I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
After months of depressing sales volumes, the Big Three automakers got some good news in July. In the wake of Chrysler and GM emerging from bankruptcy restructuring and the start of the cash for clunkers program, the sales losses narrowed considerably from recent months — and one of them even posted an increase over July, 2008.
GM sold 188,156 vehicles in July, compared to 233,340 in 2008, a drop of 19.4 percent. Chrysler reported sales of 88,900 vehicles, down from 98,109 last year, a decline of only 9.4 percent. This is compared to drops for the year so far of 37 and 42 percent, so the year-to-year gap has improved dramatically.
And Ford actually posted the first increase in year-to-year sales in a long time, selling 164,795 vehicles compared to 160,990 a year ago for a 2.4 percent increase. And most of the increase came in the most fuel-efficient cars in their fleet:
Small cars and Ford’s most fuel-efficient trucks paced the gain. Sales of the Focus were up 44 percent, and Fusion deliveries advanced 66 percent. The Escape SUV, which includes a hybrid version, almost doubled, and the Ranger small pickup rose 65 percent.
The annual sales rate topped 11.1 million vehicles, sizable jump from the last few months when the annualized rate was below 10 million vehicles sold. As existing inventories get sold off the companies should begin to boost production, which will help stem the unemployment tide as well.
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