The Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) - Bankruptcy attorney and turnaround specialist Kevyn Orr has arrived at Detroit City Hall for his first day on the job as emergency manager.

Orr has said he expects to sit down with Mayor Dave Bing Monday and meet with some City Council members.

He was appointed earlier this month by Gov. Rick Snyder and takes over the finances of the largest city in the country to come under state oversight.

Orr also plans to look at the city's financial data to help develop his plan of action in tackling Detroit's fiscal crisis. The city has a $327 million budget deficit and more than $14 billion in debt.

Some, including a group led by prominent Detroit pastors, have said they will protest Orr's appointment and Michigan's emergency manager law.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is broadening its examination of affirmative action by adding a case about Michigan's effort to ban consideration of race in college admissions.

The justices already are considering a challenge to the University of Texas program that takes account of race, among many factors, to fill remaining spots in its freshman classes. The Texas case has been argued, but not yet decided.

The court on Monday said it would add the Michigan case, which focuses on the 6-year-old voter-approved prohibition on affirmative action and the appeals court ruling that overturned the ban.

DETROIT (AP) - A number businesses plan to donate $8 million to help Detroit get 23 EMS units and 100 police cars to boost public safety and reduce response times.

Mayor Dave Bing announced the effort Monday along with racing team owner Roger Penske, who leads Penske Automotive Group.

“As local business leaders, we appreciate this opportunity to work with the mayor, and police and fire departments, to help improve safety in the neighborhoods, and our downtown," said Penske.

“We can work together to provide and drive positive momentum in our city.”

Other donors involved include Quicken Loans Inc., General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Group LLC and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Mayor Bing calls this an “unprecedented collaboration” with the city’s business community.

The money will actually go Detroit’s Downtown Development Partnership, which will lease the vehicles for the city and pay for maintenance.

But mayor Dave Bing says this isn’t about downtown.

“This is about the neighborhoods," Bing said. "So we can go out into our neighborhoods to let people know that we support them, and we have not forgotten about them.”

Violent crime in Detroit spiked last year. The city recorded 387 criminal homicides. And department cutbacks have slowed response times.

Detroiters should see the new police cars on patrol by early summer, but the EMS vehicles will take a little bit longer to arrive.

The announcement came on the same day bankruptcy attorney and turnaround specialist Kevyn Orr arrived at Detroit City Hall for his first day on the job as emergency manager. Orr takes over the finances of the largest city in the country to come under state oversight.

Bing said the timing of the announcement was a coincidence.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson says she supports changing the state's current winner-take-all system in presidential elections.

Johnson said Friday during a taping of WKAR-TV's "Off The Record" program that she supports a hybrid of the current system and one that would divide the state's electoral votes proportionally.

DETROIT (AP) - Gov. Rick Snyder has signed legislation overhauling Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

The bills let the state's largest health insurer transform into a customer-owned nonprofit and ends its tax-exempt status. The Republican governor signed the legislation Monday at a meeting of the company's board of directors in Detroit.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - The state's "Pure Michigan" tourism campaign is kicking off a $13 million national cable television advertising effort.

The new campaign begins airing Monday and runs through the end of June. It includes five partners that pitched in a total of $3 million: Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Mackinac Island, Traverse City and The Henry Ford historical attraction in Dearborn.

The state says Ann Arbor contributed $1 million and the other four partners contributed $500,000 each.

DETROIT (AP) - Ex-convict and ex-Detroit City Council member Monica Conyers is working at an auto body shop while serving the remainder of her federal prison sentence for corruption.

The wife of U.S. Rep. John Conyers has been working about 21/2 months for Metrotech Collision in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood.

Shop owner Sam Hussein tells The Detroit News that the 48-year-old "is doing a great job" and working about 30 hours a week.

DETROIT (AP) - Records show Detroit's new emergency financial manager has tax liens on his home in Maryland.

Kevyn Orr has two outstanding liens on his $1 million home in Chevy Chase, Maryland for $16,000 in unemployment taxes in 2010 and 2011.

The state records also show that two other liens of more than $16,000 in unemployment and income taxes were satisfied in 2010 and 2011.

Orr was appointed Detroit's financial manager by Governor Rick Snyder on Thursday.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - A Democratic Michigan lawmaker wants to ensure that students are not penalized for missing school to observe a religious holiday.

Democratic Rep. Kate Segal of Battle Creek recently introduced a bill that would prohibit public school officials from counting days students take off to observe religious holidays against them when handing out perfect attendance or other awards.

Segal said in a statement that if children make up their missed work they should not have to choose "between observing their faith and boosting their academic resume."

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - The new leader of the Michigan Democratic Party says it has time to agree on top-flight candidates to replace Sen. Carl Levin and take on Gov. Rick Snyder.

Lon Johnson told The Associated Press that he takes exception to the notion that Snyder is safe because no Democrats have stepped forward to run for governor and the party has to focus on holding Levin's seat.

ROCHESTER, Mich. (AP) - A man suspended from a Detroit-area university for writing about his attraction to teachers has filed a lawsuit seeking more than $2 million and four credits for the class.

Joseph Corlett says his First Amendment rights were violated by Oakland University officials. The school suspended him last year after saying he violated a policy against intimidating people on campus.

The 57-year-old Corlett was enrolled in a writing class. He titled his journal entries "Hot For Teacher," a song by the rock band Van Halen.

Corlett compared his instructor to Ginger, an attractive woman on the 1960s TV show "Gilligan's Island." He also wrote about other teachers. His lawsuit, filed Friday, calls the writings "whimsical exaggeration."

FLINT, Mich. (AP) - The Flint School District board has decided to relocate Flint Northern High students and close four other schools as part of a cost-cutting effort.

The Flint Journal reports that following Wednesday's decision Flint Northern, known as the "Home of the Champions," will close as a seventh through 12th grade building. Students there will go to Northwestern High and Southwestern Academy.

Flint Northern will become the Northern Alternative Education Center and offer a new program for students in seventh through ninth grades.

DETROIT (AP) - Gov. Rick Snyder will announce his final determination Thursday on a review of Detroit's finances - a move that could include the appointment of an emergency manager for the city.

That announcement is scheduled for 2 p.m. in Detroit, an hour before a state board responsible for hiring emergency managers for distressed Michigan cities and public school districts is to hold a special meeting in Lansing.

Snyder has said an emergency manager selection for Detroit has to go before the Local Emergency Financial Assistance Loan Board.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - The president of Wayne State University is urging lawmakers not to limit the university's state aid for approving an eight-yearlong contract with the faculty union.

Allan Gilmour asked the House Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday to "think beyond this contract and consider the whole university" when making appropriations.

Some Republican lawmakers have questioned the lengthy contract agreement made just before the contentious right-to-work law goes into effect March 28.

Republican Rep. Al Pscholka of Stevensville has proposed that that no university get a funding increase in the next budget if it signs a contract extension or renewal before March 28 - unless the contract guarantees at least 10 percent savings in labor costs.

Gilmour says longer contracts "provide a sense of stability for planning, for budgets and personnel."

FRENCHTOWN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) - Federal officials are planning a special inspection of the Fermi 2 nuclear power plant this year because the Monroe-area facility's reactor was shut down too many times in 2012.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the supplemental inspection will be in addition to routine or required inspections conducted annually at the plant and is required because Fermi 2 had three unplanned shutdowns within 7,000 hours of reactor operating time.

The Monroe Evening News reports the most recent unplanned shutdown happened in November when a hydrogen gas leak developed in the cooling system of the plant's main electrical generator and operators shut down the reactor. The plant was idled for nearly two months.

Plant spokesman Guy Cerullo says officials have "instituted rigorous corrective actions to minimize these types of shutdowns."

DETROIT (AP) - A Michigan judge has approved a delay in closing a $700,000 settlement between McDonald's and Muslims who were mistakenly told that food at a restaurant conformed to Islamic dietary rules.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Kathleen Macdonald on Monday granted a 28-day extension of a notice period in the case and lifted an injunction against a lawyer not originally connected with the case from making public statements. A final settlement hearing is scheduled April 17.

The Jaafar and Mahdi Law Group filed the suit and agreed to the judge's actions.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - Michigan health officials say an 80-year-old Traverse City-area man is 17th person from the state to die as a result of contaminated steroids supplied by a Massachusetts pharmaceutical company.

The Michigan Department of Community Health says at least 258 people have contracted illnesses including fungal meningitis that are part of a national disease outbreak. That's up from 256 March 4.

The department said Monday that it's now confirmed a Grand Traverse County man's death.

NILES, Mich. (AP) - Federal officials say railroad accidents last year in Michigan and Illinois were caused by workers not following required safety precautions.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Friday that both the Feb. 28 accident in Madison, Ill., and the Oct. 21 accident near the southwestern Michigan city of Niles involved signal maintenance operations. It issued recommendations to address the improper use of jumper wires during maintenance and repairs.

DETROIT (AP) - U.S. safety officials have closed an investigation into allegations that three Ford SUVs can roll away when the transmissions are in park.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the probe involved about 1.5 million Ford Explorer, Mercury Mountaineer and Lincoln Aviator SUVS from the 2002 to 2005 model years.

The agency determined that failure rates weren't high enough to order a recall. The probe began in April 2009 and was closed last month. The safety agency found 36 complaints including 14 crashes and six injuries.

Investigators found that the park gear in the transmission failed only 4.4 times per 100,000 vehicles. A system that prevents the car from being shifted into gear unless the driver's foot is on the brake failed only 3.4 times per 100,000 SUVs.