Is "high hopes" like wishful thinking?
President Obama announced Thursday which states get part of $8 billion in high speed rail grants.
Of that money, Indiana received about $71.3 million to use for improvements in rail systems in the northwestern part of the state. While Fort Wayne is not seeing federal funding right now, supporters of a high speed rail system in the Summit City remain optimistic.
School bells might stay silent before Labor Day in Indiana under a bill endorsed by the Senate's education committee Wednesday.
The legislation, written by Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, would prohibit public schools and accredited nonpublic schools from starting classes before Labor Day.
Maybe things aren't going as well as we'd like in Fort Wayne, but we're certainly better off than Muncie:
I don't know why the mayor needs two hours to describe the state of the city when I can do so in one word: deplorable.
And thank goodness this isn't Evansville:
A Carthage man demonstrates the wrong way to show up for a court hearing:
Authorities said they smelled alcohol on the breath of Daniel R. Lucas, 38, at a Monday hearing stemming from his March 2009 conviction on drunken driving and resisting-law-enforcement charges. Tests confirmed he had been drinking, and Judge Bob Witham ordered him jailed for 15 days.
"The Reagan Resolution" authored by "James Bopp Jr., a conservative from Indiana" and up for a vote by the Republican National Committee, is a litmus test of 10 positions. If a candidate doesn't demonstrate agreeement with at least eight of them, that candidate will not get any financial support from the Republican Party. It's causing quite a stir as the committee gets ready for its winter meeting.
Mitch Daniels has been a business-friendly governor, so maybe he'll veto this when it gets to his desk:
Hoosiers who want to keep guns in their cars while they're at work gained more support Tuesday in the General Assembly.
The state House of Representatives voted 76-21 to approve a bill that would make it illegal for employers in Indiana to prohibit workers from keeping firearms in their locked vehicles on company property.
From texting we move to to "sexting," the electronic transmission of sexually explicit material. The General Assembly is considering making that activity by teens a "delinquent act" not because it isn't currently covered by law but because the current statutes leave authorities with only two extreme options: Do nothing, or hit the kids with a felony that would require them to register as sex offenders and follow them for the rest of their lives. The new law would express disapproval without being quite so draconian.
The momentum keeps building for bans on texting while driving. A new federal rule went into effect yesterday that bans interstate commercial truckers and bus drivers from sending text messages while they are operating moving vehicles. And an Indiana House committee is considering a bill that would make it illegal for any driver to send text messages or e-mails while driving. The story about that also points out:
In a comment on a post yesterday, Tim Zank pointed to a new Rasmussen poll showing Evan Bayh doing poorly in matchups against announced Republican candidates, and even losing by three points against Mike Pence, whom Republicans are urging to run. That's an astonishing indication of how quickly the Brown effect is moving through political circles, and many news outlets have picked up on the poll today. Political analyst Michale Barone has a lengthy column on Bayh's problem:
Sometimes I get lost in the dictionary, forgetting the word I am looking up and just browsing and stopping here and there at interesting words. But it's been a while since I went through it looking for the dirty parts:
The Menifee Union School District is forming a committee to review whether dictionaries containing the definitions for sexual terms should be permanently banned from the district's classrooms, a district official said Friday.
