Happy New Year! We've made it to season 2!

On to the stories:

Detroit Police James Craig told the Detroit News on Tuesday there were 261 criminal homicides in 2018. That’s down six from last year and the lowest number since 1966. But for now, we’re going to put an asterisk on this statistic. We talk about why.

We don’t often wade into U.S.-Russia relations on Daily Detroit, but we are today. That’s because Russia’s Federal Security Service says it has arrested a man from Novi who’s being accused of espionage. Russian authorities arrested Paul Whelan December 28th in Moscow, where he had reportedly planned to attend a wedding. Whelan is an ex-Marine who works as director of global security for the auto supplier BorgWarner in Auburn Hills. 

The city of Detroit is cracking down on six types of businesses in the city.

• Used tire sales and storage
• Used auto sales
• Scrap iron and metal processors
• Junk dealers
• Auto dismantling and wrecking
• New major and minor auto repair places

And our guest today is Emily Lawler. She's MLive's Lansing reporter and she talks about what actually came out of the frenetic lame duck session in Lansing, rick-snyder-leaves-mixed-legacy-in-big-michigan-cities.html"> her recent piece examining outgoing Governor Rick Snyder and looks ahead to what's next for new Governor Gretchen Whitmer. You can follow her on Twitter here.