Business

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Michigan film producers and Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville say they will lobby to maintain the state's $50 million film credits cap.

Gov. Snyder is calling for a $25 million dollar cap in film incentives in the budget he has proposed. The amount is the same he proposed last year, but lawmakers raised the cap to $50 million during budget negotiations.

Environmental and organic farming groups want a change in the way federal agriculture subsidies are handed out.

COVERT TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — The Palisades nuclear power plant in southwestern Michigan has been shut down for repairs after workers spent several days trouble-shooting its cooling water heat exchanger system.

Plant spokesman Mark Savage said in an email that the plant was disconnected from the state's electrical grid just before 5 p.m. Friday. He gave no timetable for the repairs but says the plant along Lake Michigan's shoreline in Van Buren County's Covert Township would be returned to service when they are completed.

CHICAGO (AP) - An environmental policy group has identified hundreds of Midwest manufacturers that stand to benefit from the web of high-speed rail routes emerging from Chicago.

A report released Friday by the Environmental Law & Policy Center says 460 supply-chain manufacturers in seven Midwest states are poised to reap new business, along with a dozen highly visible companies that make rail cars and locomotives.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) - The former Ann Arbor headquarters of bookstore chain Borders Group has been sold.

The Ann Arbor office of Colliers International tells The Detroit News that the buyer requested a confidentiality agreement, so no name was publicly disclosed. Colliers International is handling the sale.

The 330,000-square-foot headquarters was listed last year for $6.9 million.

Alticor, the parent company of Amway, announced record sales of more than $11 billion today. This is the seventh consecutive year of growth at the company, one of the world’s largest direct selling businesses.

More than three million individual distributors sell Amway products, everything from shampoos to vitamins and cosmetics. They hawk the company’s wares in more than a hundred countries.

A new report shows commuters are spending a lot of time behind the wheel in two Michigan cities.

The Texas A & M Transportation Institute releases an annual report on traffic congestion around the country. Many Detroit commuters will probably agree with the findings in this year’s Urban Mobility reports.   

Report co-author Bill Eisele says Motown motorists spend a lot of time each year not moving.

“Those commuting in Detroit are losing 40 hours,” says Eisele, “[They] are losing essentially a whole…week just stuck in traffic.”