Indiana News

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Weather officials say severe storms in central Indiana caused floods and produced at least four tornadoes, leaving thousands without power and damaging buildings.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — Purdue University is planning several events commemorating the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing commanded by school alumnus Neil Armstrong.

The university says events begin July 18 with a presentation on the landing by Apollo 11 flight director Gene Kranz, followed by a July 20 screening of "Armstrong," a new documentary film featuring home videos shot by Armstrong and unseen footage from NASA.

ELKHART, Ind. (AP) — Police in northern Indiana say one person has died after crashing into a concrete barricade during a chase.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — Purdue University will freeze tuition for Indiana residents on its West Lafayette main campus for the seventh and eighth consecutive years, through the 2020-21 academic year.

The Purdue trustees on Friday approved the tuition and fee schedule for the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years and the university's operating budget for the 2020 fiscal year.

Base undergraduate tuition and fees for Indiana residents on the main campus will remain under $10,000 per year. With the exception of flight program fees, all general fees also will remain flat.

BURNS HARBOR, Ind. (AP) — A crash involving two semi-trucks closed a stretch of freeway in northwestern Indiana and scattered cargo including cocoa powder and batteries.

No one was injured in the early Friday crash along eastbound Interstate 94 in Burns Harbor.

BRISTOL, Ind. (AP) — A man with a large blended family died in a workplace accident in Bristol when machinery being moved by a forklift fell onto him.

Shawn Gray, 43, died following the June 7 accident at Bravo Trailers in Bristol. Elkhart County's coroner says the Goshen man's preliminary cause of death was blunt injury trauma.

Gray's wife says her husband died after machinery fell onto him as it was being moved by a forklift at Bravo Trailers, which makes enclosed cargo trailers.

MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) — Ball State University says it was forced to eliminate 25 positions, curb travel and reduce supplies to avoid ending fiscal year 2019 with a budget shortfall.

The school's board of trustees was given the update on Wednesday before the board approved a $391.2 million 2019-20 general fund budget that calls for an increase in tuition and fees of 1.25%.

The reductions of 25 positions, travel spending and supply expenditures saved $4.5 million.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — The Roman Catholic religious order that founded the University of Notre Dame has identified 14 priests and one seminarian who it says were credibly accused of sexually abusing minors across the country since the 1940s.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — A jury has convicted a woman of murder in the 1988 beating death of a pregnant mother abducted while walking her dog in northern Indiana.

The jury found 56-year-old Barbara Brewster guilty of killing 28-year-old Miriam Rice of South Bend following a three-day trial.

Rice’s body was discovered at Pinhook Lagoon, about 2 miles from her home, with multiple skull fractures. An autopsy showed she was four months pregnant at the time. She also had a 3-year-old son.

The Newton County Sheriff’s Department said Wednesday that one of the three fired workers, Edgar Gardozo-Vasquez, 36, of Brook, was taken into custody and is being held at the Newton County Jail on a felony charge of torturing or mutilating a vertebrate animal and misdemeanor animal cruelty.

The department says U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement has placed a hold on Gardozo-Vasquez. It says there are outstanding warrants for two other former Fair Oaks workers

It’s not clear whether Gardozo-Vasquez has an attorney who might comment on his behalf.

Indiana State police say 70-year-old Lannie Morgan of South Bend was killed at the Miami Correctional Facility earlier this week.

According to documents maintained by the Indiana Department of Corrections, Morgan was sentenced to 30 years on an incest case out of Elkhart County back in 2011. 

Here is the State Police news release: 

Bunker Hill – Yesterday, Indiana State Police Detective Wendell Beachy initiated an investigation, at the request of the Miami Correctional Facility, into the death of inmate Lannie Morgan, 70, South Bend, IN.