A new report scores Indiana’s state budget process as the second worst in the nation largely because the governor doesn’t have a line-item veto and there’s no requirement for a balanced budget. Indiana scored just 45 points out of a possible 100 and ranked ahead of only New Hampshire in the 2009 Index of State […]
A Las Vegas casino and Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group Inc. lost a bid last week to throw out a hip hop nightclub’s lawsuit alleging it is being discriminated against because most of the patrons of the Vegas establishment are black. U.S. District Court Judge James Mahan said it was too early to make a decision […]
The White House said Friday that $82 million of federal economic stimulus money would be used to replace 68 old rail cars and put them back into service. The repairs will take place at the Beech Grove Amtrak maintenance facility near Indianapolis and in Bear, Del. Amtrak plans to hire about 125 workers who have […]
Indiana is getting more than $200 million in federal stimulus funding to weatherize the homes of low-income residents and develop renewable energy projects. The $200.4 million is part of nearly $8 billion in stimulus funding set aside nationwide for energy efficiency and related efforts. About $132 million will help low-income Indiana residents insulate their homes, […]
Indiana’s deepening recession failed to halt government hiring and growth in the education and health service sectors in January even as the state’s factories continued jettisoning jobs, new federal statistics show. A state-by-state unemployment report released yesterday by the U.S. Labor Department shows that Indiana lost about 12,400 jobs in January, when its unemployment rate […]
Big Ten Network President Mark Silverman said today that 2009 should be the 2-year-old cable TV network’s first full year of profitability. Silverman hasn’t yet put together a detailed forecast, but he says the network should be profitable based on growing advertising revenue and money from new international distribution deals. New York-based parent company News […]
President Obama’s budget chief isn’t sugarcoating his message to health insurance executives: the party is over. White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said yesterday in Washington, D.C., that the government will no longer overpay companies that offer Medicare Advantage plans, the privately run portion of the government health program for seniors. Orszag spoke at the […]
Indiana ranks last among states in getting federal funds to prevent disease and injuries, according to a report from two not-for-profit groups released yesterday. Indiana collected just $12.74 per person last year from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for programs to inhibit disease and prevention programs, the Trust for America’s Health and […]
The Anderson school board yesterday decided to keep the historic Wigwam gymnasium open, but to close four schools in an effort to trim its budget. The 9,000-seat Wigwam was built in 1962 on Anderson High School’s campus. It is the second largest high school basketball venue in the world, ranked behind the Fieldhouse in New […]
A federal review of the nation’s coal ash storage sites includes 14 Indiana power plants where the byproduct of the state’s reliance on coal for power is stored in a series of ever-growing ponds and landfills. Several utilities that own or co-own those 14 coal-burning plants must provide the Environmental Protection Agency with detailed descriptions […]
After some bumbling and rumbling, a Democratic-controlled Indiana House committee dealt a blow yesterday to efforts to reorganize local government – a top legislative priority of Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels. The Government and Regulatory Reform Committee voted to combine five local government bills into one, and then one Republican joined six Democrats in defeating the […]
Wall Street got some good news from Citigroup Inc. today and responded with a huge rally. Led by financial companies, the market made its first big move upward in weeks after Citigroup said it had operated at a profit during the first two months of the year. The major indexes soared more than 5 percent, […]
An Indiana House committee has dealt a serious blow to local government reorganization efforts. The Democrat-controlled Government and Regulatory Reform committee voted today to fold several local government provisions proposed by Gov. Mitch Daniels into a single bill. The panel then voted to reject the bill, with one Republican joining six Democrats in voting against […]
Help wanted: pharmacists, engineers and nurses. Believe it or not, even some banks are hiring, at least for their technology teams. While the recession has claimed 4.4 million jobs, the economy has created others, many of them for highly trained and specialized professionals. More than 2 million jobs openings now exist across a range of […]
Indiana was praised yesterday as a national leader in new methods of teaching and learning in high schools. The Cincinnati-based KnowledgeWorks Foundation joined Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels in announcing that it is giving $10 million to the New Technology Foundation (New Tech), based in Napa, Calif. Both organizations promote so-called high-tech high schools. Lecture time […]
Eli Lilly and Co. asked a judge today to block Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. from selling a cheaper generic copy of Lilly’s osteoporosis drug Evista, Bloomberg News reported. Indianapolis-based Lilly made the request before U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker, who didn’t make a ruling today, the first day of a patent-infringement trial between the […]
A new French Lick Airport terminal designed to serve a growing number of travelers to southern Indiana’s Springs Valley will be nearly five times the size of the current facility built more than 40 years ago. “It kind of had fallen on bad times and is not the image we like to project as we […]
U.S. House Republican leader John Boehner said yesterday he doesn’t support handing over more federal money to keep General Motors Corp. afloat unless the automaker develops a viable and long-term business model and can pay back government loans. “Anything short of that is just throwing good money after bad,” Boehner said on CBS’s “Face the […]
Merck & Co. plans to acquire Schering-Plough Corp. for $41.1 billion in a deal that gives the companies more firepower to compete in a drug industry facing slumping sales, tough generic competition and intense cost pressures. The two New Jersey pharmaceutical companies are rivals of Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. The latest proposed combination comes […]
Imagine racking up nearly $3 million in debt every day. That’s more than $100,000 an hour, or about $2,000 a minute. Indiana is diving deeper into debt as it struggles to pay jobless benefits from its bankrupt unemployment insurance fund, which is paying out hundreds of millions more than it collects in taxes from employers. […]
