstruction of justice, perjury and misconduct in office, all related to a romantic relationship with his former chief of staff. Facing political catastrophe and a long prison term, Kilpatrick defiantly vowed to fight the civil felony charges, which grew out of an $8.

It was a foregone conclusion that Barack Obama would receive an official blessing from Al Gore. The question was when and where. The ringing endorsement Gore bestowed this week came later than might have been expected, but the real surprise was the setting: Detroit, the leading city in the one state where words from perhaps the world's best-known advocate for transforming oil-based economies might be greeted with chagrin.

A Michigan judge sent Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick to jail Thursday after learning that the controversial official violated the conditions of his bond in a perjury case by going to Canada for a business meeting without clearing the trip with the court. Kilpatrick apologized to 36th District Court Judge Ronald Giles for the unauthorized trip he made to nearby Windsor, Canada, and said, "I ran in, I made a presentation . . . and I ran back."

A prosecutor Monday accused Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick of violating his bond in an assault case by spending time over the weekend with his sister, one of 11 witnesses listed by authorities. Kilpatrick and Ayanna Kilpatrick were together at their mother's house Saturday, a day after he was released from jail after violating bond in a separate perjury case, said Doug Baker of the Michigan attorney general's office.

Two employees of a restaurant owned by Red Wings defenseman Chris Chelios were found stabbed to death Tuesday morning and a former co-worker has been arrested in connection with the killings, police said. Megan Soroka, 49, and Mark Barnard, 52, were killed as they prepared to open Cheli's Chili Bar, police said. Soroka worked as a manager there and Barnard was a cook. According to the Detroit Free Press, Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings estimated the stabbings occurred at 9 a.m.