News

Michigan’s unemployment rate in February was the lowest for the state since October 2001. According to the Department of Technology, Management & Budget, the jobless rate fell by four-tenths of a percentage point last month to 5.9 percent. Total employment increased by 13,000 in February, while the number of unemployed …

Four Upper Peninsula counties are losing population while one Copper Country county is showing growth. A new report from the U.S. Census Bureau says Wayne County experienced the largest decline in the U.S. in terms of number of residents, between 2013 and 2014. In Wayne county, the population declined by …

A Wisconsin State Trooper and a suspected bank robber are dead after they exchanged gun fire in the pursuit of the suspect. The robbery happened just after 1:30 Tuesday afternoon. Deputies from the Marinette County Sheriff’s Office say that reports indicated the lone male entered the State Bank of Florence …

Normally things are pretty quiet around here, but yesterday was an eventful day in the Upper Peninsula. A Gwinn man is facing multiple charges after firing several shots at an unoccupied vehicle then eluding police in a vehicle for a time before taking off on foot. 41-year-old Kevin Leonard Houle was …

There are no medals but the competition is still pretty stiff. High school students showed off their engineering skills at a special competition on the campus of Michigan Tech. It’s the 24th annual Engineering Olympics put on by the Center for Pre-College Outreach. Roughly 150 students from seven western Upper …

Volunteers are needed to help stuff backpacks to make sure children will have enough food for when they go home from school. 31 Backpacks provides Copper Country students will food every school weekend and school holidays. The all-volunteer organization serves a total of 9 Districts with deliveries to 16 school …

A technicality to a law that impeded certain veterans from getting health care is being revised. In the Choice Act, passed last year to allow veterans more than 40 miles from a VA facility to get care from any local provider was interpreted to mean “as the crow flies” and …

The Michigan Department of Corrections is planning to reopen a prison in the eastern Upper Peninsula. The Evening News of Sault Ste. Marie reports the department determined it was less expensive to upgrade security at the Hiawatha Correctional Facility, which closed in 2009, than to make similar changes at the …

Two cities in the Upper Peninsula top the list of the 10 snowiest, non-mountain cities in the United States. The Washington Post reports that at a total of 157 inches, Marquette is actually running below average by about 11 inches. But Sault Ste. Marie has seen 158.7 inches, which is …

A state tourism official says the state’s successful “Pure Michigan” campaign will expand into Toronto and China. MLive reports vice president of travel for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, David West, says for the first time this year, the Pure Michigan campaign will come to Toronto. He says while the …