GM’s Strong Earnings Could Hurt Romney

February 18, 2012

Despite a disappointing fourth quarter, General Motors posted its largest annual profit ever Thursday, reporting 2011 earnings of $ 7.6 billion just two and a half years after emerging from bankruptcy. The strong annual figure is likely to boost investors, employees and small businesses that rely on GM for their livelihoods. But the news belies [...]

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Regrettable Vanity Plates: ‘NO-TAGS,’ Meet ‘SAUCED’

February 18, 2012

WASHINGTON — WRC-TV/NBC4 brings news of Danny White, a D.C. resident whose vanity license plates got him some $ 20,000 in parking tickets. White’s plates read “NO-TAGS.” 25 years ago, when White got the plates, he thought that “NO-TAGS” would be funny. Now? “I’ve got enough tickets here to plaster my whole car.” Three hundred [...]

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Marian Wright Edelman: Desperately Working To Stay Afloat

February 18, 2012

Levi Nation, age 12, and his sister Katherine, eight, eat Sunday dinners at their grandparents’ house in rural Kalkaska County, Michigan. They live with their parents, James and Lois, in an old trailer next door. Though both parents work, they can’t afford a better place—or health insurance or outings with the children. “Sometimes I wish [...]

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Would You Drive A Mongoose Civique?

February 17, 2012

Lists of Note: On October 19th of 1955, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Marianne Moore, was approached by a Mr. Robert Young of the Ford Motor Company and asked to assist them in naming a new series of cars. Said Young in his initial letter: “We should like this name to be more than a label. Specifically, [...]

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Fatalities Among Teenage Drivers Rose in First Half of 2011, Study Finds

February 17, 2012

Governors Highway Safety AssociationMore teenage drivers died in crashes in the first half of 2011 than in 2010, a marked shift in an eight-year downward trend. The death toll for teenage drivers increased in the first six months of last year, according to a new report. If the trend persisted in the second half of [...]

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Chrysler Says ‘No Thanks’ To Government Loan

February 17, 2012

Chrysler has decided to pull out of its bid for a $ 3.5 billion loan from the Department of Energy, one which would have helped the automaker reconfigure its plants to help make more fuel-efficient vehicles, because the restrictions on the loan were too stringent. In a statement from the automaker on Thursday, Chrysler said [...]

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Transportation Department Recommends Curbs on In-Car Electronics

February 17, 2012

Concerned that ready access to Web browsers, navigation interfaces and social media functions in passenger cars may compromise the attention of drivers, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration called on automakers Thursday to engineer safeguards into their telematics and infotainment systems that would limit access to these features when a car was in motion. Mark [...]

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Wheelies: The Bengal Spice Edition

February 16, 2012

Porsche Cars North AmericaA sketch of the Porsche Macan. In which we bring you motoring news from around the Web: • Though Porsche had referred internally to its coming compact crossover as the Cajun, the German automaker announced Thursday that the baby Cayenne would be called the Macan, Indonesian for “tiger.” Porsche is expanding its [...]

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Obama Wants To Boost Electric-Car Rebates To $10,000

February 16, 2012

President Obama’s proposed Fiscal Year 2013 budget includes a new provision for hybrid and electric car tax credits that would broaden the program, increase the rebate in some cases to $ 10,000 and change the way the money is doled out. It’s part of the president’s plan to put one million electric and hybrid vehicles [...]

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With Gas Tax Money Vanishing, Transportation Bills Mum On What Comes Next

February 16, 2012

WASHINGTON — As both chambers of Congress continued to debate dueling surface transportation bills on Wednesday, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that a vote on the House’s transportation bill would be postponed until late February. The Republican leader’s hesitation underscores the deep difficulties lawmakers in both parties have had in facing up to an uncomfortable [...]

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