The FBI released a preliminary Uniform Crime Report today that lists reported crimes in cities with more than 100,000 people.

Comparing this year's report with last year's - crime is down.

In the Midwest, violent crimes fell by 5.9%. From the FBI's report:

Preliminary figures indicate that, as a whole, law enforcement agencies throughout the Nation reported a decrease of 5.5 percent in the number of violent crimes brought to their attention in 2010 when compared to figures reported for 2009. The violent crime category includes murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.

Each city's law enforcement agency submits the number of reported crimes to the FBI. Each year, the agency compiles that data and releases it to the public.

When looking at the cities with the highest number of reported violent crimes per capita, Flint and Detroit are at the top. St. Louis, Missouri and New Haven, Connecticut follow the two Michigan cities.

The Detroit News reports:

Detroit enjoyed declines in murder, robbery and aggravated assault but bigger declines in large cities elsewhere pushed it second only to Flint in the overall violent crime rate. However, the FBI estimates Detroit's population at 899,447, while the 2010 Census put the city's population at 713,717. If the latter figure is used, Detroit's per capita rate exceeds Flint's, with 2,378 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. Flint's 2010 rate was 2,210.

The FBI cautions against making judgments about a city's law enforcement agency based on these statistics, "since crime is a sociological phenomenon influenced by a variety of factors."

Jacob Tanner, 13, from Saline, Michigan will go to Washington D.C. to participate in the 23rd annual National Geographic Bee. He’s a student at Saline Middle School. He recently spoke with Michigan Radio’s Jenn White. Here’s the interview.

This week, 54 of the nation’s brightest young people will compete for a top prize of a $25,000 in college scholarship money and a trip to the Galapagos Islands.

The finalists are all winners of their state-level geographic bees. Tanner says winning the competition would be the biggest accomplish of his life so far.

Tanner prepares for the GeoBee with his teachers and parents and says making up rhymes helps him retain information.

"A couple days ago I was studying the geography of Germany, so I just made all the cities that I needed to remember into a rhyme."

In addition to knowing the names of cities and countries, Tanner says he also has to know a lot about science and economics.

In his free time, Tanner says he likes to "read books, play video games, go on the internet, those kinds of things." And when he grows up, Jacob says he wants to be a professor.

Federal and state officials have a new plan for dealing with the threat of Asian Carp invading Lake Michigan.    There are fears that the carp may destroy the Great Lakes fishing industry. 

The plan includes stepping up tracking of the invasive fish species and contracting with Illinois fishermen to catch the carp before they can reach Lake Michigan.

A new study from researchers at Wayne State University will track coyotes in southeast Michigan. The study is meant to fill a gap on information about coyotes that live in highly populated areas.

Bill Dodge is the graduate student in charge of the project. He says reports of coyotes attacking pets are rare:

 TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - Federal and state officials are beginning a series of projects to pinpoint how close Asian carp are to the Great Lakes and reduce their numbers in Chicago-area waterways near Lake Michigan.

The Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee released a $7 million monitoring and sampling plan Monday.

It uses a variety of techniques to determine how many of the invasive fish are in the Chicago waters, remove as many as possible, and detect any flaws in an electric barrier designed to block their path to Lake Michigan.

In addition to netting and electrofishing, officials say they'll add new tools, including an underwater camera that can help determine whether fish are getting through the barrier.

Biologists say if Asian carp become established in the Great Lakes, they could starve out other species.

This week marks the last we’ll be seeing of new broadcasts of the Oprah Winfrey Show.

I’m someone who basically has grown up with the show (to be exact, the nationally syndicated show has run for 25 years).

It’s spawned the empire of all things Oprah – including her magazine and now her own cable network.

Over the years, Oprah’s singled out many products for her Favorite Things list.

How many of the forty-four thousand prisoners sitting in our state’s prisons do you think are actually innocent of the charges which put them there? None? A handful? Maybe … one percent?

I talked recently with a man who is an expert on this, and what he told me was absolutely shocking. Jim Petro was Ohio’s Attorney General for four years, until he left office to make an unsuccessful run for governor in 2006.

Toyota’s reputation for quality suffered a significant blow the past two years in the wake of millions of recalls.

Now, a blue-ribbon panel of outsiders says the Japan-centric carmaker must give its managers and employees in North America more authority to jump on problems, in order to prevent another such crisis.

The Toyota North American Quality Advisory Panel also said it found Toyota paid less heed to problems reported by its customers, regulators and outside experts, than it did to those inside the company.

One of the four petitions Benton Harbor City Commissioner Dennis Knowles filed to recall State Rep. Al Pscholka (R-St. Joseph) was approved by Berrien County election officials this morning.

Knowles needs to collect 6,718 valid signatures in Pscholka's district before the November 18th deadline. But the signatures are only valid for 90 days, so he has until that deadline to collect that many signatures before they expire.

You know about agriculture, of course.  But what about aqua-culture, or seafood farming? Russ Allen worked in shrimp farming for twenty years in Latin America. When he returned to his home-state of Michigan, he decided he wanted to create a method of aqua-culture that could be used anywhere in the world. He’s working on his dream in Okemos, just outside of Lansing. He’s been farming shrimp there for several years using a special, environmentally friendly method.

Michigan Radio's Morning Edition host Christina Shockley spoke with Allen for Michigan Radio's What's Working series.

Ford, GM and Chrysler are getting along with their suppliers better than they used to.  

But an annual study says the companies have a ways to go to catch up with their Japanese counterparts. 

John Henke is President of Planning Perspectives, which studies the working relationship between parts suppliers and their customers, the car companies. 

He says that relationship has long been adversarial for the Detroit Three, which means suppliers often don’t give them the best prices for parts, or the first crack at new technologies.

A new Michigan State University study finds ‘virtual’ athletic training partners might be more effective than trying to work out alone.   Researchers found a virtual training partner, someone appearing on a video monitor,  actually provides greater motivation for people to exercise longer , harder and more frequently. 

The Connection Youth Services has a new home in downtown in Howell. The program helps homeless and run-away youth. After years of fundraising they were able to buy a historic building that now serves as a drop-in center, and a home-base for its transitional-living program.

Lona Lanning is 19 years old. She’s working on meeting the requirements to get into the transitional-living program. Those requirements include volunteering 30 hours a week at The Connection and taking a life-skills class and working with counselors.

Large flocks of sheep are typically found in the Rocky Mountains, California, and Texas.

But there's a growing number of shepherds in Michigan.

There's solid demand for lamb meat from Michigan's ethnic communities. Lamb prices are good. And the farmland in Michigan not suited for traditional crops makes for good pasture.

I visited Jack and Martha Knorek who showed me around their farm during the height of spring lambing season.

The mama ewes were a little camera shy, so unfortunately I didn't get to see a lamb being born. One was born ten minutes before I arrived, and another was born about an hour after I left.