'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America

March is turning out to be the best month for auto sales in at least six years.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is expected to make two major announcements Thursday: that the state is taking over Detroit's finances and that a Washington lawyer is going to lead to restructuring.

Greenhouse-gas emissions have dropped dramatically in the United States since 2005, and the nation now appears on track to achieve the 17 percent reduction sought by President Obama by 2020, thanks to a trend toward increased fuel efficiency for vehicles and a switch by power companies from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas made possible by the shale gas revolution.
Super Bowl ads this year morphed into mini soap operas.

Super Bowl ads seem unusually long? Blame Chrysler. For the second year in a row, the car maker led the trend for epic-length advertisements — this time, with a two-minute nod to the military.
"American Pie" singer Don McLean has been fined $400 for driving his Chrysler too fast through a Maine school zone.
"American Pie" singer Don McLean has been fined $400 for driving his Chrysler too fast through a Maine school zone and has paid the levy.
To bring the story of mobster Mickey Cohen's reign over post-war Los Angeles to life, the director of "Gangster Squad" employed Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling and more than 100 irreplaceable vintage American cars.
When the word reached the Orion Assembly Plant, it spread along the serpentine assembly line like news of a death or natural disaster: General Motors, the biggest automaker in the world, had filed for bankruptcy protection.
A timeline of key events in the fall and revival of General Motors Co.

Strong U.S. sales in December capped a remarkable year for the auto industry — especially Japanese brands — and 2013 should be even better.

Neil Armstrong would always be taking that first step onto the moon, and Dick Clark was forever "the world's oldest teenager." Some of the notables who died in 2012 created images in our minds that remained unchanged over decades.

The Toyota Camry, the best-selling car in the United States, performed poorly this year in a new crash test and failed to get the best safety rating from an insurance industry group.
Chrysler recruited hometown star Eminem for a memorable 2011 Super Bowl ad that introduced the tagline "Imported From Detroit."

General Motors moved Wednesday to shed its "Government Motors" nickname, buying back a chunk of its stock from the federal government as the Treasury Department announced plans to eliminate its losses in the company's stock by early 2014.