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The mayor of Gary says gun violence, job creation and economic development are among the city's top concerns. In her State of the City address Tuesday at the Genesis Convention Center, Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson also encouraged attendees to write to President Obama and request that he name Gary a “Promise Zone”. The President has announced a proposal to seek tax breaks for employers who hire unemployed residents and for those who make capital investments in these designated zon...

The Indiana Department of Revenue has launched a new section to its website to help Hoosier taxpayers avoid fraud and report suspected fraud, anonymously. The department reports impersonation scams are on the rise this tax season.
More info:
INDIANAPOLIS (Feb. 27, 2013) — Fraud and identity theft continue to be the number one concern of all tax agencies in 2013. Incidents are on the rise, and efforts to combat those illegal activities are also on the rise.
In fiscal year 2012, the IRS initiated...

Indiana Governor Mike Pence is signing the very first piece of legislation to get his signature this session... today. Senate Bill 319, the first measure to win the approval of the House and Senate, is meant to prevent an estimated 57-million dollar property tax increase on Hoosier farmers by keeping current soil productivity factors in place for another year.
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A jury deliberated for six-and-a-half hours before returning a guilty verdict in the Dustin McCowan murder trial. McCowan was charged with fatally shooting former girlfriend 19-year-old Amanda Bach of Portage in September 2011. The verdict was read at about 11-o'clock Tuesday night. Police say her body was found the day after her car was discovered along State Road 130 in Wheeler. Sentencing for the 20-year-old McCowan is scheduled for March 28th.
Times Staff Reporter Bob Kasarda has been...

Legislation to protect children and staff members in schools passed the Indiana Senate Wednesday. Senate Bill 345 would establish a “Commission on Seclusion and Restraint in Schools”, to develop a model plan for Hoosier schools on the proper methods, standards, and training for student seclusion and restraint, with each school corporation having to develop its own plan, which would have to be approved by the commission. Bill author, Senator Randy Head, of Logansport, says, “there have reports of...

The Indiana Senate today approved a legislative package to exert states' constitutional rights and place a check on federal government overreach. The legislation, put together by Indiana Senate President Pro-Tem David Long, includes a joint resolution exercising Indiana's ability under Article V of the U.S. Constitution to call for a “convention for proposing amendments” to the Constitution, specifically confined to the topics of limiting Congress' power to tax and regulate commerce. The Senate...

Fire crews in Chicago Heights were called out for a vacant warehouse fire this afternoon, shortly after 1pm. Chicago Heights officials report crews at the scene, located at 17^th Street and East End Avenue, at this time have the fire control, possibly even extinguished, but no further information regarding fire is available. The Times reports the fire impacted a polling place, located across the street from the fire, which had to be moved to a nearby elementary school, as adjacent streets were...

A program to learn from natural disasters like the one that ravaged Joplin, Missouri, in May of 2011, is scheduled to take place next month at Valparaiso University. Russell Shirley, Porter County Director of Emergency Management , says the program will be a discussion-based exercise on the different functions responders, whether civilian or emergency, will have in the event of a serious disaster. Shirley says when a disaster strikes it will effect everyone, not just first responders, which is...

Reportedly, a crash between a semi and an SUV caused the semi to end up in the right hand ditch on eastbound I-80/94 in the Lake Station corridor near Central Avenue.
EMS and fire crews responded and a heavy duty wrecker was on scene to pull the semi out of the ditch but as of 4 p.m. this afternoon, all lanes of eastbound I-80/94 were
backed up to a little before Grant Street in the Gary Corridor. 
Snow flurries moving through the region and temperatures below freezing are causing roads to become...

Another sign the housing market may be in recovery, a new report from the Case-Shiller Index finds prices in major cities rose across the country. Craig Lazzara Senior Director at Dow Jones Indices tells ABC News the report is promising, "as I look at the numbers, I think, this is the picture of a broadly distributed advance it's not excessive and it certainly comes at the end of several very bad years, but that said this is a picture of a recovering market."
The Indiana Association of Realtors...