Hoosier Happenings

GUN BILL

INDIANAPOLIS – State representative Phil Pflum will never forget the time a laid-off worker pointed a gun at his car. Pflum told his fellow lawmakers last week about the experience to explain why he cast the sole committee vote against a bill that would prohibit companies from banning guns in locked cars at work.


POLLUTION IN NORTHERN INDIANA

EAST CHICAGO – Researchers who took soil samples from the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal in heavily industrialized northwestern Indiana have found that it contains high levels of potentially cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls, man-made organic chemicals. The findings raise questions about whether plans to dredge the canal starting next year to could stir up possibly harmful pollutants.


FOSTER-CARE CUTS

INDIANAPOLIS – A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Indiana Department of Child Services from cutting state subsidies to foster and adoptive parents and residential treatment centers that help provide for children. U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker in Indianapolis granted the parents’ and centers’ requests for injunctions in a ruling from the bench last week.


-AP REPORTS