LANSING - There were again fewer telephone lines in Michigan and competitors to the incumbent phone companies controlled a larger percentage of those lines, according to the annual competition report from the Public Service Commission. The 10th annual report showed there were 3.9 million telephone lines in the state in 2009, down from 4.19 million
LANSING - Rep. Robert Dean's chief of staff has resigned after a newspaper exposed Noah Seifullah gloating about making a profit off the state through a film credit deal for a studio near Grand Rapids. The Grand Rapids Press reported on Seifullah's comments, which were made at a conference in Chicago, in which he said
LANSING - Securitizing the state's tobacco settlement money for a third time was an option proposed during a Wednesday legislative Quadrant meeting on how to solve the current year deficit in the general fund, Gongwer News Service learned. A House source, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed securitization of the state's remaining tobacco settlement money
LANSING - A third consecutive poll shows Republican business executive Rick Snyder running the best among potential GOP gubernatorial candidates against either of the possible Democratic nominees. The survey from Rasmussen Reports had Snyder leading House Speaker Andy Dillon, 41 percent to 33 percent and beating Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, 42 percent to 30 percent.
SAN FRANCICSCO - Mozilla released a new Firefox 4 prototype late Monday that builds in support for Google's WebM video technology and several other changes planned for the open-source Web browser's next major version. With WebM, Google hopes to liberate Web video from patent-related royalty constraints of today's prevailing video compression technology, H.264. Mozilla and
LANSING - Five members of the Michigan Education Association have filed a lawsuit against the state that accuses the Legislature and Gov. Jennifer Granholm of violating several laws when they enacted the public school employee retirement legislation. The lawsuit challenges the legality of the law's requirement that public school employees who do not take advantage
LANSING - It is turning into an "upward climb" to get the Legislature to move on a proposal to encourage state workers to retire, Gov. Jennifer Granholm told reporters Tuesday, but winning approval of that proposal is preferable to cutting funding to schools. Granholm rejected allegations from some Democratic House members that the proposal, which
LANSING - State officials are estimating as many as 19,000 teachers and eligible school personnel could retire under the incentive/penalty plan adopted by the Legislature. The state had seen 16,000 retirement applications as of noon Friday, said Kurt Weiss , spokesperson for the Department of Technology, Management and Budget. Weiss said the Office of Retirement
LANSING - Matthew Hill, Founder and CEO of Liquid Web, a Web hosting and Data Center company, was honored by Ernst & Young as Entrepreneur of the Year for the Michigan & Northwest Ohio region Thursday night. Hill will now compete against the other regional award winners for the prestigious honor of Ernst & Young
ANN ARBOR - In-Pore Technologies won the inaugural $100,000 SmartZone Award Thursday night at the Great Lakes Entrepreneur's Quest business plan writing contest awards program, the top prize in a night when $250,000 in checks were handed out. The SmartZone Award, sponsored by the Michigan SmartZones and funded through the Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund, a