IU baseball, softball working out expanded rosters

"I look at that group — it was not sexy at that time to play for Indiana. They made it sexy."

Former Center Grove High School standout attended Stanford but will play for the Hoosiers in his remaining season.

Paul Corsaro is already busy at UIndy and a bunch of local players are on the move.

Lawrence North superfan Larry Rush died March 28 from health complications related to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Kathy Loggan (middle), wife of the late Paul Loggan, talks alongside her kids Sami (left), Will (middle left) and Michael, with his fiancé Megan Sizemore at North Central High School on Thursday, May 7, 2020.

Nominate a mother involved in a sports for a Mother's Day feature

In 2018, Gray was honored as the state's top coach at the Indiana Sports Awards.

With the 2020 softball season approaching, it's time to break down the top Indiana prospects in each class. We start with a loaded senior class.

There are 124 teams signed up for the Charlie Hughes Shootout, but the June 30 mandate of schools being closed throws the event in doubt.

With the 2020 softball season approaching, it's time to break down the top Indiana prospects in each class.

The Boilermakers have seven commitments in the 2021 recruiting class, including two from Mooresville

Gibson Southern quarterback Brady Allen remains one of the most coveted Indiana recruits in the Class of 2022

On March 6, there were five people in the Lawrence Central gym who later died after testing positive for coronavirus.

The past several weeks have brought a whirlwind of emotions for the Loggan family as beloved North Central AD Paul Loggan died from COVID-19.

Cape Maclear (aka Chembe) is a small fishing village on Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) in Malawi. It has one dirt road leading into (and straight out of) town. Along this road, there are a few hostels, some dive shops, a handful of vendors selling curios and fruit and a few bars. The pace of life here is . . . very . . . slow.

Sometimes it's the "Davos fringe" which provides the most stimulating discussions. To that end, I just enjoyed a constructive 15 minute diversion from the sub-prime blues, chatting with an American anthropologist called Helen Fisher about love. (You should be able...

Alistair Darling adopted the technique beloved of his predecessor of rattling through the borrowing figures. But the news this year was good - it seems lower than it was expected to be. The bumper tax receipts that the government received...

Is it a good time to nationalise the banks? The taboo of nationalising a bank – evident in the government’s reluctance to accept that option for Northern Rock – may have to be overcome in the next few years. This...

Ten things to know as Indiana prepares to hunker down to fight coronavirus.

Education will be the key to enforce orders from Gov. Eric Holcomb and Mayor Joe Hogsett to close businesses and to urge people to "stay at home."

Beth Henderson on the "Good Morning Grant County" radio show said U.S. Rep. Susan Brooks encouraged her to run for Indiana's 5th District.

Indiana was among the last states to give up blue laws. Now, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, alcohol is considered an essential product

Indiana Congressman Trey Hollingsworth says it's a false choice between accepting widespread casualties or reopening the economy.

The governors of Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky have been in close contact throughout the coronavirus pandemic and are coordinating stay-at-home orders.

James "Jim" Cummings Jr., who was the last living founder of Indiana Black Expo., died late Thursday at age 90 of a heart attack.

Former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and former Democratic hopeful for president Pete Buttigieg responded to the shooting of Dreasjon Reed.

Colts find developmental quarterback on Day 3 of Draft.

Glasgow is likely to see his initial playing time on special teams

No one knows for sure how these picks will shake out and most of these grades will likely end up on Freezing Cold Takes.

Gregg got a boxing heavy bag for his birthday, and he's ready to beat up Derek — hey, that's what he said! — on the latest Doyel and Derek Podcast.

Eason, a five-star recruit who was a freshman starter at Georgia before transferring to Washington, is used to the weight of expectation

The Baltimore and Indianapolis Colts have a rich tradition and it's reflected when ranking the best players in franchise history

Which Colts incumbents benefited the most from an offseason of change? And who's now in a tougher position than they were at season's end?

Colts legend Robert Mathis rebuilt Kemoko Turay into a tactical, calculated missile instead of a grenade lobbed into the dark.

Indianapolis Colts tight end Jack Doyle discusses the challenges of working out during the pandemic.

When the Chargers legend isn't carrying a team on his back, Rivers has been far more efficient.

Indianapolis Colts will play their AFC South foes twice each, and also the Baltimore Ravens and Green Bay Packers

How important are counting stats for quarterbacks? How important is winning in the postseason? Those are the questions about Rivers.

Rivers has been named the coach in waiting at St. Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope, according to an AL.com report.

The only time Indianapolis will be in prime time will be a Thursday night showdown with the rival Tennessee Titans. At their place in Nashville.

2020-03-18 -

2020-04-07 -

The 2012 presidential race is on. Kinda.

At the moment, it feels more like a wade through treacle - so slow is the pace of President Barack Obama's opponents. Mr Obama can be unambiguous that he is going to run because they are all showing varying degrees of hesitancy.

If the president is to get back into the White House he has to leap a number of obstacles: an economy that is so sluggish that there are constant worries it could go backwards and supporters who may be unenthusiastic about sending more troops to Afghanistan, bombing Libya and failing to close Guantanamo Bay prison. There is also huge uncertainly in the country about health care and much more we will be looking at in detail.

But the strength of opposition doesn't seem, at the moment, a particularly high hurdle.  To British eyes, the primary system is one of the most curious parts of American politics.

The elite of British political parties have only grudgingly and slowly given the power of choosing their own leader. The principle of "one member, one vote" has been slow in coming. 

Elections for leaders rarely grip in the same way as American internal elections. While any American can easily register as a Republican or Democrat and have their say about who represents them, in Britain being a party member still seems an effort of will.

Twenty-five pounds ($40) per year may not be much to play your part in conservative politics in Britain, £12 may be a bargain to have a say in the Lib Dems and it's only a penny (for those under 27) to join the Labour Party - but it still costs something.

There's a feeling that being interested in who becomes your PM or MP isn't enough. You have to be willing to sit in draughty village halls on wet Wednesdays listening.  

The biggest difference is perhaps not in just who is involved, but how late in the political cycle the choice is made. This has a real impact. Every party leader, good or bad, has an image, policy likes and dislikes and personal ticks that colour voters approach to the parties as a whole.

The British public has years to get to know Ed Miliband and decide what to think about him leading a Labour government. Here in the US, the opposition is currently either faceless or hydra-headed. There is no obvious front-runner, and any prediction about who will be the Republican candidate in 2012 is nothing more than an informed guess.

Mr Obama v Michele Bachmann would be quite a different contest to Mr Obama v John Huntsman. 

Republicans get to choose, late in the day, exactly what they want their party to stand for.

The influence of the Tea Party suggests any candidate will be economically conservative, but beyond that, it is impossible to predict very much. The candidates are so unenthusiastic about firing the starting gun, the first big debate at the Reagan library in California has been put back from next month to the autumn.

Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Donald Trump seem almost certain to have a go. Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, John Huntsman and Mitch Daniels seem less sure bets. And, of course, there are plenty of other names out there.

Mr Obama is starting the race now to make sure that whoever challenges him, his organisation will be ramped up and ready, with big bucks at its command.

Washington teeters on the brink. If there is no agreement on a budget by midnight on Friday, the federal government will shut down. While cops and soldiers, air traffic controllers and others deemed essential won't down tools this is serious, at least according to the Obama administration. A senior administration official has told us loans to small businesses and home buyers will stop, which will have an impact on an already fragile housing market. Military and civilian workers won't be paid. The lions at the zoo will be fed (and unlike last time their waste should be collected) but the gates won't open to visitors. National parks will close. This is, of course, the most serious, as I am planning a vacation to one of them next week.

I am just back from the Capitol, and talking to people at a Tea Party rally. Their view might be summed up as "bring it on!" They were chanting "Shut it down!" Several made the point that if non-essential parts of the government shut down, they'd be quite happy. If it's not essential, the view is, then the government shouldn't be doing it anyway.

I suspect there will be a deal. There is too much for both sides to lose in the blame game that would follow. But the strength of the Tea Party has already made it hard for their leadership to compromise, and will make selling any deal tough. President Barack Obama and the Democrats don't have quite the same problem but the cuts he has accepted have already upset supporters.

Compromise is a peculiar business, I reflected as I started reading a book called At the Edge of the Precipice, by Robert Remini, the former historian of the US House of Representatives. It is about the 1850 compromise over slavery. He writes that the man at the centre of this, Henry Clay, "understood the importance of compromise... each side must feel that it has gained something that is essential to its interest as the result of the compromise. To achieve that goal each side must surrender something important to the opposing side. Both sides can then claim victory."

His contention is that compromise prevented an early civil war that the North would have lost, having neither leadership nor material to win at that stage. The argument is that it prevented the splitting of the US into two nations and thus was a good move. All history is hindsight, but I am uncertain about praising an agreement on the grounds that it turned out that it came unstuck later with better results. It was hardly the argument at the time. And compromises depend who is at the table. The compromise was between white gentlemen, while the slaves themselves had no say. Perhaps they might have had some thoughts about the value of compromise.

What's this got to do with today's politics? Simply that like Mr Remini, most Americans admire politicians who can behave with dignity and find a way through a difficult problem, by giving and taking. Bipartisanship is one of the highest ideals of US politics. But many of the politicians might question the morality of this. Enough of them might see the matters of practicality and principle at stake as too important to allow the other side to claim any sort of victory.

Obama got Osama.

That's what some people chanted when the news of Osama Bin Laden's killing broke. But will it have any impact on the President Barack Obama's politics and popularity?

Mr Obama has gone out of his way to stress that "get Bin Laden" was his direct instruction and that the arch villain's death is, in part, his victory. White House officials are doing all they can to capitalise on what looks like a mood of nationwide elation.

Any president who "got" Bin Laden would benefit. Former President Bill Clinton's efforts were mocked by George W Bush. Then he failed too, losing Bin Laden in the caves along the border land, as US soldiers stood by.

But perhaps Mr Obama will benefit more than most. His style of decision making is to take time, to deliberate, to chew over every option. His critics call it dithering. There are now some excellent "tick tocks" as they are called here - blow by blow accounts of the decision making process. But you always have to remember all sources are in the circle, and liable to portray the president positively. It sounds as if Mr Obama gave this decision as much time and thought as all the others but away from the public gaze.

Not only did Mr Obama's security advisor John Brennan praise him, but Republicans have even called his decision "gutsy". He did not simply go for bombs or drones but rather a helicopter raid. One insider is quoted as saying that Black Hawk Down was mentioned a few times in the discussions. When that helicopter did go down, Mr Obama surely thought of Jimmy Carter and Iran.

So he's a risk taker, too. It also makes him look focused on what is truly in the US's national interest. You can argue Iraq wasn't, Libya wasn't, even Afghanistan no longer is. But getting the head of al-Qaeda clearly was a number one priority in the minds of many Americans, and Mr Obama decided it was his as well.

Even habitual enemies, indeed even Rush Limbaugh, have praised him. At a reception for Republicans and Democrats last night, he got a standing ovation.

So the wind is behind him. Whence will he sail? At a White House dinner for members of Congress, he used Bin Laden's killing as a call for unity.

He said: "We were reminded again that there is a pride in what this nation stands for, and what we can achieve, that runs far deeper than party, far deeper than politics."

From Bin Laden, he moved effortlessly to domestic public enemy number one, the deficit. "It is my fervent hope that we can harness some of that unity and some of that pride to confront the many challenges that we still face," Mr Obama said.

On Thursday, Mr Obama will travel to New York City to remember those who died in Bin Laden's assault on America. I expect more talk of unity but perhaps some big foreign policy themes as well. There are those who think the halo of success makes it easier for the president to confront a military that wants July's Afghanistan wind-down to be small and fairly insignificant. Others, however, think the momentum runs the other way, and that it gives all the more reason to stay and finish the job.

So the killing sends waves that will wash against these shores and those of a wider world. Some are saying this moment assures Mr Obama's re-election. It assures no such thing.
Apart from the obvious point that there can be many other unexpected events that will have an impact, positive or negative, It just doesn't work like that. However huge this event snow seems, wait a couple of months. In the relentless frenzy of the 24-hour media cycle, it will probably be half forgotten by the the time of the election.

This far out, only events that mean change to people's lives on a day-to-day basis have that sort of game changing impact. But image is important. The president has burnished his in the eyes of many Americans and looks like a resolute commander-in-chief. He knows it, and intends to milk the moment for all it is worth.

"I look at that group — it was not sexy at that time to play for Indiana. They made it sexy."

Former Center Grove High School standout attended Stanford but will play for the Hoosiers in his remaining season.

The Hoosiers' offensive line loses key leaders, with graduation of Simon Stepaniak and Hunter Littlejohn and transfer of Coy Cronk.

Tennessee standout Chloe Moore-McNeil signed with Indiana basketball on Wednesday.