Ford US auto sales rise 3 percent in October thanks to cars and crossovers
Strong demand for cars and crossovers lifted Ford's U.S. sales 3 percent in October, a positive sign for automakers who are hoping a healthier economy will draw buyers back to showrooms.
Ford said its sales rose 21 percent from September to 118,735 vehicles, when auto sales were still in a hangover after the Cash for Clunkers program boosted sales this summer. Automakers had said October would be a test of how strong the market is without any effect from clunkers.
Ford's overall car sales rose 11 percent over last October, while crossovers climbed 23 percent, Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday. Truck sales fell 10 percent. New products like the Ford Taurus sedan and Lincoln MKT crossover sold well. More than 80 percent of last month's sales came from new 2010 models.
UAW membership has spoken loudly, won't renegotiate with Ford
Members resoundingly rejected a new contract with Ford last week, as 70 percent of production workers and 75 percent of skilled workers voted against concessions that would have made their contracts competitive with workers at General Motors and Chrysler.
"We have a political process. It's called ratification," Gettelfinger told Paul W. Smith this morning on WJR AM-760. "We all are disappointed, but the membership has spoken."
In addition to concerns over the "no-strike" clause and reduced compensation for new hires, Gettelfinger said Ford's string of recent success may have influenced member voting.
Four businessmen gave ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick $240k before he signed loans
It appears four major players in the Detroit business community gave former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick a total of $240,000 months before finalizing a repayment plan, raising the question of whether the money originally was intended as a gift, not a loan.
The signed loan agreement required Kilpatrick to repay $60,000 each to Compuware CEO Peter Karmanos, racing team owner Roger Penske, chemical company executive Jim Nicholson and Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert.
Kilpatrick, who owes the city of Detroit $914,000, has argued he cannot afford his monthly restitution payments and unilaterally halved his payments to $3,000 earlier this year.
Judge throws out 2001 Detroit murder conviction after U-M law students discover evidence
A judge has thrown out the 2001 murder conviction of Dwayne Provience, of Detroit, after law students discovered evidence that wasn't shared with him at trial.
Students from the University of Michigan Law School interviewed people who knew about the drug-related murder of Rene Hunter of Detroit in 2000. The key piece of new evidence was a police report that suggested others were responsible for the fatal shooting. It was never shared with Provience at the time of his trial.
Questions raised about conduct of Wayne County Prosecutor's Office
"It's awfully distressing that nobody in the Prosecutor's Office apparently went back and asked, ‘What happened in this first murder while we're prosecuting the second?' and saw, ‘Hey. We argued something different,'" says David Moran, co-director of the Innocence Clinic at University of Michigan Law School who now represents Provience. "I would hope that if that had been done they would have thought to contact Provience's lawyers and say, ‘We think we have some different information.' You would hope that would've happened."
But it didn't.
And this year, thanks to the mother of the convicted shooter in that second case, Provience's attorneys have obtained Detroit police records showing that, within weeks of the killing, investigators suspected other men in Hunter's death.
These records were not provided to Provience's defense attorney during the discovery phase of his trial, according to court filings.
