Ford Posts Record Loss

from WDIV Detroit TV 4

Ford Motor Co. posted a $12.7 billion loss in 2006, the largest annual loss in the automaker's 103-year history. The company lost $5.8 billion in the fourth quarter alone due to slumping sales and huge restructuring costs. It lost just less than $7 billion in the first three quarters of the year.

The annual loss surpassed the previous record annual net loss of $7.39 billion in 1992. The Dearborn-based automaker expects continued losses for the remainder of the year.

29 Year-old Sex Offender Posed as 7th Grader, Twice

from CNN

A convicted sex offender attended at least two Arizona middle schools, sat through seventh-grade courses and turned in homework as he moved around the state pretending to be 12 years old. Authorities in Yavapai County have accused Neil Havens Rodreick II, who is really 29, of assaulting a girl. They are not releasing details. Rodreick was arrested last week after spending a day at the Mingus Springs Charter School in Chino Valley, about 90 miles northwest of Phoenix.

School officials there called police after they checked what they called a phony birth certificate and other admissions documents. He has been charged with misdemeanor assault, conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to commit forgery, failing to register as a sex offender, and possession of a forgery device. He remains in the Yavapai County jail.

GM Recalls 98,000 Cars

from WDIV Detroit TV 4

General Motors Corp. is recalling about 100,000 Chevrolet Cobalt small sedans to upgrade head impact protection. The recall affects 98,707 vehicles from the 2005-2006 model years that are not equipped with optional roof-mounted side impact air bags. The issue was discovered during compliance testing.

There have been no injuries related to the recall and the head impact protection would only be an issue for motorists not wearing a seat belt. Belted motorists would not be affected. To correct the defect dealers will install energy absorbing plastic to the area. Owners can contact Chevrolet at 800-630-2438.

Rare Primitive Shark Captured on Film

from the Daily Mail (UK)

A species of shark rarely seen alive because its natural habitat is 2,000 ft or more under the sea was captured on film by staff at a Japanese marine park this week. A marine park just south of Tokyo was alerted by a fisherman who spotted an odd-looking eel-like creature with a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. Park staff caught the 5 ft long creature, which they identified as a female frilled shark, sometimes referred to as a "living fossil" because it is a primitive species that has changed little since prehistoric times.

Anna Nicole Paternity Test Blocked

from WDIV Detroit TV 4

The judge in Anna Nicole Smith's baby dispute has temporarily blocked an order forcing her daughter to undergo paternity testing. A Tuesday deadline had been set for the test sought by Larry Birkhead, who has claimed that he's the father of Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, who was born Sept. 7 in the Bahamas.

But the former Playboy playmate's attorney questioned the legality of the test, and said Bahamas authorities needed to grant work permits before an American doctor could conduct the test. The judge granted a stay pending a February 7 hearing.

Smith's longtime personal lawyer, Howard K. Stern, maintains he is the baby's father.

Pfizer to Cut 2,400 Michigan Jobs

from WDIV Detroit TV 4

Pfizer Chairman and CEO Jeffery B. Kindler announced plans to make major cuts to improve the company's future. Pfizer Inc. will close its human health research and development facilities in Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo, affecting about 2,400 jobs. The Ann Arbor facility has about 2,100 employees. Also affected are approximately 250 workers in downtown Kalamazoo and another 60 in western Wayne County's Plymouth Township.

But the world's largest drugmaker will continue to maintain manufacturing and animal-health research operations in the Kalamazoo area, preserving about 3,800 jobs. Pfizer announced in March 2005 that it was closing a Holland manufacturing plant with 328 employees. About 60 people continue to work at the facility as it is being decommissioned.

New York-based Pfizer will also close manufacturing plants in New York and Nebraska as part of a plan to cut costs by up to $2 billion per year. About 10,000 jobs will be lost total. The restructuring is part of an effort by Pfizer to cut costs by up to $2 billion a year amid fierce competition from generic drugs.

Customer Seizes Bank Computers in UK Collections Case

from the Evening Standard (London)

A man who was fed up with paying massive bank charges decided to give one of the high street giants a taste of its own medicine. When Royal Bank of Scotland refused to refund more than $6,700 charges that Declan Purcell believed he was owed, he sent in the bailiffs.

Stunned customers at his branch of RBS watched as debt collectors seized four computers, two fax machines and a till filled with cash. The branch manager was told that the items would be sold unless RBS came up with the money owed to Mr Purcell. Only when the manager gave an undertaking that the debt would be paid did the bailiffs leave.

The move, which will raise a cheer from millions of other bank customers, is part of a consumer fightback against bank charges, which net an estimated $9 billion every year in the UK. Every time a current account customer goes overdrawn by as little as $2 most banks will charge around $55, even though the administration cost is only about $9. Then every cheque, direct debit, or card transaction that goes through or is bounced incurs another charge of up to $75.

The Office of Fair Trading is investigating whether banks have implemented these charges unlawfully.

NAIAS 2007 Editor's Choice

Saab Aero X Concept Car

As the current Saab ad campaign tells us, the Swedish car maker got its start designing fighter jets for the Swedish military and with the Aero X concept, Saab's "born from jets" tagline is finally true. Nowhere is the jet influence more prevalent than in the cockpit of the Aero X concept. Instead of traditional doors, the Aero X boasts a jet-like canopy that rises up to allow passengers in and out of the car.

Carbon composite materials are used extensively in the manufacture of fighter jets, and true to its jet heritage, the Aero X sports a lot of carbon material as well and there is also a bit of jet influence in the wheels. Sized 22 inches in the front and 23 inches in the rear, these massive rims have a bit of a turbine fan shape to them.

The Aero X is also a green machine. It's not a hybrid/electric car, but instead it runs on 100 percent ethanol fuel made from corn. The Aero X sports twin turbo 2.8 liter V6 that makes 400 horsepower at the flywheel. Though it hasn't been officially tested, Saab says the Aero X can go from zero to sixty in 4.9 seconds.

The interior of the Aero X resembls the cockpit of a real fighter jet with a high-tech dash and gauges. All of the gauges are made from acrylic material and designed to display information on a 3-dimensional plane with the guages clustered together with similar ones in a wrap-around jet cockpit-like dash illuminated by blue LED light.

Cause of Death: Sloppy Handwriting

from Time

Doctors' sloppy handwriting kills more than 7,000 people annually. It's a shocking statistic, and, according to a July 2006 report from the National Academies of Science's Institute of Medicine, preventable medication mistakes also injure more than 1.5 million Americans annually. Many such errors result from unclear abbreviations and dosage indications and illegible writing on some of the 3.2 billion prescriptions written in the U.S. every year.

To address the problem—and give the push for electronic medical records a shove—a coalition of health care companies and technology firms will launch a program Tuesday to enable all doctors in the U.S. to write electronic prescriptions for free.

Although some doctors have been prescribing electronically for years, many still use pen and paper. This is the first national effort to make a Web-based tool free for all doctors. Even though 90% of the country's approximately 550,000 doctors have access to the Internet, fewer than 10% of them have invested the time and money required to begin using electronic medical records or e-prescriptions. Automation should eliminate many of the errors that occur when pharmacists misunderstand or misrecord medication names or dosages conveyed messily on paper or hurriedly by phone.

MI Court of Appeals Defines Adultery as 1st Degree CSC

from the Detroit Free Press

In a ruling sure to make philandering spouses squirm, Michigan's second-highest court says that anyone involved in an extramarital fling can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison.

We cannot help but question whether the Legislature actually intended the result we reach here today," Judge William Murphy wrote in November for a unanimous Court of Appeals panel, "but we are curtailed by the language of the statute from reaching any other conclusion." Technically," he added, "any time a person engages in sexual penetration in an adulterous relationship, he or she is guilty of CSC I," the most serious sexual assault charge in Michigan's criminal code.

No one expects prosecutors to declare open season on cheating spouses. The ruling grows out of a case in which a Charlevoix man accused of trading Oxycontin pills for the sexual favors of a cocktail waitress was charged under an obscure provision of Michigan's criminal law. The provision decrees that a person is guilty of first-degree criminal sexual conduct whenever "sexual penetration occurs under circumstances involving the commission of any other felony."

ABC Eyes End Date for 'Lost'

from TV Week

In a highly unusual move for a broadcast series, ABC and the producers of "Lost" are in discussions to determine an end date for the show. The date will set a limit to the number of "Lost" seasons to come and will be announced to fans. The show's producers, speaking at ABC's Television Critics Association press tour session, said having a conclusion date will bolster fan confidence in the series' narrative. A timeline for making the decision was not announced.

Thought the series ratings have dipped this fall, the show remains one of ABC's top-rated programs. During the first season, Executive Producer Damon Lindelof said the show could run nine seasons if necessary, noting the island has plenty of mysteries. Recently, fans and critics have grown frustrated, however, with the show's continually expanding mythology that keeps piling on new mysteries and characters.

After the panel, Mr. Lindelof suggested the series might cap at 100 episodes, which would only result in two more seasons.

Alpha Dog - 2 Scoops

Movie Review (2 out of 4)

You watch "Alpha Dog" in the conflicted grip of fascination, horror and, to be honest, depression. Writer-director Nick Cassavetes takes a viewer into a heart of darkness that exists right in Southern California's San Fernando Valley among mostly white, suburban young people adrift in a sea of drugs, sex, booze and violence. Parents are either "cool" with this or clueless. Traditional social structure has broken down, replaced by a hedonistic youth culture and "gangsta" lifestyle utterly lacking in any moral sensibility or control. What's worse, this is a true story.

This is a well-made ensemble movie in which actors take chances with uncomfortably repulsive characters or roles unlike any previous performances. Make no mistake though: This will be a hard sell for New Line. The gangsta element and hip-hop soundtrack might be selling points, but is that really the right crowd for this movie? Critical acclaim will help, but the film's dispassionate point of view might cause mixed reactions.

Interviews with several characters are seen throughout the movie as if a documentary about this story were in the works. But the film itself is no docudrama. Despite such stylistic devises as split screens and shifting frame sizes, "Alpha Dog" is pretty conventional. Cassavetes simply plunges you into an unhealthy environment of social disintegration and never eases up. The movie is based on a news story of a few years ago about Jesse James Hollywood, a middle-level drug dealer who became one of the youngest men ever to land on the FBI's most-wanted list. Here, he is known as Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch), whose father (Bruce Willis) helps supply the merchandise and whose posse is completely loyal, especially the slavishly devoted Elvis (Shawn Hatosy).

But he is more insecure and paranoid than he lets on. When he has a falling out with a competitor, Jake Marzursky (Ben Foster), who cheats him out of $1,200, he recognizes that Jake is a maniacal and ruthless adversary. So payback presents a problem. Johnny solves this with a truly stupid idea. He kidnaps Jake's 15-year-old half brother, Zack (Anton Yelchin). The youngster, who has grown restless with his normal life of doting parents and homework, admires his brother's on-the-edge lifestyle, so he is up for a few days of partying and boozing with this seemingly hip crew. But as Jake vows revenge, and others point out the legal repercussions of kidnapping, Johnny and his loyal lieutenant, Frankie (an almost unrecognizable Justin Timberlake), grow increasingly antsy. Meanwhile, Zack remains oblivious to his pending fate.

Most of the characters share the dual afflictions of poor education and a serious lack of smarts. Hirsch's ringleader moves in often jerky and hyperkinetic movements, but his mental processes are slow. Although he does less drugs than others, he can't seem to think through any problem. Timberlake's Frankie has much more brains and sensitivity, but male loyalty trumps common sense. Foster presents an astonishing portrait of lethal rage. Willis as the bad father and Sharon Stone as Zack's emotionally overwrought mother deliver outstanding performances.

BREAKING NEWS

Rocket Fired at US Embassy in Athens

from CNN

The U.S. Embassy in Athens has been hit by a rocket in an attack that anonymous callers claimed was staged by militant left-wing group. Nno one was injured in the explosion. Damage was minimal but it was still being treated as a very serious attack.

It is believed to be a symbolic act as an attempt to disrupt the country's international relations. Police are checking the authenticity of phone calls made to a private security firm claiming responsibility of behalf of the Revolutionary Struggle. The guerilla group claimed to have carried out an unsuccessful 2006 assassination attempt on Greece's culture minister and has become the most serious domestic threat since the dismantling of the deadly November 17 group in 2002.

Police sealed all entrances and exits to the embassy and cordoned off the block around the compound, causing an almost complete standstill of traffic during the morning rush hour. Chaos erupted inside the embassy after the explosion. However, the only damage visible from outside the embassy was a window blown out on an upper floor.

Teen Dies Trying to Save Cats from Fire

from My Way News

An Illinois teenager is being hailed as a hero for saving his aunt from a fire at their house, but he lost his own life when he went back into the burning building to search for the family's two cats. Seth DeShane, 14, was pronounced dead late Thursday at the family home, which was destroyed in the fire.

When Seth's aunt realized the boy had gone back inside, she tried to get back in herself, but by then the smoke was so thick and the fire so intense, she had to leave the house. The fire is being blamed on malfunctioning lights on the Christmas tree on the first floor. The front half of the two-story home was fully engulfed when firefighters arrived.

2006 TOP TEN Number 1

In February, twenty one people were injured, eight of them seriously, when a van pursued by US police near the Mexican border crashed head-on with a truck. A total of four vans suspected of carrying illegal immigrants from Mexico were fleeing US border patrol officers when one of them lost control and swerved into the oncoming truck. And to make matters worse for the US officers patroling the border, Mexican criminal syndicates began stepping up their attacks on American agents patrolling the border as officials of the Homeland Security Department intensify efforts to stem the flow of immigrants and drugs into the United States.

President Bush then asked Congress to increase the Homeland Security Department's budget by nearly 6 percent. The Border Patrol received an extra $459 million to hire 1,500 new agents, bringing the total force to about 14,000. An additional $410 million was allocated to add 6,700 beds for detainees so fewer illegal immigrants would have to be released before being deported. Another $100 million was spent on cameras, sensors and other detection technology. Mexico also increased its commitment by sending an additional 300 Federalis to patrol their side of the border.

In May, President Bush began calling for 6,000 National Guard troops in a supporting role along the border. And in a controversial move that conservatives are still complaining about, the President endorsed a controversial proposal to give illegal immigrants already in the United States a path to work toward eventual citizenship. Bush made the argument that a guest-worker program is necessary to gain control of the border and relieve pressure from the border. Bush has long championed a guest-worker program that would allow people to enter the United States to fill jobs for which employers can't find enough American workers. In response, a private company called VeriChip, offered to provide radio frequency identification tags that would be implanted beneath the skin of guest workers. These RFID tags would provide the government with the guest workers' location at all times. These tags have been used to keep track of animals, but have not been widely used in humans. This proposal died in its infancy and was never implented.

The increased security along the border forced human traffickers to develop new ways of getting illegals into the US. In August, CA border patrol agents arrested a U.S. man after he tried to smuggle three migrants into the country hidden in the seats of his vehicle. Officers discovered three undocumented migrants sewn into three seats of the conversion van, including the driver’s seat.

In a blitz that began May 26, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested nearly 2,100 illegal immigrants across the country. Officials said the raids are aimed at child molesters, gang members and other violent criminals, as well as people who sneaked back into the country after a judge threw them out. The crackdown was called Operation Return to Senderand was also carried out in Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit arresting 154 undocumented immigrants. The agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices came heavily armed and loaded with files and warrants for deportation.

To further document those entering the US, beginning January 23, nearly all air travelers entering the will be required to show passports including returning Americans and people from Canada and other nations in the Western Hemisphere. Currently, U.S. citizens returning from other countries in the hemisphere are not required to present passports but must show other proof of citizenship such as driver's licenses or birth certificates.

In defiance of the many Mexican-pride rallies throughout the US this past year, a Nevada town passed a law this week making it illegal to fly a foreign nation's flag by itself. The town council of Pahrump, which lies in the Mojave Desert west of Las Vegas, voted 3-2 to make flying any foreign flag above the U.S. flag or alone an offense punishable by a $50 fine and 30 hours' community service. Hispanic groups slammed the flag ordinance as a blow to first-amendment rights to free speech but thought it unlikely that the community would enforce it. In passing the bylaw, the town joined several other communities from California to Pennsylvania that have passed laws curbing illegal immigrants in recent months. Among them are Escondido, in southern California, and Hazleton in Pennsylvania, where councilors barred landlords from renting to undocumented aliens and denied them access to services. In Texas, where a third of the citizens are Hispanic, the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch enacted laws fining landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and making English the official language.

2006 TOP TEN Number 2

In January, General Motors Corp. posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $4.8 billion, a sea of red ink deeper than the most pessimistic Wall Street estimate, as costs for layoffs and plant closures soared. It was the fifth straight quarterly loss for the world's largest automaker -- amid high labor and raw materials costs, shrinking market share and sluggish sales of sport utility vehicles -- and brought its losses for all of 2005 to $8.6 billion. It was GM's first annual loss since 1992. Just days later, Ford announced a restructuring plan with preliminary reports indicating a loss of as many as 25,000 job cuts.

To soften the blow, The Michigan House voted to raise the state's minimum wage by $1.80. The bill was ratified, and the wage increase took effect this past October. By this coming July, the wage will automatically increase to $7.15.

Spring came with more job losses and hits to the automakers. Toledo based auto-parts maker Dana Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection for its U.S. operations joining a growing list of suppliers forced to make major restructuring moves because of the slumping industry. Dana supplies brakes, axles and other parts to both GM and Ford.

Rising labor costs, much of which the Big 3 attributes to health care costs for its employees, fueled Ford to expand its Restructuring plan. Closing plans were implemented for two plants in Virginia and Minnesota. The plants are set to shut down by 2008. By Fall rumors began to emerge from the Dearborn World Headquarters, when shares of Ford Motor Co. surged more than 4 percent, following a report that Ford Chairman and CEO had approached Nissan-Renault about joining a global alliance. Then amazingly just later, according to the trade journal Automotive News, executives of General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. had discussed a possible alliance. Both companies declined to comment on the matter.

Taking a rule from GM's playbook, Ford announced a plan to offer buyouts to all of its hourly workers, cut 10,000 more salaried jobs and shut down two more plants in an effort to restore it to profitability. By the end of the year Ford had eliminated nearly one-third of its salaried positions. Up to 30,000 manufacturing jobs are expected to be cut throughout the coming year. Two additional plants were also added to the closing list. This time Ohio and Ontario, Canada will shut down boosting the plant closings from seven to nine.

By November, the cloud of demise could be seen from Detroit to Washington. President Bush decided to meet with executives from the Big 3 in the nation's capitol. They discussed a number of issues with the president, namely health care, trade and energy concerns. The Bush administration has contended that the U.S. economy, including manufacturing, was firing on all cylinders, and the president has said that Detroit's automakers needed to build more relevant vehicles, placing the blame on them.