Free Republic

ELKHART _ Two people are confirmed dead in an hit and run accident on Beardsley Avenue shortly after 9 p.m. Saturday. According to a press release issued late last Saturday by Elkhart Police Department Communications officer Chris Snyder, Ekhart police and fire department were dispatched to the area of East Beardsley Avenue and Cassopolis Street in regards to a motor vehicle crash. Police and fire arrived to find several victims in the roadway and on the sidewalk. At this time it appears the suspect vehicle was traveling east on Beardsley Avenue when it left the south side of the road...

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- IMPD has arrested a 30-year-old man for allegedly vandalizing the Confederate monument in Garfield Park. According to authorities,  Anthony Ventura was arrested at around noon in the 2400 block of Shelby Street following the alleged incident. After a video started making the rounds on social media, folks in the area, like Rex Staples, came out to see the damage. "It's stupid, it don’t really make any sense, you know?" said Staples, " because they’re really not doing anything.” Following an Indianapolis Star article earlier this week, some city leaders have called for a discussion on whether the...

The state has officially taken over the Interstate 69 Section 5 project from I-69 Development Partners.The Indiana Finance Authority announced it had reached an agreement with the private developer in June to take over construction, operation and maintenance of the project after several delays in the completion schedule. To officially take control of the project, the Indiana State Budget Committee had to approve the plans. Additionally, all parties had to endorse a settlement agreement and bondholders had to be paid in full.The finance authority announced Monday it had completed the settlement transaction to terminate the contract with I-69 Development Partners...

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- IMPD has arrested a 30-year-old man for allegedly vandalizing the Confederate monument in Garfield Park. According to authorities, Anthony Ventura was arrested at around noon in the 2400 block of Shelby Street following the alleged incident. After a video started making the rounds on social media, folks in the area, like Rex Staples, came out to see the damage. "It's stupid, it don’t really make any sense, you know?" said Staples, " because they’re really not doing anything.”

It’s a list of demands that makes even Mariah Carey look low-maintenance. A hefty, eight-page memo detailing what it takes to be a driver for Rep. Todd Rokita has been revealed — and it’s not for the faint of heart. The Indiana congressman demands that his chauffeurs double as personal assistants who greet him at pickup with a fresh cup of hot, black coffee and never be without gum and hand sanitizer. Rokita’s toiletry bag, with his toothbrush and toothpaste, is to be kept in the trunk of the car, along with a nearly 20-item supply box dubbed “The Football”...

There are new Senate ratings in five states. Updated bottom lines for these races are below. Our full ratings chart can be found here. 

As bad as things are for the GOP right now, remember that it’s even worse for Democrats. Case in point, the Cook Political Report just moved 4 2018 Senate races in the GOP’s direction:

Muncie man accused of murder: ‘I took out a meth dealer!’ By Vi Nguyen Published: August 10, 2017, 7:32 pm Updated: August 11, 2017, 8:25 am MUNCIE, Ind. (WISH) — A stabbing in Muncie on Thursday ended with a man dead and another arrested for murder. The 19-year-old suspect told police he would refer to himself as a martyr and wanted to purge the wicked. It happened a few minutes after noon Thursday at an apartment near South Franklin and West Seventh streets. Muncie police arrested Jaylin Ammon on a preliminary charge of murder. He was being held in the...

A man who has been deported from the United States twice was indicted last week for six robberies in Chicago and several suburbs since December. Jose Cruz Morales-Cortes, 45, was indicted on six counts of robbery on Aug. 1, according to a statement from the FBI. Morales-Cortes, of Gary, Indiana, was deported for being in the country illegally on March 26, 2004 and again on Aug. 29, 2016, the FBI said. He was caught in the country again on Jan 20, 2017, and was in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when he was indicted for the robberies....

<p>INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana Department of Transportation is urging motorists to plan for traffic congestion in southern Indiana before and after the solar eclipse on Aug. 21.</p> <p>INDOT says Interstate 69, U.S. 41, and U.S. 231 are expected to experience higher southbound traffic with caravans of motorists headed for western Kentucky where the moon's full eclipse of the sun can be viewed within a 70-mile-wide swath. After the eclipse, heavy northbound traffic is expected on the same highways.</p>

Those who would like to soften the hard sciences may think that they are building metaphorical bridges but you might not want to drive over the physical bridges they construct. "Alas, the world we engineers envisioned as young students is not quite as simple and straightforward as we had wished because a phalanx of social justice warriors, ideologues, egalitarians, and opportunistic careerists has ensconced itself in America's college and universities," Indrek Wichman, an engineering professor at Michigan State writes in a column distributed by The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. "The destruction they have caused in the humanities...

Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), who faces a tough re-election campaign next year in a state that President Donald Trump won last November, has personally benefited from the very job outsourcing he has railed against for years. Specifically, he attacked Carrier Corp. for moving manufacturing jobs to Mexico last year, at the same time as he profited from a family business which relies on Mexican labor. In 2016, the very year when Donnelly attacked Carrier, the senator made between $15,001 and $50,000 in dividends from stock he owns in an arts and crafts business owned by his family, the Associated Press...

INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana senator railed against Carrier Corp. for moving manufacturing jobs to Mexico last year, even as he profited from a family business that relies on Mexican labor to produce dye for ink pads, according to records reviewed by The Associated Press. Joe Donnelly, considered one of the nation's most vulnerable Democratic senators up for re-election next year, has long blasted free-trade policies for killing American jobs. He accused Carrier, an air conditioner and furnace maker, of exploiting $3-an-hour workers when it announced plans to wind down operations in Indiana and move to Mexico. However, an arts and...

Dear Friends – I am very pleased to share some good news for Warrick Operations. This afternoon, Alcoa Corporation announced plans to restart three of our five smelter potlines to further improve the competitiveness of the rolling mill and fully engage the assets of our integrated site. The process to restart the three lines will begin immediately and is expected to be complete in the second quarter of 2018. The smelter is expected to employ about 370 employees – 95 who will be transferred from the rolling mill, up to 200 who will be recalled from layoff status and the...

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked portions of a new Indiana law that would make it tougher for girls under age 18 to get an abortion without their parents’ knowledge. U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker wrote in approving a temporary injunction that “when it comes to our children, while parents or others entrusted with their care and wellbeing have the lawful and moral obligation always to act in their best interests, children are not bereft of separate identities, interests, and legal standing.” Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sued the state...

SNOPES CARRIES WATER FOR MUHAMMAD “Mostly False” Indiana billboard is actually 100% true. ​The self-proclaimed fact-checker Snopes.com has been harshly criticized for its Leftist bias, and as is so often the case, a tilt to the Left also means a willingness to foster ignorance and complacency about the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat. After a billboard went up in Indiana pointing out six unsavory aspects of the life of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, Snopes labeled the billboard’s charges “Mostly False” – but that label applies far more accurately to the Snopes report than to the billboard. Snopes’...

A promise made before Christmas is fizzling before the Fourth of July. In December, then-President-elect Trump told hundreds of workers at the Carrier manufacturing plant that he had worked out a deal to save their jobs. But it's not working out that way. A steady downpour today did little to wash away the fact that the jobs of 600 union employees are going south. "They're going to Monterrey, Mexico," said Robert James, president of the local union. Reynolds said he felt betrayed, since Mr. Trump told workers during his December visit to the plant that 1,100 jobs would be saved....

Dive Brief: The Arizona Department of Transportation has reported that the public-private partnership (P3) constructing the $1.9 billion Phoenix-area Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway will deliver the project in late 2019, three years ahead of schedule, according to Equipment World.The P3's private component, Connect 202 Partners — which is made up of Fluor Enterprises, Granite Construction, Ames Construction and WSP — restructured the 22-mile project so that the last section could be built all at once instead of as nine separate projects as the state originally planned.This is the first time a P3 as been used for a highway project...

In a move that will likely make the Trump administration really happy, a major manufacturer is shifting jobs from China to the U.S. Foxconn, the company known for making iPhones and other big-name gadgets, plans to invest $10 billion in a production plant in the U.S — specifically somewhere in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana or Texas. The plant could create up to 50,000 new jobs. President Trump hinted at this deal in June while visiting Wisconsin for his "workforce development" tour. "Just backstage, we were negotiating with a major, major, incredible manufacturer of phones and computers and televisions,"...

The Carrier plant in Indianapolis that President Trump convinced to stay open late last year will lay off more than 600 employees beginning next month, according to a new report Thursday. CNBC reported that the deal struck by Trump before he assumed office isn’t working out as expected, and more than 600 employees will soon face layoffs. Trump and Carrier reached an agreement in December to keep about 1,000 jobs at the Indiana plant. Both Carrier and Trump celebrated the agreement on Twitter Trump also celebrated the agreement at the plant shortly after it was reached as an early victory...