Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan makes marbles. As pictures of beach-ball-sized ice boulders went viral this week, the visitor center at Michigan's Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore got swamped. "They've gotten a lot of phone calls," the park's chief of interpretation and visitor services, Lisa Myers, told the Los Angeles Times. "It's really spectacular. " Although this year's "Lake Michigan marbles"  are much bigger than usual, Myers said they're not a new phenomenon. Ice chunks form along the shore, get churned back and forth by the waves and grow slowly in the just-below-freezing water, which also helps to smooth the boulders, she said.

Lake Michigan makes marbles. As pictures of beach-ball-sized ice boulders went viral this week, the visitor center at Michigan's Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore got swamped. "They've gotten a lot of phone calls," the park's chief of interpretation and visitor services, Lisa Myers, told the Los Angeles Times. "It's really spectacular. " Although this year's "Lake Michigan marbles"  are much bigger than usual, Myers said they're not a new phenomenon. Ice chunks form along the shore, get churned back and forth by the waves and grow slowly in the just-below-freezing water, which also helps to smooth the boulders, she said.

More evidence emerged Tuesday to suggest that the voracious Asian carp is threatening to reach the Great Lakes, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported for the first time finding DNA samples of the carp beyond the locks in the Chicago area. The news came hours after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene and issue an emergency order closing off all the locks that connect Illinois' rivers with Lake Michigan. "We have one sample positive in the Calumet Harbor above the breakwater, so that is in Lake Michigan," Maj. Gen. John Peabody said in a conference call with reporters.

Mitt Romney made a risky move Sunday night by scheduling a campaign rally at the same time that many voters were watching Hollywood's stars dazzle on the red carpet before the Oscars. But he drew a strong crowd in this city on Grand Traverse Bay, regaling them with teenage tales of how he stole a kiss from his wife, whose family had a cottage in nearby Manistee. “I know there's some young people in the room, but I actually kissed her there,” Romney said as the crowd oooohed. "Oh yeah," the candidate said.

A 35-foot sailboat capsized, struck a breakwater and broke apart in rough conditions on Lake Michigan, killing three of the four men aboard, authorities said. The men, part of a racing team, were sailing to a dry-dock facility on the Calumet River on Chicago's South Side when the boat broke up in 10-foot waves.

Rich Fasi of Traverse City says he found a dead 2-foot shark in Lake Michigan while fishing on West Grand Traverse Bay on Wednesday. The saltwater creature was a juvenile blacktip shark, George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the University of Florida, told the Traverse City Record-Eagle. Mark Tonello, a fisheries biologist from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, said someone might have brought the shark on ice to northern Michigan, or it might have been dumped by someone who had kept it as a pet.

Pleasure boats flock here like hungry sea gulls to a picnic on the beach. When you stroll along the dockside of this fashionable Lake Michigan resort town, you'll discover why. The yachts tell the tale. Take the Prime Time, for example. Or the Reel Affair. Or the Knot To Worry. These sleek white cabin cruisers are outfitted with all the amenities of floating resort cottages and, as their names indicate, their crews are a party-bent bunch of folks.

Chicago's Lake Michigan shoreline is crumbling. Looking back toward the city from the bobbing deck of this government research vessel, one can see the protective limestone breakwaters sag and dip. The wavy lines on the maps that spill out of computers in the laboratory below deck disclose crumbling debris scattered on the lake bottom. "Chicago has an armored shore and we're looking at chinks in that armor," said John Schlee, a U.S.

Seven persons were killed when a twin-engine Cessna 310 crashed in a wooded area on Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan, authorities said Saturday.

Three people were killed and three seriously injured when a twin-engine plane carrying six passengers crashed Wednesday in a wooded area near Lake Michigan, officials said. Authorities were investigating the cause of the crash.

Embracing his Michigan roots during an afternoon rally Thursday, Mitt Romney steered clear of passing judgment on his arch rival Rick Perry's embarrassing memory lapse during Thursday night's debate and sought to turn the conversation back to his economic plans. "You know I have to worry enough about my own moments," Romney said during a brief exchange about Perry with a reporter after his speech at the American Polish Cultural Center in Troy. "I do my best and don't worry about the other guys," he said, hurrying from one side of the room to the other to greet supporters.

It's mid-April, and the gray-haired fisherman and his gray-haired son are not headed out for just another day of hoisting nets from the depths of Lake Michigan. For decades their workday has always started before dawn. But today the men don't climb aboard their battered commercial fishing boat until noon, because they aren't hustling to get to their normal fishing grounds three hours out in the middle of the lake — a place that, from the view out the little round windows of the wheel house, is still as wild and lonely as any on the globe.

The 30-pound silver carp that leapt from the water last week and knocked a kayaker out of a 340-mile race down the Missouri River is a reminder of what's at stake Tuesday when the Asian carp debate returns to court in Chicago. Five Great Lakes states are suing the federal government to force closing of Chicago-area shipping locks as a last-ditch effort to keep the invasive species from entering Lake Michigan. The anticipated three-day legal showdown begins Tuesday in federal court as attorneys from Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota will try to convince U.S. District Judge Robert Dow that Asian carp pose such a grave threat to the Great Lakes that nothing short of an emergency shutdown of the system will stop them.

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — A company operating a pipeline that dumped more than 800,000 gallons of oil into a southern Michigan river said Wednesday it is doubling its workforce on the containment and cleanup effort. Officials with Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge Inc. made the announcement during an update on the spill, which coated birds and fish as it poured into a creek and flowed into the Kalamazoo River, one of the state's major waterways. "We've made significant progress," company Chief Executive Patrick D. Daniel said.

For those times when you need to unplug but can't go far, Adaysouting.com offers suggestions for day and weekend trips up to 120 miles from many U.S. locations. What's hot: The guide reads like a gentle nudge, with activities you would like to add to your to-do list, not a guilt trip of events you think you must do. There's seemingly something for everyone, whether you like museums and parks, food and wine, or sports and hobbies. I found a beach campground on Lake Michigan while searching for day trips from Chicago.

More evidence emerged Tuesday to suggest that the voracious Asian carp is threatening to reach the Great Lakes, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported for the first time finding DNA samples of the carp beyond the locks in the Chicago area. The news came hours after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene and issue an emergency order closing off all the locks that connect Illinois' rivers with Lake Michigan. "We have one sample positive in the Calumet Harbor above the breakwater, so that is in Lake Michigan," Maj. Gen. John Peabody said in a conference call with reporters.

From the air, they don't seem that impressive--long, tree-covered sandy clumps hugging the beach at the edge of flat, Midwestern terrain. Up close, well, that's a different story. In total, they make up the world's largest accumulation of sand mountains along a body of fresh water. They are the Lake Michigan dunes, a stretch of sand peaks that starts at the edge of Chicago's metropolitan sprawl and continues for more than 200 miles up the eastern shore of Lake Michigan.

Once, Lake Michigan was stuffed to the gills with alewives, an Atlantic invader that washed up on beaches by the smelly ton. But now, fishery managers fear the fish's population has plunged -- and that could crash the lake's ecosystem. Biologists blame the turnaround on the Chinook salmon of the Pacific Northwest. The most voracious fish in the lake, Chinook feed on alewives. Fishery managers have stocked Chinook since 1967 to hold the alewives in check.

With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to act on a lawsuit seeking to prevent Asian carp from infiltrating Lake Michigan, defendants said Tuesday that hysteria over questionable DNA research is whipping Upper Midwest states into a frenzy that could devastate Illinois' shipping industry. Michigan took the lawsuit to the Supreme Court last month, asking for an injunction to force Illinois to close two Chicago-area navigational locks to prevent the carp's spread into the Great Lakes. Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio and New York have joined the suit.

The fight to keep invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes reached the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, as Michigan's attorney general filed a lawsuit seeking closure of two shipping locks near Chicago. Claiming Illinois officials have been lax, Michigan Atty. Gen. Mike Cox asked justices for immediate action to seal off the most direct route for fish entering Lake Michigan, in hopes of protecting the region's $7-billion fishing industry. "We don't want to have to look back years later . . . and say, 'What was the matter with us?