News

Chrysler repaid $7.6 billion to the U. S. and Canadian governments back in May.

Recently, General Motors announced the addition of 2,500 jobs to its Hamtramck plant and plans to invest $130 million in a new data center in Warren, Michigan.

Michigan Radio's Jenn White helps us get a look at the political implications of the automotive industry’s progress.  She spoke with Susan Demas, political analyst for Michigan Information and Research Service and Ken Sikkema, former Republican state Senate Majority Leader and senior policy fellow at Public Sector Consultants.

Midwest manufacturers heard good news about U.S. trade at a conference in Chicago.

A record number of exports are helping to shrink the trade deficit, and conference organizers are optimistic about the future of Midwest manufacturing.

Economist Bill Strauss, with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, likes to use a tennis ball as an analogy to explain what’s going on in manufacturing.

"The sectors that fall the hardest tend to bounce back the strongest," said Strauss. "And we are definitely seeing that with regard to manufacturing where it was automotive and it was primary metals that fell the most during the downturn and they are coming back the strongest at this point."

This morning, Strauss and others told the  Chicago Council on Global Affairs they’re optimistic. They point to data like a 7 percent increase in manufacturing over the past 22 months.

Now for the bad news.

That doesn’t translate into more jobs, because manufacturers have gotten better at producing more with less people.

Five Detroit area gasoline station owners have been charged with price fixing.   The five gas stations are located in Madison Heights and are within 2 miles of each other. 

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette says an inside source claims the gas station operators agreed to keep their prices within a penny of one another on at least five days in February and early March of this year. 

Schuette says there is a difference between watching your competitors’ prices and colluding to keep everyone’s prices high. 

A judge in Detroit has adjourned a hearing without ruling on the state’s request to levy sanctions against the owners of the Ambassador Bridge.

It’s part of an ongoing court fight over the bridge company’s failure to build on-ramps to the bridge, and remove fueling stations and part of a duty-free store that were built without the state’s permission.

Deb Sumner is a community activist and long-time critic of the bridge company. She says without the on-ramps, thousands of trucks are forced to rumble through her neighborhood every day:

Liz Blondy opened Canine to Five – a dog daycare – on Cass Avenue six years ago. It’s a location few entrepreneurs have dared stake a claim, but Blondy has been successful. So successful, she wants to buy the two city-owned lots adjacent to her business, and expand. Trouble is, that’s the site of a beloved community garden that’s been there longer than her business.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney made a pair of campaign stops in metro Detroit on his first trip to the state as a declared candidate.

The former Massachusetts governor was greeted with protests at a Livonia diner in the morning. Romney then headed to the business incubator Bizdom U in Detroit, where he offered advice to a handful of entrepreneurs.

Mitt Romney's visit to Michigan has sparked a debate over his views on the federal bailouts of the auto industry.

Democrats have been working to make political hay out of statements Romney made prior to, and after the restructuring of GM and Chrysler under Chapter 11 bankruptcy - restructuring that was made possible with loans from the U.S. and Canadian governments.

On his Facebook page, Congressman John Dingell said he "hopes Governor Romney has answers for Michigan's working families he abandoned two years ago when the American auto industry was in its worst crisis ever."

In 2008, Romney wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times titled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

Two and half years later, with Chrysler and GM rising from the ashes, the title of his opinion piece makes it look as though he was wrong.

The Democratic Party put out this video attacking Republicans, including Romney, for their stance on the auto industry bailouts. The title of Romney's opinion piece is heavily featured in the video - (the video includes a soundtrack with dark, foreboding music for the Republicans, and happy music for the Democrats).

The Flint Police Department received a $1.2 million grant from the C.S. Mott Foundation. The grant will hire more police officers, pay for more equipment, and use community policing techniques.

Merry Morash, professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University said, "The focus on Flint is really because Mott Foundation, which is funding this, is highly invested in the city and wants to promote a very positive environment and Mott Foundation is located in Flint." 

Let’s say that I seized a portion of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Park for my own uses. I erected a fence, and put up phony signs saying “No Trespassing Due to Homeland Security.”

Later, I ignored court orders to tear it down, and said that I could do this because I was sort of an agent of the federal government, or as I put it, a “federal instrumentality.”

Then, when a federal judge ruled that I was nothing of the kind, and ordered me to stop claiming to be, quote, “any type pf arm, appendage, or agent of the federal government,“ I ignored him.

Dow Chemical polluted the Tittabawassee River with dioxin. Dioxin has been linked to several health issues, including cancer. A comprehensive clean up of the river has barely begun. Dow chemical, the Environmental Protection Agency and the state have wrestled over the cleanup for 30 years.

Michelle Hurd Riddick has spent the last 10 years of her life pushing to get the Tittabawassee River cleaned up.

When she’s not working as a nurse, she has helped file lawsuits against Dow. She religiously attends public meetings about the clean up and follows what the EPA is doing by filing freedom of information requests. And she writes a lot of letters to state and federal officials.

Hurd Riddick is part of an environmental group called the Lone Tree Council. She talked about how she felt as we drove along the river.

“I get frustrated. I get frustrated. There are a number of citizens you know who have hung in on this issue as long as I’ve been on this issue. But not a lot of them. They have to get on with their lives. And I understand that and I respect that.”

The Tittabawassee flows through Hurd Riddick’s hometown of Saginaw before emptying its waters and contaminated sediment into Lake Huron.

Dow did not want to be recorded for this story.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - A new report says it would be technologically feasible to raise water levels in Lakes Huron and Michigan to make up for drop-offs caused by more than a century of dredging and other human activity.

But the report obtained by The Associated Press says it would take decades to accomplish the task and the price tag could exceed $200 million.

The study is scheduled for public release Friday. It was conducted by a team of engineers and scientists for the International Joint Commission, a U.S.-Canadian panel that advises both nations on Great Lakes issues.

They're trying to determine whether it would be worthwhile to place underwater dams, gates or other structures at the upper end of the St. Clair River to reduce the volume of water escaping Lake Huron.

DETROIT (AP) - Gov. Rick Snyder is preparing to sign bills that will allow the city of Detroit to continue its income tax and utility user tax provisions.

Snyder is scheduled to sign the bills Thursday.

The main bill would allow Detroit to continue a 2.5 percent city income tax rate on resident individuals, higher than allowed in other Michigan cities.

Changes in state law are necessary to continue the tax rates because of Detroit's declining population.

Census statistics show that Detroit's population fell to 713,777 last year. The decline puts Detroit in danger of losing allowances in state law reserved for cities with a population above 750,000.

The bills to be signed by Snyder would lower the population threshold to 600,000 so Detroit still qualifies for the tax provisions.

Detroit City Council corruption caught on video tape

The videos have been viewed in the U.S. District Court in Detroit, but never broadcast publically. The Detroit News has posted video from 2008 of a city council aide accepting cash from a company seeking to win a sludge hauling contract.

From the Detroit News:

There's positive news about the nation's home prices, but that's not  the case in Detroit.  Data released by Clear Capital today suggests home sale prices nationally may be stabilizing.  Home prices lost ground through the winter months, and the latest data shows prices dropped by 2.3% in May.  

But the good news is prices being paid for repossessed homes nationally actually increased last month.   Foreclosed homes have been dragging down home sale prices, but that might be changing.