Latest news with #EdmundFitzgerald
CBS News
19-07-2025
- Sport
- CBS News
Swimmers prepped to finish journey of the Edmund Fitzgerald with 411-mile swim
The legend of the Edmund Fitzgerald is well-known on the Great Lakes. On Nov. 10, 1975, the Great Lakes freighter was lost, along with her entire crew of 29 men, in a storm on Lake Superior, 17 miles off Whitefish Point in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The Edmund Fitzgerald was supposed to finish her fateful voyage in Detroit, and this year that route will finally be crossed. Jim Dreyer is no stranger to big swims, having swum across several Great Lakes. Now, the man known as "The Shark" has organized and will join dozens of swimmers in the Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Swim. "I want the legacy of these 29 men to live on," Dreyer said. "I was just thinking about the symbolism of all this. We are symbolizing their final journey, their final tragic journey. And I thought, 'How can we make this even more real?'" The would-be last leg of that fateful voyage, remembered through these men and women who will break the waves one stroke at a time, starting on July 26 and lasting one month. The swimmers will be carrying special cargo on their journey. "Those are iron ore pellets from the same dock in Superior, Wisconsin, that loaded the Edmund Fitzgerald for the last time," said Dreyer while Nearly 70 swimmers will embark on the 411-mile swim to Detroit. "It's a tremendous honor. And I know all the swimmers feel that way. I certainly feel that way. I mean, I'm honored and humbled, you know," Dreyer said. "The family members of the Edmund Fitzgerald crew, I've had the opportunity to interact with a number of them, and to me, it really underscores and puts a face on what we're doing and why we're doing it." Each swimmer will carry a GPS tag, allowing followers to track them on a map for every leg. A documentary is also being produced about this swim. A documentary is also being made about the memorial swim.
CBC
14-07-2025
- General
- CBC
Ridgetown woman to swim in Great Lakes relay marking 50 years since Edmund Fitzgerald wreck
A Ridgetown woman is one of 68 people taking part in a swimming relay this summer that will symbolically complete the voyage of the Edmund Fitzgerald — to mark the 50th anniversary of its sinking. Jane Baldwin-Marvell will be part of a four-person team that covers the 31-kilometre stretch of water from Lexington to Port Huron, Mich. The prospect is both exciting and daunting, she told CBC's Windsor Morning. "The closer it gets, it's getting more and more real and more and more exciting," Baldwin-Marvell said. "I've had so much support from all my friends and family. It's been wonderful." The Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a raging storm on Nov. 10, 1975, 27 kilometres (17 miles) north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Mich. All 29 crew members perished. Singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot immortalized the incident in his 1976 song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," which went to number one on the Canadian charts and number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Organizers of the swim have called the disaster "the world's most famous shipwreck not named Titanic." 'Symbolically, we're going to finish that journey' The ship was carrying 26,000 tons of iron ore bound for Detroit when it went down. Relay swimmers will honour the vessel by carrying iron ore pellets with them and delivering them to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, said event director Jim Dreyer. "So symbolically, we're going to finish that journey, and 50 years later," Dreyer said. "It's just a great way to memorialize the 29 men who died … and we're all honoured to be a part of it." Dreyer swam Lake Superior in 2005 for the 30th anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald tragedy and delivered the bell from the boat to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum on Whitefish Point, he said. He says he got the idea for the upcoming swim in 2023 when reminiscing about the previous swim with a former museum executive director. The relay begins July 26 at the spot in Lake Superior immediately above the wreck, where swimmers will take part in a ceremony to remember the crew lost at sea. 'Something I need to be a part of' It then covers the freighter's planned 661-kilometre route to Detroit, where another memorial service will take place at Mariners' Church of Detroit. It's expected to wrap up at the end of August. Teams of four will each swim one of 17 stages, taking turns swimming for 30 minutes each while the other team members recuperate aboard a support boat. Baldwin-Marvell, who regularly swims a kilometre a day, said she chose the stretch from Lexington to Port Huron because she wanted to be reasonably close to home and felt daunted by the prospect of swimming in Lake Superior. But she said she had no hesitation about registering for the event. "I grew up hearing the song," she said.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Great Lakes temperatures: Is Lake Michigan warm enough to swim in?
Temperatures across Michigan and Wisconsin hit the 80s on Wednesday, June 11, and are expected to be in the 70s through the weekend, warm enough to tempt people to try swimming in the Great Lakes. The water may even feel warm enough to hop in this weekend in some locations. Lake Erie and Lake Huron have posted readings at or near 70 degrees Fahrenheit, although lake temperatures typically don't peak until late summer/early fall, according to GLISA. In Lake Superior, though, temperatures are still in the 30s in places. Swimming is most comfortable in lake waters at about 70 degrees, according to Here's how warm — or cold — the Great Lakes are: Lake Erie, the shallowest of the Great Lakes, reached 70.2 degrees near Rossford, Ohio, as of June 13. Lake Erie reaches an average of 76.1 degrees Fahrenheit in August. Current temperatures for Lake Erie: Monroe, Michigan: 66.7 Gibralter, Michigan: 63.7 Cleveland, Ohio: 63.6 Grosse Ile, Michigan: 63.1 The warmest water temperature in Lake Huron June 13 was 68 degrees in Saginaw Bay. Lake Huron reaches an average of 69.1 degrees Fahrenheit in August. Current temperatures for Lake Huron: Saginaw Bay, Michigan: 68 Au Gres, Michigan: 64 Port Crescent, Michigan: 58.3 Alpena, Michigan: 57.7 Tawas City, Michigan: 57.2 Port Huron, Michigan: 56.7 Drummond Island, Michigan: 56.7 Mackinac Island, Michigan: 56.1 Port Sanilac, Michigan: 55.9 Safety first: Thinking of swimming alone? (Don't.) Here's how to stay safe at the beach this summer Coming soon: Edmund Fitzgerald's legacy returns to Port Huron 50 years after the wreck The warmest water temperature in Lake Ontario on June 13 was 62.1 degrees near Niagara Falls, Canada. Lake Ontario reaches an average of 72.9 degrees Fahrenheit in August. Current temperatures for Lake Ontario: Niagara Falls: 62.1 Kingston: 59 Hamilton: 54.9 Rochester, New York: 53.8 Lake Michigan's average temperature was 57.2 degrees, according to as of June 13. Lake Michigan reaches an average of 68 degrees Fahrenheit in August. Recorded temperatures in Lake Michigan: St. Joseph, Michigan: 62.6 Benton Harbor, Michigan: 61.5 Escanaba, Michigan: 60.6 Saugatuck, Michigan: 60.3 Holland, Michigan: 59.4 Grand Haven, Michigan: 57.7 Mackinaw City, Michigan: 56.1 Hoffmaster State Park, Michigan: 55.9 Kenosha, Wisconsin: 55.2 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Traverse City, Michigan: 54.3 Pentwater, Michigan: 52.3 Ludington, Michigan: 51.6 Manistee, Michigan: 51.1 Green Bay, Wisconsin: 48.9 Manitowoc, Wisconsin: 48.8 Charlevoix, Michigan: 47.8 Top spots to visit: Most Treasured Views near Fond du Lac, Manitowoc, Oshkosh & Sheboygan? Vote your favorite. More places to go: Here are 15 summer bucket list ideas of things to do in Manitowoc and Two Rivers The coldest lake this week is Lake Superior with its warmest water temperature of 59.5 degrees at Ashland on June 13. Lake Superior reaches an average of 64.6 degrees Fahrenheit in August. Current temperatures for Lake Superior: Paradise, Michigan: 50.2 Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan: 48.2 Ontonagon, Michigan: 46.6 Marquette, Michigan: 44.8 Ashland, Wisconsin: 43.8 Grand Marais, Michigan: 40.3 Copper Harbor, Michigan: 39.4 Temperatures climb in the spring and summer months, reaching peak temperatures in the late summer and early fall, according to GLISA, a collaborative between Michigan State University, University of Michigan and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The National Weather Service says your body can enter a cold shock if exposed to water between 50 and 60 degrees, spiking an elevation in heart rate, blood pressure and eventually panic, fear and stress. Prolonged exposure could result in loss of muscle control in your arms, legs, hands and feet, triggering hypothermia among other things that can be fatal. More: Here's our guide for cool places to swim in Manitowoc and Two Rivers this summer The EGLE map lists information for beaches in Michigan, including water quality sampling results and beach advisories and closures. The website also includes information on combined or sanitary sewer overflows, which lead to partially treated or untreated sewage being released into rivers and streams. Swimmer's itch is a skin rash caused by an allergic reaction to microscopic parasites that infect some birds and mammals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The parasites are released from infected snails into fresh and salt water (such as lakes, ponds, and oceans). While the parasite's preferred host is the specific bird or mammal, if the parasite comes into contact with a swimmer, it burrows into the skin causing an allergic reaction and rash. Swimmer's itch is found throughout the world and is more frequent during summer months. Swimmer's itch is often incorrectly attributed to E. coli exposure, according to the Clean Lakes Alliance. Jalen Williams is a trending reporter at the Detroit Free Press. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Great Lakes water temperatures for June 13. How warm are the lakes?
Forbes
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
The Wreck Of The Class Of 2025
50 years ago, Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot wrote and recorded the best artistic depiction of a disaster in progress. After learning of the loss of the iron ore freighter Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior and the deaths of all 29 crew members from Newsweek, Gord lifted passages from the article and put them to a dreamy dirge: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Sinking ship We're in the midst of another disaster in progress. It involves the employment prospects of new college graduates. While American higher education has been distracted, disaster has befallen the Class of 2025. Like the 29 men on the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Class of '25 was sailing in dangerous waters. But they kept on going. It was all they knew how to do. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate for the last five classes of college graduates has skyrocketed 40% in two years to 5.8%: a 30-year high and, for the first time ever, well above the national unemployment rate (4%). Last spring, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a stunning 12% unemployment rate for college graduates in their 20s. Oxford Economics estimates new grads account for 12% of the rise in the national unemployment rate since mid-2023. Due to widening skill and experience gaps, media outlets haven't had to sail the seven seas to find young men like Gabriel Nash who graduated last year from University of Central Florida and makes YouTube videos about gaming because none of his 450 job applications panned out. Or Peter Stuart, who graduated from Loyola and reports 'getting ghosted basically by everything I apply for.' A recent Yale psychology grad's Instagram account is the story of how his degree has not translated into a job: But college graduate unemployment pales in importance to underemployment. 94% of recent grads have landed paid work. But if they're working in jobs where most employees don't have degrees – jobs they should have been able to get without investing years of their life and tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars – the main hatchway has caved in. While underemployment definitions and metrics vary, they're as high as Lake Superior's waves that fateful night. Last year Strada and Burning Glass measured underemployment for college grads one year out at 52%, up from 43% in 2018. In April the New York Fed had it at 41.2%, up from 40.6% last year. According to LinkedIn, entry-level hiring is down 23% in the past five years. In 2022, 79% of HR leaders told PwC they were hiring for entry-level roles. In 2023, it was 61%. PwC hasn't asked the question since then, perhaps because they fear the answer. Because neither governments nor accreditors require colleges and universities to track employment outcomes, no school has signaled SOS. But beginning with the Class of '23, search sea shanties have been growing grimmer. Seniors are applying to hundreds of jobs and not hearing anything from anyone. Searches are taking months longer than expected before starting work. Expectations are being lowered from analyst to assistant positions. Increasingly, internships are considered wins. All this was before a half-million new grads hit the job market last month. This spring the annual employer survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found that finance, insurance, and real estate companies – among the largest launching pads – were planning to hire 14.5% fewer new grads. The Bureau of Labor Statistics offers corroborating evidence: hiring in professional and business services at a 15-year low. A survey of major consulting firms found that nearly half would make fewer offers this year. All of which suggests that cases like Taylor de Sousa – a new UMass Amherst grad who applied to nearly 300 jobs, landed three interviews, and no offers – or Colleen Kane – a University of Maryland grad who applied to 40 jobs and by April had reset her sights on a summer internship – are no longer exceptional. The boat is taking on water. 2025 isn't helping. The federal hiring freeze has ruled out the country's single largest employer. According to Handshake, applications to federal jobs were down 40% for the Class of 2025. Trade and tariff uncertainty has prompted companies in numerous sectors to batten down the hatches. But the iceberg is the private sector's historically rapid adoption of AI. A new report from Oxford Economics concludes new grads are already seeing a 'displacement effect.' The report looks at recent computer science grads and finds that employment for 22-27-year-olds has declined 8% since the emergence of generative AI. New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose is certain we're only seeing the 'tip of the iceberg.' He's hearing all about businesses 'making rapid progress toward automating entry-level work, and that AI companies are racing to build 'virtual workers' that can replace junior employees at a fraction of the cost.' Roose cites Brookings' Molly Kinder who reports she's hearing from companies that 'these tools are so good that I no longer need marketing analysts, finance analysts and research assistants.' I've written previously about how AI is eliminating entry-level jobs by automating the busy work that new hires used to be tasked with while they learned the ropes and became productive. As a venture capital executive told Roose, 'nobody has patience or time for hand-holding in this new environment.' Anthropic's (misanthropic?) CEO Dario Amodei believes AI could replace half of all entry-level jobs. In his Notes on AI Readiness, Alex Kotran points out that much of this could happen as soon as the next downturn; historically, 88% of job displacement due to automation occurs within 12 months of the onset of recessions. And while far from the scariest prediction they make, the end-of-days-ers at AI 2027 recount a disaster in progress – albeit with less art than Gord – foretelling the first major anti-AI protest in DC in just over a year as AI job displacement becomes the next major social crisis. The Class of 2025 is well-versed in rejection. They were rejected from the extracurricular (and usually pre-professional) clubs they wanted to join. Then they were rejected from internships. Now they're being rejected from jobs. And fittingly, they're increasingly being rejected not by human hiring managers, but by the very technology that's displacing them. A remarkable 88% of companies say they're already using AI to screen candidates at the top of the hiring funnel. Even without purpose-built AI tools, small and mid-sized businesses are asking AI to produce a capabilities grid before uploading resumes to map applicants against the rubric. Only then will human hiring managers begin looking at candidates. And use of AI in hiring isn't limited to screening. One survey of 900 companies found 23% already using AI for interviews, resulting in some subpar candidate experiences. Like Ohio State's Kendiana Colin whose answered two standard questions, but couldn't figure out how to answer the next one: AI Interviewer: Vertical bar pilates. Vertical bar pilates. Vertical bar pilates. Vertical bar pilates. Vertical bar pilates. Vertical bar pilates. Vertical bar pilates. Due in part to AI, college grads are applying to more positions and not hearing back. The average senior applied to more than 21 jobs on Handshake last year up from 14 in 2023. One research firm found a 160% increase in the percentage of job applicants who don't hear anything after submitting an application. It's dispiriting for all, soul-crushing for some. Said one student: 'It's not so hard to send out maybe 100 or 200 job applications. But when you start getting to, like, 500, 800, 1,000 and you've been doing it for six-plus months, it can take a toll on you.' LinkedIn's May labor market report finds that Gen Z workers in the U.S. 'report the lowest confidence levels of any generation, recently hitting an all-time low.' It's also producing more lying on resumes. The longer term is even more worrisome. Unemployment or underemployment out of the gate is pernicious not only for lifetime earnings but also for second-order effects like criminality (not just lying on resumes). And because young people from wealthy, connected families are less likely to be rejected hundreds of times or interviewed by hallucinating bots, expect inequality to get worse. I'm fearful that if we don't move quickly to address the career launch disaster – if the classes of 2026, 2027, and 2028 find themselves in even stormier weather – it's not a freighter at risk, it's the ship of state. Because while trade and tariff uncertainty will abate and the federal government will hire new grads again at some point, secular trends will put more young Americans in peril with each passing year. Could we make it for 50 more years? Unfathomable. If we want to keep college graduate unemployment + underemployment from skyrocketing past 70 and 80%, it's all hands on deck. Accreditors must put an end to schools' willful ignorance of employment outcomes. Schools must equip young people with AI skills, not only in support of learning, but for actually doing the things businesses need them to do, which necessitates an epic shift from classroom to work-based learning. Governments must dramatically scale investment in the intermediaries needed to both make work-based learning work for companies, schools, and students and also build the earn-and-learn career pathways that are much more forgiving in terms of skills and experience. President Trump's goal of 1M apprentices is a good start, but not nearly enough. We can no longer afford to force high school grads to choose between College and Chipotle. Let's stop this disaster and save lives before some new folk singer writes and records an amazing and depressing song about it.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Her canvas is cookies
Mar. 26—This is not exactly cookie decorating season — though last week's St. Patrick's Day usually brings us cookie shamrocks with green frosting. Still, with graduations on the horizon along with Easter, Mother's Day and other opportunities to celebrate, a Rochester woman is making a name for herself and earning a reputation for creating amazing art with frosting. I'm calling her the "cookie artist" and here's why: A few weeks ago a local study group heard a presentation on the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, among other vessels. Chris Cross brought cookies as a snack, and we soon saw these were not ordinary cookies by any means. They were all decorated in a palette of colors resembling a shipwreck, complete with waves washing over the ship's sides. Naturally there came a chorus of "ohs and ahs" and we soon found out that not only were they amazing to look at but delicious to eat as well. So, who was the talented creator? Eva Harmon, a bookkeeper at Mayo Clinic Hospital-Methodist, who is new to Rochester. Prior to moving here she had a thriving cookie business in California, then Mississippi and hopes to do the same here. Cross found here through Harmon's fiancée who was fixing Cross' garage door and gave her a few Halloween cookies. "They were amazing," she says. "I knew I needed to order some for the study group event." Harmon initially came to this business through trying to get cookies to decorate for her niece's first birthday. She ran into a few roadblocks and decided to just do them herself. That was eight years ago and it's been going strong ever since. "Fortunately my job is finished every day at 2, so I have the afternoon and evening to do the cookies." As friends and family saw what she could do the rush was on and her business took off. While many home-bakers do a great job with decorating cookies, Harmon takes it to a whole new level. Those first birthday cookies were elaborate snowflakes, an immediate hit. Knowing she had found a niche, she set out to learn everything she could to make her creations unique. "I studied the internet, watched videos, watched YouTube, and just practiced," Harmon says. It certainly paid off. She has literally decorated hundreds, if not thousands, of cookies for just about any occasion you can think of — birthdays, graduations, wedding showers, baby showers, you name it and she has probably provided the cookies. She even had a recent order from a customer in Mississippi. Harmon puts a tremendous amount of time into each cookie, some taking as many as 20 minutes per cookie to decorate. "It's a process, " she explained. First there is the actual baking of the cookies and letting them cool completely. Once that happens she "floods" them with an icing that acts as the base for the actual decorating. Often then she lets them sit for a day to be totally dry. Then the decorating takes place. A perfectionist, this takes quite a bit of time, depending on what the customer wants. Her frosting of choice is Royal Icing, a favorite of professional bakers as well. What has been her biggest decorating challenge? "Creating Teen Titans for a young boy's birthday. It took me days but I got them done." (I had to look up what those were.) Interesting her cookies are never frozen and she wraps each one individually. Another interesting aspect of her creativity is what she can do with cookie cutters. "I love to see how many different shapes I can get out of one. For instance a simple cupcake cookie cutter can be flipped over and turned into a gnome." Have you even seen Santa as a lumberjack? She's even done that. You'll likely want to see for yourself what she can do. Her business is called Sugar Coated and she can be reached at 559-719-5869. Post Bulletin food writer Holly Ebel knows what's cookin'. Send comments or story tips to life@ .
