Detroit | featured news

Detroit may be broke but it will soon have a first-rate motor pool, featuring 23 new ambulances and a fleet of 100 new police cars. Some city parks also are getting tender loving care. New fruit trees and shrubs have been planted, and mowing crews are beginning to make the rounds to keep the green spaces tidy.

The only winners in the financial crisis that brought Detroit to the brink of state takeover are Wall Street bankers who reaped more than $474 million from a city too poor to keep street lights working.

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was found guilty of multiple counts of racketeering and extortion, a jury decided Monday. Kilpatrick was convicted of 24 charges, including racketeering, extortion, attempted extortion, bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud and filing false tax returns. Both Kilpatrick and contractor Bobby Ferguson were found guilty on most counts. Kilpatrick's 71-year-old father, Bernard Kilpatrick, was only found guilty of one tax count.

Detroit is in a state of financial emergency, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) said Friday. "There's probably no city that's more financially challenged in the entire United States," said Snyder. "We need to start moving upward with the city of Detroit." Mayor Dave Bing has a 10-day period in which he can request a hearing, after which point, according to the Associated Press, Snyder can appoint an emergency financial manager for the city or revoke his decision.

At the Detroit Auto Show earlier this month, luxury was in the air. Pricey new Bentleys and Maseratis glittered - including a Maserati 2014 Quattroporte with a $132,000 price tag; U.S. Cabinet Secretaries and dignitaries rubbed shoulders; and many of the well-heeled attendees ponied up for a $300-a-ticket black-tie charity ball.

The homicide rate in Detroit continued a grim upward trend in 2012, hitting its highest level in nearly two decades, city officials said Thursday.

A Detroit suburb that was forced to lay off half its police department has seen a spike in violent crime, MyFoxDetroit.com reports. Since July, when the police force was cut in half, there have been 10 murders in Inkster, a Detroit suburb with a population of about 25,000. There have been 12 murders so far this year.

At a community meeting in a Lutheran church earlier this year, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing got an earful about his city’s distressingly high crime rate. The heckling started with members of his own police force... What could the mayor say? The best crime news out of Detroit these days is that the rate of violent crimes – murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – fell 10% last year to 2,137 per 100,000 residents. That’s still more than five times the national average and more than enough to make Detroit America’s Most Dangerous City for the fourth year in a row.

Authorities drilled through concrete and removed wet soil samples in a modest Detroit-area neighborhood Friday in the latest effort to find the remains of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared in 1975....

FLAT ROCK, Mich.—Ford is adding 1,200 workers to a suburban Detroit factory to build the Fusion, a sign of confidence that the revamped sedan will be a big seller.