Congress is poised to nearly double its funding commitment to the Great Lakes, adding up to $475 million for restoration that would deter invasive species, clean up polluted sites and create jobs in Michigan and the region.

Earth-mover Craig Hamlin is encouraged because a surge in federal funds could mean new business.

Since home building went bust in Michigan, Hamlin has kept his business going by digging up land to create wetlands instead of basements.

“Great Lakes work is pretty much all there is,” said Hamlin, whose bulldozers, other heavy equipment and crews are transforming 70 acres of corn and bean farmland in Newport into a wetlands habitat for migratory birds along Lake Erie.

“These Great Lakes jobs affect a lot of people,” added Hamlin of Hamlin Grading in Stockbridge. “Beyond my own workers, probably another 150 people end up getting work, by making pipes, or pumps and other materials we use.”

The unprecedented amount of money being considered for the Great Lakes reflects President Barack Obama’s pledge on the campaign trail of $5 billion for large-scale restoration.

Continue reading: detnews.com

In Detroit, a city with rampant unemployment, big crowds in the middle of the day may mean someone is giving out freebies. But on a recent workday, over 450 people packed an auditorium downtown. They weren’t looking for a hand out, sympathy or even a job application. They were looking to start their own business.

Helping them to do that was the thinking behind a recent day-long workshop, the last in a series of events this summer meant to foster innovation in the struggling city.

Continue reading: cnn.com

Film executives and producers say talk in Lansing of reducing or eliminating Michigan’s aggressive film tax incentive is causing Hollywood’s bankrollers to hesitate before investing in the Great Lakes State.

Already, industry insiders say, the state has lost hundreds of millions in film spending to other states since talk of cutting or scrapping the credit surfaced late last year, a charge led by Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, chairwoman of the State Finance Committee. Others warn that cutting the credit could push business away from Michigan’s fledgling industry simply because there hasn’t been enough time to build a sufficient infrastructure — studios and such — capable of supporting long-term business.

Legislative proposals, “even if unsupported, cause talk and rumors that cost Michigan a number of productions and jobs,” said Jeff Spilman, managing partner of Ferndale’s S3 Entertainment Group, which has worked to bring a number of feature film and television series projects to the state.

Continue reading: detnews.com

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has announced the state is applying for more than $800 million in federal stimulus money for what’s envisioned to be the first step toward a high-speed rail network.

Granholm made the announcement Monday with local and federal lawmakers in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, a stop on the proposed Detroit-to-Chicago line.

Continue reading: mlive.com

Branches of Michigan apple trees are bowing under the weight of the healthiest crop in at least 10 years.

Ideal weather conditions — cool temperatures and lots of rain — have apple growers anticipating one of the state’s best seasons since the 1990s, according to the Michigan Apple Committee, and that could mean lower prices at the grocery store.

Michigan produces an average 20 million bushels of apples each year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, making it the third-largest apple growing state, behind Washington and New York. This year’s harvest is estimated to be closer to 25 million to 27 million bushels.

Michigan apple growers contribute $450 million a year to the state’s economy.

Continue reading: detnews.com

A leading automotive research company is predicting that U.S. monthly auto sales will rise above the 1 million mark for the first time this year in August, due mainly to the government’s Cash for Clunkers program.

J.D. Power and Associates said it based the prediction of 1.1 million sales on data gathered from 10,000 dealers nationwide during the first 13 selling days in August.

The company also boosted its sales forecast for the full year to 10.3 million vehicles, up from the 10 million that it predicted in April, mostly because of the impact of the clunkers incentives.

Continue reading: mlive.com

A New York state official credited the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus package for the improvement. Peter Neenan said federal stimulus-funded projects helped boost employment in the construction sector.

The largest job gains occurred in New York, which added 62,100 jobs; Michigan, with 38,100; Texas, with 37,900; Tennessee, with 15,600 and the District, with 13,200.

Read it all at mlive.com

A little cafe in downtown Ferndale has set a Guinness World Record.

AJ’s Music Cafe was notified Wednesday that its 288-hour Assembly Line Concert, held in March to promote awareness of American automakers, set a new Guinness World Record for the longest continuous concert by multiple artists.

A.J. O’Neil, the cafe’s owner, organized the event out of his small cafe and lunch spot on Nine Mile Road. O’Neil said today plans are under way for Assembly Line 2 for March 2010, but he is hoping that a larger sponsor can take on the event that drew national media attention and several hundred supporters into Ferndale.

Guinness will mail O’Neil an official certificate and post the record on its Web site.

Source: detnews.com

Grand Haven’s Lake Michigan lighthouses are the prime location sought by an animal rights group for its anti-fishing campaign headquarters.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has applied through a federal program to take over the structures and lighted catwalk that are frequently photographed for dramatic sunsets, thick winter ice and crashing waves.

The area gets nearly 2 million annual visitors, including anglers casting lines into the Grand River channel and heading out in boats for Great Lakes salmon.

“We want to renovate the Grand Haven lights as a memorial to the billions of fish killed annually by sport fishermen, as well as for their flesh (commercial fishing industry),” said Lindsey Rajt, manager of PETA’s campaigns department. “We also want to make it a fun and educational place.”

Tentative PETA plans call for an education center, where visitors would learn about fish. There also would be a cafe, offering vegetarian fare including “faux fish.”

Signs would likely announce the lighthouse as home of PETA’s Fish Empathy Center.

Locals are dumbfounded by the proposal.

Continue reading: detnews.com

Kid Rock has stepped up with a crucial assist for Arts, Beats & Eats.

The Oakland County rocker has invested about $20,000 in sponsor funds via his fashion line, Made in Detroit, helping defray costs for one of the area’s signature fests.

AB&E, which runs Sept. 4-7 in downtown Pontiac, had lost more than $400,000 in funding this year, mostly because of Chrysler’s pullout from its title sponsor role.

In what it described as a gesture of community goodwill, the festival announced last month it will be donating sponsorship packages to Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, including exhibit space and a local-music stage.

Continue reading: freep.com

A battle over whether to keep Michigan’s film incentives is about to begin at the state Capitol.

Tuesday morning, several production workers will rally in Lansing to show legislators that they believe the incentives are worth continuing.

The rally is in response to one legislator from Metro Detroit, who said he plans to introduce a set of bills that would eliminate or phase out some of the incentives.

Here at home, the head of the West Michigan Film Office says that’s a bad idea.

Continue reading: wzzm13.com

When Gibson Guitar’s Parsons Street factory cranked out its last Les Paul guitar, Marvin Lamb had to have it.

Lamb started working for Gibson in 1956, at age 16.

He hand-drilled holes in the tops of early Les Pauls to screw in the stop tailpiece. He installed the first tune-o-matic bridges on the single-cutaway, solid-body guitars.

He sweated at 225 Parsons St., on Kalamazoo’s north side, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Gibson employees made 200 to 300 Les Pauls a day.

He was there Sept. 14, 1984, the day the factory closed.

Les Paul, the man who pioneered the solid-body electric guitar wielded by a legion of rock ‘n’ roll greats, died Thursday of complications from pneumonia. He was 94.

Continue reading: mlive.com

The electric-drive Chevrolet Volt is expected to get a rating of at least 230 miles per gallon in city driving, General Motors Co. announced this morning.

The results come as GM pushes to bring the new technology to market in late next year. Later this week, the company is officially announcing its battery assembly pack plant in Brownstown Township.

Continue reading: freep.com

Michigan stands to get $1.36 billion of a $2.4-billion federal grant program designed to spur manufacturing of batteries and other components for electric vehicles in the United States, creating up to 6,800 jobs in the next 18 months and up to 40,000 in the state over the next 11 years.
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Vice President Joe Biden unveiled the grants in Detroit with several Michigan officials and lawmakers who had fought to include the money in President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan passed earlier this year.

“We have to build on Detroit’s rich past,” Biden said. “We also need to have a vision of what can be a richer, better future and then we need to invest in that vision.”

Continue reading: freep.com

Detroit may be the best positioned city in the world to become a totally self-sufficient city, according to investigative historian Mark Dowie.

In a piece this month for Guernica magazine, Dowie suggests that a combination of unique factors and opportunities make Detroit a prime location for urban farming to flourish.

“There is open land, fertile soil, ample water, willing labor, and a desperate demand for decent food,” he writes. “And there is plenty of community will behind the idea of turning the capital of American industry into an agrarian paradise.”

Detroit was originally built upon 140 square miles of farmland, 40 of which are now unoccupied. The soil remains fertile and arable.

Continue reading: mlive.com