St. Joseph County

Infant mortality rates were down in St. Joseph County, Indiana in 2018, but more teens died from intimate partner violence.

The St. Joseph County, Indiana Child Death Review Team meets annually to go over the numbers and individual cases of preventable deaths in children age one to 18.

In 2018 it reviewed 18 deaths. Ten teens, six children and assisted with review of two preventable infant deaths.

Betsy McCue is the 2019 chair of the committee.

The St. Joseph County Public Library has just joined the ‘1000 Books Before Kindergarten,’ a nationwide literacy and school readiness program.

1000 Books Before Kindergarten is a pretty simple concept. Parents track each book they read to their young children with the goal of reading at least 1000 books before they start school.

That breaks down to just over one book every two days for five years.

Theresa Horn is the Youth Services Manager at SJCPL.

The St. Joseph County Democrats hosted Joe Donnelly, Mel Hall and other local candidates at a Get Out The Vote rally Monday night.

Local Democrats and Democratic candidates thanked their supporters and volunteers and encouraged them to continue working til the polls close.

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg says getting out the vote is the most important thing. “And it all depends on this one thing. Which is, do our people vote? Will the people who share our values vote? And that depends, in part on whether we ask them to.”

The St. Joseph County Republican Party hosted the Governor and several candidates for a Get Out The Vote rally on Sunday.

Governor Eric Holcomb, the Republican incumbents for state treasurer, auditor and secretary of state, U.S. Senate candidate Mike Braun and Representative Jackie Walorski thanked volunteers and urged people at the St. Joseph County Republican headquarters to get to the polls

Walorski had words of thanks for one person in particular. “This lady made 33,000 phone calls.”

St. Joseph County has approved a contract for curbside recycling for the next ten years.

The new contract is with Borden, same as the last one. But the County put recycling out for bid, and Borden was the only one that submitted.

After negotiations the contract was signed. It includes a higher cost, and a five year opt out clause for any of the entities included in the contract.

The St. Joseph County Cyber Crimes Unit swore in six student-investigators at it’s new space at the University of Notre Dame Friday.

The unit is made up of one director, three officers and the six students. Their work is to track digital evidence, investigate witness, victim or suspect statements and help to serve search warrants.

Christina Casino is one of the student-investigators. She’s a senior at Notre Dame and has been with the unit since the summer following her sophomore year.

Anguiano: Let's start with your name and your title.

Carter: My name is Jimmy Carter. I used to be president, but I'm not anymore.

Anguiano: And what do you do now?

Carter: Well, I run the Carter Center and I work [on] Habitat [for Humanity].

Anguiano: What's the biggest thing, what's the biggest takeaway you've had from Habitat in general?

The University of Notre Dame will soon be working with communities in Elkhart and St. Joseph counties to pair local problems with possible solutions.

The Center for Civic Innovation will reach out to communities to find out what problems might be solved by research or project going on at the University.

Director Jay Brockman said the center is meant to foster partnerships and reach solutions together.