The Mancelona Middle School in Traverse City had a surprise visitor on Monday.

According to Michael Walton of the Traverse City Record-Eagle, around 9 a.m. a black bear lumbered onto school grounds.

The school’s principal, Chad Culver, was meeting with a teacher when he first sighted the bear.

"Literally out by the bike rack, which is about 20 feet from my window, was a black bear," Culver said

The bear prompted a 10 minute stay-in-place lockdown. Students were not allowed to leave the building. Shortly after the lockdown went into effect, the bear was spotted crossing U.S. 131 west of town.

The Buena Vista School District reopened on Monday after closing for two weeks due to a financial crisis. 

Of the 400 students that attended the school district before the closure, 77.5 percent have returned, according to Lindsay Knake at MLive:

Superintendent Deborah Hunter-Harvill said the there are 339 students back in school this week, including 151 students at Doerr Child Development Center, 97 students at Phoenix Science & Technology Center and 91 students at the high school.

"We have to keep working to receive high school students back," she said. 

The high school had about 160 students prior to the school closings, and is missing 40 to 50 students including the 25 graduating seniors, Hunter-Harvill said. There are 29 students missing at Doerr and 10 missing at Phoenix.

"Come back to us," Hunter-Harvill asked students at a community meeting on Tuesday, May 21. "Believe in us."

Knake also reports that five employees who were laid off were recalled:

Ah, the summer road trip.   Packing up the family and heading to the beach, a campground or the Upper Peninsula. 

AAA Michigan predicts 1.1 million Michiganders will travel more than 50 miles by car or truck between Thursday evening and Monday night.

That’s about the same number as the past two summers.

Nancy Cain is with AAA Michigan.   She says many Michiganders are forgoing the summer road trip this year.

“They’ll be traveling,” she says, “but perhaps not as much.”

A state elections board has given the go-ahead to a petition drive that would enact a restriction on abortions.

The initiative would ban abortion coverage as a part of basic insurance policies.

Instead, customers and businesses that offer employee coverage would have to buy a separate rider for insurance coverage.

The effort seeks to enact a requirement that was vetoed by Governor Rick Snyder.

If the drive succeeds, the Legislature could adopt the law without the threat of a veto.

Advocates for children wish they had a lobby as strong as the airline industry. When sequester cuts caused air travel snarls in April, Congress acted quickly, passing a bill to end air traffic controllers' furlough. Might members of Congress needing flights home helped speed up the bill's passage? 

State officials say students need new and better ways to report threats of school violence. Officials plan to create a new anonymous tip-line that would include a mobile app for tech-savvy teens.

The program would let students send in tips by phone, text message, email, or the mobile app - which accepts photos and videos.

They call “OK-2-SAY”.

Michigan State Police Director Kriste Etue says it’s crucial to remove as many barriers as possible for teens with possibly life-saving information.

There’s a tentative budget deal between Governor Rick Snyder and the Legislature’s Republican leaders.

It puts more money into savings, schools, and roads. But, it also delays decisions on some of the governor’s priorities.

A budget windfall will allow the state to sock away more in savings, provide a boost to schools, and come up with enough money to qualify for federal matching funds to pay for some road repairs.

But House Speaker Jase Bolger (R-Marshall) says it doesn’t solve the problem of how to come up with an additional $1.2 billion for roads.

“This provides a solid down payment on our transportation needs. However, that’s all it is. It’s not a full solution. This is a down payment,” said Bolger.

Road funding is especially difficult with a Legislature that’s been opposed to higher gas taxes and registration fees.

There’s also no arrangement to take federal money to expand Medicaid eligibility.

Bolger says those discussions are ongoing.

“We’re going to continue our conservative budget based on existing sources,” he said. “We’re not going to plan for dollars or answers that aren’t there yet. So, Medicaid has not been answered.” 

The governor says Medicaid expansion under the federal healthcare law will save Michigan taxpayers money, but Republicans in the Legislature are not on board.  

Bolger says the governor and the Legislature are on track to get the new budget wrapped up by their deadline of June 1.

Policymakers debate how to spend surplus

The debate continues in Lansing over how the state should spend almost half a billion dollars in unexpected revenue this year. The Michigan League for Public Policy believes that because the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit is less than a third of what it was a couple years ago, legislators should restore the credit for the working poor.

"A spokesperson for state House Democrats says they support the idea of using some of the money to restore the Earned Income Tax Credit. However, Governor Rick Snyder says a similar tax credit from the federal government does enough to help working poor families in Michigan. He wants to use the extra cash to fix roads," Michigan Radio's Jake Neher reports.

Merger between Beaumont and Henry Ford sacked

The planned merger between Beaumont and Henry Ford health systems, two of southeast Michigan’s largest health care providers, has been scrapped. The leaders of each hospital signed a letter of intent to merge last fall, but negotiations didn’t work out so well. On Tuesday, Henry Ford CEO Nancy Schlichting sent a letter to employees, indicating they’ll end talks and let the agreement expire.

“It became apparent that two very different perspectives have emerged for the new organization between Henry Ford and Beaumont,” Schlichting wrote. Michigan Radio's Sarah Cwiek has more.

Rising car sales cut plant shutdowns

Summer vacation will be cut short for auto factory workers in Michigan this year, as carmakers try to keep up with heightened demand. Detroit automakers plan to reduce their annual shutdowns at dozens of North American plants that produce popular Ford and Chrysler models.

“This sends a strong signal that the industry is in a healthy place,” Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting at market researcher LMC Automotive, told The Detroit News.

A planned mega-merger between two of Michigan’s largest health systems has been scuttled.

Beaumont and Henry Ford health systems are two of southeast Michigan’s three largest health care providers.

Oakland County officials hope their lawsuit against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Oakland and Genessee County treasurers are both suing Fannie and Freddie because they didn’t pay millions in so-called “transfer taxes” on a number of real estate deals.

The mortgage giants have claimed that under federal law, they’re exempt from those state and local taxes because they’re government agencies.

DETROIT (AP) - The ex-technology chief for Detroit's public libraries and two former business contractors are charged in a $1.4 million bribe and kickback scheme.

The U.S. Justice Department announced the indictments Tuesday.

Forty-six-year-old Timothy Cromer was the library system's chief administrative and technology officer in 2006-13.

The Associated Press left a phone message at his West Bloomfield home Tuesday afternoon seeking comment.

We asked you where you go for a craft cocktail, and you told us. 

Here are the 17 favorites we heard about on Facebook.

Now let's vote!

University of Michigan researcher Rachael Pierotti took a closer look at the global attitudes about domestic violence. What she's discovered seems to point to a major shift in the way people around the world think of domestic violence.

Pierotti is a graduate student in sociology at U of M and a PhD candidate. Her study was published in the American Sociological Review. She joined us today in the studio to discuss her findings.

Listen to the full interview above.

Once a Michigander, always a Michigander, even if you've moved away from the Mitten State.

That's the idea that underpins a new website and social network called "Mitten Stretcher," designed to bring Michiganders together, no matter where they may now be living.

Mark Serra is the founder of the Mitten Stretcher Community and MittenStretcher.com, and he joined us today in the studio to talk about the website.

Listen to the full interview above.

There is no shortage of articles, quotes, and news stories telling us what politicians, business titans and other leaders think of Michigan and its future.

But all too often their view are from 35,000 feet up.

What about the view from the ground, from tomorrow's leaders? From college students?

That's the idea behind a website launched by business journalism students at Central Michigan University.

It's called "Reinventing Michigan: The Rebirth of Michigan, Hopeful Solutions for Moving Forward."

The students are being guided in all of this by their professor Micki Maynard, who, among many credits, was the Detroit Bureau chief for the New York Times.

She joined us in the studio along with one of the students: Austin Stowe of South Lyon. Austin is a junior at CMU.

Listen to the full interview above.