Mark Brush

The U.S. government spends millions of dollars every year to keep sea lamprey in check.

This year, Congress has approved $21,408,342.00 to control the Great Lakes invader.

Dale Burkett is the director of the sea lamprey control program for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission (GLFC). The agency oversees lamprey control both on the U.S. side and on the Canadian side.

Burkett says the money pays for control efforts in roughly 100 streams and rivers feeding the Great Lakes.

Late last year, the U.S. Department of Treasury announced it would sell all its remaining stock in General Motors in 12 to 15 months.

Today, the Treasury is announcing a plan for another big sell-off.

Officials say, "subject to market conditions," they intend to sell 30 million additional shares of GM common stock "in conjunction with GM’s inclusion to the S&P 500 index effective as of the close of trading on June 6, 2013."

It's a familiar story in Michigan: cities and school systems in "financial emergencies."

Hamtramck now joins the list as Gov. Rick Snyder declared today that the city is in a financial emergency.

More from MLive's Kahlil AlHajal: 

The review team cited a $3.3 million budget deficit and failure to make monthly pension contributions in recommending the governor declare an emergency in the the city of about 22,000 bordered on all sides by Detroit.

Under the state's revamped emergency manager law, the city will have four options going forward:

• a state-appointed emergency manager,
• mediation,
• a consent agreement, or
• municipal bankruptcy.

Hamtramck wanted to go through municipal bankruptcy back in 2010, but the state denied their request to do so.

The city was also under the direction of a state-appointed emergency financial manager from 2000 to 2007. Lou Schimmel, who is now Pontiac's emergency manager, was Hamtramck's EFM.

Schimmel's work didn't last. More from MLive:

Hamtramck Mayor Karen Majewski said in April that after the first stint of state control, the city was "left in a financial situation that was not sustainable."

Schimmel was not operating with today's emergency manager law. An emergency manager today would have more power to significantly change things in the financially troubled city.

The city has seven days to appeal the finding of a "financial emergency" by the state review team.

Grand Rapids native and former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land has announced her intention to run for U.S. Senate.

She made the announcement on her Facebook page: