The Republican presidential candidates met for another debate last night in Rochester, Michigan. Herman Cain was in the hot seat over accusations of sexual harassment from four women. But the crowd was supportive as he tried move on from the many allegations which were made against him this week. Texas Governor Rick Perry, who had entered the debate hoping to get his campaign back on track, suffered the night's worst humiliation when he asserted that he would abolish three federal agencies, but failed to remember the third.

Jennifer Granholm was the governor of Michigan from 2002 to 2010. Those eight years were some of the most turbulent in the history of the state. Governor Granholm led Michigan through a number of factory shut-downs, a serious recession with skyrocketing unemployment, and, of course, the auto bailout in 2008. Governor Granolm and her husband, Dan Mulhern, describe these challenges and much more in their new book, "A Governor’s Story: The Fight for Jobs and America's Economic Future."

The push to re-imagine Detroit as a national Mecca for creative entrepreneurs takes another leap  forward, starting September 21, with the new Detroit Design Festival, eight days and nights of crowd-sourcing ideas, talents and urban solutions.. The city has been making global headlines of late for its ability to draw young artists from all over the country and from every genre on the promise of cheap real estate and rich creative opportunity. This festival marks the first major showcase of creative Detroit and the potential local and relocating artists have to transform one of America’s anchor rust belt cities.

The economy has yet to recover from the great recession as nation’s unemployment numbers remain bleak at 9.1 percent. That number is worse in Michigan, where the unemployment rate is 10.9 percent. One solution to this problem may be for more people to start businesses. The costs of starting up a business may be lower now than in pre-recession times.

Following a hearing yesterday in which a judge told Pastor Terry Jones he would need to pay a bond in order to rally or face a trial. The Wayne County prosecutor is asking for the state court to order Jones to pay a peace bond to guarantee the event won't be violent. Quinn Klinefelter, senior news editor at WDET reports that the pastor will face a jury today as he refused to pay the bond. However, the ACLU of Michigan has spoken against the authorities for trying to deny the pastor the right to protest.

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has been charged, along with his father and three top aides, with racketeering, extortion, taking kickbacks and attempting to personally enrich themselves through the mayor's high office. The case is one of the biggest corruption indictments in Detroit history.

We’ve all heard about the travails facing cities like Detroit: unemployment, foreclosures, dwindling state pensions. But we haven’t heard much about how small Midwestern towns — cities like Hamtramck, Michigan — are faring. Yesterday Hamtramck announced it might have to declare bankruptcy, or else run out of money by January 31 of next year. How did Hamtramck end up facing bankruptcy? And will the economic downturn force other municipalities across the country to follow suit?

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's expected announcement of billions of dollars in federal grants for high speed rail today is beginning on a sour note. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced yesterday that he is stopping construction of an $8.4 billion Hudson River rail tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York. Citing billions of dollars of expected cost overruns, Christie says his "decision is final." This comes after LaHood made a personal appeal to Christie, and negotiations between the Obama and Christie administrations.

With Republicans running against President Obama's stimulus, an issue that's resonated with voters, LaHood's announcement comes at a questionable time. There will be events in Iowa, Michigan, California. There's also money for Connecticut and Florida. These are all states with close races. How is this going to affect the midterm elections?

With two weeks to go until the mid-term elections, we continue our coverage of tight congressional and gubernatorial races from around the country with a look at races in Michigan. 

Police believe there is a serial killer on the loose in the vicinity of Flint, Michigan. Law enforcement officials say they believe the killer to be responsible for the deaths of five men as well as attacks on more than a dozen others. All but two of the attacker's victims were black, but authorities in Michigan are not saying the motives of the killer are racial. The attacker may also be involved in a spate of recent attacks in Virginia and Ohio.

"Baseball is a tongue-tied kid from Georgia growing up to be an announcer and praising the Lord for showing him the way to Cooperstown." - Ernie Harwell at his National Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony (August 2, 1981)

Before I start writing about Ernie Harwell, I feel the need to again to say that I am not a native of Michigan.  Harwell wasn't either; he was born in Atlanta and worked as a paperboy there, even delivering the daily rag to novelist Margaret Mitchell.  It was his southern roots that give Harwell that distinctive twang in his voice, something he never lost through 55 years of calling baseball games.  But by the time he died this week, he had two hometowns: Atlanta by right of birth and Detroit by bonds of love and true loyalty.

A story 11,000 years in the making. The fossil remains of a mammoth were discovered in the golf course of Morrison Lake Country Club. Dixie Riley owns the country club in Saranac, Mich., and tells us the story.

President Obama will deliver the commencement speech at the University of Michigan tomorrow. The university expects a majority of the students to attend along with 80,000 friends and family members. And as Jake Smilovitz, editor in chief of the student-run paper, tells us that expectations run high, considering the school's history of ground-breaking presidential speeches. Lyndon Johnson, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, and John F. Kennedy have all taken the stage at U of M.

The FBI arrested nine members of a group called Hutaree this past weekend. According to officials, the group planned to wage an all-out war to bring down the U.S. government.  Authorities said Hutaree's initial plan was to kill a law enforcement official and then plant IEDs to kill more officials who attended the funeral. If you're thinking this is a militant Islamist group, you're dead wrong: Hutaree is a Christian militia group based in Michigan. Hutaree's philosophy, stated on their website, reads, in part, that they are "preparing for the end time battles."

If you were with us Christmas week, you might have heard us talk to Majed Moughni, an attorney in Dearborn, Mich. Moughni has organized a rally later today for fellow Muslims to speak out against terrorism; he began organizing after the failed Christmas Day attack aboard a Detroit-bound jet.

[Asian carp showing their leaping ability in a pool in the Mississippi River]

There's a fight brewing with a specific fish breed in the Great Lakes region. The invasive Asian carp is ravaging the aquatic food chain for native fish, and making their way up the Mississippi toward the Great Lakes. Millions have been spent already on fencing and barriers to keep the carp from making it to open waters, but the measures appears to be failing. Ken DeBeaussaert, director of the Office of Great Lakes for Michigan, tells us about the impact this foreign species is having on domestic waterways.

Hundreds gathered at Michigan’s state capitol in Lansing, Mich., yesterday to protest budget cuts to school programs. To help explain what's going on right now in Michigan, we're joined by Craig Fahle from WDET in Detroit, where he hosts the talk show “Detroit Today.” Also with us is Casey Christensen, a first-grade teacher in Roseville, Mich. It's part of our week-long series on the impact of state budget cuts.

The FBI is reaching out to local imams and community leaders in Detroit after the leader of a radical Islamic group was killed in an FBI raid late Wednesday night. We discuss local reactions and the charges filed against others targeted in the raid with Craig Fahle, host of WDET's Detroit Today, and Victor Begg, chair of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan.

The national media has given prominent coverage to the woes of the Motor City. For example, Time recently embedded journalists in the city for over a year for its ambitious "Assignment Detroit" project. But while the national attention is (mostly) appreciated, insiders' eyes may turn out to be more valuable when it comes to looking for solutions to the city's troubles. Reporters at Detroit's public radio station, WDET, are crowd-sourcing plans for Detroit's recovery. They have been asking Detroit residents for their own voices and viewpoints in order to come up with plans to fix it. We find out more about the project from WDET news director Jerome Vaughn.

The Michigan Wolverines football team is in a heap of trouble. Not just because they had a deplorable 3-9 record last year that was an embarrassment to both the university and the state, but also from new allegations that surfaced this weekend in the Detroit Free Press. Ten current players, writing anonymously, asserted that the culture of off-season practice is beyond the legal NCAA limits. Former players also corroborated this. ...(continue reading)