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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Read more: Gov Pence Signing First Bill Today

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...

Read more: McCowan Found Guilty, Sentencing Set for March 28

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...

Read more: Promoting Student Safety in Schools Bill Passes Senate

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...

Read more: Senate Approves Legislation Addressing Fed Overreach

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...

Read more: Chicago Heights Fire Affects Polling Place

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...

Read more: Responders Program Registration Deadline on 3/1

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...

Read more: Semi in Ditch Backing up EB 80/94 Lake Station Area

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...

Read more: A Good Showing for the Housing Market

No injuries were reported after a fire this morning at the Cargill food processing plant in Hammond. Hammond Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Margraf says they were dispatched around 7:15 this morning, and that it took a couple of hours to extinguish the fire. The fire reportedly began in a gluten dryer, and did not spread.
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Read more: Morning Fire at Cargill in Hammond

Two separate crashes near Cline Avenue, that happened within minutes of one another, is backing up both westbound and eastbound traffic on the Borman (I-80/94).  The westbound crash closed the two left lanes backing up westbound traffic from Cline Avenue back to I-65 this afternoon.  Another crash eastbound on the Borman (I-80/94) near Cline Avenue had earlier closed the left lane eastbound.  Traffic was backing up to near Calumet Avenue.  Drivers should seek alternates like the Indiana Toll Roa...

Read more: WB Borman Backed Up Due to Crash Near Cline Ave.