Business

This week Grand Rapids officials will debate whether food trucks should be allowed in the city. People will get a chance to weigh in on the proposed rules Tuesday night. The rules would allow food trucks but limit when and where they could operate.

Right now food trucks have to part of a special event, like ArtPrize for example. But some have found a way to operate in a sort of legal grey area under the same rules that mobile ice cream trucks operate.

Downtown Detroit gets a new transportation option this weekend with the official launch of the Detroit Bus Company - a privately owned service launched by 25-year-old entrepreneur Andy Didorosi.

For $5, you get an all-day pass to ride. Right now, Didorosi is offering customers service on a 13-stop downtown loop.

"And then after that's successful and has a good ridership we plan to add our Royal Oak-Ferndale-Hamtramck-Detroit loop very quickly, because we have a lot of demand for that one," Didorosi said.

The Detroit Bus Company will run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and during Detroit Tigers home games.

Didorosi says he hopes to someday be put out of business by reliable public transit.

State lawmakers are discussing whether to limit employers' ability to demand passwords to social media sites.

A bill would bar companies from asking employees or job applicants to hand over passwords to their Twitter, Facebook or other accounts.

Amway plans to spend up to $81 million to build a new facility in West Michigan.

The direct-sales company says it received a $1.6 million grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation for the project. The new facility will manufacture and process vitamins and supplements for Amway's Nutrilite brand.

From their press release:

This investment includes a new $81 million nutrition plant at the company's Spaulding Avenue site in Ada, Michigan, near Amway World Headquarters. The new plant is expected to create 200 jobs over the next three years.

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) today approved a $1.6 million Michigan Business Development Program incentive from the Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF) to support construction of this nutrition products manufacturing facility for Access Business Group LLC, an affiliate of Amway.

Amway says it employs 4,000 people in Michigan. Amway was started in 1959 by Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel.

 WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court says home loan applicants cannot sue a mortgage company for charging them a loan discount fee without giving them a loan discount.

The high court on Thursday unanimously ruled for Quicken Loans, which was fighting a lawsuit from Tammy and Larry Freeman and other families. The company argued Congress wrote the law to say only that the fee would be illegal if Quicken split it with someone else. The justices, in an opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, agreed.

Calling it the first such new retail development in the city in decades, officials broke ground on the site of a future 36-acre shopping center Thursday.

Detroiters have long noted the city’s lack of many quality shopping options—especially when it comes to buying groceries.

Officials hope the Gateway Shopping Center--on the former Michigan State fairgrounds at 8 Mile and Woodward-- will help fill some of that void.

State Attorney General Bill Schuette has officially lodged his opposition to a proposed Lansing casino with the federal government.

The attorney general sent a letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior about the Sault Sainte Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians' casino plan.

The tribe is in the middle of a land deal with the city of Lansing. That's the first step toward a planned $245 million casino near the state Capitol.

In the letter, Schuette says the state "is gravely concerned about the consequences" of allowing the casino to operate. He says it would justify the operation of a casino far from the tribe's reservation lands. The same tribe - which is based in the Upper Peninsula - already operates a casino in Detroit.

Schuette's letter says the tribe's plan violates state and federal law.

The tribe disagrees. A spokesman says the tribe plans to vigorously pursue its right to do the project.

Once the land sale is complete, the tribe will ask the federal government to take the land into trust. That would allow the tribe to conduct gaming on that land. A court fight is expected.

Detroit's Ally Bank, formerly known as GMAC, says it will sell off foreign subsidiaries and put its mortgage division into bankruptcy, in an attempt to pay back its government bailout.

The U.S. Treasury gave more than $17 billion to GMAC when it bailed out GM.

The money was meant to prevent the collapse of loan availability for GM vehicles and GM dealers.

So far, GMAC, now Ally Bank, has paid back $ 5.5 billion.   

But it was unclear how the company would pay back the rest. Its mortgage arm loses money every quarter on subprime mortgage loans made before the bank crisis of 2008.

Now Ally says it will put its mortgage division into bankruptcy, and sell off foreign subsidiaries.   The company says that will allow it to repay a total of 2/3 of what it owes the Treasury before the end of the year, leaving a balance of about $6 billion. 

Ally officials say they will provide bankruptcy financing for the mortgage arm, known as Res Cap, and strike a financial deal with the company's creditors, so that Ally can come out of the mortgage division's bankruptcy with no additional liabilities.

Many Michigan farmers are spending this May focusing on their insurance needs.

The sporadic spring freezes and frosts that followed the unusually mild winter devastated Michigan’s apple, cherry and peach crops.     Most farmers have access to some form of crop insurance.   But according to the Michigan Farm Bureau, the insurance only covers about 60 to 70 percent of the loss.