Some Michigan lawmakers think a gasoline tax increase is needed to improve the state's roads.

A campaign by Drivemi.org encourages an increase in transportation spending, with a backing from AAA, construction companies, labor groups and chambers of commerce.

A bipartisan bill to increase the gasoline tax nine cents per gallon over the next three years has been introduced in Lansing. But as gas prices increase, are motorists willing to pay more at the pump?

"I think it's necessary. The roads are really bad. I don't know if I'm willing, but I will," motorist Barb Fles told 24 Hour News 8.

"If it will surely help with road repair, I'm for it. But if gas goes up any higher, we're all going to be walking or riding together," adds fellow motorist Mitchell Robertson.

The president of the Michigan Infrastructure & Transportation Association tells us they have analyzed federal and state transportation statistics.

"We've identified the need - $2.7 billion. And that's not paving the streets in gold. That's just getting it to the point of being adequate," said Brian Slagter.

The gas tax currently brings in about $931 million each year distributed six ways - $300 million used by the Michigan Department of Transportation; $300 million distributed among 83 counties; cities and villages receive $170 million; public transit gets $100 million; $37 million goes toward road projects critical to economic development; and $24 million supports bridge, railroad and recreation areas.

It has been ten years since the gas tax was raised. Supporters argue a transportation fund increase would put Michigan on par with surrounding states.

At 19 cents per gallon, Michigan's current gas tax is one of the lowest compared with Illinois and Indiana. The highest is in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio - 32 cents, 30 cents, and 28 cents respectively.

24 Hour News 8 spoke with MDOT officials who tell us they prioritize need, and this year everything on their list will get done.

Plus, numerous West Michigan county road commissions have taken a hit when it comes to funding projects.

Supporters of the proposal say if the measure is approved, not only will road conditions improve, but 50,000 new jobs will be created in the process.

SEATTLE - The city's insurance company has agreed to pay $1 million to settle claims from about 175 people who were wrongly arrested during a peaceful World Trade Organization protest in 1999.

The case went to trial in January, and a federal jury found Seattle liable for violating the protesters' constitutional rights by arresting them without probable cause. The settlement, announced Monday, avoids a damages phase to determine how much the city owed, and it resolves the last outstanding claims against the city from the protests.

"The police can respect the constitutional rights of protesters and at the same time protect the public safety,'' said Mike Withey of Washington, D.C.-based Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, which brought the lawsuit.

As part of the settlement, which a federal judge must approve, the city will seal the arrest records and ask any law enforcement agencies that received copies to expunge them, Withey said. Each protester will be eligible to receive $3,000 to $10,000, and some of the settlement will be used to pay legal fees.

City Attorney Tom Carr said the city believes it would have won an appeal.

"However, the city's insurance company decided to settle the case rather than to continue to fund the appellate litigation,'' Carr said in a news release.

The insurance company is National Union, said Carr's assistant, Ruth Bowman. The company did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

The trial stemmed from the mass arrest of protesters at a downtown park, where they were sitting and singing patriotic anthems. That week, 50,000 demonstrators had swarmed Seattle, overwhelming police and closing down parts of the WTO meeting.

The park was in a "no-protest'' zone established by the mayor, but officers made no effort to determine whether the protesters had other legitimate reasons to be there before making the arrests, the jury decided.

In a pretrial ruling, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled the city had made the arrests without probable cause. Arrest reports were not filled out properly, she noted.

The city agreed in the settlement to issue copies of Pechman's rulings in the case to police cadets and officers to help prevent unlawful mass arrests, Withey said.

Lead plaintiff Ken Hankin, a Boeing worker, said he was pleased the settlement had been reached but added that getting a few thousand dollars seemed paltry compared to the violation of his rights. He spent three days in police custody and wasn't released until the WTO meetings had ended.

"I lost my right to protest the WTO,'' he said. "That's something I feel very upset about.''

Seattle previously paid about $800,000 in more than a dozen WTO lawsuits and claims.

Ending a stormy tenure, Ryan left the U.S. attorney's job last month after he was fired in December by his bosses in the Justice Department. Ryan was one of eight U.S. attorneys whose firing has prompted a political firestorm over accusations that the Bush administration axed federal prosecutors for political reasons.

However, Justice Department documents released as part of a congressional inquiry show that Ryan was let go as a result of ongoing concerns about his flawed leadership and sagging morale in the office, even as it investigated some of the most important cases in the country. Those included the Balco steroids probe and the widening investigations of backdating stock options in Silicon Valley.

Career Justice Department official Scott Schools is serving as interim U.S. attorney while California Republicans search for Ryan's replacement. The leading candidates for the job include former San Francisco U.S. attorney Joe Russoniello, former federal prosecutors Dave Anderson, Patrick Robbins and Mike Shepard, and current prosecutors Tim Crudo and Mark Krotoski, according to lawyers familiar with the screening process.

Dann accused the companies of making and selling lead paint even though they knew that it is harmful, and said they should be ruled in violation of the state's public nuisance law.

The other companies in the lawsuit are American Cyanamid Co., Armstrong Containers Inc., Conagra Grocery Products Co., Cytec Industries Inc., and Lyondell Chemical Co.

Croatia's direct economic benefit, depending on the pipeline's capacity, is expected to range between 1.3 and 2.2 billion U.S. dollars, and Croatia's investments in the project would range from550 to 980 million U.S. dollars, Sanader said.

The project would also significantly reduce oil tanker transport in the Adriatic, the prime minister added.

The PEOP, estimated to be some 1,856 kilometers long, will connect the Romanian port of Constanta and Trieste in Italy, running through Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia to the Trans-Alpine Line oil pipeline near Trieste.

The pipeline is expected to be put into operation between 2011 and 2013. It would effectively cut down on the number of oil tankers in the Turkish straits and Northern Adriatic.

The total cost of the PEOP project is estimated at 2.62 billion U.S. dollars if the pipeline's annual capacity is 60 million tons, or 3.96 billion U.S. dollars if its annual capacity is 90 million tons.

The declaration was signed at a forum on energy security, held in Zagreb as part of Croatia's presidency of the Southeast European Cooperation Process, a regional and non-institutionalized process coordinated by the presiding country.

European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, who also signed the declaration, said that global oil demand was expected to increase by 41 percent in the next 25 years, which underlined the importance of building necessary infrastructure linking markets with oil-rich regions.

The signing of the declaration was also welcomed by officials from other signatory countries, who cited the stability of oil supply from the Caspian region and possibilities of regional development as the main advantages of the project.

Slovenian Economy Minister Andrej Vizjak said the declaration should not be binding, but convey good political will.

"If the project is approved by experts, Slovenia will support it in view of the common energy policy," said Vizjak.

Dell Financial Services (DFS) has found and reported several operational deficiencies in its business, including the way it has posted customer payments, collected on delinquent accounts and failed to reconcile some accounts on a timely basis, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission by the company's primary financing partner.

The report filed by CIT Group's collateral unit, which has funded some DFS operations, is among the first under new, more stringent rules enacted by the SEC that are designed to provide greater detail to investors in asset-backed securities, securities that provide cash for many credit and leasing operations.

The items spelled out do not involve accounting issues.

Gavan Goss, DFS' chief financial officer, told CRN the issues involved have either been fixed or are in the process of being fixed.

DFS is a joint venture between Dell and CIT Group and has become Dell's US$6 billion-a-year financing arm. According to CIT Group's disclosure, DFS fell short of complying with its role under the financing terms in a US$1 billion asset-backed securitization sale, including the following:

A failure to make sure its third-party "lockbox vendors" - like banks - completely and accurately met compliance reporting requirements. DFS reported this as a "material deficiency" in this aspect of its operation, according to the CIT filing.

DFS reported "certain loss mitigation or recovery actions that were not initiated, conducted or concluded in accordance with the required time frames established under the transaction agreement," according to the CIT disclosure.

DFS took more than an allotted 90 days to reconcile certain accounts last year.

Through the middle of last year, DFS had about US$6 billion in assets under management, and the unit has become strategic to Dell's long-term plans. In addition to providing credit and financing so customers can buy its products, Dell executives have said DFS offers a competitive advantage to rivals because it gives the company an ongoing touch point with customers during the life of a product or a financing agreement.

As of Dell's most recent financial reports last year, computer and service sales through DFS accounted for more than 10 percent of Dell's total revenue. And while Dell owns 70 percent of the joint venture with CIT, it has an agreement to buy the rest of DFS outright as early as next year.

DFS executives told financial analysts in a teleconference last year that about half of its financing activity was conducted with commercial customers, and about half through consumers.

The plaintiffs included 12 states, including the three West Coast states, American Samoa, several cities and 13 environmental groups, but not Hawaii. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the 5-4 majority, noted that the plaintiffs submitted "uncontested affidavits" that "the rise in sea levels associated with global warming has already harmed and will continue to harm" those areas. "The risk of catastrophic harm, though remote, is nevertheless real."

Nowhere is that potential harm greater than in the Pacific. The world's sea level is projected to rise by as much as 23 inches by 2100, compared with 6 to 9 inches in the past century, the International Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations reported in February. Other estimates are more pessimistic.

Much of Waikiki could be underwater in the not-too-distance future, and the president of Kiribati has notified the United Nations that many of his 100,000 citizens will have to find other quarters when the atolls become unlivable in 50 years.

California has taken the lead with a new law to cut nearly 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions on cars sold in the state beginning in 2016. A dozen other states have enacted similar laws, and Hawaii's Legislature is nearing approval of a bill aimed at lowering the state's greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

The effort to control emissions must be national. The high court ruling means that EPA is allowed to regulate emissions, giving momentum to Congress to eliminate any wiggle room and require that it do so.

That is understood by Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who supports the auto industry and is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In a prepared statement, Dingell said the ruling "provides another compelling reason why Congress must act, and the president must sign, comprehensive climate change legislation."