Author Topic: News From The Hoosier State  (Read 71295 times)

Offline David In Indy

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News From The Hoosier State
« on: October 30, 2007, 11:14:02 pm »
From WTHR Channel 13 Website:


Greencastle restaurant closed after road kill is found in kitchen


Greencastle - A Greencastle restaurant is open for business again after health inspectors shut it down when they found a deer carcass in the kitchen.

La Charreada Mexican Cuisine is open for business after the Putnam County Health Department closed it for 48 hours last week.

"I myself would not eat there no more and I think the restaurant aught to be shut down," said Mark Herbert, who's eaten at the restaurant in the past.

On October 24th, inspectors, responding to two tips, found the carcass of a deer in La Charreada's kitchen.  Employees were slicing meat off the road kill which was dropped off by an Indiana conservation officer. Restaurant workers were butchering the road kill for themselves, not for the restaurant.

"I just couldn't believe that they would do that in the restaurant, much less during business hours," said Putnam County Health Department inspector Darrell Brackney. "On one side of the kitchen they were serving meals and preparing meals and on the other side of the kitchen they were butchering a deer on the floor."

Citing at least five serious violations, the health department immediately closed the Greencastle restaurant, forcing about two dozen people to get up and leave in the middle of their meals.

This is not the first time this business has been shut down. Last year an inspector found more than 20 health violations, half of them critical.  Things like cockroaches in the kitchen and food not being stored at the right temperature.  The restaurant was closed for a day and fined.

Geneva and Matt Green had lunch at the eatery on Tuesday, even after hearing about the events of last week.  They said the food was delicious.     

"You can't control your employees all the time," Matt Green said. "It was someone in there that made a bad decision. We trust the place and we'll be back."

But waiters were spotted inside with little to do during Tuesday's lunch hour, evidence perhaps that not everyone is so forgiving.

"I would say they've got their work cut out for them to convince people that this was an isolated deal and that the employees no longer there were responsible and nothing like that will happen in the future," Brackney said.

The restaurant manager says three employees, including a manager, were fired as a result of the incident. 
La Charreada is now on probation and will be inspected by the Health Department at random every week for the next six months. It will also be fined a total of $1,200.

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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2007, 11:17:17 pm »
From the WTHR Channel 13 Website:


Father charged with allowing 10-year-old to drive truck


Edgewood - An Edgewood man is in trouble with the law after picking his 10-year-old son as his designated driver.

Police say 35-year-old Anthony Russell was drunk, with a blood alcohol content of 0.19, more than twice the legal limit, when he let his son get behind the wheel of his pickup. The Edgewood Police officer who wrote the report says Russell "told me he allowed his son to sit on his lap and operate the vehicle." The officer also noted that he smelled alcohol on Russell's breath.

With the boy behind the wheel, the truck lost control on a hill near 8th and Knollwood in Edgewood, left the road and took out a tree. The steering wheel was shattered, breaking one of the boy's ribs.

"If it had been a bigger tree, it would not have broken and given way," a neighbor near the crash scene said. "From that standpoint, (the boy) was lucky."

Police say when they got to the scene, they heard Russell tell his son, "it's okay, you didn't do anything wrong. It's not your fault."

Another neighbor told Eyewitness News, "against the law, isn't it, not to have the boy in a seatbelt? I think it's irresponsible of the parent."

Russell was formally charged Monday with two felony counts of driving while intoxicated, one count of felony neglect and a misdemeanor drunken driving charge. He was being held Tuesday in the Madison County Jail under $5,000 bond.

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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2007, 11:19:59 pm »
From the WTHR Channel 13 Website:


Mother leaves newborn at Community East


Indianapolis - A newborn baby abandoned by its mother at an Indianapolis hospital is safe. Police and healthcare workers say she did the right thing.

Hospital officials say an unidentified woman approached a Community East employee outside of the emergency room on Monday. After a brief conversation, she did something to save her newborn child.

"The lady got back into her car, brought the baby out and said that the baby was just born and [she couldn't take care] of it and handed the baby to the employee," Community East President Anita Harden said.

The woman left a healthy newborn girl with the umbilical cord still attached. The hospital is caring for the child after contacting Marion County Child Protective Services. This comes just days after 19-year-old college student and Plainfield native Katie McCoy was charged with murder in Louisville courtroom for allegedly drowning her newborn daughter after concealing her pregnancy.

Indiana law is designed to protect parents in cases like this. The state's safe haven law allows a woman to turn a newborn over to police, fire departments and hospitals without the fear of prosecution.

"That protection's in place so that encourages the mother or anyone involved in a situation like that to choose life for the child," said Harden.

Despite safe haven laws that have offered anonymity and legal protection since 2000, few women relinquish their newborn children. On average, just three to four Indiana women each year, according to the National Safe Haven Alliance. On the other hand, Indiana Health Department statistics show three times as many --11 women in 2005 - killed an unwanted infant child.

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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #3 on: October 30, 2007, 11:23:48 pm »
From the WTHR Channel 13 Website:

Colts offer chance to win Super Bowl XLI rings


Indianapolis - Colts fans have a chance to win a piece of the team's Super Bowl victory - a Super Bowl ring - through a charity raffle team owner Jim Irsay announced Tuesday during a pep rally for Sunday's game against New England.

Irsay wore a giant blue top hat, large round blue sunglasses and a white showman's suit as he told hundreds of fans about the "Quest for the Ring" raffle during the Monument Circle rally.

"I look like Willie Wonka Elton - a combination of Willie Wonka and Elton John," Irsay joked before throwing open a gold treasure chest containing a small box with five shiny rings.

Although some fans clearly hoped Irsay would toss the rings into the crowd, Irsay explained that the rings would instead be given away in a raffle contest he hopes raises up to $1 million for Indiana charities.

Raffle tickets cost $5 each and will be sold through Nov. 20 for the three-stage contest Irsay said would earn five people "a once-in-a-lifetime prize."

Twenty-five finalists will first be chosen from up to 200,000 tickets the team hopes to sell. Ten finalists will then be chosen to move onto the contest's final stage during a Nov. 30-Dec. 1 treasure hunt for Colts-related items hidden around Indianapolis.

Those finalist will gather on the RCA Dome's field at halftime of the Colts' Dec. 2 game against Jacksonville and select one locked box and key. Five of those boxes will hold one Super Bowl XLI ring.

Friends Mike Lasiter and Chris Daymude, who used their lunch hour to attend Tuesday's rally, both said they'll buy at least one raffle ticket and would love to win a treasured memento of the Colts' February Super Bowl win over the Chicago Bears.

"It would be great to get one of those rings," Daymude said.

Fans dressed in blue Colts jerseys and sweaters filled the south side of Monument Circle for the rally, listening to bands perform and watching highlights from January's 38-34 AFC title game victory over the Patriots that were shown on two giant screen TVs.

Chip Cooper, who joined friends at the rally, lamented that he nearly caught one of several footballs Irsay threw into the crowd after announcing the raffle contest.

Cooper predicted that the Colts will win Sunday's home game against the Patriots by at least a touchdown. He said Colts, the second in league history to open three consecutive seasons at 7-0, is on a roll.

"The Patriots are just another team in the NFL," he said. "They play well but we're better than they are."

Contest details:

To enter Stage One, fans must purchase one or more $5 tickets. Up to 200,000 tickets will be sold from noon (EDT) on Oct. 30, 2007 to noon (EST) on Nov. 20, 2007.

Fans can purchase tickets at the RCA Dome in the box office during normal business hours and in the guest relations kiosks during the Nov. 4 and Nov. 18 Colts home games; at participating Indiana Ticketmaster Ticket Centers; and through the local Ticketmaster Charge-by-Phone service. 

The numbers for Indiana are: Anderson/Muncie (765) 644-3131;  Bloomington (812) 333-9955; Evansville (812) 423-7222; Ft. Wayne (260) 424-1811; Indianapolis (317) 239-5151; Lafayette (765) 743-5151; South Bend (574) 272-7979; and Terre Haute (812) 234-2424. Tickets cannot be purchased online.

On Nov. 21, 2007, 25 winning numbers and 20 alternates will be randomly selected.  Those numbers will be posted on the Colts Web site that evening. Winners who provide proper notification by 5 p.m. (EST) on Nov. 27, 2007 will be deemed Stage One winners and will advance to Stage Two. In the event that proper notification is not received by winning ticket holders, alternate ticket holders will be contacted.

In Stage Two, the 25 Stage One winners-and up to three "helpers" of their choice-will participate in a treasure hunt for Colts-related items around the city of Indianapolis from Nov. 30 - Dec. 1, 2007. The top 10 performers, as determined by the sole discretion of the Ravenchase Adventures LLC judges, will advance to the third and final stage.

During halftime of the Colts home game on Dec. 2, 2007, the 10 Stage Two winners will gather on the field and select one locked box and key to open upon command. Five of the finalists will find an authentic Indianapolis Colts Super Bowl XLI ring inside.

For a complete list of contest details and rules, visit colts.com/ring.

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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2007, 05:48:06 pm »
Here's a few things happening in Indiana on the first day of November, 2007.



From the channel 13 website:


NAACP will join suit against Eli Lilly

Nov 1, 2007 02:30 PM EDT

 
Indianapolis - The NAACP is now part of a racial discrimination case against Eli Lilly and Company. The Indianapolis-based company faces a federal lawsuit for allegedly creating a hostile workplace for 50 people and paying them less money because of discrimination.

The NAACP announced at a downtown rally Thursday morning it is now one of the plaintiffs in a racial discrimination case against Eli Lilly, calling it a national concern.

"We filed it to litigate it and win it," said Joshua Rose, plaintiffs' attorney.

The suit was filed last year with four plaintiffs. Now they have more than 50.

"I can truly feel what happened in the history books," said Cassandra Welch, plaintiff.

Welch was one of the first plaintiffs in the case. She says working at Eli Lilly was like working back in time.

"Employees being referred to as 'Buckwheat.' The 'N word' was a regular thing," she said.

Welch's case first caught the nation's attention when she came forward with allegations that a black doll with a noose tied around its neck was left on her desk at work. "My first reaction to the noose was fear, real fear that I felt," said Welch.

"As we've gone through and done what I think is a thorough investigation, we believe this lawsuit is still without merit," said Derica Rice, Eli Lilly senior vice president and CFO.

Welch says one of Lilly's diversity policies is to hold what they call conflict management sessions. It's a meeting where employees are encouraged to say what's on their mind, with a promise that nothing leaves the room once it's over.

Welch describes one that was held with her supervisor. "She said in that session in front of two other Lilly employees that she absolutely believes that African Americans are not equivalent to Caucasian Americans, that Blacks can't do the same work as Whites. That they don't deserve the same pay as Whites and I was supposed to walk out of that session and say oh thank God she told me and our feeling are out on the table and everything's fine. Well, everything was not fine."

She says she went straight to Human Resources for help.

"I went immediately to HR and they said 'No, wait, wait, we can't hear this, you can't share anything that came out of that session. We don't document that,'" said Welch.

Eli Lilly's chief financial officer says the allegations that Black employees receive lower salaries because of their race is not true. "How we establish our pay scales is based upon the market which allows us to be competitive," said Rice.

"This is a company that likes to check the boxes," said Rose.

Prosecutors say you can see the company's diversity policy on paper but you don't see it in action and in how they treat their Black employees.

"Diversity to them means selling their products to a diverse range of people," said Rose.

Plaintiffs say they're suing for change. The goal is to see the company institute a policy that sets equal opportunity goals and motivates manager to meet them. Lilly says that policy is already in place. It will be up to a federal judge to decide if the plaintiffs will be designated as a class to certify the case as a class action lawsuit.




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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2007, 05:50:55 pm »
From WISH Channel 8 website:


Man Admits To Murder-For-Hire


Indianapolis - A surprising confession came Thursday from a man accused of trying to hire an undercover officer to kill his wife. Robert Quarles not only confessed to the crime, but he explained why he did it. Meanwhile, police have re-opened another death investigation following Quarles' arrest.

Murder-for-hire suspect Robert Quarles made a startling confession during this jailhouse interview. When asked if he hired someone to kill his wife, he responded, "Yes, I did." When pressed for a reason, he said, "Over a period of time there was so much bickering and battering between me and her."

Metro Homicide detectives say the 56-year-old negotiated with a hit man to kill his wife, but the hit man was really undercover Lt. David Young.

"I really would not have [done] it, but mental stress. I just lost my cool," Quarles said.

SWAT officers arrested Quarles at 23rd and Keystone. His wife talked to Channel 13 in an exclusive interview. "You go from loving a man to finding out he wants to kill you. It's a hard switch," she said.

Police also say Quarles tried to poison his wife with a bottle of Visine three weeks ago. The incident put her in the emergency room with severe nausea. Investigators say Quarles told an undercover detective, who he thought was a hit-man, that he'd already tried to kill his wife himself with the Visine.

Quarles also confessed to another murder-for-hire plan. He wanted the husband of his ill daughter's caregiver dead. But after sharing thoughts of drowning his wife with detectives, they reopened the investigation of his daughter's drowning death.

Although Quarles is a person of interest in the case of his daughter's death, he denies any wrongdoing.

"Jessica's death, it was an accident," he said.

During the jailhouse interview, Quarles not only admitted to the murder for hire, but he also apologized to his estranged wife.

"Honey, I am so sorry," he said.

Quarles went back to his jail cell hoping his apology and confession eventually leads to his freedom.




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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2007, 05:54:15 pm »
From WTHR Channel 13 website:


Star Fires Staffer Over Controversial Comments


Indianapolis - The local NAACP stood in protest of the Indianapolis Star, calling a blog that appeared earlier this week racially offensive.

Flanked by civic, business and religious leaders near the Martin Luther King-Robert Kennedy Peace Memorial, the NAACP demanded action be taken at the Star over a racially charged slur historically used by hate groups. The language was aimed at embattled City-County Council President Monroe Gray.

"We protest. We demand a public apology from the Indianapolis Star, not to African-American elected officials, not to the homeless, but to the community," said Rep. Bill Crawford (D-Indianapolis).

"I apologize for the remarks that are posted on our website," said Dennis Ryerson, editor and vice president of the Star. "Our standards were communicated. The person is no longer with the newspaper." Ryerson's remarks were greeted with applause.

"The apology is appropriate, but I think that with all the press that I've received from the Indianapolis Star in the past year that at least the apology could be above the fold on the front page," said Gray.

Ryerson says he takes responsibility and pledged to enact change.

We'll have much more on this story coming up on Eyewitness News at 5:00 pm. This story will be updated later.

« Last Edit: November 01, 2007, 10:06:09 pm by David »
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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #7 on: November 03, 2007, 01:45:13 am »
News From Indiana for November 2nd, 2007


From The Indy Channel website:



Cat Honored For Saving Indiana Family

NEW YORK -- When the Keesling family of Indiana was about to be overcome by carbon monoxide, their cat clawed at wife Cathy's hair until she woke up and called for help. When Debbie Parkhurst choked on a piece of apple at her Maryland home, her dog jumped in, landing hard on her chest and forcing the morsel to pop out of her throat.

For their nick-of-time acts, Toby, a 2 1/2-year-old golden retriever, and Winnie, a gray-eyed American shorthair, were named Dog and Cat of the Year by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

In addition, five humans were honored Thursday for their actions toward animals in the past year, including a Bronx firefighter who saved a dog and cat from a burning building.
 

Neither Parkhurst nor Keesling could explain their pets' timely heroics, though Parkhurst suggested her pooch's Heimlich maneuver might have been guided by divine intervention.

"That's what our veterinarian said," she said. "He wasn't making a joke; he's very spiritual, and now I have to agree with him."

Both pets were themselves rescued in infancy -- Toby as a 4-week-old puppy tossed into a garbage bin to die, and Winnie as a week-old orphan hiding under a barn, so helpless that Keesling's husband, Eric, had to feed her milk with an eyedropper.

As the Keeslings recalled it, a gas-driven pump being used to remove flood waters from their basement in New Castle, Ind., last March malfunctioned, spreading carbon monoxide through the house. By the time Winnie moved into rescue mode, the couple's 14-year-old son, Michael, was already unconscious.

"Winnie jumped on the bed and was clawing at me, with a kind of angry meow," Cathy Keesling said. "When I woke up I felt like a T-bar had hit me across the head."

State police and sheriff's officers responding to her 911 call said the family was only minutes from death, judging by the amount of poisonous gas in the house.

Debbie Parkhurst's husband, Kevin, was at his job at a Wilmington, Del., chemical firm when she took a midday break from making jewelry and bit into an apple.

"Normally I peel them, but I read in Good Housekeeping magazine that the skin has all the nutrients, so I ate the skin, and that's what caused me to choke," she recalled.

"I couldn't breathe and I was in panic when Toby jumped on me. He never does that, but he did, and saved my life."

Both Toby and Winnie accompanied their owners to the awards luncheon at Manhattan's posh Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center.


Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #8 on: November 03, 2007, 01:49:11 am »
From The Indy Channel Website:



NFL "Circus" Rolling Into Indianapolis

Indianapolis -The New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts are entering a historical meeting Sunday. For the first time in NFL history, two teams with records of 7-0 or better will meet when the 7-0 Colts host the 8-0 Patriots.

And the defending Super Bowl champions are prepared for the hype.

"It will be a circus," Indianapolis head coach Tony Dungy said.

The Patriots' three-ring act of head coach Bill Belichick, quarterback Tom Brady and wide receiver Randy Moss bring their big-top show into Indy. After starting the year amid a cheating scandal, Belichick has led the Pats to blow-out wins, out-scoring league foes 331-127. Brady has been rolling under center, throwing an NFL-best 30 touchdowns in the first eight games. And Moss, who joined the Pats in the off-season, has been Brady's main target, grabbing 11 touchdown catches.

The Colts will counter New England's attack with their own offensive arsenal. Peyton Manning, who's trying for his 100th career victory Sunday, has completed 65.5 percent of his passes for 13 touchdowns and three interceptions through seven games. His air attack has been aided by the team's ground game, as Joseph Addai leads the league in rushing touchdowns with seven.

Entering Sunday's game, the Brady-led Patriots hold a 6-3 advantage over Manning's Colts, but Indianapolis has won the past three meetings.


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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #9 on: November 03, 2007, 01:54:28 am »
From The Indy Channel Website:


Thousands of Hoosiers To Get License Warning From The BMV


INDIANAPOLIS -- The Bureau of Motor Vehicles said it will soon inform about 200,000 Indiana residents that they're close to having their driver's licenses revoked because of data discrepancies.

A recent round of security checks found that BMV data on those people -- about 3 percent of Indiana drivers and state identification holders -- clashed with other government data on the same people, the agency said.

The mismatches could involve names, Social Security numbers, birthdays or genders. In letters that the BMV will send starting next week, the 200,000 will be asked to contact the BMV by mail, online or come to a branch in person.
 

Commissioner Ron Stiver said it is hard to predict how many of the discrepancies will be easy to fix and how many will be difficult.

"It's difficult to tell why a record doesn't match," Stiver said. "In some cases, it may be … my wife and I got married and she updated her name in one place, but not the other. In some cases, it may be a number transposed."

The discrepancies were discovered as part of intensified security checks involving the Social Security Administration.

Some people will have to go through the Social Security Administration and the BMV to sync their records. Anyone who fails to fix the errors will get a second letter, and if they don't respond, their driver's licenses or ID cards will be revoked after two months, the BMV said.
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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #10 on: November 03, 2007, 01:58:29 am »
From The Indy Channel Website:


Snakes On A Bus; Man Charged


MUNCIE, Ind. -- A 21-year-old man who picked up a package of venomous baby timber rattlesnakes at the post office and took it home on a city bus faces charges, authorities said.

Dustin A. Draper faces preliminary counts of possession of an endangered species and transportation of a dangerous reptile without a permit. He was in jail Friday on $3,500 bond and did not have an attorney listed with the jail.

Postal inspectors told the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and county police about the shipment of rattlesnakes. Officials were waiting for Draper when he got off the bus near his apartment Thursday.
 
"He wants to be cool and have venomous snakes," said Sgt. Ed Rucker, a DNR conservation officer.

Anyone who handles dangerous or wild animals in Indiana must have a state permit, and possessing endangered species like timber rattlesnakes is illegal, Rucker said.

The DNR said Draper is a known buyer and broker of venomous snakes. He was arrested last November on charges that he tried to sell an undercover conservation officer an eastern diamondback rattlesnake. He was given a suspended 60-day jail term and fined $360 in Muncie City Court. Draper also faces similar charges from August for possession of an adult cobra.

Draper has been advised to get a state wild animal permit, according to court records, although he never applied for one.


Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press
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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #11 on: November 03, 2007, 09:25:10 pm »
News of the good, the bad, the sad and the stupid for November 3, 2007



From the WISH-TV Channel 8 website:


Governor Requests Federal Aid For Tornado Cleanup in Northern Indiana



INDIANAPOLIS - Gov. Mitch Daniels has sought federal disaster assistance for recovery efforts from the tornado that hit the Nappanee area two weeks ago.

If President Bush approves the request, residents and businesses in northern Indiana's Elkhart, Marshall and Kosciusko counties could qualify for housing and unemployment assistance and disaster loans.

The governor's office says damage assessments from the Oct. 18 storm have found 51 homes destroyed, 137 with major damage and 201 with minor damage. A total of 107 businesses sustained damage, including three recreational vehicle plants that are among Nappanee's largest employers.







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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #12 on: November 03, 2007, 09:28:14 pm »
From the WISH-TV Channel 8 website:


Pipe Bomb Found In Westside Home

INDIANAPOLIS - A west side man is facing charges after investigators found a live pipe bomb and other explosive materials inside this home at 38 Myron Avenue.

Police believe 34-year-old Tracy Trimble was under the influence of crack cocaine at the time of his arrest.

They tazed him when he refused to comply with officer's instructions. Trimble was also wanted on a warrant from Hancock County.




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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #13 on: November 03, 2007, 09:34:07 pm »
From The WISH-TV Channel 8 website:


Group Honors Murder Victims With Drive-by Prayer Vigil

INDIANAPOLIS - Saturday, a group marched through the streets of Indianapolis in honor of some recent Indianapolis murder victims Their motto, "If Drive-By Guns can Kill, then Drive-By Prayers Can Heal."

The "Drive-By Prayer Vigil Network" does these vigils to give family members and friends hope. Hope that organizers say is sometimes lost.

"We declare life over death. We declare life over death," the group sang together.

And with those words the group stood together on the corner of Olive Street demanding their message be heard.

"We've risen up with a charge and a mandate to respond to the senseless killings, the murders in our city," Pastor Thomas Hill said.

One of those killings happened just down the block from where the group gathered. It was there that a homeless man lost his life last month.

"Dennis Wencke, age 56 years old, died on October the 4th 2007 a victim of a stab wound to the stomach," Pastor Hill said.

Olive Street was just one stop of many for the group today.

"We believe that just our very presences will change the hearts of man," group member Pamela Nicks said.

When people are hopeless they feel they have no reason to go on or they feel what's the use," Nicks said. "You have to give somebody hope."

The group says they will stop having the vigils once the senseless murders come to an end.



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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #14 on: November 03, 2007, 09:36:49 pm »
From the WISH-TV Channel 8 website:


Pedestrian Struck and Killed During Police Chase


INDIANAPOLIS - An IMPD officer hit and killed a pedestrian during a chase Saturday morning.

Police say a suspected drunk driver ran a red light just before two Saturday. When an officer tried to pull the driver over, police say the driver took off.

Another officer joined in the chase, with his lights and sirens on, driving north on Moller Road.

But, when he got just past 34th Street, even though the light was green, a man stepped in front of the patrol car.

"In trying to avoid the subject, ended up turning 180 degrees southbound on Moller, before he was able to stop at that point," IMPD Sgt. Matthew Mount said.

The impact killed the pedestrian.

Officers eventually caught up with the suspected drunk driver, 23-year-old Noel Perea-Galan, after he crashed into a median.

Police arrested Perea-Galan. He faces numerous charges, including "felony fleeing causing death."




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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #15 on: November 03, 2007, 09:41:39 pm »
From the WISH-TV Channel 8 website:


Firefighter Arrested For Allegedly Beating Woman With Gun


Fishers, Ind. - Fishers Police arrested an Indianapolis firefighter on Thursday.

Officers say 49-year old James Jacobi struck a woman in the head several times with a handgun.

Police were initially called out to his Fishers home early Thursday morning for shots fired.

That's where they arrested Jacobi and treated the woman for head injuries before transporting her to Methodist hospital.




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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #16 on: November 05, 2007, 02:16:49 am »
News For November 4th, 2007


From the WISH-TV website:



Small Plane Makes Emergency Landing Near I-65

JOHNSON COUNTY, Ind. - Motorists on I-65 in Johnson County did a double take Sunday morning after seeing a plane sitting in a field.

Fifty-two year old Alan Gluff of Franklin thought he'd take his experimental aircraft for a flight. He took off from the Greenwood airport but had to make an abrupt landing.

"He's flying south, not very far south and realizes immediately he's in trouble. His oil light goes, engine's going, he gets it turned around and tries to limp it back to the airport. Obviously he doesn't make it and he lands it in the field here. Obviously a pretty rough landing," Indiana State Police Trooper Kelly Lazzell said.

Gluff was not injured. He holds a private pilots license and has approximately 1,300 hours of flight time.




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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #17 on: November 05, 2007, 02:20:36 am »
From the WISH-TV website:



Police Make Huge Counterfeit Ticket Bust During Colts-Pats Game


INDIANAPOLIS - There was a huge counterfeit ticket bust at Sunday night's big game. Indianapolis Metro Police say they arrested three men who they say are major players in the phony ticket business.

All three men are from Atlanta and were found with hundreds of counterfeit tickets.

"They had approximately 197 counterfeit Colts vs. Patriots game tickets on them," IMPD Lt. Jeff Duhammel said.

Police say while fans were inside the RCA Dome enjoying the game they were outside searching for the men they say sold phony tickets to at least 40 fans.

Lt. Duhammel told 24-Hour News 8 that they arrested 3 men in a car in the 5800 block of Southeastern Avenue. Police pulled them over for speeding but found the counterfeit tickets inside the car.

One of the men arrested was Eric North. North said he's here from Atlanta to visit a girlfriend and no idea the tickets were in his rental car

"I don't know it's not my bad. The bag of tickets wasn't mine. I didn't have knowledge of what was in there," North said

"We had a counterfeit ticket problem at Super Bowl time. These guys may be directly involved with those counterfeit tickets," Lt. Duhammel said.

Police say they also confiscated phony tickets for college football games as well as other Colts games.

Police are issuing a word of warning for fans.

"Buyer Beware! Those fans who come here with counterfeit tickets they don't get seats, they're out," Lt. Duhammel said.

The men arrested will face both local and federal charges.




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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #18 on: November 05, 2007, 02:22:33 am »
counterfeit tickets!! That is just wrong!!

 >:( >:( >:(

 ;)

Hi David!!

xxx

Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #19 on: November 05, 2007, 02:23:29 am »
From the WISH-TV website:


Man Found Fatally Shot, Lying In The Street


INDIANAPOLIS - Metro Police are investigating a murder on the city's near northeast side.

The deadly shooting happened at 27th Street near Carrollton Avenue.

Police responded at shortly after six o'clock Sunday morning to find 31-year old Stephen McDade lying in the street.

Police say McDade died of several gunshot wounds.

Witnesses told police they heard shouting then gunshots.

"Somebody had seen a black male about five foot two, five foot three walking away from the area described as having a short afro wearing dark clothing with a hoodie," IMPD Sgt. Matt Mount said.

If you have any information about the shooting and would like to remain anonymous call Crime Stoppers at 262-TIPS.



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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #20 on: November 05, 2007, 02:25:50 am »
From the WISH-TV website:


Metro Police Investigate Double Shooting On East Side


INDIANAPOLIS - IMPD is investigating a double shooting on the city's east side

Metro Police say two people were shot around 9:15 Saturday night in an alley behind a house near the intersection of Sherman and 25th Street.

Police say a man was shot three times in the chest. He ran away from the shooters and was taken to Wishard Hospital where he's in critical but stable condition.

The suspects shot a woman once in the leg. She drove to a nearby gas station to call police.  The woman was taken to Methodist Hospital where she's in stable condition.

Police say the double shooting was the result of an attempted robbery.

Police don't have any suspects in custody but say they're looking for two black men in a maroon Dodge Stratus.




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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #21 on: November 05, 2007, 02:28:27 am »
From the WISH-TV website:


Teen Killed, Child Hospitalized After Muncie House Fire


MUNCIE, Ind. - An 18-year old is dead and doctors are treating an 8-month old at Riley Hospital for Children after a fire broke out in Muncie. It happened around 5:30 Sunday morning.

Fire investigators say 18-year old Alihah Brookins was just inches from the back door, when she died.

There were at least six people inside of the home, including two twins, a two-year old and their mother.

Firefighters rescued 8-month old twin, Savasia, who lived at the house with her mother.

"They brung a little baby out of the house, she wasn't breathing and they had to rush her out to the hospital," neighbor Peggy Ramey said.

Peggy and her sister Amanda, said they often looked after the children.

Doctors at Riley Hospital for Children are treating Savasia.

"They call me nana, I'm like their babysitter, or their older sister," Peggy said.

"Just little angels, in my mind did nothing wrong," Amanda said.

"It's hard because, anything could go wrong with Savasia and I don't want nothing to happen to them," Peggy said.

Peggy said Brookins was a good friend. She was just staying the night at the home to help the children's mother.

"She would help Jennifer with the twins and Journey and help keep them under control when everything was under chaos," Peggy said.

The Battalion Chief was told that the gas service had been shut off, inside the people were using a stove to heat the house.

Muncie's overnight temperature hovered around freezing.

Investigators believe that is how the house caught on fire.

Friends tell 24-Hour News 8, the 8-month old will stay at Riley Hospital for a couple more days.

The fire is still under investigation.



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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 5, 2007
« Reply #22 on: November 05, 2007, 06:51:39 pm »
From WTHR Channel 13:


Hoosier Health Lags Behind Much Of Nation


Washington - Hoosier health is up a notch this year. But a new national study says the state still ranks only 32nd. For the country as a whole, the news is not good. Despite the many hours Americans spend trying to get healthier, the findings say we are not.

"That this year the health of the nation is less good than it was last year," said Dr. Reed Tuckson, United Health Foundation.

While some categories like heart health and cancer rates have improved, they are far outweighed by what people weigh.

"The obesity rate has absolutely skyrocketed in the nation. and you know, we're up to 25% of the nation being obese," said Dr. Archelle Georgiou, study advisor.

The report known as America's Health Rankings rates how healthy people are in each state. It shows some things looking better in Indiana. While the state still has one of the highest rates of smokers in the country, it is down 12%. Those without insurance are down 13%.

But the cancer death rate is among the highest at 217 per 100,000. The rate of obesity among Hoosiers is still high - 27.8% - more than one in four.

There is reason to worry, some say, that after a decade of progress in the 1990's, the nation's health is deteriorating.

"This just tells us the health policies that we have and the systems that we have in place are not working," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, American Public Health Association.

This study says people are living longer than ever. Life expectancy for the average American just short of 78 years. The downside is that in 43 other countries, it's higher. The life expectancy in Japan is 82 years, four years higher than the US.




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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 5, 2007
« Reply #23 on: November 05, 2007, 06:58:07 pm »

From WRTV Channel 6:


IMPD Hopes Sketch Will Lead To Bank Robber's Arrest


INDIANAPOLIS -- Investigators on Monday released a composite picture they hope will lead to the arrest of a man they said robbed an Indianapolis bank at gunpoint last month.

The Regions Bank branch in the 7900 block of Madison Avenue was robbed at about 10 a.m. on Oct. 15.

Police said a man walked into the bank armed with a black semiautomatic pistol and ordered customers to face a wall.
 

The robber took an undisclosed amount of cash from tellers and then left the bank.

No one was injured in the robbery. Police said they think the same man might have also been involved in another robbery at a Chase Bank Branch in the 3700 block of South East Street on Oct. 24.

The man is described as between 5 feet 11 inches and 6 feet tall and about 160 pounds.

Police released both a surveillance photo and composite sketch in hopes that someone will recognize him.

Officials asked anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers at 800-92-ALERT.


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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 5, 2007
« Reply #24 on: November 05, 2007, 07:03:18 pm »
From WRTV Channel 6:



Officials Expect No Repeat Of May Election Fiasco


INDIANAPOLIS -- Hoosiers are set to go to the polls Tuesday to cast their votes for city and town candidates, and election officials in Marion County said they are much better prepared than they were in May.

Marion County Clerk Beth White said Tuesday's general election should go much more smoothly than May's primary, in which dozens of polling places opened late or not at all.

White said she is confident she has enough workers to get precincts running on time.
 

"We had a very good weekend. Our inspectors came and picked up their materials, which is an extremely good indication that they are going to show up on Tuesday," White said. "It's in their hands now. We've delivered the materials. We've done the training. We've oriented them properly. They know where they're supposed to go, and they know what time they're supposed to show up."

The deadline for absentee voting expired at noon Monday. White described the absentee vote as heavy, but lines were not long Monday morning.

White estimated that more than 10,000 ballots were mailed into her office.

Marion County has 917 precincts. As of Sunday night, White said, inspectors had not picked up information for about 40 precincts.

At the same point in May, about 400 kits still were waiting to be picked up in White's office, 6News' Norman Cox reported.

Aside from being registered, prospective voters will also need to bring a government-issued photo identification.

The Bureau of Motor Vehicles' BMV2U mobile branch was out Monday to issue driver's license renewals and ID cards required for voting.

BMV branches, which normally are closed on Monday, was scheduled to be open until 8 p.m. this Monday. On Tuesday, they will be open from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Anyone with questions about the election can call the Hoosier Voter Helpline, which is staffed by members of the Secretary of State's Office from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 866-461-8683.

Hoosiers can find out where they are supposed to vote at indianavoters.com.


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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 5, 2007
« Reply #25 on: November 05, 2007, 07:09:25 pm »
From WRTV Channel 6:


Carnival Worker Critically Injured In Fight


DOTHAN, Ala. -- A 60-year-old Indiana man critically injured in a fight with a carnival co-worker remained on life support at an Alabama hospital after a fight.

Dothan Police Cpl. Frank Meredith said Mike Cowherd of Indianapolis, a concessions worker at the National Peanut Festival, received a severe head injury Thursday and is not expected to recover. He was being treated at Flowers Hospital in Dothan.

Police plan to question Sane Michael Westover, 29, of Indiana, who was identified as the co-worker involved in the fight.
 

Authorities told The Dothan Eagle that Westover left the state, but they expected him to return to Dothan and face police questioning about the fight.

Cowherd and Westover both worked on the midway at the festival and are employed by West Concessions.


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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 5, 2007
« Reply #26 on: November 06, 2007, 01:12:12 am »
From the WISH Channel 8 website:

Fishers Construction Sites Popular Targets For Copper Thieves


Fishers, Ind. - Fishers police say they arrested two men early yesterday morning for cutting open walls and stealing the copper tubing inside. Police say the thieves were targeting new homes under construction.

Over the past few years, copper thefts have increased because the demand for scrap copper has also gone up. Police say the thieves usually take the stolen copper to scrap yards and sell it for cash.

Fishers police say Michael and Aaron Bertram ripped about $1,000 worth of copper tubing out of the walls of four homes. The Bertram brothers caused thousands more in damage. "They were knocking out walls, pulling out dry wall, pulling out pipe from the wall and cutting up the pieces and using it as scrap," said Sgt. Gerry Hepp of the Fishers Police Dept.

Fishers police say, with all the new construction,  they see at least one copper theft a month. State lawmakers passed a law in July to help address the problem. The law requires scrap yards to ask for customer ID.

One westside scrap yard says since the law passed, it's turned away customers for refusing to show identification.

Police say it's still too early to know if the law is working. But when asked who was keeping track of the records kept by the scrap yards, Police said they don't know.

"We're only about 4-5 months into it. It's just going to take time," said IMPD Lt. Jeff Duhamel.

Right now, police do not have a timeline as to when they'll actually start checking the customer records at Indiana scrap yards.

Even though the law was designed to decrease scrap metal thefts, Police say they don't expect to see a decrease in copper thefts until the price of scrap copper goes down.

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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 5, 2007
« Reply #27 on: November 06, 2007, 01:16:43 am »
From the WISH Channel 8 website:



CBS Takes Responsibility For Audio Incident During Colts -Pats Game

INDIANAPOLIS - The Patriots are calling foul against the Colts one day after defeating the blue and white at the RCA Dome. But CBS, the network that broadcast the game, is taking responsibility for the audio incident in question.

The Patriots claimed the Colts were blasting artificial crowd noise through the dome speakers during the game, which is against NFL rules. New England says during Sunday's game you could hear a skip that proves the crowd noise wasn't real.

The play in question occurs when New England has the ball for the first play of the 4th quarter. But if you watch the play from the 24-Hour News 8 cameras rolling at the same time the problem isn't there. And if you listened on the Colts radio broadcast it wasn't there either.

The Colts would not talk about the allegations on camera.

Instead they issued this statement: "CBS has informed us that the unusual audio moment heard by fans during the Patriots-Colts game was the result of tape feedback in the CBS production truck and was isolated to the CBS broadcast. It was in no way related to any sound within the stadium and could not be heard in the stadium."

The Colts go on to say, "We trust this will put an end to the ridiculous and unfounded accusations that the Colts artificially enhanced crowd noise at the RCA Dome in any way."


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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 15, 2007
« Reply #28 on: November 15, 2007, 03:14:53 pm »
From WISH TV 8:


NCAA Headquarters and Museum Remain Closed


INDIANAPOLIS - The NCAA is keeping its headquarters and Hall of Champions closed for another day as it continues to clean up from a fire in the museum.

NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson says the organization hopes to reopen the headquarters on Friday. However, the museum will remain closed indefinitely for repairs.

The fire started in a second-floor area containing some interactive exhibits and was contained by a sprinkler system. Water drenched some exhibits.

The museum shares a ventilation system with the headquarters and some smoke got into the system. Christianson says the smoke didn't reach the headquarters building, but another day is needed to clean the system.

An electrical problem is believed to have caused the fire.




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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 15, 2007
« Reply #29 on: November 15, 2007, 03:18:28 pm »
From WISH TV 8:


World's Third Oldest Person Dies In Muncie


MUNCIE, Ind. - A Muncie woman who was considered the world's third oldest person has died at the age of 113.

Bertha Fry died on Wednesday at Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie. The cause of death was listed as pneumonia.

Fry was born on December 1st, 1893, in Switzerland County in southeast Indiana. She attended Hanover College and was a school teacher. She had been living in a Muncie retirement community since 1979.

Her daughter, Barbara Money, says Fry's mind remained sharp until the end.

In April, Fry traveled to Shelbyville to visit with Edna Parker, who at 114 is now listed by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest person.




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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 15, 2007
« Reply #30 on: November 15, 2007, 03:26:13 pm »
From WISH TV 8:

Southside Starbucks Hit By Ambulance



GREENWOOD, Ind. - An ambulance crashed into a suburban Indianapolis Starbucks early this morning, causing minor structural damage and shattering a window at the coffee shop.

The ambulance was not on an emergency call at the time and no patients were inside the vehicle.

The accident occurred as the ambulance was stopped in the Greenwood Starbucks parking lot about 1 a.m.

According to the Starbucks manager, a worker in the ambulance accidentally knocked the vehicle into gear as he reached under the steering wheel to retrieve several dropped items.

Starbucks briefly closed the store to walk-in customers, but the drive-in window remained open.




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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 15, 2007
« Reply #31 on: November 15, 2007, 03:29:59 pm »
From WISH TV 8:


Suspected Burglar Rescued, Arrested By Police

THORNTOWN, Ind. - The suspect's entrance was not exactly slick, but his exit certainly was.

A Lebanon teen reportedly attempted to rob the Thorntown IGA, but got stuck in the vent shaft. Police had to lubricate the suspect with vegetable oil from the store's shelves just to pull him out.

Adam F. Cooper, 19, was charged Wednesday with a class C felony for burglary and two class B misdemeanors for criminal mischief and false informing. His case is in Boone County Superior Court I.

According to his case report, Boone County Dispatch received a call from Stookey's restaurant owners Jon Stookey and Mike Hankins about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. The two told police they heard what sounded like someone screaming for help from the store down the block on Main Street.

Upon investigation, Thorntown Police found a pair of jeans and shoes on the roof of the IGA. Police also noticed the roof exhaust fan above the store's deli had been removed and found Cooper 2 to 3 feet down the narrow shaft, apparently stuck.

Thorntown Deputy Marshal Chad Clendening said Cooper entered the shaft feet first.

"I'm sorry, (I was) trying to break in," Cooper reportedly told Clendening and TPD Officer Frank Clark.

Thorntown IGA owner Tina Railer said Cooper was stuck in the vent for at least an hour before someone heard him. Railer said the officers could not figure out where the screams for help were coming from until they went behind the store.

"He was stuck between the ceiling and the roof," Railer said.

Boone County EMS and the Thorntown Fire Department were called to assist. Cooper was beginning to have trouble breathing and was dehydrated.

Emergency workers were unable to contact Railer so they had to break through the store's glass front door to try to pull Cooper out from the inside. Clendening said they tried to yank him out by his feet, but he wouldn't budge. Emergency workers then cut Cooper's sweatshirt away and poured vegetable oil down the shaft and handed Cooper a rope. It took four men on the roof to pull him out.

"It was the last resort before they were going to cut him out," Railer said.

Cooper was dragged out of the vent about midnight and taken to Witham Memorial Hospital for examination.

Earlier that day, Cooper had been on a cleaning team that cleaned the store's vent. Police said Cooper told them that he moved through the vent just fine when he was working and figured he could use it to rob the store.

When asked why he intended the rob the store, Cooper reportedly told police that he was at his girlfriend's house in Thorntown and she had upset him, so he "was gonna go do something stupid."

Cooper told police he planned on stealing some cigarettes and something to drink.

Initially, Cooper said his name was Joseph E. Fugate. When asked why he gave a false name, Cooper said he was trying to hide his identity because he was afraid he was already wanted on a warrant.

Railer said this was the first time in the six years she's owned the store that anyone has attempted to rob it.

Clendening said while this story has something of funny ending, Cooper was fortunate that Stookey and Hankins heard him.

"He's really lucky someone heard him yelling," Clendening said. "Otherwise, we probably would have been removing a corpse the next morning."

This is Cooper's third arrest in Boone County in the past 15 months. His two previous arrests were both class D felony thefts.

If Cooper is found guilty on all three charges, his could face up to nine years in prison and fines up to $12,000. His trial date is set for April 21.




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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 15, 2007
« Reply #32 on: November 15, 2007, 03:32:12 pm »
From WISH TV 8:

Super 70 Reconstruction Project Almost Completed



INDIANAPOLIS - The rebuilding of a six-mile stretch of Interstate 70 on the east side of Indianapolis is nearly complete.

The Indiana Department of Transportation spokesman Will Wingfield says all lanes should be reopened in the next day or two. But he warns that commuters should still consider the area a construction zone.

INDOT says lane markers must still be placed in the westbound lanes.

The $175 million project began in February.

The project is the biggest single-season construction project INDOT has ever undertaken.

It runs from the eastern leg of Interstate 465 to downtown Indianapolis. It's the first major reconstruction on the road since it was built nearly 40 years ago.




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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 15, 2007
« Reply #33 on: November 15, 2007, 03:34:44 pm »
From WISH TV 8:

Computers Stolen From Indianapolis VA Hospital


INDIANAPOLIS - Police are investigating the theft of 3 computers from the Veterans Administration hospital in Indianapolis. Officials say 1 of the computers contained files on about 12,000 patients.

The VA says the computers were stolen from locked offices at the Roudebush VA Medical Center on Saturday.

VA officials say patient information is protected by passwords, but patients whose information may have been stolen are being contacted. The Department of Veterans Affairs is also offering one year of free credit monitoring to those affected.

Indiana Congressman Steve Buyer says he's upset that the VA has failed to comply with its own policy to safeguard veterans' information.




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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana News For November 15, 2007
« Reply #34 on: November 15, 2007, 03:39:58 pm »
From The Indy Channel website:

Midair Air Collision Over Indiana Averted Within Seconds


AURORA, Ill. -- A cockpit safety device is credited with helping pilots avoid a midair collision at 25,000 feet over Indiana.

According to a preliminary investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration, the planes came within seconds of colliding because of an error by an air traffic controller.

FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said the Tuesday evening incident happened amid a shift change during a busy time at the Chicago Center radar facility in Aurora.
 

Officials said that controller directed a Midwest Airlines plane flying east from Milwaukee into the path of a United Express jet heading west out of Greensboro, N.C.

The collision-avoidance device in the Midwest plane went off in the Fort Wayne area, and an airline spokeswoman said the pilots executed an emergency climb to get out of the way.


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Offline David In Indy

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News From Indiana for November 25, 2007
« Reply #35 on: November 26, 2007, 04:44:10 am »
From TheIndyChannel.com:

U.S. Congresswoman Julia Carson (D Indianapolis) Reveals Terminal Illness

INDIANAPOLIS -- Rep. Julia Carson has confirmed she is battling terminal lung cancer, and friends said Sunday she is in hospice care, barely able to speak.



Carson, 69, issued a statement to the Indianapolis Star Saturday afternoon, revealing the diagnosis.




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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #36 on: February 04, 2009, 02:44:17 am »
Well, so much for Indiana doing its part to help out with the prisoners from Guantanamo Bay after they close it. Apparently Indiana feels it should be everybody ELSES problem...

 >:(  >:(  >:(


Indiana: No home for accused terrorists

Resolution seeks to keep Guantanamo Bay prisoners from being transferred to Indiana

The federal prison in Terre Haute is no place for accused terrorists, says an Indiana lawmaker who proposed a resolution this morning to keep prisoners in Cuba from being transferred to Indiana once Guantanamo Bay is closed by President Barack Obama.

State Sen. Marlin Stutzman, R-Howe, is urging the Obama administration to keep the 240 terrorist inmates currently being held at Gitmo out of Indiana’s federal prison.

“This measure is gaining support in both the Senate and House of Representatives as we aim to keep suspected terrorists out of our own back yards,” Stutzman said at a news conference this morning. “We are asking the federal government to help us protect Hoosier citizens from becoming targets of terrorist acts.”

Terre Haute long has been home to the United States Penitentiary -- a high security prison that gained national attention several years ago when it carried out the execution of the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh. In 2007, a special unit was opened within the prison to house high-security prisoners facing federal death sentences, and Stutzman thinks it could be targeted as a location for terrorist suspects.

According to Stutzman, federal officials have said most detainees will return to Yemen, their home country. However, for the rest of the inmates more than half are considered too much of a threat to be released from U.S. custody.

Stutzman's biggest fear: Records show that about 18 former detainees who were released returned to terrorism and 43 are suspected of having done so, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Other lawmakers are also on board as supporting the measure, including Sens. Jim Buck, R-Kokomo; Greg Walker, R-Columbus; Carlin Yoder, R-Middlebury; Reps. Milo Smith, R-Columbus; Jeff Thompson, R-Lizton; Bill Davis, R-Portland; Cindy Noe, R-Indianapolis; Jackie Walorski, R-Jimtown; Rich McClain, R-Logansport; Matt Lehman, R-Berne; David Yarde, R-Garrett; and Wes Culver, R-Goshen.

Contact reporter Dan McFeely at [email protected] or at (317) 444-6253


http://www.indystar.com/article/20090203/NEWS/90203034/-1/NEWS

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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #37 on: May 04, 2009, 12:27:54 am »
Hopefully they prayed for that stadium they were in today. This foolish dumb ass city spent all that money to build it, and now they have no idea how they are going to pay for it. ::)

Dumb ASSES.

Huge Mass today at Lucas Oil stadium

Thousands of Catholic Hoosiers are expected to flood Lucas Oil Stadium today for a ceremonial mass in honor of Archdiocese of Indianapolis’ 175th Anniversary.

The mass begins at 3 p.m. and is open to the public.

Indianapolis Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein and 19 other Catholic dignitaries from across the United States are expected to attend.

The church believes this could be one of the largest assemblies of Catholics in state history.

According to spokesman Greg Otolski, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis was formed as the Diocese of Vincennes in 1834. The Diocese was moved to Indianapolis in 1898 and became an Archdiocese in 1944.

Otolski estimated there are more than 227,000 Catholics in 151 parishes in 39 counties in central and southern Indiana.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20090503/LOCAL/90503010
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More Protesters Arrested At Notre Dame
« Reply #38 on: May 17, 2009, 03:10:22 am »
The Catholic Church and President Obama have SO much in common, and yet we continue to concentrate on our one or two differences. How sad that is...


Police Arrest More Prostesters At Notre Dame

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (May 16) - Graduation festivities got under way at the University of Notre Dame on Saturday — as well as another day of demonstrations over President Barack Obama's appearance Sunday.

University spokesman Dennis Brown said there were no reports of protests on campus at any of the ceremonies held by various schools, centers and institutes. For the most part, the only difference on campus was the heightened security for Obama's visit, he said.

Bishop John D'Arcy, whose Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend includes the Notre Dame campus, helped students protesting Obama's visit kick off an all-night prayer vigil Saturday night. D'Arcy led them in prayer at the campus' grotto for more than 20 minutes and praised their plan to protest Obama's visit.

"The young people have behaved with great dignity. They have been firm in their purpose and strong in their purpose, but prayerful. They haven't followed those who said we're going to make it a circus," he said.

About 150 people, including students, parents and alumni, prayed with D'Arcy for three things: that Obama will change his support of abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research, that people throughout the world gain a greater respect for life and that Notre Dame and other Roman Catholic universities will more fully embrace their Catholic identity.

D'Arcy spoke to the students about three hours after about 12,000 people attended a commencement Mass at the Joyce Center on Saturday evening. Neither D'Arcy nor the Rev. John Jenkins, the university president, mentioned the controversy during the 85-minute service.

Earlier in the day at the school's front gate, more than 100 people gathered to protest the decision to invite Obama to speak at commencement and receive an honorary degree.

Shortly after noon, 23 protesters marched on to campus. Nineteen were arrested on trespassing charges and four also faced a charge of resisting law enforcement, said Sgt. Bill Redman, St. Joseph County Police Department spokesman. They were being held on $250 bond.

Among those arrested was the Rev. Norman Weslin, a Catholic priest and founder of the Lambs of Christ abortion protest group. He also was among 21 people arrested during a similar protest Friday.

None of those arrested Saturday were students, Brown said.

Former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes and five others were arrested Friday and held overnight. Keyes was released Saturday evening after posting $1,000 bond.

Also protesting Saturday was Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff identified as "Roe" in the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. She now opposes abortion.

She said she had planned to be arrested on Saturday, but changed her mind when a security officer ushered her to the side and gave her a chance to walk away.

"I didn't know why he just kind of gently moved me away. So I'm like, maybe this isn't the right time," McCorvey said.

Some driving past the protesters on Saturday waved in support. Others yelled at them. One man honked his horn in protest and held up a handful of hangers, a symbol of the gruesome procedures some pregnant women resorted to before Roe v. Wade.

Later, about 10 pro-Obama demonstrators assembled across the street holding up placards with slogans such as "Honk if you support Obama" and "Pro-Jenkins/Notre Dame." Jenkins has been criticized by many, including dozens of bishops, for the school's decision to invite Obama.

On campus, though, there were no signs of protest. Students generally favored Obama giving the graduation speech. The graduating class voted to name Jenkins their Senior Class Fellow.

A full page advertisement in the South Bend Tribune on Saturday had the headline: "Catholic Leaders and Theologians Welcome President Obama to Notre Dame." The ad, signed by university professors around the country, many of them at Catholic schools, said that as Catholics committed to civil dialogue, they were proud Obama was giving the commencement address.

There were some students, though, who opposed Obama giving the speech. ND Response, a coalition of university groups, has received permission from Notre Dame to hold a protest on the west end of the South Quad on Sunday. Spokesman John Daly said he expected 20 to 30 graduating seniors to skip commencement and attend the prayer vigil.

ND Response has passed items with a yellow cross with yellow baby's feet that graduates could put atop their mortarboards to wear during the graduation ceremony. Some of the people who listened to D'Arcy then went to a chapel at one of the dorms on campus for an all-night prayer vigil.


Copyright 2009 The Associated Press


http://news.aol.com/article/police-arrest-protesters/448355





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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #39 on: May 17, 2009, 03:26:59 am »
I dont think its sad.  :'(

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Protesters Greet President Obama Outside Indy Fundraisers
« Reply #40 on: May 17, 2009, 10:35:29 pm »
From TheIndyChannel.com -


Protesters Greet Obama Outside Indy Fundraisers

About 100 Protesters Line Downtown Streets

POSTED: 8:10 pm EDT May 17, 2009
UPDATED: 8:36 pm EDT May 17, 2009

INDIANAPOLIS -- President Barack Obama has wrapped up a daylong visit to Indiana.

Obama attended two fundraisers at the downtown Westin Hotel in Indianapolis early Sunday night, one for the Democratic National Committee and the other to benefit four of Indiana's five Democratic congressmen.

His Indianapolis trip came after hundreds of anti-abortion activists and students protested his appearance at the University of Notre Dame's commencement.

There were about 100 protesters at his Indianapolis event, but most of them objected to his stances on taxes and borrowing.

"Obama is trying to tax us into oblivion and this is supposed to be a free country," said Steve Davis.

"Quit spending the money and give me back my constitution," said Robert Storm. "Those are my two biggest beefs. Government is way too big."

He told those inside the hotel that he was glad to be back in Indiana. Obama was the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry the state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.


Copyright 2009 by TheIndyChannel.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved


http://www.theindychannel.com/news/19487649/detail.html

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 >:( >:( >:(


From TheIndyChannel:


Video Shot After Obese Woman's Death Contradicts Coroner

Coroner Claims Proper Equipment Wasn't Available

INDIANAPOLIS -- Video captured by a neighbor of an obese woman tied down on a flatbed trailer following her death contradicts the coroner's claims that proper equipment wasn't at the scene.

The Marion County coroner has come under fire after a towing service was called in to remove the body of Teresa Smith, 48, who weighed 750 pounds, after she died in her northeast side apartment Tuesday.

Smith's boyfriend and the couple's 13-year-old son, along with several neighbors, said they watched as Smith's body, still on her mattress, was dragged out into the open, strapped down on the wrecker and covered with a piece of carpet before being driven downtown.

Brenguel Eines shot video from her upstairs apartment as the event unfolded.

"It was so eerie, it was unreal. It was like we were watching something off of TV," she said. "At first we were shocked by the tow truck. But then they put that dirty carpet on top of her. That just made you gasp for air."

Coroner Frank Lloyd Jr. told 6News' Jack Rinehart Thursday that the removal of Smith's body was done with as much discretion as possible.

"What's the downside of using a flatbed truck if it's done in a respectful manner?" he said. "It's not a good sight to see a body on the back of a truck. In certain situations though, you might not have any options."

Lloyd said that he was told that the proper equipment to handle Smith's body was not at the scene.

But the video shot by Eines shows several pieces of apparatus that officials at the scene told Rinehart included a gurney capable of handling 1,100 pounds and a vehicle large enough to transport the body. There were also eight to 10 firefighters, along with police personnel.

"That is just truly, truly sad that they had the option and didn't use it, Eines said. "They sat and thought about it and that's the best thing you could think of, a flatbed tow truck?"

The body removal service contracted by the coroner's office also told Rinehart that it has equipment to handle obese individuals, and that it moved the remains of an 800-pound person two weeks ago with a special gurney and two employees.

Friends said that when Smith fell out of bed two months ago, two firefighters were able to lift her back up by themselves.

Eines said she is just upset that Smith wasn't respected following her death.

"She was treated like an object out of a person," she said. "I do not think she was treated with any kind of dignity."

Lloyd declined a request for another interview on Friday, calling the story "old news."

6News has chosen not to show the video in its entirety because it contains images that may be disturbing to some.


http://www.theindychannel.com/news/19541042/detail.html


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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #42 on: May 22, 2009, 11:53:14 pm »
 >:( >:(

Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #43 on: May 23, 2009, 12:09:59 am »
I know it. I was appalled. They've been talking about it on the news. It's an absolute disgrace. Everyone here is shocked. I realize she presented a challenge, but.....

>:( >:(

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #44 on: May 23, 2009, 12:12:36 am »
I know it. I was appalled. They've been talking about it on the news. It's an absolute disgrace. Everyone here is shocked. I realize she presented a challenge, but.....

>:( >:(



as the story pointed out though there ARE other ways to handle this stuff...it isn't like it was a huge emergency, if they didn't have the right equiptment, they coulda waited!

Offline David In Indy

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Governor Daniels Pitches Special Session Budget
« Reply #45 on: June 01, 2009, 10:06:58 pm »
From The Indianapolis Star:

Daniels pitches special session budget

Every school district in Indiana still would see an increase in K-12 funding over the next two years, Gov. Mitch Daniels announced tonight in a brief television address outlining his latest budget proposal.

Daniels spoke for five minutes, giving a brief preview of a detailed budget his administration will present to a bi-partisan legislative committee Tuesday. The Indiana General Assembly is expected to convene in a special legislative session this month to pass a budget before the fiscal year ends June 30.


 
In a change of course, Daniels tonight proposed spending about $300 million of the state's $1.3 billion surplus.

Throughout the year, Daniels has resisted spending any of the state's savings while House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, and other Democrats have insisted some of the money should be spent to create jobs and prevent cuts in education spending.

Democrats also had adamantly opposed any reduction in education spending, a move Daniels said tonight would not happen.

"Public education, as well as student financial aid, would get a significant increase," he said. "Every school would receive more per student than it did this year."

The governor also said if state revenues exceeded expectations 50 percent of that money would be dedicated to schools while the other half would be placed into state savings.

Daniels' latest budget proposal comes after a new revenue forecast last week projected the state would receive $1 billion less through June 2011 than projections that were released just a month earlier. Indiana's revenues, he noted, are 8 percent below last year.

Still, Daniels used his address to stress that Indiana is in better shape than most other states.

"Despite the terrible national economy, Indiana remains in vastly better shape than most states, and any of our neighbors. We have a billion dollars in reserves and a AAA credit rating," Daniels said. "Everywhere else, any reserves are long gone. They are slashing education by as much as 10 to 15 percent, they're releasing convicts from prison early and worst of all when families are struggling, they're raising taxes."

Under new budget proposal, total state spending would be reduced by 2.5 percent.

"Many good ideas will have to wait," Daniels said. "Across state government, nothing, and I mean nothing, goes up. When your income drops by 8 percent, you can't inrease your spending, on anything."

More specific details on Daniels' budget trims are expected at 1 p.m. Tuesday when his administration will release its specific budget to a panel of state lawmakers. In his speech, the governor also laid down some boundaries for the legislature, which he is expected to call back into a special session June 15.

"As always, I am ready to compromise and cooperate with the legislature, up to a point. I'm willing to see us use about a quarter of our surplus, leaving a billion in reserve, but not a penny less," he said. "If legislators want to spend more on some favorite cause, that's fine as long as they offset it elsewhere. Add a dollar, cut a dollar. And, of course, no gimmicks, and no tax increases."

Read more about this story in tomorrow's Indianapolis Star.


http://www.indystar.com/article/20090601/NEWS0501/90601053/Daniels+pitches+special+session+budget


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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #46 on: June 01, 2009, 10:09:32 pm »
doesnt sound TOO bad... :(

Offline David In Indy

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Christian Band's Tour Bus in Deadly Crash
« Reply #47 on: August 10, 2009, 12:51:16 am »
Christian Band's Tour Bus in Deadly Crash

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Aug. 8 ) - The Christian rock band MercyMe canceled a show Saturday in the St. Louis area after its tour bus collided with a car in northeastern Indiana, killing two passengers in the car and the pregnant car driver's unborn baby.

No one in the band was seriously injured, sustaining what they described as "minor bumps and bruises." A news story on the crash and a photo of the damaged front of the bus were posted on the band's Web site Saturday.

"MercyMe would like to express their incredible heartache over this horrible accident," the band said in a statement. "They are praying for the families of all who this will affect, and are asking others to please pray as well."

Fort Wayne police Officer Liza Thomas said witnesses told police the bus was going through a green light about 1:15 a.m. when the car made a left turn in front of it. The band from the Dallas area had been in Fort Wayne for a Friday night show at Parkview Field.

"Their hearts are heavy," the band's statement said. "They appreciate the concern they have received from people all over the world."

Two passengers in the car, a male and female, were pronounced dead. Driver Kara Klinker, 18, of Fort Wayne, was in her third trimester of pregnancy and the baby died. Klinker was hospitalized Saturday in critical condition, Thomas said.

Authorities haven't released the names of those killed because their families haven't yet been notified, Thomas said.

Six Flags St. Louis in Eureka, Mo., issued a statement saying MercyMe's Saturday show had been rescheduled for Sept. 5. All concert tickets will be honored for the new date, it said.

The band expected other tour stops to go on as scheduled.

MercyMe, known for its 2001 single "I Can Only Imagine," started in 1994 in Greenville, Texas, where several band members live. In July, the band was ranked ninth on Billboard magazine's Top Christian Albums list for "10," (INO/Provident-Integrity).

MercyMe has sold more than 5 million records, won several Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, an American Music Award and been nominated for a Grammy.


http://news.aol.com/article/mercyme-tour-bus-accident-kills-2/608851


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Offline David In Indy

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Man Walks Away From Helicopter Crash
« Reply #48 on: August 10, 2009, 12:56:59 am »
From Indy6 News:

Man Walks Away From Helicopter Crash

MARTINSVILLE, Ind. -- The pilot of a helicopter that crashed Sunday in a bean field behind an apartment complex was able to walk away from the wreckage.

Police were called to the crash site, behind the Spring Lake apartment complex on Lake Shore Drive, at about 11:30 p.m.

Indiana State Police Sgt. Rich Myers said the helicopter's pilot, Mark McDaniel, 50, of Martinsville, met officers as he walked out of the wreckage.

Emergency medical responders examined McDaniel at the scene and released him.

McDaniel told police that he was southbound in the twin-seat helicopter performing auto rotations when he lost control and crashed into the field.

Witnesses told police they saw the helicopter go into a spin before the crash.

The Federal Aviation Administration was called in to investigate the crash.


http://www.theindychannel.com/news/20337088/detail.html

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American General Announces Q2 $200 Million Loss
« Reply #49 on: August 10, 2009, 01:01:49 am »
From Inside Indiana Business:


American General Announces $200 Million Loss in Q2

Evansville-based American General Finance Corp., a subsidiary of American International Group (NYSE: AIG), says it had a second quarter 2009 operating loss of $202 million, compared to an operating loss of $40 million in the same time last year. The company says it was impact by tight credit markets and declines in finance charges. AIG is reporting net income of $1.8 billion for the quarter.

(Click the link below to read the attached press release)

http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?id=37088

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Actor Danny Glover Joins Picket Line Strike in Terre Haute
« Reply #50 on: August 10, 2009, 01:06:43 am »
From Inside Indiana Business:


Bemis Expected to Meet This Week With Striking Union

InsideINdianaBusiness.com Report

Wisconsin-based Bemis Co. has said it will meet this week with the union representing striking workers at its Terre Haute facility, but with the help of a mediator from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Workers went on strike last month after rejecting a contract agreement, citing concerns about the use of temporary workers and health insurance. The striking Terre Haute workers were joined on the picket line Saturday by actor Danny Glover. Bemis has approximately 900 workers in Terre Haute, with about 740 union members.

(Click on the link below to read attached press release)


http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?id=37085






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Offline David In Indy

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Sunday's indiana State Fair "a Scorcher"
« Reply #51 on: August 10, 2009, 01:13:52 am »
"Stifling conditions"?? Um. Okay. I guess all the cool temperatures we've been enjoying recently has now made us complain about 90F temperatures. ::) :laugh:

We quickly forget it could be much MUCH worse... but whatever! :-\

I'm always sad to see the fair come around. Not that I have anything against the fair. It just means that summer will be coming to an end soon. :(


State Fair's Sunday A Scorcher

INDIANAPOLIS -- Sunday was a scorcher at the Indiana State Fair, but it wasn't as bad as some had feared.

Thousands of people packed the fairgrounds as the temperature soared to 90 degrees, combined with high humidity that made for stifling conditions.

There were plenty of ways Hoosiers could find a respite from the heat while still at the fairgrounds, 6News' Rick Hightower reported.

There are several air-conditioned buildings, plenty of misting fans and a lot of cool treats to beat the heat.

"A little sweaty, some red faces, but everybody seems to be hanging in there," said Jennifer Crecelius, a fairgoer from Southport.

Fairgoers seemed determined to not let the heat and humidity spoil their fun. Some were loading up on water, and others were finding shady spots to rest.

"We brought a lot of water from home to refill bottles up," said Angela Odem, of Greenwood. "We're still kind of hot now."

Misting fans were popular attractions, as were vendors with snow cones and lemon shakeups.

"It's actually so hot, I'm sweating -- something I don't do a lot of," said Kimberly Martin, of Indianapolis. "I'm using a napkin ... to kind of blot things off."

Vendors who were cooking sizzling hot food on an oppressively toasty day didn't get much of a break.

"You don't (stay cool)," said Norman McKay, who was cooking ribeye steaks. "Just years of practice -- you get used to it."

Fortunately, there was a bit of a breeze to accompany the heat, and that helped keep too many people from suffering from heat exhaustion.

About 125,000 visitors attended the first two days of the fair, about 60,000 each on Friday and Saturday.


http://www.theindychannel.com/weather/20337353/detail.html





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Crews Continue Search For Toddler Believed Drowned
« Reply #52 on: August 10, 2009, 01:19:39 am »

Crews Continue Search For Toddler Believed Drowned

Family Unable To Find Girl After Canoe Tips Over


EDINBURGH, Ind. -- Search crews combed the Driftwood River Sunday in search of a 2-year-old girl believed to have drowned on Saturday.

The girl was with her parents and a sister on a canoe trip when their canoe hit a logjam just before 7 p.m. and tipped over.

Three family members resurfaced, but the girl -- Megan McNair, of Indianapolis -- was not seen.

"At one point, the canoe did surface and was immediately sucked back into the logjam," said Bartholomew County sheriff's Lt. Rob Kittle.

Volunteers brought in excavating equipment Sunday to pull apart the logjam that divers think Megan is under, said Indiana Conservation Officer Angela Goldman. Other crews were using sonar to scour the river for McNair's body.

Divers spent three hours searching for McNair Saturday night, before darkness and swift current made the search too dangerous.

Goldman said the family was using its personal canoe and had experience with the situation. She did not know if the girl was wearing a life jacket.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/20333922/detail.html




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Hats off to the horse show winners

Hats and horses mixed last week at Zionsville's Wild Air Farms during the 32nd Traders Point Hunt Charity Horse Show and Country Fair.

The six-day event, which benefited the Riley Children's Foundation, took place Aug. 4 through Sunday.

Chris Kappler, Flemington, N.J., who won the Grand Prix of Indianapolis on a horse named VDL Oranta on Sunday.

Scott Lenkart, Delano, Minn., who won the Marty and Russell Fortune Jr. Memorial Grand Prix riding Un Prince on Friday.

The Sunday event offered a $60,000 purse, which is shared among its place winners, and the Friday event included a $30,000 purse.

At Thursday's garden party, two local ladies walked away from the VIP tent with accolades for their headwear.

Sandy Strickland, Zionsville, who served as the event's hospitality chairwoman, earned the "Most Outrageous" designation for her topper, which was covered in red tulle and adorned with doughnuts and packages of sweetener. Jean Kyle, Indianapolis, who wore a circa-1890s creation, earned this year's award for the "Most Glamorous" hat.

Lisa Sutphin served as the Garden Party's honorary chairwoman. Committee members included Barbara Bennett, Ellen Greenleaf, Jane Hawks, Ruth Hudson, Nancy McNealy, Jo Davis, Nela Swinehart and Joan Voyles. Elizabeth Johnson was chair of the show and its hostess.

They were jazzed at the Stutz

The Stutz building was the spot for a lot of jazz and socializing Saturday, when the Christamore House presented its first annual Jazz Extravaganza.

The event, which benefited Christamore House, brought dozens to the unique event space, which is decorated with owner Turner Woodard's car collection.

"Indianapolis has such a rich history in jazz and home-grown bands, so we wanted to celebrate that," said Shenia Suggs, event chair and vice president of the Christamore House board.

Food for thought (and Gleaners)

About $1,200 was raised for Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana Friday at the Stutz Art Space, when area artists Derek Powell and Kevin Smola opened their exhibition, "Power Over Poverty."

The show runs through Aug. 28 in the nonprofit visual art center on the first floor of the Stutz Business Center, 212 W. 10th St. It includes abstract oil paintings and drawings that play on concepts and stereotypes surrounding wealth and poverty.

At least one barrel of donated food also was collected on opening night, according to spokeswoman Jen Schmits Thomas.


http://www.indystar.com/article/20090811/NEWS07/908110363/1304/LOCAL

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Tahtsa, The World's Oldest Polar Bear Dies at Indy Zoo
« Reply #54 on: August 12, 2009, 11:26:09 pm »
 :'( :'( :'( :'(


Polar bear dies at Indianapolis Zoo

Indianapolis - Some sad news from the Indianapolis Zoo Wednesday.

Tahtsa, the zoo's 34-year-old polar bear, has died.

Tahtsa (pronounced TOTsa) was the oldest living polar bear known to scientists either in captivity or in the wild. Polar bears may live into their early to mid-twenties.

The zoo says Tahtsa had experienced the complications of aging over the past few years. On Wednesday, she was no longer able to stand and veterinarians made the decision to euthanize her. The zoo believes Tahtsa may have had a neurological problem. A necropsy may yield further results.

Tahtsa was born at the Denver Zoo in 1974. She went to the Louisville Zoo in March 1976 and came to the Indianapolis Zoo on loan on October 10, 2006.

The zoo says Tahtsa acclimated well to the polar bear exhibit. She was a favorite among the zoo staff, who say she placed her paws in footbaths for treatments, opened her mouth and presented her paw on cue, and even did some painting.

She was smaller than the zoo's other female polar bear, Tundra, who is 23 years old. The zoo says the two bears were not on exhibit together, and officials don't believe Tundra will be adversely affected by Tahtsa's death.

Endangered species

The zoo says the loss was not unexpected, but that any polar bear death is acutely felt because of the dwindling population of the animal in the wild. Biologists use a working figure of 20,000 to 25,000 bears with about sixty percent of those living in Canada.

The main threat to this dwindling population today is the loss of their icy habitat due to climate change. Polar bears depend on the sea ice for hunting, breeding, and in some cases to den. The summer ice loss in the Arctic is now equal to an area the size of Alaska, Texas, and the state of Washington combined.

The IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group has reclassified the polar bear as a vulnerable species on the IUCN's Red List of Endangered Species, and they reported that of the 19 subpopulations of polar bears, five are declining, five are stable, two are increasing, and seven have insufficient data on which to base a decision.

On May 14, 2008, the U.S. Department of the Interior reclassified the polar bear as a Threatened Species under the Endangered Species Act, citing concerns about sea ice loss. Canada and Russia list the polar bear as a species of concern.

(Info from Indy Zoo)


http://www.wthr.com/global/story.asp?s=10893002
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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #55 on: August 15, 2009, 01:44:26 am »
You all are welcome to comment in this thread if you wish. Maybe nobody is even reading it. :laugh:

Well in any event I will continue to post news items in here. ;D

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Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #56 on: August 15, 2009, 01:46:32 am »
The State Fair is currently underway right now. Tonight they had a late night balloon race. And the balloons were lit up! The sky was filled with big glowing hot air balloons. Very pretty! They didn't come over our way but I saw them on the news. I wish I could find some pictures of them to post. They looked beautiful!

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Offline David In Indy

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Motorcyclist Was Unconscious Before Fatal Crash
« Reply #57 on: August 15, 2009, 01:50:42 am »
I wonder how the hell he managed to keep his balance if he was unconscious? I don't understand that. And he wasn't wearing a helmet! >:(   Time and time again I see people rocketing up and down the highway with no helmets, no protective clothing, or anything on! Talk about tempting fate!


Witnesses: Motorcyclist was unconscious before deadly crash

Witnesses said an Illinois man killed Thursday night in a traffic accident appeared to be unconscious on his motorcycle before he crashed into a barrier on I-65, according to police.

Jonathan L. Dreymann, 47, Algonquin, Ill., died at Methodist Hospital about an hour after the 8:30 p.m. accident near the I-465 interchange on the Southside, the Indiana State Police said.

Police said today that eyewitnesses reported Dreymann looked to be unconscious atop the southbound 2003 Honda motorcycle when he traveled across all lanes of traffic and struck the right barrier wall.


The cause of the crash, and why Dreymann may have been unconscious, are under investigation, State Police Sergeant Michael Burns said.


Dreymann was not wearing a helmet. The impact of the crash ejected him from his motorcycle and he landed near the bank of a creek at the bottom of the embankment. He died at Methodist Hospital.


http://www.indystar.com/article/20090814/LOCAL/90814060/1195/LOCAL18






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Offline David In Indy

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Republic Airways To Remain in Indianapolis
« Reply #58 on: August 15, 2009, 01:57:43 am »

Republic Airways To Stay In Indy

1,300 Jobs Will Stay, Could Grow

INDIANAPOLIS -- The newly expanded Republic Airways and its 1,300 jobs are staying in Indianapolis, the company's chief executive officer said Friday.

Republic won the bid to take over bankrupt Frontier Airlines on Thursday, raising some concerns that the combined company would move to Frontier's Denver headquarters, 6News' Norman Cox reported.

The company issued a statement Friday morning saying, "We don't have any preconceived notion. The job functions will be performed where they make the most sense and where they can be done the most efficiently. We're still evaluating all the moving parts."

But when Republic CEO Bryan Bedford returned from closing the deal in New York, he told 6News that the company will stay in Indianapolis.

"We're getting a lot of courtship going on right now … (but) we're not looking for a corporate or a government handout to retain our headquarters here in Indianapolis," he said. "That's probably not the smartest thing to say, but we like living here. The city's been good to us. We'd like to figure out a way to be a larger part of the Indianapolis community."

Bedford said a few office jobs might move around, but the 1,300 pilots, flight attendants and mechanics in Indianapolis will not leave.

He said the number of jobs will also likely grow as Republic seeks to add more locally based flights.


http://www.theindychannel.com/money/20403581/detail.html





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Offline David In Indy

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Scenes From The State Fair
« Reply #59 on: August 15, 2009, 02:53:45 am »
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Offline David In Indy

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Glowing Balloons at the State Fair
« Reply #60 on: August 16, 2009, 12:41:28 am »
Here's a picture of those glowing balloons I mentioned earlier...





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Offline David In Indy

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Two Killed in Greene County Air Crash
« Reply #61 on: August 26, 2009, 01:14:05 am »

2 Men Killed In Ultralight Crash

BLOOMFIELD, Ind. -- Two men were killed Tuesday evening in an ultralight crash in Greene County, state police said.

The plane crashed at 6:15 p.m. into a soybean field just south of the Shawnee Field grass airstrip in Greene County's Fairplay Township, said Indiana State Police Sgt. Joe Watts.

Witnesses said the ultralight was southbound over the airfield when the pilot attempted a left turn to make a northbound approach, but struck the ground, causing the aircraft to crash.

Pilot David C. Johnson, 68, of Linton, and rear passenger Mark E. Muzii, 42, of Bloomington, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Autopsies are scheduled for Wednesday morning at Regional Hospital in Terre Haute.


http://www.theindychannel.com/news/20554510/detail.html



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Offline David In Indy

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Indy Man Wanted in Serial Bank Robberies Across the South
« Reply #62 on: August 28, 2009, 12:31:05 am »
I saw this on CNN. The man is too stupid to even put a mask on. I had no idea he was from Indianapolis. It figures though. We have all the "winners" here. :-\

Click on the link below to see this loser "pose" for the bank cameras. They couldn't have gotten a better picture of him if he'd gone to a Sears Portrait Studio. ::)


Indianapolis man wanted in serial bank robberies


An Indianapolis man is wanted by the FBI for a string of robberies across four states. Police say he does not wear a mask in the robberies and he holds his pistol sideways during the hold-ups.

Police say Chad Schaffner, 36, is behind bank robberies in Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Schaffner has been in and out of the state prison system for years. His last release was December 2008.

The FBI released bank surveillance photos from multiple robberies, and police believe Schaffner is their suspect.

"It's really uncommon to just go into a bank and show his face like he had," said Kevin Keithley, FBI special agent.

Police say Schaffner did just that in ten different bank robberies starting in Louisville, Kentucky, in May, then North Carolina, South Carolina and then two robberies in Tennessee just last week.

Now FBI agents want the Indiana man off the streets. They're using digital billboards across eight southern states hoping someone will recognize him.

"What it's not showing is the handgun in his right hand, pointed directly at the victim teller. It's also not showing the very distinctive tattoos all up and down both forearms," said Keithley.

While there have been no injuries from the robberies, the FBI says Schaffner is extremely dangerous. The pictures are evidence of that.

"Put the gun in the faces of tellers, threatened to use the gun against them and threaten violence against the bank itself. So certainly, we need to get this guy in custody before he does harm to someone," said Keithley.

Chad Schaffner is about 5'10" and weighs 175 pounds. He has reddish-brown hair, a goatee and several tattoos on both forearms. If you see him, call police.


http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=11006020


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Offline David In Indy

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9 Year Old Boy Leads Police on Car Chase
« Reply #63 on: August 31, 2009, 01:54:24 am »


9-year-old leads police on car chase

Greenfield, Ind. (WISH) - Greenfield Police thought they were responding to a call about a drunk driver late Saturday night. The driver didn't stop and it soon turned into a chase. Officers even had to call for back up from several agencies.

The entire incident was caught on the dashboard camera inside an officer's car. But it was what they found behind the wheel surprised all of them.

The 911 call came in at about 11:30 Saturday night referring to a suspected drunk driver on the streets of a Greenfield subdivision.

When the officer pulled up behind the silver Chevy Aveo he saw the car swerving in and out of its lane.

"You can see erratic driving from the driver. Initiates a traffic stop and at that point the car doesn't stop," explained Maj. Derek Towle with the Greenfield Police department.

Instead, there were times when the driver sped up.

"We have speeds of anywhere from around 35, 40 miles an hour up to almost 80 miles an hour at one point," Maj. Towle said.

The Chevy even pulled onto US 40 headed the wrong way on the highway.

It wasn't until officers used a stop strip that the driver finally swerved into a ditch and drove into a field about two miles from Knightstown.

Officers surrounded the car they didn't expect the driver to be 4 feet 3 inches tall, weighing only 62 pounds.

"I think they were very surprised because you look at the driving behavior of it and it indicates a complete intoxicated driver," said Maj. Towle.

But it wasn't a drunk driver, it was a nine-year-old boy who police say stole his mother's car to run away from home.

"He was mad at his mom and dad because mom and dad had told him that he had to come in from playing at about 8 p.m.," Maj. Towle said.

Police arrested the boy and took him to a local hospital for evaluation. He was not hurt.

http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/local/east_central/9_year_old_leads_police_on_car_chase_20090830



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Offline David In Indy

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Suspicious Powder Mailed to Near Westside Firm
« Reply #64 on: August 31, 2009, 04:26:34 pm »


Hazmat team called to Near Westside firm

Mail sent to a Near Westside business that contained a white powder turned out to contain a harmless enzyme.


After the Indianapolis Fire Department’s hazardous materials unit was called, firefighters ran tests on the powder and learned it was trypsin, a digestive amino acid that is used in baby food.

The powder was in a scrap of foil in an envelope delivered to Eskew Enterprises, 1447 N. Harding St., according to Rita Reith, fire department spokeswoman. When the envelope was opened around 1:30 p.m. and the powder was discovered, the owners evacuated the building and called for help.

Firefighters arrived, donned protective suits and checked the powder, learning around 3 p.m. that there was no risk.

Postal inspectors will be trying to determine the origin of the mail.


http://www.indystar.com/article/20090831/LOCAL/90831058






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Offline David In Indy

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Whirlpool Closing Evansville Plant - 1,100 Jobs Headed to Mexico
« Reply #65 on: August 31, 2009, 09:38:49 pm »


Whirlpool will close plant in Evansville
1,100 to lose jobs as refrigerator work heads for Mexico

Indiana will lose another industrial icon next year when Whirlpool closes its Evansville refrigerator plant, wiping out 1,100 jobs.

Known a half-century ago as the world refrigerator capital, Evansville will see its last remaining refrigerator plant close next summer when Whirlpool moves production to Mexico.

The Michigan manufacturer announced the closing Friday, saying it also will move assembly of ice makers from Evansville to an undetermined location.

"We had to take a look at which plant we could get the best cost position in, and because top-mount refrigerators are not in the demand that they used to be and they're more of a commodity item, Mexico offers us the best cost platform to continue to produce (them)," Whirlpool spokeswoman Jill Saletta said.

Losing the Whirlpool line will be a shock to Indiana's southwest corner, an area that had weathered the recession with relatively few industrial job losses compared to the state as a whole.

By July, the Evansville area had lost 4,200 factory jobs, or about 13 percent of its manufacturing work force, since the recession began in December 2007.

In contrast, the state has shed 110,000 -- or 20 percent -- of the 545,300 industrial jobs in place when the recession began.

"We're talking about a dramatic impact on the economy and the work force," Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel said. "Our job is to try to find ways to absorb these folks into other positions in the economy."

July's jobless rate in Evansville and Vanderburgh County stood at 8.2 percent, compared with 10.6 percent statewide.

Hundreds of offices, shops, stores and plants in Indiana have let go of workers, but Whirlpool's layoff would be one of the largest of the recession.

By closing a plant employing 1,100 people, Whirlpool's would rank as the second-largest shutdown or layoff announced this year in Indiana.

In July, Navistar closed its Indianapolis diesel engine plant, wiping out 1,336 jobs. Other major job losses include 985 temporary layoffs by Caterpillar in Lafayette this week, 978 temporary layoffs by ArcelorMittal at East Chicago last month and 696 temporary layoffs by Cummins in Walesboro in May.

The largest single layoff of this recession was the shutdown of Monaco Coach's recreation vehicle plants in Elkhart and Nappanee, which idled 1,430 people in September, state reports show.

City officials said they hope to keep Whirlpool's refrigeration product development center, but Whirlpool said it has not decided the fate of the center's 300 employees. It expects to in the "near future." Last year, Whirlpool cut 120 jobs at the Evansville plant.

Its closing fits into Whirlpool's bigger plan of reducing excess capacity that it built from 2004 to 2007, said Brian Sozzi, an analyst with Wall Street Strategies.

Refrigerator plants run by Sunbeam, Seeger, Serval and International Harvester in the late 1940s gave Evansville the reputation of being the Refrigerator Capital of the World, noted the Evansville Courier & Press.

Serval was gone and Harvester had left the refrigerator business by the time Whirlpool and Seeger merged in 1955. But by then, Whirlpool was on the way to employing what would be a peak of 10,000 workers in the city.


http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009908290351


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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #66 on: August 31, 2009, 09:52:28 pm »
Shit, that's hard. I'm sorry to hear this, David.  :(
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #67 on: August 31, 2009, 10:33:00 pm »
Shit, that's hard. I'm sorry to hear this, David.  :(

Yeah, it's a beeyotch Jeff. That Whirlpool plant has been there a long time. It's one of the first things you pass as you come into Evansville on 41. I have som friends that work at that Whirlpool plant. I'll call them and find out what they are planning to do now. Evansville isn't really very big at all - about 150,000 people, so that's a lot of jobs for a city its size. :-\

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Offline David In Indy

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Indiana's Bobcat Population Rises Sharply
« Reply #68 on: September 09, 2009, 01:48:54 pm »

Wildlife officials closely watching bobcat population
Emily Longnecker/Eyewitness News

Columbus - Hoosiers might never see or run into one, but wildlife experts say Indiana's bobcat population is growing quickly.

"They're an invisible animal," says Kathy Hershey with Utopia Wildlife Rehab in Bartholomew County. "They're there. They're minding their own business and they have a function."

Hershey says she knows she's got a bobcat living nearby.

"I heard this noise and I absolutely could not figure out what it was and went to the Internet and listened to bobcats," she said.

But just how many are in the state is hard to tell. The Department of Natural Resources says its been tracking bobcats with electronic collars. DNR officers say even with the growing population, there have been zero problems reported. That means no attacks on humans, no attacks on pets.

"Maybe if you get a chance to take a picture, take a picture, but don't bother the bobcat. Let them do their thing and they won't bother you," advises Tim Rose from Columbus.

Rose would know. He ran into a bobcat a few years ago near the Columbus city limits. The animal got stuck in a trap Rose had set for coyotes.

"I can't describe the sound it was making but it was very aggressive, but it was cornered," describes Rose.

Once Rose and DNR officers set the animal free, Rose says he disappeared and never looked back.

"He was gone," added Rose.

According to the DNR, bobcats are protected by state law and that means if one decides that your backyard is its new home, there's nothing you can do. It's illegal to trap or kill a bob cat.

"They're not a threat to us," adds Hershey.

She also hopes humans won't pose a threat to the bobcats.


http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=11095653





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Offline David In Indy

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Disney's "Christmas Carol" Train Arrives in Indiana
« Reply #69 on: September 09, 2009, 01:54:21 pm »
Disney train arrives in Bargersville

Bargersville - Parents and kids are lining up to get a closer look at Disney's "Christmas Carol" promotional train in Bargersville today.

The train, which is a first-of-its-kind marketing tool by Disney, is making its only stop in Indiana Wednesday.

The train arrived in Bargersville Tuesday.  It's part of a 40-city, 36-state free interactive tour to promote the November release of "A Christmas Carol" starring Jim Carrey.

"When you can actually see the soundstage that they use and motion capture technology, when you can do your own face morphing and take your face and morph it into a character, it leaves a greater impact. Hopefully they'll all go see the movie on November 6th. Either way, though, it's a really great thing that we're able to provide a free experience in 40 cities all across the country," said Nicole Rivelli, tour spokesperson.

The tour features four custom-designed vintage rail cars. It includes a 3-D digital theater where you can watch a preview of the movie, and a Charles Dickens museum.

The train will be at 24 North Main Street in Bargersville Wednesday from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm.


http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=11092061


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Offline David In Indy

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Holy Swiss Cheese - That Dairy Farm STINKS!
« Reply #70 on: September 10, 2009, 09:26:27 pm »
Dude! Your farm smell like SHIT!  :P


From Nuvo -

Downwind of the big dairy farm
Eric Stickdorn fights back against industrial agriculture

To those who were fortunate enough to be upwind of Samuel Lantz’s dairy farm — in the corporate offices of an industrial livestock company, perhaps, or in certain corners of the Indiana State House — the events of autumn 2003 would not have raised many eyebrows. Samuel Lantz did what farmers all over Indiana do every year: He put up a barn, populated it with a herd of dairy cattle, and began milking.

It should also be noted that, in the later judgment of the good officials of both Wayne County and the state of Indiana, nothing about Lantz’ dairy farm violated a single one of the several government ordinances, laws or regulations enacted to protect the overall welfare of a farm’s neighbors. The design of the 168-foot hoop barn Lantz set up for his cattle was standard for such operations, as was the manure disposal system, in which Lantz used a power washer to wash the manure of roughly 90 cows down sloped floors to the barn’s interior pits, creating a slurry, which ran out of the barn and into a larger, uncovered manure pit.

Nor did Lantz’ choice of where to site that liquid manure pit violate any laws or rules. As the owner of a farm, he was free under Indiana law to construct the pit, euphemistically known in the industry as a “lagoon,” anywhere on his property he saw fit. As it turned out, according to filings from later legal proceedings, he built it 50 feet wide and eight feet deep — large enough to hold manure for just a month before it had to be stirred and emptied. And he built it approximately 246 feet west of his property line, less than 600 feet west of the home of his neighbors, Eric and Lisa Stickdorn.

According to the Purdue Extension–a respected statewide source of technical advice on modern agricultural methods–a typical mature dairy cow weighing 1,400 pounds, when well-fed, generates approximately two cubic feet of feces and urine per day. Add the water to power-wash that waste to its storage lagoon and you get 2.5 cubic feet per cow per day. For a herd of 90 cows, that’s about eight cubic yards and eight tons of manure — every day of the year.

Despite the fact that Lantz’ decisions about how to site and operate the various buildings and structures of his confinement dairy operation violated no rules or regulations of the state of Indiana, Lantz’ manure lagoon now stood 15 feet uphill from the Stickdorns’ 19th-century farmhouse. Equally significant, the prevailing winds in the area ensured that, more often than not, the Lantz’ manure lagoon sat directly upwind of where the Stickdorns worked, slept and lived.

Beginning on Oct. 14, 2003, Lantz brought in the cows, the cows did what cows do, and Lantz’ lagoon began filling. Before long Lantz’ lagoon was full of a slurry of cow manure. Lantz then agitated the manure and loaded the slurry into a manure wagon, which resembled a miniature tanker truck pulled by horses, and he spread it in brown smears on his then-fallow corn fields, which were also uphill and generally upwind from the Stickdorns.

“As soon as the livestock were there, we noticed a strong odor we had never noticed before,” Eric Stickdorn says. And so began a trial unlike anything the Stickdorns had ever endured.

Restoring the land

On a warm August day at the Stickdorn’s farm, Eric Stickdorn reaches down, tears off a few blades of grass from the back lawn of their farmhouse, and tosses them in the air. A light breeze blows the grass at an angle toward the neighboring dairy. “That’s pretty much south, maybe a little southeast,” Stickdorn says. It’s a good day. “That’s why we’re not smelling anything,” he explains.

At 49, Eric Stickdorn stands six foot three, with an unlined face and a mane of white hair; his mellifluous voice and gentle manner belie his physical presence. His wife, Lisa, is slim with thick, shoulder-length brown hair, a cautious demeanor and a love for animals.

Both Eric and Lisa Stickdorn come from rural backgrounds—Eric from north of Columbus, Ohio, and Lisa from outside of South Bend — and in 1989, a few years after they married, they decided to pursue a long-time dream of farming. They bought a small farm in Hancock County, which was close enough to Indianapolis for Eric to commute to his full-time job there as an electrical engineer (which he still holds), but far enough out that they could keep a few horses, including an Arabian Quarter horse cross named Sam that Lisa had ridden since she was a teenager.

Soon they bought a couple of cattle from one neighbor, some sheep from another, then a few more sheep at the sale barn, then some chickens at an auction. The Stickdorns wanted to raise their animals naturally and humanely. Their animals reproduced. “As naïve as we were, we thought if you had more livestock, you should have a bigger farm,” Eric Stickdorn says. So in 1994 they sold their farm in Hancock County and bought a spent 120-acre grain farm a few dozen miles east in Wayne County, near the Henry County line.

At the edge of his yard, Eric Stickdorn and I gaze over one of the couple’s pastures, its grass still green from the cool, wet summer, its uneven ground speckled white with Queen Anne’s lace. In the field lie a patch of prairie grass, five round bales of hay, and a nursery of juvenile trees, both evergreens and hardwoods, overdue to be transplanted. Stickdorn describes the area’s original ecosystem — forest with patches of prairie grass that bison grazed on–as a complex ecosystem that maintained the land’s fertility. That’s his model for the pasture, for his efforts to revive the fertility of his spent farmland.

Stickdorn waxes enthusiastic about the web of life in that bygone ecosystem, how the bison would graze, defecate on the grass, stomp manure into the soil; how dung beetles would burrow into buffalo pies, drawing manure and more nutrients into the soil. All this, along with thatch from the ungrazed grass, made the ground richer and better able to soak up rain water as well, preventing runoff and erosion. “It’s great recycling, and it’s cheap! There’s no work involved in it. The animals and the little bugs do all the work, it constantly improves the soil, and it doesn’t pollute,” he says.

As the Stickdorns describe it, their first decade at the farm was full of hard work, yet almost idyllic. They grazed their sheep, which numbered near 100 at one point, and their cattle, on the reviving land. Eric talked to other farmers, read widely in farm and conservation publications, and experimented, and the couple painstakingly bred a local breed of Black Angus cattle that fatten efficiently while eating only grass. Lisa tended the livestock — feeding sheep and cattle, tossing around square bales and wrestling reluctant sheep, birthing lambs and calves.

They cooked often — brownies at night were a favorite — and had friends and neighbors over to visit. Their extended family would often visit and stay for the weekend. “Every day the air was fresh and made you feel good,” Eric says.

A cloud of confusion

Within a month after the odor from Samuel Lantz’ cattle began to permeate the Stickdorn’s house in October 2003, both Eric and Lisa Stickdorn developed some new and disturbing symptoms. “We began to experience a lot of coughing and had fluid in our lungs,” Eric says. “We started having mysterious joint and tendon pains. We had [earaches] and headaches. We had really bad shortness of breath.”

A fatigue crept over Lisa. She’d been exercising hard on top of her farm work. “I thought I just overdid it. I quit exercising and still felt really, really tired. I couldn’t figure it out.”

She developed a recurring sinus infection. She began feeling nauseated every morning, then she’d vomit; her symptoms led her to call in sick to her job at the community college. She knew she wasn’t pregnant, so she couldn’t understand what was going on. “It was like I caught the flu, except it was just not going away,” she recalls. Finally, she started dragging herself to work. “Sick as I felt, a couple of hours after being at work, I started feeling better, and by the end of the day I felt pretty normal again. Then we’d come home here at night and the whole cycle would start all over again. That’s when it started hitting me that it was here that was making me sick.”

As fall turned to winter, Lantz applied manure to his fields, even when they were frozen or covered with snow, Eric Stickdorn says. If he’d had 300 or more head of cattle, the level that triggers state water-pollution regulation of confined feeding operations, such a practice would have been prohibited because manure that sits on frozen or saturated ground runs off easily. The Stickdorns have two streams on their property, both of which ran from Lantz’ land, and by Eric Stickdorn’s account they regularly ran brown and foamy.

Then February 2004 came around. “That’s when what I call the curtain of death came across our farm,” Eric recalls. He struggles for words to describe the stench. “It’s like there’s an overflowing port-a-john inside our house,” he says. And, “It is, just literally, run for your life.”

Both Eric and Lisa developed a painful burning of the mouth. “My tongue was like millions of pins and needles, or like scalding my mouth with hot coffee,” Eric recalls. “Sometimes it was so bad it would make my teeth and cheeks hurt.” Both Eric and Lisa’s lungs began to burn.

They consulted doctors, starting with their general practitioner, who referred them to a respiratory specialist for their recurrent coughs, to another specialist for blood tests. There were tests for diabetes, for lung function. The doctors didn’t know what was wrong. The general practitioner did deduce something important, though. He told them to move out of their home.

They wouldn’t. They needed to take care of the cattle, the chickens, their cats, their property. Then Eric developed severe, bleeding eczema. “There was insane itching. You feel like you want to rip the flesh from your bones. It oozed, and there was running pus and blood.” He began to lose his memory, and began to carry around a little 3X5 notebook in his shirt pocket to jot things down, a habit he continues to this day. Other symptoms developed. “We smelled manure on our breath, and coming out of the palms of our hands” he recalls. “Everywhere you go, you stink.”

As winter turned to spring, their house had soaked up so much stench that they were forced to get creative. They plunked mattresses and sleeping bags on their back porch for more than three weeks in April, then, when that didn’t work, moved them to the bed of their pickup truck out in the driveway. “We wanted to stay here so bad,” Eric says. But the stench returned regularly. After barely sleeping for six weeks straight — “people at work said I looked like a dead man,” Eric recalls—their pastor offered to let them sleep in the basement of their church, the Locust Grove Church of the Brethren in New Castle.

On June 1, 2004, nine months after Lantz had moved his cattle in, Eric and Lisa Stickdorn took their pastor up on his offer. They saw it as a temporary retreat.

The smell of money

In 2004 Mitch Daniels smelled opportunity — economic and political. Hogs had long been part of Indiana farm life, but their numbers were down statewide. Meanwhile leading hog producing companies were looking to expand to new areas, in part because of a moratorium on large new livestock facilities called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in North Carolina, one of the nation’s leading hog producers. In CAFOs and their slightly smaller cousins, confined feeding operations (CFOs), animals are confined in pens their whole lives. Daniels, then a gubernatorial candidate, promised to double pork production in the state. Once elected, he “welcomed the industry with open arms,” says Bouton Quinn of the Hoosier Chapter of the Sierra Club, who tracks the environmental impact of the state’s industrial livestock operations.

Daniels has continued to promote the livestock industry, and industry in general. “We think the livestock production sector is a great economic driver for the state,” says Sarah Simpson, assistant director for regulatory affairs at the Indiana State Department of Agriculture.

To help encourage livestock production in Indiana, in 2005 Daniels signed an amendment to the state’s Right to Farm law, sponsored by a state legislator who’d been a hog farmer. The amendment limits a farm’s neighbors from filing nuisance lawsuits against farms of any size. He discouraged counties from adopting regulations on CFOs or CAFOs that were more stringent than the state’s. Shortly after he was elected, he told Indiana Department of Environmental Management employees that their top priority should be to help businesses create new jobs in Indiana, according to an Associated Press report: "Nowhere can a bigger difference be made more swiftly than by the people in this room," Daniels said.

Since Samuel Lantz kept about 90 cattle on his farm, significantly below the 300 head of cattle that triggers the state to designate a dairy as a confined feeding operation, the only rules that applied to Lantz’ operation were state laws that keep any citizen from polluting and the local ordinances that prohibit anyone from becoming a nuisance to his neighbor.

Lantz, who lived on his farm with his wife Mattie and their four children, says, “We were just there as a family farm, trying to make a living.”

Country perfume

As bacteria in an animal’s intestines and in manure break down the protein in animal feed, they release a cocktail of chemicals, many of which can waft through the air to our nostrils, creating the odor known by certain rural residents as “country perfume.” Farmers and their families have tolerated the smell of manure for as long as they’ve raised livestock. But as today’s industrial farming methods have concentrated large numbers of animals into confined pens, they’ve also concentrated the resulting waste and fumes.

Those fumes include a blend of air pollutants, including ammonia, volatile organic chemicals and hydrogen sulfide that, depending on the dose, can be harmful or toxic. The most dangerous of these is hydrogen sulfide, which creates the familiar rotten-egg smell, says Neil Carman, a chemist who once did safety inspections of oil refineries and cattle feedlots for the state of Texas, and now directs the clean air program of the Texas chapter of the Sierra Club. Hydrogen sulfide targets tissues that are exposed to air — eyes, nose and throat — and those that require a lot of energy, such as the lungs, heart and brain. “It’s a very nasty pollutant,” Carman says.

In 2003, Kaye Kilburn, a prominent toxicologist formerly with the University of Southern California School of Medicine, reported a study comparing specific brain functions in 19 patients exposed to sub-lethal hydrogen sulfide levels with 202 patients who weren’t. The exposed patients experienced dizziness and poorer balance, increased reaction time, insomnia, mood alterations, memory damage and overpowering fatigue.

When manure slurry in lagoons is agitated prior to spreading, large amounts of hydrogen sulfide can be rapidly released, according to an extensive and rigorously vetted report released in April by the Pew Commission on Indusrial Farm Animal Production. “Almost every year people who work on farms have gone into manure pits and died” from hydrogen sulfide poisoning, Indra Frank, an Indianapolis pathologist and public health specialist, says. A 1995 study of people living near North Carolina CAFOs found more depression, anger, fatigue and confusion than in those who lived several miles farther away.

In large confinement operations, where huge numbers of chickens, hogs and cattle are crowded into tight quarters, infection spreads easily, and many of the livestock are treated with low doses of antibiotics, which can prevent infections from spreading as well as boosting the efficiency with which the animals put on weight. Between 30 and 70 percent of antibiotics used in this country are used in livestock, including many that are also used to treat human infections. Several studies have traced antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria back to the farm, including Campylobacter and Salmonella. One strain, methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus, commonly known as MRSA (pronounced "mursa"), is particularly dangerous. MRSA kills 18,000 Americans a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Most of them are infected in hospitals, but in recent years the microbe has begun causing infections, which are often mistaken at first for spider bites, in the community.

In January, microbiologist Tara Smith of the University of Iowa reported in the journal PLoS One that a MRSA strain called ST398, thought to be unique to swine in this country, showed up in workers in Illinois and Iowa hog CAFOs. Microbiologist Lance Price of TGen, an Arizona research institute, has published several studies linking antibiotic-resistant bacteria in livestock with resistant infections in people, and testified in Congress and in front of the Indiana Senate. He says that antibiotic use in CAFOs “have been a driving force for resistance in the human community.”

Fumes and runoff

If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. (Matthew 18:15).

The Bible, Eric Stickdorn believed, offered all the guidance he needed to live. He and Lisa had been baptized in 2002 in the swimming pool of some friends, and were now evangelical; they drew on their faith to make it through their ordeal. They tried talking with Lantz, went before Lantz’ Amish church and that community’s elders, but could come to no agreement.

They moved from the church basement to a camper, lent by their pastor, and from June through September 2004, lived in a campground just a few miles from their home. Each day they’d return to do farm chores, dreaming of the day they’d move back.

Eric began educating himself on the law. The previous spring, when “the stream out front looked like a root beer float,” he says, he called the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for the first time. IDEM wrote Lantz a notice of violation, but the stench and pollution continued. In September 2004, he discovered another manure spill, when a second stream on his farm “looked as black as licorice.”

Under Indiana water pollution regulations, animal feeding operations with more than 300 cattle are prohibited from applying manure to frozen or snow-covered ground to prevent runoff into ditches and streams. However, if smaller operations like Lantz’ dairy violate water pollution laws, they become subject to the same rules.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management ordered as much, and Lantz then says he did as ordered, redirecting the waste stream from his milking parlor (the section of his barn where cows are milked) to the manure pit rather than into a drainage pipe called a field tile that emptied into one of the streams. But he did not cover the manure lagoon to contain the odors, and he kept emptying the lagoon once a month and applying manure to fields near the Stickdorns. He also appealed the decision to the Office of Environmental Adjudication, an administrative court that handles appeals of IDEM’s decisions. While that appeal was in process, he sold the dairy in 2005 to another member of the local Amish community, a farmer named Elam Zook.

Lantz says he worked in good faith, including checking out covers to the lagoon, but was told by an engineer that in his lagoon they were impractical. “We had all kinds of inspectors on the farm,” Lantz told NUVO. “We got tired of it and we sold the farm and got out of it.” But Kim Ferraro of the Legal Environmental Aid Foundation (LEAF) of Indiana, Inc., an environmental attorney who now represents the Stickdorns, says that the sale “was done to preserve the operation in its current form.”

In 2005, Zook, the new owner, appealed IDEM’s cleanup order to the Office of Environmental Adjudication, an ostensibly independent administrative court linked to IDEM where an environmental law judge hears appeals of IDEM rulings. As a new owner and small family farmer, he argued, the ruling shouldn’t apply to him. In 2006, a hearing was held, and nine months later the judge ruled for Zook.

Nothing changed, and the stench and manure spills continued. The Stickdorn’s streams would run brown, Eric Stickdorn says, and several times a swale on their back lawn was a foot deep with “sewer water.” IDEM would sometimes send an inspector, sometimes not. When they did come, “sometimes they’d go to the wrong place, or they’d take a real quick reading and say, 'oh, everything’s fine,'” he recalls. Once he came upon an inspector taking samples from the wrong stream; the inspector hadn’t asked him where the spill was.

Max Michael, the agency’s head of emergency management, met with Eric at his house with three other IDEM employees. Stickdorn, following Biblical advice, brought a witness, Jim Webb, a New Castle grain farmer, neighbor, and friend. Michael proposed to send inspectors only if three conditions were met: a fish kill, a quarter mile of foam from the pollution, and manure-laden water running across Stickdorn’s 120-acre property and onto someone else’s. Stickdorn refused. “It was flat ridiculous,” Webb tells NUVO. “You shouldn’t have to let manure get into a running stream and across your property. [IDEM] is there to control stuff like this, and they’re not doing their job.”

IDEM responded in a statement that “all staff who have been contacted by Mr. Stickdorn, including Mr. Michael, have worked to respond appropriately to his concerns and ensure that the agency is responding appropriately to investigate potential spills and environmental impacts.” IDEM added that its staff had visited the site 13 times and “have not seen evidence of spills or environmental impacts to date.”

Across the state, more and more neighbors of large dairies and swine farms have begun complaining about the environmental impacts of CFOs and CAFOs, including air pollution, dead animal parts showing up on their property, and manure spills. A large manure lagoon of a defunct CAFO run by Muncie Sow Unit, sat open to the elements for three years, says Barbara Cox, a farmer, retired nurse and grandmother who runs Indiana CAFO Watch, a grass-roots group of rural residents that fights industrial livestock’s harmful impacts.

In May, the Muncie Star reported that unknown people had used earth moving equipment to breach the earthen wall of a large manure lagoon of a defunct CAFO run by Muncie Sow Unit, spilling an estimated 4 to 5 million gallons of raw manure into a ditch that fed into the Mississinewa River, killing more than 1,000 fish. (Bruce Palin, assistant commissioner for IDEM’s Office of Land Quality, argues that in that case “We were dealing with a responsible party who was not very cooperative, and that forced us to go through various legal actions to try to get compliance.”)

In Randolph County, about 15 miles from the Stickdorns, a large dairy CAFO called Union-Go has experienced numerous environmental problems, including failing to maintain the required two feet of space between the liquid manure level and the top of the lagoon, at least two manure spills into nearby creeks, and huge bubbles in the plastic liner that’s supposed to sit underneath the lagoon, protecting the groundwater from contamination.

Allen Hutchison, who farms corn, beans and raises draft ponies adjacent to Union-Go, tells NUVO that his house stinks so bad sometimes that his daughter can no longer bring his granddaughter to visit, because her asthma is exacerbated by the bad air. And when the dairy spilled so much manure into the creek that ran through his property that it turned a solid brown, an IDEM inspector watched all day as Union-Go workers pumped manure out of the ditch and into a tanker truck to recover it. Hutchison wanted the inspector to sample and test the water in his ditch. “I asked him three times to test the water and he never did do it," Hutchison says. But he does pay to test his own well water, which he and his wife drink from.

IDEM has responded to Union-Go’s problems, including their failing manure lagoon, in a way. They’ve approved plans for the dairy to expand to accommodate 1,975 cows — an increase of about 300 animals, and to build a new manure lagoon.

IDEM's Palin, who oversees most environmental regulation of livestock operations, says that environmental regulation of CFOs and CAFOs is stringent. “From my perspective, our state program is much more stringent and protective than the federal program,” and the rules are rigorously enforced, Palin says.

But are the rules what they could be? Minnesota and Colorado have air pollution rules for CAFOs that might have prevented an ongoing situation like the Stickdorns experienced, Indiana doesn’t, says Quinn, of the Sierra Club, “because they say we don’t have the science to say this level is safe and others are not safe.” The U.S. EPA plans to promulgate federal air pollution regulations for CAFOs, but only after an air quality study run by a Purdue scientist is completed, which could take several years.

Barbara Cox of Indiana CAFO Watch pushes at the Indiana State House for tighter state laws. Such bills have been introduced by several state representatives and have passed the House. They include proposals for a three-year-moratorium on CFOs and CAFOs until better regulations are in place; proposals requiring such operations to be set back between half a mile and two miles from schools, rivers, reservoirs and state parks, and proposals for performance bonds that would require owners to put up the money to cover damage from possible manure spills. In most cases they passed the House, were referred to the Energy and Environment Committee in the Senate, which is chaired by Senator Beverly Gard (R-Greenfield). This year Gard permitted a vote on her own CFO and CAFO bill, which required, for the first time, that neighbors of a proposed CFO or CAFO operation be notified and that operators like Muncie Sow Unit with a bad track record not be licensed. But Gard has blocked each of the stronger bills from coming to a vote, Cox says. Gard did not return a call from NUVO seeking comment.

The struggle continues

All things work together for good for them that love God. (Romans 8:28).

Eric needed to believe that verse, hold it close to his heart, witness how it applied to his life. “We believe that when we go through trials and tribulations, that God has a reason,” he says. As months away from the farmhouse turned into years, the Stickdorns lived in a succession of places — an apartment, one rental home, then a second.

With no help from the state, Stickdorn turned to Ferraro of LEAF, a recently formed organization, that seeks to protect Indiana's environment through the legal system. Ferraro believed Wayne County’s zoning ordinances should have protected the Stickdorns, because if one’s use of a property poses a nuisance to its neighbors, it typically violates a zoning ordinance. The Stickdorns petitioned the county’s Board of Zoning Appeals to inspect the dairy next door to see if it imposed a nuisance. When the inspector finally came, he refused to inspect the dairy, citing the state’s Right to Farm law, which exempts “reasonable and customary” agriculture uses from nuisance protection.

The Stickdorns still live in a small rental house, and they still return to the farm every day to care for their chickens and their herd of 43 grass-fed cattle. On a good day, when the wind blows toward their neighbors, Lisa says, “I can work in the garden and clean out the chicken coop and I can mow the grass. Then there are some days when we get home from work and feed everybody, and we’ve got to go. Whatever we plan to do, we can’t.”

Today is a good day, and the Stickdorns sit with me at their kitchen table and talk. Photos and magazine clippings are stuck to the refigerator with magnets. Their cookbooks still sit on a low shelf in the kitchen; a kitten on a wall calendar looks out with wide-eyes, as if to see who’ll help it.

“This is the worst assault we’ve ever experienced in our whole lives. It was unnecessary. We tried to tell people but they ignored us,” Eric says.

In 2008, their appeals to the state and county exhausted, the Stickdorns threatened their current neighbor, Zook, with a civil lawsuit to force him to take measures to stem the stench and pollution, such as installing a cover on his lagoon and using a technique called knifing to inject the manure into the soil, rather than spreading it on top. All of these solutions are affordable and technically feasible, Ferraro and Eric Stickdorn say. As a public interest lawyer, Ferraro says she hopes the agreement can serve as a template to help neighbors of polluting livestock operations obtain some protection, since IDEM isn’t protecting them. In exchange for the changes, the Stickdorns would have agreed to release the Zooks and Lantzes from all civil claims for their past activities.

In September 2008, Ferraro, Zook, Lantz and their attorney all met at the local public library. Zook and his attorney appeared to agree to the changes, Stickdorn says. But Zook never signed, and today denies that he should be regulated at all. “We’re way below the threshold to be a CFO, and we’ve never had a violation,” Zook says. There may be other reasons he refused to sign. “They want control of me and my farm,” Zook says. “If I’d sign that agreement, it would be just like I’m signing away my life to him.”

So the Stickdorns return to their farm each day to care for their cats, their chickens, their cattle. They’ve yet to file suit, but say it’s heading that way. Still, they pray for their neighbors, for their safety, well-being, and health. “It has to be bad for their health, too,” Eric says.

They’ve learned a few things, and want to make a few things clear. At the kitchen table, Lisa’s voice softens, and her husband gazes at her with admiration. She has always had high regard for the few farmers who farm sustainably and humanely while caring for the environment, she says. “But now I have the highest admiration to them for their perseverance and caring despite the hostile political environment that surrounds them, and in the face of the machine industrial agriculture has become.”


http://www.nuvo.net/news/article/downwind-big-dairy-farm




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Offline David In Indy

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Bank Accused of Passing Counterfeit Money
« Reply #71 on: September 18, 2009, 11:07:54 pm »
Pretty damn bad when you can't even trust your bank to give you real money... :-\

Family Claims Bank Doled Out Phony Money

BARGERSVILLE, Ind. -- Federal investigators are looking into another case of counterfeit cash in Johnson County, where one family claims their bank gave them a phony $100 bill.

Jeremy McLaughlin said he cashed a work check at Heartland Bank on Tuesday. But when he went to get a money order at a local gas station, he was told that one of his $100 bills was fake, Call 6's Rafael Sanchez reported.

The bank turned the case over the U.S. Secret Service.

"I'm aggravated. You feel secure when you go to the bank to cash a check," said the father of four. "$100 to us is like $1,000."

A bank spokesman said that staff members get extensive training in spotting counterfeit cash.

"It's our main obligation to pull counterfeit money out of circulation, not pass it out," said Heartland Bank Senior Vice President Trent McWilliams.

The case marks the second time in three months that a phony $100 bill has shown up in Bargersville.

Andy Cecere, an assistant special agent in charge with the Secret Service, said that the agency has seen an increase in fake $5 and $100 bills because they share similar security features.

He said while it's possible for a bank to accidentally pass fake money, it's very rare.

McLaughlin's fiancée said the family just wants the incident cleared up.

"In all honesty, we are the victims here, and we shouldn't be," said Stephanie Hammons.

McWilliams said Heartland Bank will wait for the report from the Secret Service before determining its next move.


http://www.theindychannel.com/call6/20993198/detail.html
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Offline CellarDweller

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #72 on: September 18, 2009, 11:53:27 pm »
Unfortunately, that stuff happens from time to time.

As a teller, and later a head teller, I saw a number of fake bills, and some of them are good, very very good.

If a teller took a fake bill from a customer, and then the next customer cashed a check or did a withdrawal, bam...they've got the fake bill.


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline David In Indy

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Re: News From The Hoosier State
« Reply #73 on: September 19, 2009, 12:37:21 am »
That kind of makes me nervous. It makes me wonder how many times I might have had fake bills in my wallet and not even realized it! :o

That's why I'm glad I use a debit and credit card most of the time.
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Offline David In Indy

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Father, Son Bound For Indiana Hunting Trip Die in Plane Crash
« Reply #74 on: November 15, 2009, 11:34:18 pm »
I wonder why they had to come all the way to Indiana to hunt deer? Don't they have deers in New Jersey?

Still, it is a tragic story. :(


Father, Son Bound For Indiana Hunting Trip Die In Plane Crash
Authorities Not Sure What Caused Crash

WOODBINE, N.J. -- A father and son headed to Indiana for a hunting trip were killed Saturday when their small plane crashed in southern New Jersey.

The single-engine A200 Piper plane went down around 11 a.m., just minutes after taking off from Woodbine Municipal Airport in Cape May County, about 20 miles southwest of Atlantic City.

The pilot, 53-year-old Thaddeus Lazowski, of Dennis Township, and his 12-year-old son, also named Thaddeus, were pronounced dead at the scene.

The cause of the crash remained under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration and New Jersey State Police.

The plane appeared to come straight down and ended up in a densely wooded area in Dennis Township, about a mile from the airport, state police Sgt. Stephen Jones said. It was registered to the elder Lazowski.

Several state troopers, firefighters and rescue crews rushed to the scene shortly after the crash occurred, and they needed all-terrain vehicles to reach the plane. Jones said part of a wing was found about 300 yards from the crash site.

No injuries were reported on the ground, authorities said.

Weather conditions in the area have been poor since Thursday, as powerful storms spawned by the remnants of Tropical Storm Ida have battered the state with heavy rains and gusty winds, but it was unknown if that contributed to the crash. Jones said skies were overcast when the plane took off, with light winds blowing and light rain falling.

It wasn't immediately clear where in Indiana the pair were headed, Jones said.


http://www.theindychannel.com/news/21620037/detail.html



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