Industry

Toledo-area consumers have paid some of the highest electricity rates in Ohio for long enough and consumers should demand a break, a Toledo City councilman and two Lucas County commissioners said yesterday.

The mountain-climbing, desert-traversing Jeep Wrangler could be headed on a new adventure: to an electric outlet.

Manufacturer Chrysler LLC yesterday unveiled an electric-drive prototype of the Toledo-built model intended to go 400 miles — about the distance between northwest Ohio and Knoxville, Tenn.— on eight gallons of gas.

WASHINGTON: The FBI is investigating four major U.S. financial institutions whose collapse helped trigger a $700 billion bailout plan by the Bush administration, The Associated Press has learned.

Likely Toledo mayoral candidate Keith Wilkowski yesterday proposed putting a $5 million solar panel field atop the Dura Avenue Landfill that could generate electricity for the city while further energizing northwest Ohio's burgeoning solar energy industry.

WASHINGTON — Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne told a House committee Thursday that he might fire employees in the agency that collects oil and gas royalties, a week after the department’s inspector general reported extensive ethics abuses there.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Michigan’s image as the world’s automotive capital can be restored under a John McCain presidency, he said yesterday at a campaign rally with running mate Sarah Palin.

Mr. McCain, who visited a Detroit-area General Motors Corp. plant earlier in the day, pledged his support for a loan package for domestic automakers he’d previously looked at with a skeptical eye.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The federal government is reportedly on the verge of taking over crumbling insurer American International Group in an $85 billion deal that could leave the company in the Federal Reserve's hands.

"CHICAGO - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Monday the upheaval on Wall Street was "the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression" and blamed it on policies that he said Republican rival John McCain supports.

September 15, 2008 – The candidacy of State Rep. Barbara Sears (OH-46) has been formally endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio, Inc. and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 18. Both organizations thanked Rep. Sears for her commitment to their respective issues and wished her good luck in November.

LONDON - Oil prices fell below $97 a barrel on Monday after Hurricane Ike inflicted minimal damage to oil installations on the Texas coast.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York held an emergency meeting Friday night with top Washington policymakers and major financial institutions to discuss the future of Lehman Brothers.

Nearly 200 workers at General Motors Corp.’s Toledo Powertrain Plant will be laid off indefinitely Monday, three days after the plant ceased making its traditional four-speed, rear-wheel drive transmission.

Private transport firms report job losses

After just one year in business, the Toledo Fire Department's basic life-support ambulances have transported 8,580 patients to local hospitals and generated a little more than $1 million for the city's general operating fund.

Friday, August 22, 2008
McCain supports loan guarantees for automakers

WASHINGTON -- Republican president candidate John McCain joined his Democratic rival Barack Obama in supporting efforts to give Detroit's Big Three automakers up to $25 billion in loan guarantees -- a move that boosts the prospects for passage considerably in September.

BAGHDAD, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Iraq expects to gross $55 billion in a new 20-year oil deal it recently renegotiated with China, the government said on Wednesday.
"Iraqi gross revenues obtained in the contract will be $55 billion, equal to 87 percent of total revenues of $63 billion," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.

Republicans in Congress this June united to defeat a proposed windfall tax on oil companies, deriding it as a bad idea that would discourage investment in U.S. oil exploration.

Things worked out far differently in the GOP stronghold of Alaska, a state whose economic fate is closely tied to the oil industry.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Oil futures tumbled more than $7 on Tuesday after Hurricane Gustav hit the Gulf region with less force and apparently less damage than initially feared. Prices were also pulled lower by a strengthening dollar.

U.S. crude futures for October delivery were at $108.61, or $6.85 lower at 8:13 a.m. ET.

Not all can fly yet, but 15 local technology-oriented businesses being nurtured by an incubator program made strong progress in the last year in their march toward producing revenue and jobs.

Aug. 26, 2008 -- For the first time in years, fewer Americans lack health insurance.

The U.S. Census Bureau today announced that 45.7 million of us had no health insurance in 2007. That's 1.3 million fewer uninsured Americans than in 2006.

As Sept. 11 approaches, many Americans will remember the day this country was attacked by terrorists by keeping the U.S. flag in their hearts and flying it at their homes.

But in a great irony, if you don't check the label carefully, you may find that the symbol of freedom waving in front of your house was made in a communist-run country, China.

"SOUTHFIELD, Mich. - Chrysler LLC, now studying a sale of its Viper sports-car business, is following General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. in looking to shed specialty vehicles and focus on main brands.

Representatives of a proposed deepwater container port in Nova Scotia are expected to sign a "strategic collaboration agreement" with Toledo port officials when they meet with local leaders and visit Toledo's port facilities today and tomorrow.

Road proposal riles activists in Roosevelt country

BISMARCK, N.D. - Plans to turn a secluded Badlands trail into a major road and river crossing might not have created such a stir if not for where it is: near the ranch where Theodore Roosevelt helped conceive the American conservation movement.

Toledo City Council President Mark Sobczak shied away yesterday from the city taking over operations of Toledo Express Airport and Metcalf Field - one of four options proposed by the director of both airports.

"I think the city is probably not best suited to run the airports," Mr. Sobczak said. "The port authority has been doing a good job."

Having bought a North Toledo recycling center, Lucas County has plans to go into the recycling business.

The Lucas County Commissioners yesterday approved a $7,100 contract with Spring Valley Architects to improve the facility at 1011 Matzinger Rd. that the Lucas County Solid Waste Management district bought earlier this year.