Washington (CNN) -- After exhaustive negotiations that strained the country's patience, the House approved a bill to avert the dreaded fiscal cliff, staving off widespread tax increases and deep spending cuts.

In the 257-167 vote late Tuesday, 172 Democrats and 85 Republicans favored the bill; 16 Democrats and 151 Republicans opposed it.

The approved plan maintains tax cuts for individuals earning less than $400,000 per year and couples earning less than $450,000. It will raise tax rates for those who make more, marking the first time in two decades the rates jump for the wealthiest Americans.

The bill also extends unemployment insurance and delays for two months a series of automatic cuts in federal spending.

World markets rose after the news. U.S. stocks were poised to rise, too.

Just hours before the bill passed, House Speaker John Boehner pitched to fellow Republicans the idea of amending the Senate-approved bill to add a package of spending cuts. He cautioned about the risk in such a strategy, saying there was no guarantee the Senate would act on it.

By the end of the night, he was among the Republicans who voted for the bill as written.

President Barack Obama said he would sign the bill into law, but he did not say when. After the vote, he flew to Hawaii to rejoin his wife and daughters on their winter vacation.

Had the House not acted, and the Bush-era tax cuts expired fully, broad tax increases would have kicked in. In addition, $110 billion in automatic cuts to domestic and military spending would have taken place.

The combined effect could have dampened economic growth by 0.5%, possibly tipping the U.S. economy back into a recession and driving unemployment from its current 7.7% back over 9%, according to economists' estimates.

While the package provides some short-term certainty, it leaves a range of big issues unaddressed.

It doesn't mention the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling that the United States reached Monday.

It also puts off the so-called sequester, cuts in federal spending that would have taken effect Wednesday and reduced the budgets of most agencies and programs by 8% to 10%.

Come late February, Congress will have to tackle both those thorny issues.

Obama warned Congress that he will not tolerate another act of prolonged brinksmanship.

"While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they've already racked up through the laws that they've passed," he said after the Tuesday night vote.

"We can't not pay bills that we've already incurred. If Congress refuses to give the United States government the ability to pay these bills in time, the consequences for the entire global economy would be catastrophic -- far worse than the impact of the fiscal cliff."

A partial victory

While the deal gives Obama bragging rights for raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, it also leaves him breaking a promise.

Obama had vowed to raise tax rates for the top-earning 2% of Americans, including those with household income above $250,000 and individuals earning more than $200,000.

Raising the threshold for higher tax rates shrinks the number of Americans affected.

While nearly 2% of filers have adjusted gross incomes over $250,000, only 0.6% have incomes above $500,000, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Some House Republicans weren't exactly overjoyed in voting for the plan.

"I'm a very reluctant yes," said Rep. Nan Hayworth, an outgoing Republican representative from New York.

"This is the best we can do, given the Senate and the White House sentiment at this point in time, and it is at least a partial victory for the American people," she said. "I'll take that at this point."

Conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist, whose Americans for Tax Reform pushes candidates to sign a pledge never to raise taxes, said the plan preserves most of the Bush tax cuts and won't violate his group's beliefs.

"The Bush tax cuts lapsed at midnight last night," Norquist tweeted Tuesday. "Every (Republican) voting for Senate bill is cutting taxes and keeping his/her pledge."

The timing of the vote was crucial, as a new Congress is set to be sworn in Thursday. And without a breakthrough, the entire process would have had to start over.

Specifics of the plan

The legislation will raise roughly $600 billion in new revenues over 10 years, according to various estimates.

According to the deal:

-- The tax rate for individuals making more than $400,000 and couples making more than $450,000 will rise from the current 35% to the Clinton-era rate of 39.6%.
-- Itemized deductions will be capped for individuals making $250,000 and for married couples making $300,000.
-- Taxes on inherited estates will go up to 40% from 35%.
-- Unemployment insurance will be extended for a year for 2 million people.
-- The alternative minimum tax, a perennial issue, will be permanently adjusted for inflation.
-- Child care, tuition and research and development tax credits will be renewed.
-- The "Doc Fix" -- reimbursements for doctors who take Medicare patients -- will continue, but it won't be paid for out of the Obama administration's signature health care law.

The Democratic-led Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill early Tuesday before passing it to the House.

As news about the fiscal cliff's deflection spread across the world, several markets reacted positively Wednesday.

Australia's ASX All Ordinaries index added 1.2%. South Korea's KOSPI gained 1.5%, and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong advanced 1.9%. Tokyo's Nikkei and the Shanghai Composite remain closed for holiday celebrations but will reopen later in the week.

Payroll taxes still set to go up

Despite the last-minute fiscal cliff agreements, Americans are still likely to see their paychecks shrink somewhat because of a separate battle over payroll taxes.

The government temporarily lowered the payroll tax rate in 2011 from 6.2% to 4.2% to put more money in the pockets of Americans. That adjustment, which has cost about $120 billion each year, expired Monday.

Now, Americans earning $30,000 a year will take home $50 less per month. Those earning $113,700 will lose $189.50 a month.

With the latest battle round over, lawmakers will next set their sights on the other items on their docket of congressional squabbles over money: the debt ceiling and resolving the sequester.

Obama said he hopes leaders in Washington this year will focus on "seeing if we can put a package like this together with a little bit less drama, a little less brinksmanship (and) not scare the heck out of folks quite as much."

He thanked bipartisan House and Senate leaders for finally reaching a resolution Tuesday, but said Congress' work this year is just beginning.

"I hope that everybody now gets at least a day off I guess, or a few days off, so that people can refresh themselves, because we're going to have a lot of work to do in 2013."

Angry rhetoric flew

In the tense days leading up to the deal, heated words flew between some Democrats and Republicans.

On Friday, after Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused Boehner of holding a "dictatorship" in his chamber, the House speaker responded with a profanity.

"Go f— yourself," Boehner said to Reid, according to a source with knowledge of the exchange in a White House lobby.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/02/politics/fiscal-cliff/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

A number of professional male athletes have come forward on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in recent months, but it seems not everyone is comfortable with the idea of playing alongside a gay teammate.

Detroit Tigers right fielder Torri Hunter is making headlines for telling the Los Angeles Times he believes an out teammate would make him "uncomfortable."

"For me, as a Christian…I will be uncomfortable because in all my teachings and all my learning, biblically, it's not right," the former Angels outfielder told the publication. "It will be difficult and uncomfortable."

It isn't the first time the 37-year-old's remarks have sparked controversy. In 2010, he reportedly referred to dark-skinned Latino baseball players as "impostors" in a USA Today interview while discussing the changing demographics in baseball.

"People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they're African-American. They're not us. They're impostors," he told Bob Nightengale. He went on to note, "As African-American players, we have a theory that baseball can go get an imitator and pass them off as us...It's like, 'Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?'"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/31/torii-hunter-detroit-tiger-gay-teammate-uncomfortable_n_2387575.html?utm_hp_ref=detroit&ir=Detroit

Gov. Rick Snyder on Thursday signed legislation to replace Public Act 4, an emergency manager law that was overturned by a public vote in November.

Snyder says the new law emergency manager (EM) law, Public Act 436 of 2012, is a improvement on the voter-rejected version.

The new EM legislation, much like it’s predecessor, allows the state to intervene in cities and school districts facing financial troubles.

The difference is that leaders in targeted municipalities now have a choice as to how the state gets involved.

Under the new EM law, locally elected officials in cash poor cities and school districts have four options. They can chose between a consent agreement with the state, chapter 9 bankruptcy, mediation, or an emergency manager.

"This legislation demonstrates that we clearly heard, recognized and respected the will of the voters," Snyder said Thursday in a statement. "It builds in local control and options while also ensuring the tools to protect communities and school districts' residents, students and taxpayers."

Because Michigan voters repealed the old EM law by rejecting Proposal 1 on the November ballot, the new law includes an appropriation making it immune to referendum, or public vote.

The new law also allows emergency managers, should a city opt for one, to break union contracts if labor negotiations fall through. The power to break union contracts is a power usually used in municipal bankruptcy proceedings.

Under current Michigan law, a city must first go under state-appointed financial control before it is eligible for bankruptcy

The new law gives local officials the option to reject an appointed EFM’s proposal on how to fix finances, but they must come up with a viable alternative. Ultimately, a state panel would have the power to decide which plan to use and an emergency manager would implement it.

One key difference between PA 4 and the new PA 436 is that local leaders now have the power to remove a state-appointed emergency manager after one year by a 2/3-majority vote.

Another significant change is that the new EM law requires the state to pay emergency manager salaries instead of requiring financially struggling municipalities and school districts to cover the costs.

Still, critics of emergency manager legislation pledge to fight the new EM law.

Greg Bowens, a spokesman for the Stand Up For Democracy coalition whose efforts led to repeal PA 4, said the new legislation is not much different.

"We think that the governor's view of what the will of the voters is is quite different from what the actual voters did,"

Bowens told MLive.com, calling the new law “The worst Christmas present that municipalities could have.”

The City of Detroit may be added to a list of cities facing state intervention. This month, Gov. Snyder commissioned a state review of the city’s finances that could result in the appointment of an EM, or other state-mandated options. 

Rumors of the demise of the Tea Party have been greatly exaggerated.

The victory of Mitt Romney in the GOP primaries over more conservative opponents, the resounding reelection of President Obama and defeat of Tea Party favorites like Florida’s Allen West suggested that the movement was much weaker than when it rose to power in 2010.

But the fiscal cliff debated has illustrated the enduring influence of the Tea Party and more broadly, the power of very conservative members of the Republican Party. It’s generally assumed in Washington that both President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell could easily reach a deal to resolve the fiscal cliff if just the three of them were negotiating.

Instead, Boehner in particular must constantly worry about appeasing the political right. Many of the 241 Republicans in House are very worried if they vote for a tax increase, or essentially any bill President Obama also supports, they will face a primary challenge from a more conservative candidate and potentially lose. Most House districts have been drawn so that they are either heavily-Democratic or heavily-Republican, so the easiest way for a Republican to remain in office is to placate conservatives at all times, as there is little chance in many of these districts for a Democrat to win. (Here’s the New York Times’ Nate Silver explaining that of the 435 House districts, about 125 are overwhelming conservative, while 117 heavily favor Democrats.)

This dynamic was illustrated very clearly when Boehner begged and pleaded with Republicans last week, but could not persuade them to back a tax increase on family income over $1 million, far about the $250,000 threshold President Obama is pushing for.

Obama does not face such political pressures from his base. He is pushing for a broader deficit reduction deal that could increase the age that people are eligible for Medicare from 65 to 67 and gradually reduce Social Security benefits. Liberal Democrats are unhappy about both of those ideas as well as Obama’s decision to accept the withdrawal of Susan Rice as a candidate for Secretary of State amid harsh criticism of her from John McCain and other Republicans.

But Democrats in Congress don’t have to worry about primary challenges like Republicans do, as the party’s base is unlikely to punish members for backing something that the Democratic president does.

Republicans in Congress don’t feel such confidence about supporting a policy just because their leaders do. And they shouldn’t. The last three years have seen Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate cast as too moderate and lose primaries because they supported bills like the 2008 Wall Street bailout that party leaders also voted for. Boehner can’t guarantee his members won’t face primary challenges from the right, so there is little surprise they won’t follow his lead.

And the influence of conservatives and the Tea Party will endure beyond the fiscal cliff. Most Republican strategists believe the GOP needs to move to the political left on some issues, particularly immigration and gay rights. They argue the overall Republican brand is very unpopular with minority and young voters in particular, and that makes it extremely hard to win presidential elections.

But individual House Republicans are more concerned about their own reelection than the party’s prospects in 2016. So if Obama pushes for a bill that makes it easier for undocumented workers to become citizens, House Republicans will face a similar quandary to what they are dealing with on the fiscal cliff. Backing the bill would prevent the overall Republican Party from being cast as obstructionist. But for individual members, such a vote would put them in danger of facing a primary challenge from a conservative Republican who casts such legislation as “amnesty.”

http://thegrio.com/2012/12/28/fiscal-cliff-debate-shows-enduring-power-of-tea-party/

(CNN) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was hospitalized Sunday after doctors discovered a blood clot during a follow-up exam related to a concussion she suffered this month, her spokesman said.

She is expected to remain at New York Presbyterian Hospital for the next 48 hours so doctors can monitor her condition and treat her with anti-coagulants, said Philippe Reines, deputy assistant secretary of state.

"Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion," Reines said. "They will determine if any further action is required."

Reines did not specify where the clot was discovered.

Clinton, 65, was suffering from a stomach virus earlier this month when she fainted due to dehydration, causing the concussion.

Clinton spent the holidays with her family last week after working from home.

She was scheduled to return to work at the State Department this week after being sidelined for the past three weeks. Her illness forced her to bow out of testifying December 20 before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Deputies Thomas Nides and Bill Burns appeared in her place.

The medical setback comes as Clinton is wrapping up her busy tenure as secretary of state, during which she has logged more than 400 travel days and nearly a million miles. She plans to step down from the post if and when Sen. John Kerry -- President Barack Obama's choice to replace her -- is confirmed by the Senate.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/30/politics/hillary-clinton-hospitalized/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

During his first Meet the Press appearance since 2009, President Obama told NBC's David Gregory that Republicans in Congress are the stumbling block in the path toward resolving the fiscal cliff. Monday is the deadline for the POTUS and Congress to reach an agreement.

"They say that their biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way, but the way they're behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected," Obama said. "That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme."

With a little more than one day remaining before the nation faces automatic spending cuts and tax hikes that could impact an already-wobbling American economy, the president implied that there has been little progress in recent days to justify hopes of a last-minute deal to prevent going over the fiscal cliff at year's end.

"I was modestly optimistic yesterday, but we don't yet see an agreement," he said in the interview, taped on Saturday at the White House. "And now the pressure's on Congress to produce."

http://www.theroot.com/buzz/obama-pressures-congress?wpisrc=root_more_news

DETROIT (WWJ) - We continue to watch talks in Washington aimed at keeping the country from falling off the so-called fiscal cliff.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill face a Monday night deadline to reach a budget agreement before steep tax increases and spending cuts begin to take effect Jan. 1. The cuts and increases would come at a time when the U.S. economy is still struggling to recover from the last recession.

WWJ Newsradio 950 and Fox 2 Business Editor Murray Feldman talking about one of the major consequences if no deal is reached.

“Here in Michigan a lot of people are on unemployment, they will lose their benefits,” said Feldman. “That’s an immediate hardship on families, but it’s also an immediate impact on the economy, since those receiving benefits usually spend everything they receive – they receive a hundred percent of those benefits, and they’ll spend a hundred percent of those benefits.”

The House and Senate planned to meet today — a rarity for New Year’s Eve — in hopes of having a tentative agreement to consider.

“If they don’t reach an agreement, if they reach a partial agreement if they leave something open to discuss at a later time, that’s uncertainty because nobody will know the entire outcome,” Feldman said. “And if you tell people that they’re going to have less money to spend in the coming months, without giving specifics, (consumers) will probably put off some major purchases; maybe cars, washing machines, dryers, furniture — all of that’s made in Michigan.”

Feldman says because companies need to plan ahead as well, Michigan businesses may put expansion plans on hold and put off hiring

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/12/31/michigan-faces-economic-uncertainty-as-budget-deal-delayed/.

Two years from now, hundreds of thousands of Michigan students will be expected to go online to take computerized statewide math, language arts and other standardized tests that now are conducted with paper and pencils.
The benefits include quicker results for school districts, tests that more accurately track what individual students know and longer test times for students who need them.

Yet, even as the demands of the computer age grow, many school districts are woefully behind the curve when it comes to having the technology in place they’ll need to conduct the tests. Juggling a mix of aging computers, frail networks, limited bandwidth and stripped-down information technology staffs with few of the resources available to their counterparts in the private sector, many school districts will have to make major technology investments if they’re going to be ready for students to take the mandatory tests online by spring 2015.

Lawmakers set aside $50 million in the 2012-13 school aid budget for school districts, intermediate districts and charter schools that participate in a Michigan Department of Education technology readiness survey and successfully apply for competitive grants to develop or upgrade their technology infrastructure. Districts must respond to the survey by today. The department recently began taking grant requests and will start handing out money in January.

As of Nov. 13, 39 percent of school districts and charter schools statewide had completed the survey. Of those, nearly 1 in 5 reported that they don’t have the necessary network bandwidth to handle large-scale testing. Further, around 10 percent of the computers in these districts lack enough memory to run the tests.

Proposed changes to state loan program could limit schools’ ability to buy tech

Districts that link up with other districts or their intermediate school districts to jointly purchase equipment or collaborate on services to become “test ready” stand a good chance of getting some money, as do districts that increase educators’ ability to plan and implement online assessments and help students learn “any time, any place, any way, any pace,” a goal of Gov. Rick Snyder. No school district will be awarded more than $2 million.

Yet even if most grants are for far smaller amounts, it’s unlikely that more than around 75 of the state’s roughly 550 school dist ricts and charter schools will get any money. That has school administrators worried.

“No one’s looking at $50 million and saying that’s a bad idea,” says Don Wotruba, deputy director of government relations for the Michigan Association of School Boards. “But all of the costs that go with that technology aren’t addressed, at least in a proper way.”

Snyder’s chief strategist, William Rustem, says the administration is aware that many districts need to make changes to prepare for online testing.

“I don’t know if the $50 million solves the problem. But I do know it gets us a long way down the road,” Rustem says. “It’s not as if the state is standing back and saying, `You take care of this.’”

Wendy Zdeb-Roper, a former Rochester High School principal who’s now executive director of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals, says most school administrators support the idea of online testing, especially since they can get the results sooner than with paper tests and make adjustments more quickly to improve student learning. But they’re also wary of having to implement yet another state mandate at a time when per-pupil state funding remains tight.

Wotruba notes that it’s not just about buying more computers, but about having enough money to cover the costs of insuring them or replacing the ones that break, as well as the salaries of the technicians who keep the network and computers humming.

“Those are the people we laid off because we tried to keep our teachers” when funding got tight, Wotruba says.

National trend toward more testing

As part of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, Michigan is one of 31 states drafting tests that cover more subjects grade-to-grade than the current high school Michigan Merit Exam or the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) tests taken by elementary and middle school students.

School districts still will be able to use paper tests through the 2017-18 school year, if they can’t meet the deadline. But the pressure’s on to move to the online tests because they’ll allow individual students’ progress to be measured year to year, a key component of Snyder’s plan to eventually tie state funding and teacher evaluations to whether each student learns a year’s worth material each school year.

According to the Gongwer News Service, the consortium program would add math and reading tests for grades 8 through 11 to the tests already conducted from grades 3 through 7, and add the writing component to tests administered in grades 3 through 11. The state also is developing reading, math and writing assessments that could be used for students in kindergarten through grade 2, as well as assessments for science and social studies curriculum taught in grades 3 through 12.

Testifying in July to a bipartisan education reform group in the House of Representatives, the director of the Education Department’s Bureau of Assessment and Accountability, Joseph Martineau, said many districts don’t have the information technology structure in place to support moving all their students off the paper tests at one time.

Wotruba says he knows of many school districts that will have a difficult time getting all their students enough computer time to take the tests, even if districts are allowed to stretch the testing period over weeks or months. And having enough computers is just one part of the equation.

“I need the broadband width, I need the wireless speed for that many kids to take the test at once,” he said. “I think (school districts) are far from ready to move the vast majority of kids to online assessment.”

Rustem says the grants are intended to help school districts look for ways to forge partnerships with each other, their intermediate school districts or the state that will make it easier to upgrade their technology and administer the tests.

“Technology gives us a way to track not only individual progress) but … school progress,” Rustem says. “We just have to keep pushing, trying to get there, realizing there’s going to be challenges.”

Editor’s Note: Kathy Barks Hoffman is a contributor to Bridge magazine, an editorial partner of the Michigan Chronicle. Hoffman covered Michigan government and politics for more than two decades as a reporter for the Detroit News, the Lansing State Journal and the Associated Press, where she headed AP’s Lansing Bureau for nearly 17 years. She now works for the Public Affairs Practice of public relations firm Lambert, Edwards & Associates.

A new study from the Pew Research Center suggests that the 2012 presidential election marks the first time in history where African-Americans were voting at a higher rate than their white peers.

“Unlike other minority groups whose increasing electoral muscle has been driven mainly by population growth, blacks’ rising share of the vote in the past four presidential elections has been the result of rising turnout rates,” reports the study.

Although blacks make up 12 percent of the so-called “eligible electorate”, 13 percent of the ballots cast for president were African-American voters.

“Did the turnout rate of blacks exceed that of whites this year for the first time ever? For now, there’s circumstantial evidence but no conclusive proof,” the Pew report says. “And there’ll be no clear verdict until next spring, when the U.S. Census Bureau publishes findings from its biannual post-election survey on voter turnout.”

The study also acknowledges that “in all previous presidential elections for which there are reliable data, blacks had accounted for a smaller share of votes than eligible voters.”

Whether it was voter ID laws, the chance to re-elect the first African-American president or economic insecurity — one this is clear — black voters were motivated to return to the polls this November.

http://thegrio.com/2012/12/27/pew-study-blacks-may-have-voted-at-higher-rate-than-whites-for-1st-time-in-history/
 

From the Motor City to Mobile City? Maybe soon.

A new conference on designing applications for Apple's mobile operating system hopes to spearhead the growth of Detroit's burgeoning tech economy.

The first Detroit Mobile City iOS conference will offer tech newbies and sophisticated engineers alike the chance to polish their skills in programming and fine-tuning mobile applications. It will be held Saturday, February 2 at the Westin Book Cadillac in downtown Detroit.

The conference is hosted by Develop Detroit, a collective of software engineers and tech gurus who promise they can make any student a mobile developer in 90 days. Since launching in May, they've held courses in Detroit, Ann Arbor and Lansing.

Develop Detroit and Mobile City are both spearheaded by Mike Vichich, a 27-year-old former Accenture employee turned startup founder. He left his consultant work to launch his own mobile payments application, Glyph, in Detroit. The app helps users pick the right credit card to use based on where the user is shopping and what rewards programs they're enrolled in. Glyph is just one of a billion applications created so far for the iOS (Apple) and Android operating systems. Vichich told The Huffington Post that the conference will be an integral step in the formation of the Motor City's technology corridor.

"It's all about community," Vichich said. "This conference will make it easier for people to launch tech companies, because all of the ingredients for building a great product will be there: programmers, designers, and user experience professionals."

And these skills aren't just for startups. Bloomberg reports that open jobs for developers in Michigan are outpacing the number of graduates qualified to fill them. Rather than import engineers from Silicon Valley, groups like Develop Detroit are hoping to train Michiganders to do the work themselves.

Nir Eyal will deliver the keynote address at Detroit Mobile City. One of America's foremost innovators and tech consultants, Eyal has founded and sold two companies and lectured at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. He specializes in how human psychology, technology and business intersect -- a critical component for entrepreneurs who want to compete in the exploding industry of mobile applications.

"I hadn't seen much focus locally on the critical topic of user experience," Vichich said. "It's one thing to build an app, but it's a completely different thing to build an app that people want to use all the time. That's Nir's specialty and why I personally wanted to meet him. He was really excited to play a small part in Detroit's renaissance, and meet the startups we have in Detroit and Ann Arbor."

Four separate tracks will be available for participants: a curriculum introducing participants to iOS, tracks on iOS design and advanced programming and a separate branch dedicated to user engagement. The Huffington Post and Mobile City together will present a panel discussion for all participants at lunch, "Building A Vibrant Detroit Tech Community." The conference is presented in part by Quicken Loans and Detroit Venture Partners.

Creating those connections and cultivating a homegrown tech industry in Detroit is Vichich's ultimate goal, even beyond training the next generation of designers and tech creators from the Mitten State.

"It's not a talking head conference -- people will come away with material skills learned," Vichich said. "It's also for anyone interested in tech. Beginner or expert. Designer, developer, or business person. People will come to learn and they'll come to meet other like-minded people."

The first annual Mobile City iOS conference takes place Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013 at the Westin Book Cadillac in downtown Detroit. Tickets are $149 for the all-day conference and $99 for students and early registrations before Jan. 7. Click here to register for Detroit Mobile City.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/27/mobile-city-detroit-ios-conference-tech_n_2365221.html?utm_hp_ref=detroit