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
ANN ARBOR ? When the deadline Dec. 12 passed for business plan executive summaries to be submitted to Great Lakes Entrepreneur's Quest, the awards contest matched the record entries of last spring, when 174 teams competed. "We had more alternative energy teams than in the past," said GLEQ Executive Director Diane Durance. "We also had
SAN FRANCSICO - Twitter stumbled again overnight on Thursday. But this time, it wasn't the work of the "fail whale," the cuddly cartoon personification of the site's excessive technical baggage. Rather, the site was replaced with a foreboding message from "Iranian Cyber Army" before crashing entirely, indicating that it had been the victim of a
TROY - Automation Alley announced Thursday that the technology networking group received $394,800 in federal funding to build an international business center at its Troy headquarters. The money came from the Fiscal Year 2010 Omnibus Appropriations bill signed into law Thursday by President Obama. The project will create a 'soft business landing' center for international
LANSING - With legislation to revive the Consumer Protection Act seeing no movement in the Senate, Democrats announced Monday that they planned to start the action in the House. Supporters of the new legislation said a 1999 Supreme Court ruling essentially gutted the law and the goal of the bill is to overturn that ruling.
NEW YORK - This year's online holiday-shopping season has topped $19.9 billion so far - a 3 percent jump over the same period in 2008, according to ComScore. Online sales were bolstered last week when consumers spent more than $800 million on two separate days, ComScore said. On Thursday, for example, consumers coughed up $852
CANTON TOWNSHIP - Four of the world's leading renewable energy venture capital firms are partnering for the first time with co-investments to bring to market new technology that will make wind turbines more efficient, reliable and affordable by investing $13.2 million in Danotek Motion Technologies of Canton. GE Energy Financial Services, CMEA Capital, Khosla Ventures
LANSING - Gov. Jennifer Granholm said she would continue to seek the re-opening of the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility despite Tuesday's announcement by President Barack Obama that alleged terrorist detainees housed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be transferred to an Illinois prison, not Standish. The Obama administration's announcement that the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson,
LANSING - Transportation groups are gearing up for an effort in January to convince the Michigan Legislature to pass an increase in the gasoline tax to shore up road funding, whose decline has forced the state to shelve construction projects and put at risk federal money. John Niemela, director of the County Road Association of
LANSING - Finally, some good news as far as the state's fiscal situation is concerned: November's tax revenues netted state coffers $1.6 billion, 0.8 percent more than was raised in November 2008, and the first time monthly revenues have shown an increase since January. Even the good news was tempered with conditions, however. While an