Michigan

The first trucks carrying a COVID-19 vaccine for widespread use in the United States were set to pull out of a Michigan manufacturing plant Sunday, with the shots that are critical to stopping the nation’s coronavirus outbreak destined to reach states a day later.

Shipments of the Pfizer vaccine will set in motion the biggest vaccination effort in American history at a critical juncture of the pandemic that has killed 1.6 million and sickened 71 million worldwide.

DETROIT (Reuters) - Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s top election official, had just finished hanging Christmas decorations with her young son on Saturday night when a crowd demanding November’s presidential election result be reversed gathered outside her home to denounce her as a “traitor” and a “criminal.”

The demonstrators, some armed and holding up placards saying “Stop the Steal”, clustered on the sidewalk outside Benson’s Detroit home as security and police officers looked on, video broadcast live on Facebook by one of the participants showed.

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors is switching sides in the legal fight against California’s right to set its own clean-air standards, abandoning the Trump administration as the president’s term nears its close.

CEO Mary Barra said in a letter Monday to environmental groups that GM will no longer support the Trump administration in its defense against a lawsuit over its efforts against California’s standards. And GM is urging other automakers to do the same.

DETROIT (AP) — When longtime Detroit community advocate Frank McGhee watched two Republican canvassers vote against certifying election results in the majority Black city, he was furious.

McGhee, 58, has spent more than two decades working with Detroit youth and educating them on the electoral process. He said it was “outrageous” to see hard-fought Black voter-mobilization efforts threatened.

“I thought, these are the ultimate executioners, if you will, put in place so that quietly they could take what belongs to us,” he said.

DETROIT (AP) — President Donald Trump summoned Michigan’s Republican legislative leaders to the White House for an extraordinary meeting Friday amid a long shot GOP push to subvert the democratic process that handed the battleground state to Democrat Joe Biden.

DETROIT (AP) — In an abrupt about-face, Michigan’s largest county on Tuesday night unanimously certified election results showing Democrat Joe Biden defeating President Donald Trump, hours after Republicans first blocked formal approval of voters’ intentions.

The initial move was quickly condemned by Democrats, election experts and spectators at the Wayne County Board of Canvassers online meeting as a dangerous attempt to block the results of a free and fair election.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — People waving U.S. and Trump flags rallied Saturday at the Michigan Capitol as speakers cast doubt on the results of the Nov. 3 election and encouraged Republican lawmakers to deliver Michigan’s electoral votes to the president.

“We all know the president won an overwhelming victory on Tuesday and it’s got to stay that way,” Mark Johnston of Grosse Pointe Woods insisted.

Detroit, Nov 13 (AP-PTI) General Motors is recalling nearly 69,000 Chevrolet Bolt electric cars worldwide because the batteries have caught fire in five of them.

The company says it doesn't know yet what's causing the fires, but engineers are working around the clock to figure it out. Two people have suffered smoke inhalation due to the blazes.

DETROIT (AP) — Power. Respect. Finally.

When Eric Sheffield first saw Joe Biden take the lead in the vote count in Georgia, the 52-year-old Black man immediately thought about all the years he spent urging his Black friends and family to vote and all the times he saw his preferred candidate lose.

“Over the years, a lot of Black people have said, ‘Well, my vote doesn’t matter,’” the real estate development analyst in Atlanta said Friday. “This is proof that our vote does matter.”

DETROIT (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden’s victory was celebrated by civil rights activists and Black leaders who warned that a tough road lies ahead to address America’s persistent inequalities and the racial division that Donald Trump fueled during his presidency.

Biden will take office in January as the nation confronts a series of crises that have taken a disproportionate toll on Black Americans and people of color, including the pandemic and resulting job losses. Many cities saw protests against racial injustice during a summer of unrest.