The Empowerment Plan is a great nonprofit organization that provides jobs to homeless women making coats that double as sleeping bags and are distributed to other homeless people. The women, in turn, get a chance to find permanent housing and a new start on life. Now, the program is expanding. Daily Detroit's Shianne Nocerini went down to Empowerment Plan's Islandview headquarters to speak with founder Veronika Scott. Elsewhere, we discuss the news of layoffs at General Motors' Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant. Two old, long-abandoned apartment buildings in the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood are getting renovated (pictures here). And if you were hoping to catch the D Drop in Detroit on NYE, you better make different plans. The event is canceled for this year. We also discuss an interesting story about what could become the state's next big cash crop: industrial hemp. MLive has the full story.