Around The Region

DePauw reports students safe after fire damages dorm\nGREENCASTLE, Ind. -- More than 300 students were evacuated from their rooms Sunday when a fast-moving fire tore through one of the oldest residence halls at DePauw University.\nThe blaze broke out about 7:45 a.m. inside historic Rector Hall, built in 1917. Students in two adjacent buildings, Mason and Lucy Rowland halls, were also evacuated as a precaution in case the flames spread.\nA total of about 330 students were evacuated, including 116 from Rector Hall.\nSchool officials believed that all students escaped unharmed. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries from smoke inhalation, university spokesman Ken Owen said.\nThe fire apparently began on the fourth floor, which later collapsed from the intense heat.\nIt was unclear what sparked the fire. Investigators from the Greencastle Fire Department expected to continue searching for a cause once the flames were out.\nUniversity President Robert G. Bottoms said a young woman discovered the fire before it had spread throughout the building and prevented it from growing larger.\nIn the meantime, university officials began searching for rooms where displaced students can live until the dorm is repaired or rebuilt.\nMore Hoosiers do taxes online\nINDIANAPOLIS -- Hoosiers increasingly are filing taxes on the computer, with the total number of state tax returns filed electronically already ahead of last year.\nAs of early this month, 845,208 individual taxpayers filed electronically, exceeding the 842,760 electronic returns for all of 2001, according to the Indiana Department of Revenue.\nThe state is expecting just under 3 million total individual returns this year, so about two-thirds of all returns still arrive on paper.\nBut tax officials say the rising use of electronic filing is a sign of progress, and the department still is gunning for 1 million electronic returns during this tax year.\n"We think it's because people are getting more comfortable with the technology," department spokeswoman Brandee Bastin told The Indianapolis Star for a story published Saturday.\nAnother 91,000 Indiana residents used computer software on their home computers, while about 35,000 last year filed over the Internet via the department's Web site.\nOne of the key advantages to electronic filing is the prospect of getting a tax refund quicker. It can take up to 12 weeks if filing with a paper return but as little as 10 days if filing electronically. \nMuch of the electronic software also corrects for errors. However, electronic filing has its own pitfalls, such as when the wrong routing and check numbers are entered onto the return of a customer expecting a refund to be electronically deposited into his/her bank account.\nIn that case, a paper check is mailed -- sometimes resulting in long delays.\nThe Internal Revenue Service said about 800,000 federal tax returns have been filed electronically by Hoosiers so far. About 3 million Hoosiers will file federal tax returns this year.