Auto industry is down to “months in cash.” As top executive of Chrysler LLC cautioned Wednesday that a carmaker collapse could trigger an economic downturn that would lead to a depression, the United Auto Workers Union says it will make the contract concessions necessary to secure loans to keep the nation’s auto companies afloat, The Associated Press reports. On the eve of their return to Capitol Hill to again state their case for why taxpayers should bail them out, Jim Press, Chrysler’s vice chairman, said the U.S. automakers were “down to months left” in cash. Industry officials ratcheted up a fierce lobbying on Wednesday in an effort to persuade Congress to approve as much as $34 billion in emergency aid. “We’re on the brink with the U.S. auto manufacturing industry,” Press told The Associated Press in an interview. “If we have a catastrophic failure of one of these car companies, in this tender environment for the economy, it’s a huge blow. It could trigger a depression.” Fritz Henderson, General Motors’ president and CEO, took to the TV airwaves to stress that bankruptcy isn’t a viable option on the eve of a new set of congressional hearings on the auto bailout. At the same time, UAW leaders were immersed in intense discussions on possible givebacks for the companies at an emergency meeting in Detroit. Henderson told NBC’s “Today” that choosing the bankruptcy route would further erode consumer confidence in the automaker, and “we want them to be confident in their ability to buy our cars and trucks.” The automakers reported that last month’s sales at Chrysler are down 47 percent from last year – 41 percent for GM and 31 percent for Ford.

In Pittsburgh, homicides are at an all-time high. At the end of 2007, the number of homicides for Pittsburgh for the year was 98; as of Dec. 1, the number of murders has not only surpassed last year’s total, but has earned 2008 the dubious distinction of being the first year that the homicide rate has reached the triple-digit mark-and it’s not even the end of the year, reports The Pittsburgh Courier. As part of an ongoing effort to heighten awareness about the effects of murder in the Black community, the Courier has compiled a list of homicides in the county each month. The list points to how these lost lives affect the mental health, economic well-being and self-images of the region’s Black neighborhoods. Out of the 115 murders, thus far, in 2008-98 were Black and 87 were Black men, the Courier reported.

Rapper is “super-devastated” by mom’s death. Could the frustration of grief over his mom’s death be behind Kanye West’s recent clashes with photographers? Maybe it’s a coincidence, but just days after People magazine published West’s first public comments on losing his parent, the rapper is explaining his second arrest in three months. Kanye was questioned by police in England, but not charged this past weekend after a cameraman claimed the rapper shoved his camera into his face, causing a cut. West took to his blog to write about the incident outside Newcastle’s Tup Tup Club: “I put my hand up to the camera in self-defense! …My security yelled, ‘Get the camera off him!’ I guess, in all the commotion, the camera scraped his nose.” West barely escaped felony charges in September when he and an assistant were caught on video destroying another photographer’s equipment at an airport. Instead, West was issued a misdemeanor. He further blogs, “When will there be a law passed that simply enforces that someone has to ask to take a photograph of you?” People quoted West as saying that his mother’s death, due to cosmetic surgery complications last year, left him “super-devastated. I didn’t do any interviews after my mom passed,” he tells the mag. “I wasn’t ready to speak about [it]. Now I’d rather talk it through than commit suicide. …I feel like I moved to California, then my mom moved to California, and she did stuff she wouldn’t have done if we’d stayed in Chicago. If I’d never made it in the music business, it never would’ve happened.”

Ex-millionaire label head’s financial woes continue. Former Roc-a-Fella Records boss Damon Dash doesn’t have “a pot to p–s in,” says a lawyer who recently sued him. “They’re broke,” Jason Gabbard says of Dash and his wife, following a suit over $148,505 in unpaid fees. The lawyer tells The New York Daily News that Dash owed a fashion firm the cash before the suit was settled. Earlier this year, the entertainment entrepreneur’s New York home was reported in foreclosure, and just this month his Chevy Tahoe was seized after he reportedly stopped paying the $714.99 monthly lease. If that’s not enough, Dash faces an outstanding debt of $2.1 million in New York state taxes and at least three other pending suits and unpaid tabs.