A Bloomberg report picked up by the Toledo Blade is reporting that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is issuing guidelines to retailers on how to handle shopping crowds on the day after Thanksgiving.
Here’s the OSHA news release.
A snippet:
“Crowd-related injuries during special retail sales and promotional events have increased during recent years,” said acting Assistant [...]

Sven at the Michigan Job Search Blog at MLive has found some technical issues with the emergency unemployment extensions that longterm jobless Michigan residents are counting on / hoping for.
A snippet:
There’s another problem with the unemployment extensions signed into law earlier this month: The legislation does nothing to address the fact that all of the [...]

Did your Michigan high school or college student get a letter in the mail this week from the governor about the status of the Michigan Promise program? My daughter did.
Anyone who falls in that demographic knows the background of this program and the impact that state budget cuts are having on it.
But if you are [...]

Do you remember all the buzz about mortgage relief when the new national programs got announced? The national financial journalists and some government officials are watching the statistics, and the reviews have not been good.
CNNMoney is adding to the discussion with its report Few getting long-term mortgage relief.
A snippet:
Under the president’s plan, delinquent borrowers are [...]

Are you wondering why so many Christmas gift discounts and deals show up before Thanksgiving, or on Thanksgiving Day itself?
Well, that’s long been my secret for shopping without seeking out the doorbuster specials on Black Friday. I almost always have to work that day. As it turns out, this year I’ll be doing the Black [...]

The Detroit Tigers have announced a 2010 ticket pricing schedule that includes discounts on some tickets and freeze prices on all other tickets.
Detroit News has the details.
Detroit Tigers announcement.
The 2010 home opener is April 9 against the Cleveland Indians.

I’ve been assigned to cover Black Friday for The Monroe Evening News in Monroe, Mich.
This is the first time in 10 years I’ve covered Black Friday, and I plan to have some fun with the story. The angle my co-workers and I have settled on is:
The Monroe Evening News wants to feature the perspective of [...]

The USA Weekend magazine has this piece today: Set a sane holiday budget.
A snippet:
After you’ve set your bottom-line figure, go to about.com and type in “holiday gift spending budget worksheet” and “holiday spending worksheet.” Use the gift worksheet to list each recipient and a spending limit. Keep the list with you when you shop. If [...]

There’s been a lot of buzz in the metro Detroit area about the special coverage that Time magazine and its media partners including CNN are giving to Detroit and Michigan.
Here is the Assignment Detroit home page.
The intro:
It’s a city in crisis – but with potential for a big comeback. Despite an ailing auto industry and [...]

AnnArbor.com is working on a special project, “Ann Arbor’s Hidden Poor.” If you are interested in what is happening to southeast Michigan families who are teetering on the edge of financial crisis, you will want to read the pieces that are being produced by that newspaper / news web site team.
One of the reports is [...]