Pat O'Neil, an Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, was declared cancer-free Tuesday.

Avon grad among four local transfers trying to become starting QBs

The new offensive scheme allowing Tri-West graduate to become a difference maker for IU offense.

Plainfield's volleyball team won nine matches in 2015. This year, they've won 11 matches already. Here's what changed.

Being ranked No. 1 in the state is old hat at certain places — Warren Central, Carmel and Ben Davis, to name a few. But not Avon.

The 22-year-old rider from Brownsburg became the youngest time trial winner — with the biggest margin — in the history of road cycling's World Championships.

Avon, the top-ranked team in Class 6A, found itself in unfamiliar territory on Friday night — trailing by two touchdowns early in a game.

After five consecutive sectional losses to Avon dating to 2010, Brownsburg finally knocks off its rival in tournament

Watch this style from the Dakotas, showing higher-pitched singing, and a lower-pitched style from Oklahoma, shown at a Danville pow wow on Saturday.

Steve Brunes spent nearly four decades coaching Indiana high school basketball with stops at Brownsburg, Cowan, Columbus East, Castle and Alexandria.

Brownsburg upended Plainfield on Dec. 7 but the Bulldogs will be missing a key player when the two teams meet in the Hendricks County finals.

Danville senior Ella Collier is Hendricks County's all-time leading scorer. And it didn't happen by accident.

Brownsburg defeats Plainfield, 55-43

The Brownsburg Bulldogs are back on track after three dominant wins in the Hendricks County tournament.

Daryn Wright has a résumé, and a routine, unlike any other girl in this weekend's state swimming and diving championships.

Plainfield picked up a 59-42 win over Greenwoon on Friday night, and still has eyes on Mid-State title.

Comer was offensive coordinator for Western Boone's back-to-back state title teams

Oinking Acres Pig Rescue and Sanctuary is making a difference in the Brownsburg community by saving more than 150 potbellied pigs.

Olivia Head discovered there was a high demand for fostering and adopting potbellied pigs. Thus, Oinking Acres Pig Rescue and Sanctuary was born.

"We've always disinfected oral, nasal cavities that would be exposed to that exhale procedure," said Eric Bell, a funeral director in Pittsboro, Ind.

The Western world remains where it has been for some time, delicately poised between anaemic recovery and a shock that could tip us back into economic contraction.

Perhaps the most conspicuous manifestation of the instability is that investors can't make up their minds whether the greater risk comes from surging inflation that stems largely from China's irrepressible growth or the deflationary impact of the unsustainable burden of debt on peripheral and not-so-peripheral eurozone (and other) economies.

And whence do investors flee when it all looks scary and uncertain, especially when there's a heightened probability of specie debasement - to gold, of course.

Unsurprisingly, with the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, implying that a writedown of Greece's sovereign obligations is an option, and with consumer inflation in China hitting 5.4% in March, there has been a flight to the putative safety of precious metal: the gold price hit a new record of $1,480.50 per ounce for June delivery yesterday and could well break through $1,500 within days (say the analysts). Silver is hitting 30-year highs.

In a way, if a sovereign borrower were to turn €100bn of debts (for example) into an obligation to repay 70bn euros, that would be a form of inflation - it has the same economic impact, a degradation of value, for the lender. But it is a localised inflation; only the specific creditors suffer directly (though there may be all sorts of spillover damage for others).

And only this morning there was another blow to the perceived value of a chunk of euro-denominated sovereign obligations. Moody's has downgraded Irish government debt to one level above junk - which is the equivalent of a bookmaker lengthening the odds the on that country's ability to avoid controlled or uncontrolled default.

Some would say that the Irish government has made a start in writing down debt, with the disclosure by the Irish finance minister Michael Noonan yesterday that he would want to impose up to 6bn euros of losses on holders of so-called subordinated loans to Irish banks.

But I suppose the big story in the eurozone, following the decision by the European Central Bank to raise interest rates, is that the region's excessive government and bank debts are more likely to be cut down to manageable size by a restructuring - writedowns of the amount owed - than by generalised inflation that erodes the real value of the principal.

The decision of the ECB to raise rates has to be seen as a policy decision that - in a worst case - a sovereign default by an Ireland, or Greece or Portugal would be less harmful than endemic inflation.

But is that right? How much damage would be wreaked if Greece or Ireland or Portugal attempted to reduce the nominal amount they owe to levels they felt they could afford?

Let's push to one side the reputational and economic costs to those countries - which are quite big things to ignore, by the way - and simply look at the damage to external creditors from a debt write down.

And I am also going to ignore the difference between a planned, consensual reduction in sums owed - a restructuring that takes place with the blessing of the rest of the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund - and a unilateral declaration of de facto bankruptcy by a Greece, Ireland or Portugal (although the shock value of the latter could have much graver consequences for the health of the financial system).

So the first question is how much of the impaired debt is held by institutions and investors that could not afford to take the losses.

Now I hope it isn't naive to assume that pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds and central banks that hold Greek, or Irish or Portuguese debt can cope with losses generated by a debt restructuring.

The reason for mild optimism in that sense is that those who finance investments made by pension funds and insurers - that's you and me by the way - can't get their money out quickly or easily. We simply have to grin and bear the losses to the value of our savings, when the stewards of our savings make lousy investment decisions.

As for hedge funds, when they make bad bets, they can suffer devastating withdrawals of finance by their investors, as and when the returns generated swing from positive to negative. But so long as those hedge funds haven't borrowed too much, so long as they are not too leveraged - and most aren't these days - the impact on the financial system shouldn't be significant.

Finally, if the European Central Bank - for example - ends up incurring big losses on its substantial holdings of Greek, Portuguese and Irish debt, it can always be recapitalised by solvent eurozone nations, notably by Germany and France.

However this is to ignore the node of fragility in the financial system, the faultline - which is the banking industry.

In the financial system's network of interconnecting assets and liabilities, it is the banks as a cluster that always have the potential to amplify the impact of debt writedowns, in a way that can wreak wider havoc.

That's built into their main function, as maturity transformers. Since banks' creditors can always demand their money back at whim, but banks can't retrieve their loans from their creditors (homeowners, businesses, governments), bank losses above the norm can be painful both for banks and for the rest of us.

Any event that undermines confidence in the safety of money lent to banks, will - in a best case - make it more difficult for a bank to borrow and lend, and will, in the worst case, tip the bank into insolvency.

Which, of course, is what we saw on a global systemic scale from the summer of 2007 to the end of 2008. That's when creditors to banks became increasingly anxious about potential losses faced by banks from a great range of loans and investments, starting with US sub-prime.

So what we need to know is whether the banking system could afford losses generated by Greek, Irish and Portuguese defaults.

And to assess this, we need to know how much overseas banks have lent to the governments of these countries and also - probably - to the banks of these countries, in that recent painful experience has told us that bank liabilities become sovereign liabilities, when the going gets tough.

According to the latest published analysis by the Bank for International Settlements (the central bankers'central bank), the total exposure of overseas banks to the governments and banks of Greece, Portugal and Ireland is "just" $362.2bn, or £224bn,

Now let's make the heroic guess that a rational writedown of this debt to a sustainable level would see a third of it written off - which would generate $121bn (£75bn) of losses for banks outside the countries concerned.

If those loans were spread relatively evenly between banks around the world, losses on that scale would be a headache, but nothing worse.

But this tainted cookie doesn't crumble quite like that. Just under a third of the relevant exposure to public sector and banks of the three debt-challenged states, some $118bn, sits on the balance sheets of German banks, according to the BIS.

For all the formidable strength of the German economy, the balance sheets of Germany's banks are by no means the strongest in the world. German banks would not be able to shrug off $39bn or £24bn of potential losses on Portuguese, Irish and Greek loans as a matter of little consequence.

This suggests that it is in the German national interest to help Portugal, Ireland and Greece avoid default.

If you are a Greek, Portuguese or Irish citizen this might bring on something of a wry smile - because you would probably be aware that the more punitive of the bailout terms imposed by the eurozone on these countries (or about to be imposed in Portugal's case) is the expression of a German desire to spank reckless borrowers.

But as I have mentioned here before, reckless lending can be the moral (or immoral) equivalent of reckless borrowing. And German banks were not models of Lutheran prudence in that regard.

If punitive bailout terms make it more likely that Ireland, Greece or Portugal will eventually default, you might wonder whether there has been an element of masochism in the German government's negotiating position.

You might have noticed that my mind (and body) have been away from the day job. But I am so gobsmacked by the comprehensive defeat of the banks in the PPI case that my fingers felt compelled to tap on smartphone keys.

What probably matters most is that the judge has ruled against the banks on all important issues.

And two really mattered: first that the Financial Services Authority's principles governing the behaviour of financial firms are a proper basis for compensation awards; and that FSA rules based on those principles are necessary but not sufficient for judging whether financial firms engaged in mis-selling.

Frankly if the banks had succeeded in proving otherwise, it would have been utterly disastrous for the whole system of consumer protection in the UK, both the existing system and the new one being erected by the government.

As it turns out, it is the implications of today's ruling for the banks that are serious.

Unless they appeal (and I will come back to that question) they face having to make compensation payments of around £4bn to around two and a half million people (around a quarter of all PPI policies were allegedly mis-sold).

The damage is greatest for the two banks in which we as taxpayers have big stakes, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland (which is just dandy for all of us) - largely because they have the largest shares of the retail banking market.

Lloyds faces the biggest bill: both it and RBS look as though they will have to pay compensation in excess of £1bn each.

That Lloyds and RBS appear to have done the most mis-selling in this instance will be seen by some as further evidence that their particularly powerful positions in retail banking is bad for the welfare of consumers - it will be taken as strengthening the argument of the Independent Commission on Banking that reinforcing competition is a priority (see my recent posts Banking Commission wants firewall around retail banking and Banking Commission: Retail banking must be ring-fenced).

The tab for Barclays and HSBC will also be pretty steep - some hundreds of millions of pounds each.

Given that few lawyers in my acquaintance rated the banks' chances of winning the case terribly highly, it is slightly odd that they used the courts to minimise or delay making restitution - especially at a time when they are not exactly the most popular institutions in the UK.

It is even more curious that they have fought and fought to limit their liability in the light of the two main examples of mis-selling identified by the FSA.

First there were all those refusals to make payouts under the loan insurance plans to those who had a pre-existing medical condition - when it is clear that relevant customers had no idea that pre-existing medical conditions were grounds for non-payment.

Second, it is a logical absurdity that the policies should have been sold by the banks to the self-employed, given that is impossible for a self-employed person to be made redundant.

So what next? Well the banks could make those two and a half million victims of mis-selling wait another couple of years to be made whole by appealing to the Supreme Court.

Or they could take the view that the prospects of winning in any court are too slim to outweigh the potential for further damage to their respective public images from being seen to defy an unambiguous legal judgement that they let down millions of their customers.

Unless of course they regard their reputations as so impaired that there's nothing left to lose from prevarication.

My colleague Tanya Beckett has conducted a rare and fascinating interview with Viktor Vekselberg, one of the billionaire oligarchs who co-own TNK-BP with BP - and who have fallen out with BP over BP's desire to form a business relationship with Rosneft, Russia's largest energy group, which would involve BP and Rosneft taking stakes in each other.

It implies, perhaps for the first time, that there may be a solution to a dispute that has damaged BP's reputation and jeopardised the value of its very substantial assets in Russia.

Because of the tensions that have arisen with AAR, the group that represents the oligarchs, BP in collaboration with Rosneft would dearly love to buy AAR's half share in TNK-BP. But their offer of $27bn for 50% of TNK-BP, which values the whole of TNK-BP at $54bn, was rejected earlier this month.

All may not be lost for BP, however. Mr Vekselberg suggests that a sale is possible. He tells Tanya Beckett:

"Of course it can be happen, for sure. If it will be [an] interesting proposal for us according to our understanding of (the) valuation of this company, of course we can accept. So far we have not received this."

So what would be an "interesting" valuation of TNK-BP? Well those close to the oligarchs say that they value TNK-BP at more than $70bn.

It's not clear BP and Rosneft are prepared to pay as much that. The difficulty for BP is that if it fails to reach an accommodation with Mr Vekselberg and his colleagues on price, then it will be stuck in a difficult place - because BP will have been publicly humiliated by the failure to consummate the Rosneft deal and will somehow have to rebuild relations with AAR in order to continue to extract billions of dollars in dividends from TNK-BP.

BP's partnership with AAR is in tatters, as Mr Vekselberg makes clear, in emotive terms, because of AAR's conviction, upheld in arbitration proceedings, that BP's proposed deal with Rosneft breached its contract with AAR:

"The picture is really simple. TNK-BP was created eight years ago, 2003. It was created like [a] joint venture between Russian shareholders and BP, huge global player... The company grew very active; it's now one of the best companies - not just Russian but internationally, because we have investment outside Russia...
 
And really I personally was surprised, I was surprised why BP decided to do something which [was] not according to our shareholders agreement. I am not surprised why BP would like to do this but I am surprised why they did it without any consulting or even just like, just inform us about that (sic). I was very upset, I am still upset even now".

Mr Vekselberg says he is "not so interested in money". The billionaire
adds: "I have enough money, for my life, for my family, for all that".
But "we are businessmen, we are not ideological or something", so of course a sale to BP and Rosneft "can happen".

So what would occur if BP and Rosneft were to make him several billion dollars richer? "I am already very upset" he says "but I will [be] double upset if I have to decide to sell. It's because I dedicated for this company almost like 15 years".

These remarks by Mr Vekselberg are a sign that the impasse over the purchase by BP and Rosneft of AAR's stake in TNK-BP can be overcome.
It offers hope to BP, perhaps for the first time, that it may be able to buy AAR out of the joint venture by the time of the May 16 extended deadline set by Rosneft.

But here's the question? Is the price that Mr Vekselberg and his fellow billionaires will accept one that BP's owners will see as acceptable?

Some of them are already dubious about the terms of the new partnership it wants to form with Rosneft. At a time when BP remains financially stretched by the costs of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, BP's shareholders won't want it to further enrich Mr Vekselberg more than is strictly necessary.

For more on the Vekselberg interview, see Russia Business Report.

A clutch of big company results today illustrate the big economic trends in the UK and the world - and also say something about what the UK economy needs if its insipid recovery is to become something a bit stronger.

First the good news.

ARM, the world-leading designer of electronic chips for smartphones, tablets and consumer devices, saw revenues rise 29% in the first three months of the year and profits increase 35% (to £51m).

If we had a few more ARMs in this country, we would be agonising less about the imperative of "rebalancing" the structure of our wealth-creation away from financial services and the City.

That said, we'd need an incredible number of ARMs to make a dent in the high unemployment figures, because ARM simply licences its technology to the likes of Apple and LG, which put the chips into their devices. Or to put it another way, ARM's success is in exploiting the grey matter of a few boffins: it manufactures nothing.

Now part of the drag on Britain's recovery is the burden of debt on households and the impact of rising commodity prices on consumers' spending power.

You can see some of that in the first half figures of Associated British Foods, which points out that world sugar prices are at a 30-year high and that there has been a sugar shortage in Europe. ABF's sugar, grocery and agriculture profits were up substantially (sugar by 27%).

ABF's Primark chain of shops, whose prices tend to be the lowest on the high street, seems to have benefited from shoppers desire to trade down and economise, since underlying or like-for-like sales rose 3%. But although that looks okay compared with competitors, it was half the rate of last year's increase.

A further manifestation of all that borrowing in the euphoric years, before the bubble burst in 2007-8, is another set of uninspiring financial results from Heathrow and Stansted airports, and their holding company, BAA (SP) limited.

The losses of the two London airports increased 8% to £211.5m and net debt in BAA (SP) was flat at a substantial £9.9bn. Net debt at the next corporate level up, BAA (SH) plc was a chunky £10.4bn, against a regulated asset base of £13bn (which moved in the right direction by 2.7%).

BAA was acquired by the Spanish group Ferrovial and partners at the height of the debt-fuelled buyout boom of 2006 - and although BAA would argue that operational performance has improved, there is a question about when if ever the owners will ever see a return on their enormous investment.

Meanwhile, in spite of the rising trend of commodities and energy, including oil, BP's profits in the first three months of the year actually fell a fraction to $5.5bn. You can see the impact of higher oil prices in a near trebling of profits to $2.1bn made in refining and marketing - but there was a significant fall in production, some of it related to the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

The fundamental BP story is that the risks and costs of extracting energy are on a secular rising trend - for which we all pay a price.

Last but never least is Barclays and its figures for the first quarter of 2011 - which show top line income lower than the first quarter of last year and below the last quarter of last year. As for profits, they were up a bit or down a bit, depending on what view you take of whether changes in the notional value of Barclays' own borrowings should be included.

The unambiguous trend is a sharp reduction in the charge of debts and investments going bad - which was 39% lower compared with a year ago and 33% down on a three-month comparison.

As for lending, loans to retail customers rose by just under £1bn to £229bn since the end of 2010 - which is neither here nor there for a bank of Barclays' size. And the overall value of Barclays' loans and investments, on a risk-weighted basis, fell 1.5% over 12 months to £392bn.

For Barclays and other big western banks, it's no longer about growing their balance sheets, about lending more and more. Their long term recovery requires deleveraging, shrinking, which is the corollary of the perceived need for western consumers and governments to pay down their respective debts.

Here's the painful part: we may need banks to become smaller, but we all suffer if in the process they starve job-creating businesses of vital finance.

Those who fear the worst won't be reassured by figures just released by the British Bankers Association (BBA), which show that net lending to non-financial businesses by banks fell £3.2bn in March.

The BBA blames weak demand from companies. And although Barclays and the other banks have promised the Treasury, in their Project Merlin agreement, that they will meet the credit needs of the economy, my electronic postbag indicates that there remains quite a gap between their perception of deserving borrowers and yours.

Update 11:15: As some of you have pointed out, ARM saw its profits increase to £51m not £51bn, as I originally said, whilst losses at the two London airports increased to £211.5m, not £211.5bn. Sorry for my brainstorm. I've probably been dealing in billions a little too often recently - due to the magnitude of our recent financial crisis.

The cost of Britain's controversial new aircraft carriers is set to rise by at least £1bn, and perhaps almost £2bn, as a result of the government's decision taken last October to make them compatible with different aircraft than those originally envisaged.

I have learned that the working assumption of the contractors on the project, which are BAE Systems, Thales UK and Babcock, is that the carriers will now cost taxpayers some £7bn in total, compared with the £5.2bn cost disclosed by the Ministry of Defence last autumn - and up from the £3.9bn budget announced when the contract was originally signed in July 2008.

One defence industry veteran said the final bill was bound to be nearer £10bn, though a government official insisted that was way over the top.

The Ministry of Defence and the Treasury believe that total final costs could be nearer £6bn, if only one of the carriers is reconfigured to take the preferred version of America's Joint Strike Fighter aircraft.

An MoD official said no final decision had been taken on whether the first carrier to be built, the Queen Elizabeth, or the second carrier, the Prince of Wales, or both would be reconfigured.

He said it would probably be the case that changing the design specification for the Prince of Wales would be the cheapest option. But if that happened, it is not clear when - if ever - the Queen Elizabeth, due to enter service in 2019, would actually be able to accommodate jets (as opposed to helicopters).

Whatever happens, the increase in the bill will be substantial - and is only regarded by the Treasury as affordable because the increment is likely to be incurred later than 2014/15, when the expenditure constraints put in place by the Chancellor's spending review come to an end.

The Treasury is adamant that the MoD will receive no leeway to increase spending before then.

An MoD spokesman sent me the following statement late last night:

"The conversion of the Queen Elizabeth Class...will allow us to operate the carrier variant of the Joint Strike Fighter that carries a greater payload, has a longer range and is cheaper to purchase. This will give our new carriers, which will be in service for 50 years, greater capability and interoperability with our allies. Final costs are yet to be agreed and detailed work is ongoing. We expect to take firm decisions in late 2012."

The disclosure of the rise in costs is bound to reopen the debate about whether the UK really needs new carriers, especially since the UK will be without any aircraft carrier till 2019, following the decision to decommission Ark Royal.

British Tornado jets are currently active in Libya, flying from a base in Italy, without the use of a British aircraft carrier.

The latest increase in likely expenditure on the enormous carriers - which are almost the size of three football pitches - stems from the decision of the Ministry of Defence in October to change the design one or both of them so that they can be used by the carrier version of America's Joint Strike Fighter.

This would mean they have to be fitted with catapults and traps - or "cats and traps" - rather than ramps.

The likely final cost will depend on whether the cats and traps are cheaper traditional steam devices, or newer-technology electromagnetic ones - and also whether the cats and traps are fitted to both carriers or just one.

Industry and government sources tell me that even if the MoD goes for the cheaper option, and even if the cats and traps are fitted to only one carrier, the additional bill will still be of the order of £1bn.

The hope however would be that in the longer term savings could be achieved because the maintenance costs of the more conventional Joint Strike Fighter should be lower.

One of the reasons the refit could be relatively more expensive is that for one of the carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, there would have to be a retrofit - because so much work has already been done on it.

"Retrofitting is always very pricey" said a senior defence executive.

The carrier project has been beset by controversy and cost increases.

In June 2009, I disclosed that the carrier costs had soared by more than £1bn as a result of a decision taken by the previous government to delay their entry into service.

Then last October the government, in its Strategic Defence and Security Review, came close to cancelling one or both carriers.

In the end, it committed to build both, but with the strange caveat that it might end up using only one of them. This was the reason given by the Prime Minister David Cameron in the Commons for building both:

"They [the previous government] signed contracts so we were left in a situation where even cancelling the second carrier would actually cost more than to build it; I have this in written confirmation from BAE Systems".

However in a memo to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the Ministry of Defence estimated that cancelling both contracts would have saved £2bn and cancelling just one would have saved £1bn.

The MoD told MPs that "as the cancellation costs would have had immediate effect, the costs in the short term would have been significantly higher than proceeding with both carriers as planned; nearly £1bn more in financial year 2011/12 if both carriers had been cancelled".

The MoD was also concerned that cancelling the carriers would have undermined British capability and know-how in the manufacture of complex warships.

The carriers, called Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carriers, are being built by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, whose members are the UK defence giant BAE systems, the British engineering group Babcock, and Thales of France. The Ministry of Defence is also described as both a member of the Alliance and a customer.

Update 15:06:It has been pointed out to me, by what you might term a grizzled sea dog, that the UK does still possess two ships that can take aircraft. They are HMS Illustrious and HMS Ocean (which is a commando carrier with a flat top).

However they can't accommodate jet airplanes, only helicopters - so for veteran sailor it was a terrible error for the government to scrap the illustrious Harrier jumpjet.

He also takes the view, which I've heard from many other military personnel, that it would be bonkers to convert only one of the new carriers to take the carrier version of the Joint Strike Fighter - because if that were to happen, one of the carriers would be an enormous white elephant, and the other would not be able to provide a service for 100% of the time (it would need periodic servicing).

That said, the cost of retro-fitting the first carrier being built now and also redesigning the other one would certainly be nudging £2bn, maybe more.

He believes there is powerful strategic logic to building two new huge ships able to handle jets.

The problem for David Cameron is that he may find it hard to make the strategic case, since last autumn he justified building the two on the basis that it would not save any money to cancel one - which is not the most positive case for what turns out to be a very substantial public investment that anyone has ever advanced.

Belatedly, I've got round to looking at the Treasury's recent decision to change how it calculates the necessary contributions that have to be made to cover the future costs of unfunded public service pensions.

My interest was sparked by a letter sent to the chancellor by 23 pension experts, organised by the consultant John Ralfe. They argue that the Treasury has made a mistake in its choice of a new so-called discount rate.

If you think this is tedious abstruse stuff that has no relevance to you, think again. The aggregate public-sector net liability for pensions is so huge - perhaps £1 trillion - that it matters to all of us as taxpayers, especially those likely to be paying tax in 10 and 20 years time, that the government has a reliable and accurate valuation of pension promises.

Pensions represent, to coin the phrase, a massive off-balance-sheet debt. And as we've all learned to our cost from the financial crisis of 2007-8, it is a bad idea to carry on blithely pretending off-balance-sheet liabilities don't exist.

So what is this blessed discount rate? Well in the private sector it can be seen as the number used to translate into today's money a commitment to pay £650 a week pension (for example) for 30 years or so to a retired employee (till he or she dies), so that we can see whether there's enough money in the pension fund to pay that employee (and all the other employees) during his or her long retirement.

The point of the discount rate is to assess whether there's enough money in the pension fund - or whether it needs to be topped up.

Which is all very well, except that for most of the public sector, there are no funds or pots of money to pay for future pensions. Most of the pension promises are unfunded, payable out of employees' current contributions and out of general taxation.

That said, since public sector workers are increasingly expected to make a contribution to the costs of their own pensions, it would presumably be sensible for that contribution to be set at a level that is rationally related to the value of promised pensions.

So what is the best way of measuring the cost today of new pension promises?

Well the government has decided to "discount" those promises by the rate at which the economy is expected to grow.

Now there is some logic to that: the growth rate of the economy should determine the growth rate of tax revenues; and the growth rate of tax revenues will have a direct bearing on whether future pension promises will bankrupt us all or not.

But here's the thing. Any private sector chief executive might well be sent to prison if he or she decided to use the equivalent discount rate for a company, which would be the expected growth rate of that company's revenues or profits.

The reason is that although it might be possible to remove subjectivity (or in a worst case, manipulation) from any long-term forecast of the growth of GDP or of a company's turnover, it is not possible to remove considerable uncertainty.

To illustrate, the Treasury has chosen a GDP growth rate of 3% per annum as the discount rate for public sector pensions, which is considerably above the rate at which the UK economy has grown for years or indeed may grow for many years.

If we were growing at 3%, we would in practice be less worried about the off-balance-sheet liabilities of public-sector pensions, because the on-balance-sheet debt of the government would not be growing at an unsustainably fast rate.

To put it another way, in choosing its view of the long term growth rate of GDP as the discount rate, the Treasury is arguably understating the burden of future pensions to a considerable extent.

So what discount rate do companies use?

Well they are obliged to discount the liabilities at the yield or interest rate on AA rated corporate bonds.

Which may not be ideal, but has some advantages: there is a market price for AA corporate bonds, so the yield or discount rate is difficult to manipulate by unscrupulous employers; and it tells the company how much money would need to be in the pension pot, on the basis that all the money were invested in relatively safe investments (AA corporate bonds).

Now Ralfe and his chums believe that the discount rate for public sector promises should be the yield on long-term index linked gilts (gilts are bonds or debts of the British government) - partly because this too has a difficult-to-manipulate market price and because an index-linked government bond is a very similar liability to a public sector pension promise (both are protected against inflation, both are in effect debts of the government).

They point out that gilt interest and principal payments are paid out of future tax revenues, just as future pensions are. So if the value today of future pensions should be discounted at the GDP rate, that's how index linked gilts should be value on the government's balance sheet - which would be bonkers.

Anyway, if you've read this far (and many congratulations to you if you have), you may take the view that it would not be rational to impose a tougher discount rate on the government than on private-sector companies - which is what Ralfe et al seem to want, in that the yield on index linked gilts will always be lower than the yield on AA corporate bonds (because HMG, even with all its debts, is deemed to be more creditworthy than any British business).

But for a government and for a chancellor who have made it a badge of honour to bring transparency and prudence to public-sector finances, prospective GDP growth does look a slightly rum discount rate for valuing those enormous pension liabilities.

It's the first results tomorrow for Lloyds new chief executive, Antonio Horta-Orsorio - and I wouldn't be at all surprised if, in the time-honoured fashion of new brooms, he announces substantial losses on ventures that had already gone a bit wrong for his predecessors.

In particular, I would expect him to announce further significant writedowns on £20bn odd of outstanding loans to the troubled Irish economy - after last year's impairment charge of £4.3bn on Irish lending.

Also, he may well make a provision of well over £1bn to cover potential payouts to thousands of purchasers of PPI loan insurance.

This would follow last month's comprehensive defeat in the courts of Britain's leading banks, which had challenged the decision of the regulator, the Financial Services Authority, that they should pay compensation for mis-selling of the credit insurance.

If Lloyds were to incur such a big loss on its past sales of PPI policies, that of course would be seen as a very good thing by those who believe that Lloyds mis-sold to them - because it would imply that Lloyds would be ceasing its legal battle (with the other banks) to avoid making comprehensive restitution.

Anyway, the Irish and PPI debits together could well run to many billions of pounds - which would be enough to put Lloyds into losses overall for the first three months of the year, and possibly for the first six months too.

That would be embarrassing for Lloyds, though not for Mr Horta-Orsorio, who can't be held responsible for decisions made before his time.

Remember that Lloyds made a big thing last year of being back in the black, following its humungous losses in 2008 and 2009 of £6.7bn and £6.3bn respectively.

Anyway, if I'm right, and if Lloyds takes a chunky hit from Ireland and PPI, it would represent a setback to the recovery of a bank 41% owned by taxpayers - but it wouldn't impair the health of the bank in a fundamental way.

That said, it would pose a very particular question for the non-executives of Lloyds - which is why they chose to award a £1.45m bonus to the bank's retiring chief executive, Eric Daniels, earlier this year.

Lloyds has decided not to use the courts any further to contest the decision of the regulator, the Financial Service Authority, that it should pay restitution to customers who were mis-sold PPI loan insurance.

This will be welcomed by thousands of Lloyds customers, although it will be very expensive for Lloyds - which is making a provision of £3.2bn to cover the likely costs.

That £3.2bn charge means Lloyds is back in loss, to the tune of £3.5bn on a statutory or official basis.

My post from last night explains much of the background to this.

Ignoring one-offs, on what Lloyds calls a combined business basis, Lloyds remained in profit, to the tune of £284m, for the first three months of the year - although this was well down on the £1.1bn made in the equivalent period of last year.

There was also a charge of £1.1bn to cover the expected cost of Irish loans going bad. This was £500m more than expected.

The reason for the higher than anticipated Irish lending loss is that the new chief executive Antonio Horsa-Orsorio decided to factor in a further possible fall of 10% in Irish commercial property prices.

Other striking characteristics of these figures for the first quarter of the year is that net lending to small businesses rose, bucking the national trend, and overall income was down from £6bn to £5.2bn.

What stands out however is Lloyds' decision to settle with PPI claimants.

It was a unilateral decision, but will put pressure on the other banks to do the same.

The size of Lloyds charge implies that the big British banks will in total take a £9bn hit to settle PPI claims, with Royal Bank of Scotland, the second most exposed, perhaps taking a £2bn hit.

Update 09:21: For taxpayers, it is good news that Lloyds has been weaning itself off loans and loan guarantees provided by us.

So in the first three months of the year, there was a further reduction of £26bn of funding for Lloyds in effect provided by the state.

Which means that Lloyds' residual dependence on de facto loans from us is £70bn - with £26bn of this still owed to the Bank of England's Special Liquidity Scheme and £44bn of debt guaranteed by the Treasury (under the Credit Guarantee Scheme) still needing to be repaid.

Barring a meltdown in wholesale markets, Lloyds should be free of exceptional taxpayer funding support by the target of 2012.

By contrast, the timetable for privatising taxpayers' 41% stake in Lloyds is yet to be decided - although today's decision by the new chief executive to face up to the mistakes of the past (the PPI and Irish losses) should make privatisation easier.

The next milestone for Lloyds on the road away from state ownership and influence will be the announcement in June of Mr Horta-Orsorio's new strategy for the group.

Update 09:54: Royal Bank of Scotland will not make a decision till next week on whether to join Lloyds in agreeing to settle PPI cases.

It had the second biggest share of the PPI market, with around 20%, compared with 35% for Lloyds.

My banking sources are surprised by the magnitude of the PPI charge taken by Lloyds. It was significantly bigger than they had expected.

They would expect RBS to eventually take a PPI hit of around £1bn (as I mentioned in a post last month) rather than the £2bn implied by Lloyds' PPI provision.

That said, it is highly unlikely that RBS will quantify the potential PPI damage when it announces its first quarter results tomorrow.

On RBS's imminent results, I would expect it still to be in the red at the statutory level, including - for example - a debit from a market valuation of credit insurance provided to RBS by taxpayers under the Asset Protection Scheme.

But at the operating level it will be in profit. And RBS's general insurance operations should be back in the black (some would say 'at last') - which matters, because RBS is committed to dispose of these well-known insurance activities, probably by floating them on the stock market.

FORT WORTH, Texas -- It appears an IndyCar Series driver will be dancing next month on national television.

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Frenchman reportedly leaving KVSH, kicking off IndyCar's driver movement for 2017

SONOMA, Calif. — Simon Pagenaud's excellence this Verizon IndyCar Series season can be summed with two words: One mistake.

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IndyCar Series driver James Hinchcliffe has asked to sit for this "Dancing With the Stars" interview because his body is too tired – his feet too sore – to stand.

Simon Pagenaud and Team Penske will be the featured honorees at Tuesday night's IndyCar Series awards ceremony at the Hilbert Circle Theatre (streamed on IndyCar.com beginning at 6:45 p.m.

Coffee table picture book tells the 100-year history of the famous race

Jerry Sneva dies at age 69

All Avon schools will close through March 20 as one student has tested positive and a second student is showing symptoms of the novel coronavirus.

Indiana University will move to remote teaching after its scheduled spring break over concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.

As the first cases of Hoosiers who test positive for COVID-19 are confirmed, schools in central Indiana are continuing to keep families updated.

Most Marion County public schools will close Friday and all public schools in the county will close by Monday.

The school district provided free grab-and-go breakfasts and lunches for students Monday. It will do it again next Monday (March 23).

Gov. Eric Holcomb announced new steps to combat the spread of the coronavirus Thursday, including the prolonged closure of schools.

Gov. Eric Holcomb announced that all Indiana schools are closed until May 1, possibly beyond that.

Indiana schools will be closed until at least May 1, but districts are ensuring employees continue to get paid.

Teachers from North Elementary School in Noblesville decorated their cars and paraded through neighborhoods, waving and honking at students from afar during the closure of schools because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Schools across the state are closed until at least May 1, and it's possible that will be extended so students finish the year at home.

Indianapolis is partnering with YMCA, At Your School and Early Learning Indiana to provide care for children of first responders at a discounted rate.

The coronavirus outbreak shut down Indiana schools until at least May 1, meaning many are moving online. But not all students have internet access.