Beenish Ahmed
Local Impact BeatBeenish Ahmed is one of Michigan Radio's Detroit-based reporters. Since 2016, she has been a reporter for WNYC Public Radio in New York and also a freelance journalist. Her stories have appeared on NPR, as well as in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic, VICE and The Daily Beast. Additionally, Beenish spent two years in Islamabad, Pakistan, working with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, covering the country’s first democratic transition of power as well as Pakistan's education system.
Much of her reporting has focused on covering under-reported stories and adding nuance to major headlines. That included covering stories related to DACA and the #MeToo movement as well as reporting on the personal challenges Muslims in metro Detroit faced in taking a public stand against President Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban.”
She is a graduate of the University of Michigan and has a master’s degree from the University of Cambridge. She was also a Spencer Fellow at the Columbia School of Journalism in New York, and an NPR Kroc Fellow.
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Block Communications, which has held The Blade since 1925, reached the “extremely difficult decision” due to financial considerations, president and chief operating officer Jodi Miehls informed staff, as reported by the paper. -
State police removed nearly half the people from Michigan's sex offender registry on Friday, following a ruling from the Michigan Supreme Court that found it unconstitutional to include those who were added to the list before amendments to the law were made in 2011. -
“The Flint Water Crisis was a man-made tragedy of epic proportion,” State Attorney General Dana Nessel wrote in a forward to the report. “My heart breaks for this loss and suffering,” as well as the fact that “to a large extent, justice has evaded the people of Flint.” -
Days after a different Afghan native shot and killed a national guardsman in D.C., an asylum seeker living in metro Detroit was called in for a check in with ICE. He was put into immigration detention at the North Lake Processing Center soon after and he said his life hasn’t been the same since. -
“The crusade has begun,” far-right activist Jake Lang said, and then, addressing Muslims, he added, “Your time in this country is running short.” -
The ACLU of Michigan put in a request last week for records relating to an artificial intelligence program used by the state's health and human services agency to make sure that SNAP benefit payments were accurate. -
A federal court judge has dismissed a discrimination lawsuit filed by a former University of Michigan diversity officer who claimed to have been wrongfully fired. -
A Detroit family of undocumented immigrants self-deported to Venezuela after a parent was detained in the U.S. Two weeks after they landed, two massive earthquakes devastated the area.
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An asylum-seeking mother returned to Venezuela after months in immigration detention. Just weeks after her husband and children joined her, the region where they were restarting their lives was devastated by two of the worst earthquakes in Latin American history. -
"I didn't go and fight extremists to have them on our doorstep here,” said Congressman John James, who served as helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army during the War in Iraq. “Under no circumstances will we be a home in Michigan for extremism.”
