At the sprawling auto-parts factory, while working in the male-dominated industry of robot technicians, Wanda Holbrook was in a league of her own. The 57-year-old Grand Rapids, Mich., woman had a specialty of fixing robots if something went wrong.

Some one million Michigan homes and other buildings were without power on Thursday after high winds caused what is believed to be the biggest outage in the state’s history, utility companies said.

A man suspected of starting an apartment fire that killed five and injured four Wednesday on Detroit’s east side was arrested, authorities said. The fire, reported at about 1:30 p.m. on the 10500 block of Whittier, ripped through the building as high winds fanned the flames.

Powerful and potentially dangerous winds blew across the Great Lakes region and the northeast United States Wednesday, derailing a train, blowing over tractor trailers and pushing a plane off a runway.

On Friday, the meteorology community was riding a major high as stunningly high-definition images came in from the nation’s newest and much-anticipated earth observation satellite. The high came crashing down that evening, though, as the first hints of significant cuts to the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began to emerge.

Mark Bernstein knows a lot about auto accidents. Because for half a century his family law group, The Sam Bernstein Law Firm, has represented hundreds of thousands of accident victims seeking compensation on their behalf.

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times: You don’t want your vehicle to catch on fire. For that reason, Mercedes-Benz is recalling more than 354,000 vehicles.

An annual state-by-state analysis of auto insurance reveals rates continue to increase after filing just a single claim. According to a fourth annual study by insuranceQuotes, drivers now pay an average of 44 percent more for car insurance after making a single claim of $2,000 or more.

Residents began the long process to clean up the damage left behind by a tornado outbreak that hit the Midwest, where three people were killed. About 20 tornadoes have been confirmed from the outbreak, and survey teams from the National Weather Service had more work to do Thursday.

People sparked most US wildfires in recent decades, causing longer fire seasons and increasing the amount of scorched earth, according to a new study published Monday. Researchers found that humans caused 84 percent -- or four out of five -- of the total 1.5 million wildfires studied between 1992 and 2012.



In addition, human actions tripled the length of the fire season during those two decades and were responsible for 44 percent of the total acreage burned, researchers reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nolan Mullins was just trying to change lanes when the steering wheel of his mother’s Ford Flex locked up and aimed him right into the chilly waters of Lake St. Clair.

United Technologies Corp’s (UTX.N) Carrier unit expanded a recall of some air conditioners and heat pumps as their power cord plugs can overheat, posing a fire risk, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Thursday.

The possible listeria contamination affecting a number of cheese brands continues to grow, as Sargento and MDS Foods announced over the weekend the recall of more than a dozen additional products that may have come into contact with the listeria-tainted cheeses from supplier Deutsch Kase Haus.

Your greatest SodaStream fears have been realized: tens of thousands of SodaStream’s plastic bottles may not be able to withstand quite as much pressure as the company thought, causing the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission to issue a recall because they pose an injury risk to carbonation-happy consumers.

The person who set up a bed of screws to protect a marijuana grow operation, seriously injuring a Wyoming police officer, might face charges if prosecutors can find a criminal statute that applies.