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The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the western Upper Peninsula has passed 3,000, but the rate of increase seems to be slowing. The most recent report from the Western U.P. Health Department includes 59 more confirmed positives since the previous update was issued Monday night. 35 of those were …

Aspirus Keweenaw has begun vaccinating employees against COVID-19. Hospital officials say the first shipment of the Pfizer vaccine arrived yesterday, and inoculations began immediately. The Laurium hospital was the first in the Aspirus system to receive the vaccine. Not enough doses were included in the initial shipment to vaccinate all …

Former Hancock City Manager Dave Richards has died. Richards led Hancock’s city government in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. He also served several cities in Alaska and California, before becoming city manager of New Buffalo, Michigan, in 2017. The South Bend Tribune reports that Richards was hospitalized with COVID-19 …

High School Three local players have been named to this year’s Upper Peninsula high school football 11-player Dream Team. In voting by members of the U.P. Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association, Calumet’s Dryden Nelson was honored as a running back. Fellow Copper King Chet Hyrkas was named as a linebacker, and …

On this week’s Copper Country Today, Steve Elmer and Kelly Kamm from Michigan Tech share the latest on the virus, and wrap up the fall series of COVID-19 Town Halls they hosted. And, the Portage Lake District Library has launched a new winter reading program. Todd VanDyke talks with Dillon …

Reaction to the initial proposal for the Lakeshore Drive Redevelopment Project has been mixed. Comments about the plan lasted more than an hour at last night’s Houghton City Council meeting.  Most citizens who spoke were unimpressed. Patty Vilman was concerned that the reconfigured Lakeshore Drive will be too tight… “You …

The City of Hancock will apply for a grant to help deal with a growing erosion problem along the Portage waterfront. High water levels are washing away the shoreline between the Houghton-Hancock Bridge and the Ramada Inn. The city owns the strip of land between the hotel property and the …

This year’s Portage Health Foundation Giving Tuesday campaign brought in twice as many donations as last year’s. Final totals show that $394,514 was raised from 1,239 individual contributions. Donations were received from 28 states, but PHF officials said most came from their four-county service area. The foundation has provided $200,000 …

The first COVID-19 vaccines in the Copper Country were given yesterday to health care workers in the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community. Native American tribes are being supplied directly from the federal Indian Health Services program. Officials from the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department expect that frontline health care workers across …

Two projects recently completed by Career and Technical Education students at the Copper Country Intermediate School District have attracted attention from other parts of the country. At this week’s CCISD board meeting, Superintendent George Stockero reported that schools in Colorado and Florida had contacted him about the tiny house project …