Tracy Samilton

It's been a long time since the days you could succeed on the factory floor with "a weak mind and a strong back," as the adage goes.

Modern manufacturers need people who use their minds more than their bodies.  

Today, manufacturing workers need to be computer literate, solve problems when the robots on the line shut down, and work in teams.

The Obama administration says manufacturing companies added jobs for the first time since the 1990s - more than 500,000 jobs in the past 30 months.

The latest "State of the State" survey from Michigan State University indicates people in the state are feeling pretty good about the economy, a little more positive about the Governor, and the same about the President.

MSU Economics Professor Charles Ballard conducts the survey of likely voters in Michigan once a quarter. The latest was taken in August.

It shows that Governor Snyder's approval rating rose, from 33 to 38 percent. 

That's still lower than the President's 41 percent.  But that 41 percent is unchanged from the previous quarter's survey.   

Ford Motor Company launched the new Fusion today - in five different cities.

The big splash highlights the importance of the car to Ford.

More people buy midsize cars in the U.S. than any other size-- and midsize cars are becoming more popular in other regions of the world, too.

Ford wants to topple the dominant player, the Toyota Camry --and says the new Fusion will make even further inroads.

Ford Motor Company CEO Alan Mulally says he has NOT told his company's board when he will retire-- contrary to recent media speculation.

Mulally's retirement date is an obsessively pursued story in the auto press.

Bloomberg, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal especially are all vying to be the first to get it right.

Bloomberg said last week that the Board of Ford Motor Company was poised to promote Mark Fields, Ford's President of the Americas.

Three days after Bloomberg was the first to break the news that  Ford's Board may promote Mark Fields to Chief Operating Officer, and that CEO Alan Mulally is to retire at the end of 2013, Reuters' Bernie Woodall and Deepa Seetharaman report this:

DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co's (F.N) board of directors is considering keeping Chief Executive Alan Mulally involved with the No. 2 U.S. automaker after his retirement as nonexecutive chairman, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

Ever since Ford CEO Alan Mulally turned 65, one question invariably comes up during media scrums at Ford Motor Company events.  "When are you going to retire?" some reporter or other asks.

Now that he's 67, the question is being asked even more frequently -- even though the man is by all accounts healthy, extremely fit, and a fierce competitor on the tennis court and golf course - and even though he seems to relish his job.  

Just five days remain before an existing contract between the Canadian Auto Workers and Ford, GM, and Chrysler  expires. 

Members of the union previously authorized their leaders to call a strike - but it's a double edged sword for the union.

Ken Lewenza is National President of the Canadian Auto Workers.

He says the union is willing to come up with a deal that preserves the Detroit Three's Canadian labor costs as they are now.

A new study suggests that longer CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) attempts in the hospital could save lives. 

How many lives?  That's unclear, but it would be at least in the hundreds, if not a few thousand.

Cardiac arrest is a common occurrence in hospitals.  As many as 250,000 patients's hearts stop beating in the nation's hospitals each year.

All states should ban drivers from using hand-held cell phones, according to a new recommendation by the Governors Highway Safety Association.

Only 10 states ban the use of handheld cell phones while driving.

Michigan is not one of them.

But it does have laws against sending a text while driving.

Jonathan Adkins, with the Governors Highway Safety Association, says the texting laws aren't doing as much good as they should.

"States are having some difficulty enforcing texting bans, if you have a texting only ban, it's very easy for a driver to say, oh, I was dialing my phone, I'm allowed to do that, I'm allowed to be on my phone, I'm just not allowed to text on it," says Adkins.

Adkins says banning the use of handheld cell phones altogether would solve that problem.  The safety group is also calling for tougher laws against driving while on drugs.

From the press release:

Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson released his first official statement today since the Aug. 10 accident in which he and two other individuals were victims of the driver of a Volkswagen Passat who has been charged with three misdemeanors for turning in front of Patterson’s Chrysler 300.

General Motors says sales rose 10-percent in August, compared to the same month a year ago.

The Detroit car company also broke several sales records.

GM says it got a noticeable bump from advertising aired during the Olympics.

Sales of the Chevy Cruze, Volt, Spark and Sonic hit an all-time high.

Those are all small cars.  

The Chevy Cruze, a compact car, even beat Honda's perennial top-performer, the Civic, in August.

The family of Amir  Hekmati is marking the one-year anniversary of his imprisonment in Iran.

The Flint native and Marine veteran was seized by Iranian authorities while visiting his grandmother. He was charged with spying for the CIA and sentenced to death.

That sentence was lifted, but there's no sign of progress in gaining his release

Hekmati's brother-in-law, Ramy Kurdi, says the family is being careful not to offend Iranian officials by emphasizing his innocence.

After a two-year hiatus, organizers say Michigan's state fair is back - but it will have a new name and location.

Blair Bowman  runs the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi.   That's the expo center where the "Great Lakes State Fair" will be.  It opens to the public on Friday.

The fair will be under a roof instead of in the open. But it will have the same livestock and agricultural exhibits, pie-eating contests, and the like.

Flint's new emergency financial manager disagrees -- strongly -- with recent assertions by the city council's president that Flint doesn't need an emergency financial manager anymore. 　

Ed Kurtz was Flint's Emergency Financial Manager a decade ago. He says the city is in much worse shape than the first time he was in charge.

The city has $19 million  of debt, and nearly $1.5 billion in underfunded pension and retiree health care costs.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan appeared before a crowd of nearly 10,000 in Commerce, Michigan on Friday.

But an off-script comment garnered most of the media attention.

The rally was held at Long Family Orchard Farm and Cider Mill.