Group to host fund-raiser at local bowling alley\nThe Momentum Journey, Inc., will hold a Bowlarama fund-raiser at Classic Bowling Lanes Saturday. The non-profit organization, composed of three IU alumni, is "an educational, non-profit organization creating career exploration programs ... for students and adults in career transition," according to a press release.\nPrizes will be drawn every 20 minutes and cash drawings will also be announced. Raffle tickets will be available at the door. A silent auction will include a DVD player, television, gift certificates and other prizes. \nProceeds will allow them to travel to various universities throughout the United States. The tour is designed to help students find a career after college. Classic Bowling Lanes is located at 1421 Willis Dr.
New offices to monitor foreign trade policies\nINDIANAPOLIS -- A new state office created by Gov. Joe Kernan will work with other states in an attempt to influence federal trade policy.\nThe trade-compliance office will monitor what Kernan said were unfair trade practices that have cost Indiana thousands of jobs even though the state's exports hit a record $16 billion last year.\n"This office will help make sure that we can have not just free trade, but fair trade," Kernan said in announcing the office on Tuesday. "Given a level playing field, our businesses and workers can compete with anyone."\nA spokeswoman for Republican gubernatorial candidate Mitch Daniels, however, said Kernan was responsible for the state's job losses and trading problems.\n"During his years as lieutenant governor, Kernan was in charge of economic development," Ellen Whitt said. "This is simply a matter of shifting the blame on someone else."\nIt will cost $250,000 from the state's economic development fund to run the new office, which will work to ensure the state is taking advantage of federal assistance programs.\nKernan criticized the Bush administration for not being more aggressive in addressing illegal steel dumping -- where steel is sold at artificially low prices to weaken competition.\n"Our current process for formulating trade policy in this country is broken," Kernan said at a United Steelworkers of America local on the west side of Indianapolis. "Washington negotiates and sets trade policies with virtually no input from the states."\nThe governor's office said the new office would have a different mission than the state's current Division of International Trade, which promotes Hoosier products and economic development.
Mosquito carrying West Nile virus found in Indiana\nINDIANAPOLIS -- An Asian mosquito capable of transmitting the West Nile virus to humans has been found in Indiana for the first time, six years after it was first documented in the United States, state health officials said.\nUnidentified mosquitoes collected recently in Clark and Harrison counties in southern Indiana were identified Monday as the Asian bush mosquito, or Ochlerotatus japonicus, state entomologist Mike Sisko said.\nThe discovery is the first time the Asian species common in Japan has been found in Indiana since it was first documented in the U.S. in 1998.\nSisko said the arrival of the species, which flourishes in clogged gutters and rain-filled tires, buckets and cups, in Indiana is no cause for alarm.\n"It's definitely not a crisis," he said. "It's just an additional reason why people need to be aware of the breeding places mosquitoes can find in their backyards"
