WARREN ? Eighty-three percent of the owners of small businesses surveyed across Michigan do not support a government-operated health care plan as a public option for insurance, a new survey reports. The survey was conducted among members of the Michigan Business and Professional Association and the Michigan Food and Beverage Association. The U.S. House bill,
LANSING ? Michigan students receiving the State Competitive Scholarship and the Tuition Grant in the current fiscal year will see lesser maximum awards under action taken last week by the Michigan Higher Education Assistance Authority. The authority, which is in charge of setting minimum and maximum levels of financial aid, acted after the Legislature approved
LANSING - When historians review the years 2000-09 in Michigan government, the difficulty that the state had in grappling with a nine-year recession and perpetual budget crises will stand out. But despite an overwhelming focus during the decade on budgetary matters, the state made several major policy changes, too. Here are the ten most significant
LANSING - It began as a decade of exciting firsts for Michigan: setting an all-time record low unemployment rate of 3.2 percent, electing the first Michigan women to be governor and U.S. senator, breaking the 10 million barrier in population, seeing the first African-American to lead a legislative caucus and achieving the highest possible credit
LANSING - Expressing hope that 2010 will be a better year for Michigan following the historic economic travails of 2009, Gov. Jennifer Granholm said the state had to continue to focus on diversifying its economy or face total collapse. A key to that diversification is building a more knowledgeable workforce and key to that, she
LANSING - Good news and very bad news comes from the Senate Fiscal Agency's budget forecast: January should not require the state to enact mid-year budget cuts to schools and state services, but a $1.84 billion gap exists between available revenues for the 2010-11 fiscal year and existing spending levels. The forecast, released Tuesday, is
MOUNTAIN VIEW - As a year winds down in which criticism of Google was perhaps never louder, the company used a quiet preholiday afternoon to post a manifesto on what it means to be "open." Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president of product management, originally wrote the "The meaning of open" as a memo to employees,
DETROIT - General Motors Co. has hired an outsider to run its troubled finance operations, bringing in the chief financial officer of Microsoft Corp. Chris Liddell will join GM next year, GM CEO Ed Whitacre Jr. said in a statement Monday. Liddell, 51, brings depth and experience to the job leading GM's global financial and
LANSING - Michigan put together a package of education reforms that should make it more than competitive to win a chunk of the $4.35 billion in federal education money that President Barack Obama is dangling through the "Race to the Top" program to entice states to overhaul public education, officials said Monday. Two days after
LANSING - The Muskegon Correctional Facility will still lose all of its Michigan prisoners as planned, but will take in as many as 1,000 prisoners from Pennsylvania early next year rather than closing, officials announced Monday. The imported inmates are set to begin arriving in February and could remain for as long as three years.