MICH. LOVEBIRDS RESCUED AFTER ELABORATE PROPOSAL: CASEVILLE, Mich. (AP) — Two Michigan sheriff's deputies can expect wedding invitations in their future for rescuing a couple who became stranded on an island during a meticulously planned, elaborate marriage proposal that apparently accounted for everything but bad weather.

Nathan Bluestein, of Northville, and May Gorial, of Madison Heights, set out by canoe Saturday in Wild Fowl Bay near Caseville, about 110 miles north of Detroit, the Huron County sheriff's department said. Gorial, 32, accepted the proposal, but strong wind and waves kept them from returning to shore.

Bluestein, 27, told the Detroit Free Press that he had been planning the proposal for months. He tucked a message in a bottle inside a lunch bag that he brought on the trip.

"I made sure that she never could touch the lunch bag," he said "I had it around my arm the whole time."

Inside the bottle was a sheet of paper, soaked in tea and burned around the edges, with a poem written in French. Gorial, a French teacher at Bishop Foley Catholic High School in Madison Heights, began reading and translating the poem before finding a proposal written in English on another piece of paper.

"The way I look at it ... she's my best friend and the love of my life," Bluestein said.

The two talked and snapped pictures, and didn't realize they were too far from land. They ended up on North Island and the sheriff's department sent the two deputies by boat from Caseville. Bluestein and Gorial don't have a wedding date set, but the deputies will definitely be invited to the event.

"If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have seen the wedding day," Gorial said.

MAN ALLEGEDLY ASKED COP TO FIND HIS MARIJUANA: NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Police say a passenger in a car pulled over in a pre-hurricane traffic stop asked an officer to go find the bag of marijuana he dropped at a nearby levee, resulting in his arrest.

Eighteen-year-old driver Chad Nicholson of Reserve and Jason Ray Sr., 21, of LaPlace, were booked on charges including marijuana possession, The Times-Picayune reported.

Kenner Police said the car smelled of marijuana when an officer stopped it Aug. 27 near businesses that closed ahead of Hurricane Isaac, and Nicholson didn't have a driver's license or valid vehicle registration sticker.

Nicholson allegedly said he and Ray had smoked marijuana and there was more, but he didn't know where.

Ray, whom the officer had seen leave the car briefly near a levee, allegedly said there was about an ounce under a seat. When none was found in the car, he allegedly said, "''I hope it didn't fall out of my lap when I got out (of) the car by the levee. Can you go get my weed?"

Arrest reports say the officer found a bag holding almost an ounce of marijuana right where Ray said it would be.

Both men were booked Aug. 28 in Gretna with possessing marijuana and possession of the drug with intent to distribute it. Ray also was booked with possessing drug paraphernalia and Nicholson with driving without a license and with an expired tag. Both were released on $5,000 bond.