A leading state senator wants to rely on money from the federal stimulus package to give a slight spending increase to Indiana’s public schools. Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley (R-Noblesville) said yesterday that he is still developing his proposal. But he wants to use $683 million in stimulus money in hopes of increasing basic funding […]
State officials had high hopes for an investment pool created last year to give Indiana’s school districts and local governments a safe, short-term place to deposit taxpayer money and earn interest. Then the economy tanked. The account’s daily interest rate fell from 3.23 percent last February to just 0.53 percent today. Its balance dwindled from […]
About 600 people turned out at a job fair in southern Indiana to submit applications for about 200 coal mining jobs. The job fair in Sullivan yesterday was the second in less than two weeks. Mine company officials say a job fair in Vincennes last week drew more than 1,100 applicants. Black Panther Mining and […]
A top state senator is developing a proposal for fixing Indiana’s bankrupt unemployment insurance fund that he said yesterday is likely to include higher taxes on employers and cutting benefits paid out to the jobless. Republican Sen. Dennis Kruse of Auburn, chairman of the Senate Pensions and Labor Committee, is taking the lead on the […]
Major automakers’ U.S. sales continued their deep slump in February, putting the industry on track for its worst sales month in more than 27 years as huge rebates and low-interest financing failed to spur fearful consumers to make a major purchase. General Motors’ sales tumbled 53 percent from a year earlier, while Ford’s U.S. sales […]
The Federal Reserve today rolled out a much-awaited program aimed at boosting the availability of credit to consumers and small businesses. The Fed will lend up to $200 billion to spur consumer lending – for autos, education, credit cards and other consumer debt. The money will be used to provide financing to investors to buy […]
Ford Motor Co. said today its U.S. sales fell 48 percent in February, proof that huge rebates and low-interest financing haven’t been enough to entice fearful consumers to make a major purchase. The Dearborn, Mich., automaker sold 99,060 vehicles last month, compared with 192,248 the same month in 2008. In January, industry-wide U.S. sales dropped […]
Fort Wayne Foundry Corp. plans to close its production plant in Fort Wayne in June, eliminating 157 hourly positions. The company said today that it also would conduct a “mass layoff” in June at its Fort Wayne machining division, which had about 150 employees in mid-2007. The company, however, did not say how many jobs […]
The struggling economy is sending more people to libraries to check out books and DVDs for free and avoid costly rentals or purchases, library officials say. Last year, the number of items checked out at the Kokomo-Howard County Public Library rose 6 percent, boosting its annual borrowing to more than 1.1 million items for the […]
A central Indiana county is demanding that Chrysler LLC return $5.5 million in county-issued bonds and repay at least $4.5 million it set aside for a sprawling transmission plant that a Chrysler supplier stopped building last year. Tipton County’s commissioners said yesterday in a statement prepared by an Indianapolis law firm that Chrysler sent them […]
Famed Bloomington watering hole Nick’s English Hut has been opening its doors to the under-21 crowd for more than a year. And it has the state’s blessing to do so. Indiana has relaxed its alcohol laws in recent years to permit more bar/restaurants – once off limits to those under 21 – to open their […]
Investors’ despair about financial companies and the recession sent the Dow Jones industrial average to another unwanted milestone today: its first drop below 7,000 in more than 11 years. The Dow fell 4.2 percent in today’s trading, dropping 299 points to close at 6,763.29. The Dow’s descent has been swift. It’s taken only 14 sessions […]
Indianapolis-based Elli Lilly and Co. and New York-based partner Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. have failed to win U.S. approval to sell Erbitux as a first-line treatment for head and neck cancers. Regulators questioned differences in American and European versions of the drug, which is already approved to treat colon tumors and certain drug-resistant head-and-neck malignancies. The […]
Despite the recession, the owners of some Indiana auto service shops say business is pretty good – apparently because many people are too cash-strapped to buy new cars. As the recession forces many people to hang onto older cars rather than buying new ones, it means more trips to the service center to keep those […]
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged below 7,000 this morning for the first time in more than 11 years as investors grew pessimistic about the health of banks as well as the general economy. The Dow hadn’t traded below 7,000 since Oct. 28, 1997, and last closed below that mark on May 1 of that […]
A Hancock County man has been sentenced to 27 months in prison on guilty pleas to wire fraud and money laundering. U.S. Attorney Timothy M. Morrison said 45-year-old Frederic Bowles Jr. of McCordsville admitted obtaining fraudulent loans for investors by submitting false loan applications, financial documents and appraisals. Morrison said Bowles obtained the loans to […]
The U.S. government today unveiled a revamped rescue package to insurance giant American International Group and will provide the troubled company another $30 billion on an “as-needed” basis. The new package comes as the company has burned through cash and has been unable to find buyers for pieces of its company that it hoped to […]
Despite the recession, the owners of some Indiana auto service shops say business is pretty good – apparently because many people are too cash-strapped to buy new cars. As the recession forces many people to hang onto older cars rather than buying new ones, it means more trips to the service center to keep those […]
More than 2,000 people, many of them recently laid off from factories or restaurants, filled a convention center to compete for about 200 seasonal and part-time jobs with Fort Wayne’s minor-league baseball team. Saturday’s turnout at the Grand Wayne Center for jobs ranging from ushers to parking lot attendants offered a good look at the […]
State officials are drafting plans to spend nearly $122 million in federal stimulus money to clean up Indiana’s aging, overflow-prone sewers and upgrade its drinking water systems. Although federal agencies are still fine-tuning details of how the nation’s $787 billion stimulus package can be spent, Friday was the first deadline for communities seeking money set […]
