LANSING. MI-Michigan’s unemployment rate, the worst in the United States, dropped in July for the first time in a year. MORE

EAST LIBERTY, OH-Honda will add Saturday shifts at its assembly plant here next month, providing another sign that the new-car market is recovering. The extra shifts will begin in September and might continue as long as four months. MORE

MURFREESBORO, TN-Harley-Davidson officials looked at a potential relocation site here for the company’s York County Final Assembly Plant. The officials will visit Shelbyville, KY, and two other sites later this week. MORE

SAN JOSE, CA-Electric-car maker Tesla Motors plans to build a headquarters and powertrain production facility in Palo Alto’s Stanford Research Park as it ramps up efforts to sell its battery engine technology to other carmakers. MORE

MUMBAI-Electric bicycle maker Hero Electric wants to export its products to Canada and a number of countries in Africa and Latin America. MORE

PHOENIX-Keller Electrical Industries Inc. is building a $16 million, 105,000-square-foot manufacturing facility here. Keller, which assembles and repairs industrial electric motors, expects to add about 125 jobs during the next five years. The facility is scheduled to open in July 2010. MORE

PASADENA, CA-The race to produce smaller and smaller microchips for everything from automobile systems to mobile communications devices has led IBM to turn to one of the very building blocks of life for help with the process-DNA molecules. IBM researchers, along with scientists at the California Institute of Technology, have discovered that the tiny components that run along a chip’s silicone surface will self-adhere to previously laid down DNA patterns. MORE

EVANSVILLE, IN-William Miller and Willie Gray worked at the Chrysler plant here that turned out Plymouth automobiles in the 1950s. At the end of the decade, the facility closed and moved to St. Louis. The two men sat down for a panel discussion about their careers inside the sprawling operation. MORE

IRVINE, CA-Kia Motors America said Tuesday that the first vehicle to be built at its new assembly plant in West Point, GA, will be the Sorento crossover. Production is scheduled to begin at the plant-the South Korean automaker’s first U.S. facility-later this year. The company has already hired almost 700 workers for the facility. MORE

RAYNHAM, MA-Six people were hurt, two seriously, when a lithium battery exploded Aug. 13 at Electrochem’s assembly plant here. The workers were assembling lithium batteries when one exploded, sending shrapnel throughout the room. MORE