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Shipwreck hunters find schooner 131 years after it sank in Lake Michigan with captain’s “faithful dog”
The wreck of a 130-foot ship has been found off the coast of Wisconsin more than 130 years after it plunged to the bottom of Lake Michigan with the captain’s beloved dog on board, marking yet another discovery of a vessel that went down in the treacherous waters of the Great Lakes over a century ago.
The historic Margaret A. Muir schooner was found on May 12 by a group of shipwreck hunters using historical records and high-resolution sonar, the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association said in a news release.
The team, which included Wisconsin Maritime Museum executive director Kevin Cullen, noticed something on sonar “that didn’t look natural,” just before they were about to call off the day’s search effort, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. After a closer look, Cullen recalled thinking: “This is it! This is really it!”
Tamara Thomsen, Wisconsin Historical Society
The Muir was lost on the morning of Sept. 30, 1893, as it headed from Bay City, Michigan to Chicago with a crew of six men and a cargo of salt. Helmed by Captain David Clow, the schooner encountered a fierce storm and the hold eventually flooded, so Clow ordered the crew to abandon ship.
“No sooner than the order was given, the ship lurched violently and plunged for the bottom, taking Captain Clow’s faithful dog and ship’s mascot with it,” the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association said.
The crew barely kept their lifeboat afloat by bailing water out as it drifted through 15-foot seas. Led by the expertise of their 71-year-old captain, the “freezing and soaked” crew finally made it ashore, having lost all their possessions in the shipwreck, the association said.
But the most precious lost cargo was Clow’s dog, who was described as “an intelligent and faithful animal, and a great favorite with the captain and crew.”
Said the captain: “I would rather lose any sum of money than to have the brute perish as he did.”
The Muir was ultimately found about 50 feet underwater, just a few miles off the shore of Algoma, Wisconsin.
“It had lay undetected for over a century, despite hundreds of fishing boats passing over each season,” the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association said.
Tamara Thomsen, State Historical Society of Wisconsin
The three-masted ship is no longer intact. Its deck has collapsed, but all the deck gear remains at the wreck site, including two giant anchors, hand pumps and its bow windlass, the association said.
The shipwreck hunters collected thousands of high-resolution images which were used to create a 3D photogrammetry model of the site, which was posted on YouTube.
The Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association said it plans to work with state officials to nominate the site to the National Register of Historic Places — a designation that was granted to the Trinidad, a schooner that sank 12 years before the Muir and was discovered intact in the same waters in 2023.
The discovery of the Muir came just weeks after the 1886 wreck of the steamship Milwaukee was found more than 350 below the surface in Lake Michigan. Just a few months before that, a man and his daughter on a fishing trip found the remains of a ship that sank in Lake Michigan in 1871.
Experts estimate that more than 6,000 ships have gone down in the Great Lakes since the late 1600s.
TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images
Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
contributed to this report.
