| Portions of the Mulally interview | | Posted Monday, November 13, 2006 2:47:09 PM by Blog57 Team | | Ford chief executive Alan Mulally met Friday for an hour with Free Press editors and writers. Here are excerpts of the interview: Meeting next week with other Detroit auto chiefs and President George W. Bush: I know President Bush from working at Boeing on international trade. I think what I'm looking forward to is just sharing with him the state of our industry and also talking about competitiveness going forward. Clearly, we are a global industry and having global rules and free trading. A level playing field is all really important. It's the work that governments do together around the world. ... There are all kinds of elements to competitiveness. The exchange rates are an important piece. The commodity prices, the steel prices, tariffs. The health care, pensions, benefits.... | |
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| | | Ford Expedition to get diesel power option, report says | | Posted Friday, November 10, 2006 12:47:12 PM by Blog57 Team | | Ford is planning to offer a diesel engine in its full-size Expedition SUV before the end of the decade, according to a report in Automotive News. Citing Expedition chief engineer John Viera, the report states that a diesel engine as well as more powerful gasoline engines will be available in the Expedition within two years. .... | |
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| | | 13 Injured in Nevada School Bus SUV Crash in Northern Nevada | | Posted Saturday, October 21, 2006 6:46:05 AM by Blog57 Team | | Twelve children and a Gardnerville woman were taken for medical treatment after a school bus hit a sport utility vehicle on US 395 five miles south of Gardnerville. The accident at about 8:30 Thursday morning also restricted traffic on the four lane highway to one lane in each direction. The Nevada Highway Patrol says a white Ford Excursion stopped at a red light on Riverview Road and turned southbound onto US 395 at a green light when it was struck by a northbound Douglas County School District bus. Two children from the Ford Excursion, three-year-old Hunter Hughes and nine-year-old Simon Dewitt, were taken by Care Flight to Renown Medical Center in Reno. The patrol says the good news is that they are reported to be in stable and good condition.... | |
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| | | GAS GUZZLERS IN THE CAPITAL / GLOBAL WARMING: Governor, lawmakers don't exactly practice what they preach | | Posted Thursday, September 28, 2006 10:45:50 AM by Blog57 Team | | Despite their outspoken support for landmark legislation to fight global warming, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and some of the leading Democratic lawmakers who voted for the measure still use gas-guzzling vehicles for official state business. Schwarzenegger, who is expected to sign the legislation on Wednesday at a ceremony in San Francisco, typically is escorted by the California Highway Patrol's security detail in a massive 2005 Ford Excursion that gets less than 11 miles per gallon, according to an evaluation by Consumerguide.com. The global warming bill's co-author, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, D-Los Angeles, travels in a state-leased 2003 Ford Explorer that gets about 14 mpg in the city and 20 mpg on the highway. Two other lawmakers who voted for the legislation, Assemblyman Dario Frommer, D-Glendale, and Assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn, D-Saratoga, drive Jeep Grand Cherokees, which the U.S.... | |
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| | | Border patrol agents lead hardscrabble life | | Posted Monday, August 28, 2006 4:46:37 PM by Blog57 Team | | U.S. Border Patrol agent John Burge recently missed his 10-year high school reunion. The 28-year-old Oklahoman of Choctaw-Cheyenne descent had made plans earlier this year to attend the reunion and see his buddies, but too much work on the border derailed those plans. Burge, though, took the disappointment of not attending the reunion in stride, even though his friends didn't. "My friends wonder how I can do this job," he said, explaining the dangers of being an agent in one of the most remote areas of Arizona. "My graduating class was small, so most of us were close." Burge is a growing number of border patrol agents assigned to a sector in Casa Grande, almost 120 miles north of the Arizona-Mexico border. On one Friday afternoon almost two weeks ago, I rode with Burge when he kept a watchful eye as Nevada Air National Guardsmen graded and repaired roads.... | |
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| | | Caffe Trieste turns 50 | | Posted Sunday, August 27, 2006 6:45:48 AM by Blog57 Team | | PREVIEW The coffee shop that brought espresso to San Francisco still brews it best. "No big deal," Papa Gianni has been known to say. "Buy the best beans, roast them yourself, and brew each cup like it's for you." That perfectly crafted serum has been the lifeblood of many an artist over the last five decades: Francis Ford Coppola famously penned The Godfather while hunched over a Trieste table, espresso in hand. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg practically lived there. And Lawrence Ferlinghetti still regularly makes the hike over from City Lights. With a bit of the bygone in the air, Trieste just feels like San Francisco. Though the 50-year festivities kicked off in April, don't miss the Big Bash on Aug. 26, which includes Papa Gianni sharing his other love with us: opera. The program is hefty, including many noted authors, artists, and musicians, all listed above Mayor Gavin Newsom, in true Trieste spirit.... | |
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| | | All options open as Ford tries to get rolling again | | Posted Saturday, August 05, 2006 8:45:47 PM by Blog57 Team | | DETROIT Amid setbacks including the expansion of a major recall on Thursday and restating its second-quarter losses to about twice the original amount, Ford Motor Co. is trying to speed up its North American turnaround. Hence the hiring of a former Wall Street merger and acquisitions whiz as a strategic adviser, cementing the idea that everything is on the table as the nation's No. 2 automaker battles sluggish sales, rising costs and ferocious competition from Asian rivals. .... | |
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| | | Ford recalling 1.2 million trucks and vans | | Posted Friday, August 04, 2006 6:45:50 AM by Blog57 Team | | Ford Motor Co. is recalling 1.2 million large pick-up trucks, SUVs and vans because of a problem with the vehicles' cruise control system that could lead to a fire. This recall is in addition to a total of 4.6 million Ford vehicles that were recalled for the same problem last year. The vehicles being recalled are: certain model year 1994 to 2002 F-250 through F-550 Super Duty trucks; 2000-2002 Excursion SUVs; 1994 to 1996 Econoline vans; 1996 to 2002 E-450 vans and 1998 Ford Explorer and Mercury Mountaineer SUVs. Diesel-powered vehicles are not affected. In rare cases, the company said in a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, brake fluid can leak through the cruise control deactivation switch causing corrosion in the switch.... | |
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| | | Auto sales now targets of city's code officers | | Posted Thursday, July 13, 2006 8:46:15 PM by Blog57 Team | | A hulking Ford Excursion with an elaborate grille guard sat outside a Bandera Road business Saturday, a "For Sale" sign posted in the windshield. It caught the attention of a woman driving by around lunchtime, and she pulled onto the road's shoulder to take a look. The petite woman stepped out of her car and walked up to the Excursion. Then, standing on tiptoe, she slipped a $25 ticket under the windshield wiper, slapped a bright orange "Official Notice" sticker on the windshield and stepped back to take a digital photo. "That's it," said Rita Esparza, a code officer for the city of San Antonio as she walked away. That was it for the moment, anyway. If the Excursion's owners neglected to move it — or at least remove the "For Sale" sign — within four hours, the vehicle would be impounded and they would be on the hook for additional fines.... | |
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| | | Oregon Trail afficionados remember Ezra Meeker | | Posted Wednesday, July 12, 2006 10:45:53 AM by Blog57 Team | | BAKER CITY, Ore. - One trip on the Oregon Trail wasn't enough for Ezra Meeker. Heck, he didn't even stop at two journeys across the Unites States - by the time he died in 1928, Meeker had traveled the route of the Oregon Trail twice by wagon, once by car and once by plane to bring recognition to the trail and make sure the sacrifices and hardships of the pioneers would never be forgotten. This year commemorates the 100th anniversary of Meeker's eastward trip across the Oregon Trail in 1906 when he was 76. The Oregon Trail Interpretive Center recently opened a new exhibit titled "Ezra Meeker: 70 Years on the Oregon Trail." The display features photographs of Meeker along with quotes pulled from his books and other writings that show, in his own words, how much the Oregon Trail meant to him.... | |
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