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State briefing

GM adding 1,200 workers

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors is adding 1,200 jobs at two Michigan factories to build midsize SUVs and two new luxury sedans.

GM said Friday that its Lansing Delta Township plant will get a third shift and 800 more workers to build the Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave SUVs, which have three rows of seats.

The Lansing Grand River plant will get a second shift and 400 more workers to build two new Cadillac sedans, the CT4 and CT5.

Employees laid off at other GM factories will fill the new jobs first, then workers will be added, GM spokesman Dan Flores said. The company has not determined yet how many new people will be needed, he said.

Both additional shifts will start working sometime between April and June, the company said.

Lansing Delta Township now employs about 2,500 salaried and blue-collar workers, while the Grand River plant has 1,400.

Train display targeted by vandals

GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (AP) — Vandals have damaged a steam locomotive on permanent display in western Michigan.

The Pere Marquette 1223 in Grand Haven has been spray-painted several times, according to Matthew Braginton, who works with the train’s preservation committee.

A caboose door also was kicked in. The committee has asked police for more patrols in the area, according to WOOD-TV.

The locomotive was built in 1941 in Ohio. It was taken out of service about a decade later and eventually moved to Michigan’s then-state fairgrounds in Detroit where it sat for years. Grand Haven bought it and had the train restored.

It serves as a symbol of the long history Grand Haven has had with the transportation industry, according to historians. Grand Haven is northwest of Grand Rapids.

The train’s “main purpose now is to be a reminder to the next generation what this area was and what it can be in the future,” Braginton told WOOD-TV.

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