Plainfield Correctional Facility inmates donate fruits and vegetables from their garden to community organizations.

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.

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

Brownsburg defeats Plainfield, 55-43

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

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

Austin Burgett, a former Avon High School star, is rejuvenated in part by working out with IU women's basketball legend Tyra Buss.

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.

The big lesson for the banks from today's decision by the British Bankers Association not to appeal against the high court ruling on Payment Protection Insurance is - funnily enough - very similar to the big lesson from the Great Crash of 2007-8.

In the case of PPI, much of what the banks have now acknowledged to be mis-selling seemed consistent with rules laid down by the regulator, the Financial Services Authority, in its handbook and its source book on the selling of insurance.

But the FSA argued that following the letter of these rules was a necessary but not sufficient guarantee that the banks were behaving property. The FSA argued that the big banks should have been more mindful of its over-arching principles, notably the imperative of paying due regard to the interests of customers and treating them fairly.

The banks appear to have been so seduced by the apparently huge profits available from insuring personal loans, mortgages and credit card debt that they pushed the insurance to all manner of unsuitable customers (the self-employed who could never make a claim for being made redundant, or those with pre-existing health conditions, that would invalidate claims, to name just two common examples).

"It is very difficult to justify how we behaved" said one senior banker. "You can't imagine supermarkets treating their customers in the way we treated ours. I know my colleagues think that so long as we followed what was in the FSA's handbook, we shouldn't be blamed. But my view is that we forgot the cardinal rule, which is that we're there to serve customers, not to shove something down their throats which they don't need".

This departure from the very basics of retailing is costing the banks very dearly indeed. Last week Lloyds - the market leader in PPI and the first of the big banks to say it would provide comprehensive restitution - said that the settlement would lead to a £3.2bn expense.

Today, Barclays has quantified the compensation and related costs at £1bn. There will be a similar charge for Royal Bank of Scotland. And HSBC has just said it is setting aside £274m to meet these costs.

In total for all the big banks, the costs are heading towards £6bn or so - and that's to ignore the compensation bill for hundreds of smaller firms which joined in the PPI mis-selling frenzy.

Now what's striking is that the PPI debacle shares strong cultural characteristics with the behaviour that took many of the world's banks to the brink of bankruptcy less than three years ago. During the boom years before the crisis of 2007-8, you won't need telling that banks lent and invested recklessly - to subprime borrowers, to commercial property, to each other, through off-balance sheet vehicles, in the form of "structured" products which delivered the illusion of quality (inter alia).

And much of this reckless lending and investing took advantage of the global Basel rules that give the official regulators' view of how much risk the banks were taking - and, as we now know, were catastrophically wrong.

But - many bankers belatedly concede - banks should have known better than to make their judgments on how to lend on the basis of the regulators' rules. They should have done what other commercial businesses do, which was to lend and invest on the basis of what would be sustainable and prudent for the long term.

Gaming or playing the Basel rules, and forgetting commercial common sense, led to disaster. It meant that Royal Bank of Scotland, in the autumn of 2008, looked like a sound bank as measured by the Basel rules, when to all intents and purposes it was bust.

Of course it is reasonable to blame the regulators for framing the rules badly. But many would say that the banks were more at fault for mindlessly running their businesses on the basis of what the rules allowed.

So what's the big lesson of both PPI and the 2007-8 crash? Well, it is probably that banks need to base everything they do on what is good for customers, shareholders and creditors in a fundamental sense - and not on what the rules allow them to do.

PS Apart from the banks, another group of firms - the claims management firms - look set to be burned by the banks' decision to chuck in the towel and pay compensation to 2.75m or so individuals who were mis-sold PPI insurance.

The banks will now set up operations to speedily process claims for compensation. So they would argue that there is no point in their customers using the services of claims management firms, because in doing so those customers would not gain any additional compensation but would have to pay commission to the claims handler.

SONOMA, Calif. – For a weekend with an IndyCar Series championship on the line and a season climaxing at Sonoma Raceway, there might not be two more relaxed drivers than Simon Pagenaud and Will Power.

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.

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

Superintendent of Public Instruction Jennifer McCormick announced Thursday that schools will stay closed for the rest of the academic year.

Governor Holcomb announced schools will be closed for the rest of the school year, but districts are committed to continue providing meals for kids.

Indiana colleges and universities talk plans for the fall as campuses remain empty statewide

While a return to full, in-person classes is unlikely, IU President Michael McRobbie outlined five possibilities for the fall semester.

As colleges look to the fall semester, they're faced with the uncertainty of what it will look like. But plans are underway.

Plans are underway for Speedway High School seniors to celebrate their graduation at IMS on May 30.

Apoio da caserna a Bolsonaro não se estenderá a uma eventual tentativa de ruptura institucional, dizem ex-titulares da Defesa ouvidos pela BBC News Brasil.

See which incoming sophomores Kyle Neddenriep thinks are the best in the state.

A look at where locals land on new national lists

Right now, there's a 1 in 8 chance the Hoosiers land the consensus top-10 talent out of Minnesota. But they're competing with NCAA royalty.

"I'm pretty sure he's one-and-done. I just want to see how they develop him. What they do for him is key for me."

"Us being from Indiana, you know, going there, we would be taken care of the rest of our life."

A fixture in IU's starting lineup for most of the past two years, Smith averaged 10.4 points and 5.2 rebounds per game in 2019-20.

IU baseball, softball working out expanded rosters

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

IndyStar high school sports Insider Kyle Neddenriep caught up with outgoing IHSAA commissioner Bobby Cox.

Charles Johnson and his wife, Kay, rarely missed a boys or girls basketball game or football game at Warren Central. He died of the coronavirus.

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

Carmel and IU grad Sage Steele will co-host and star athletes like Drew Brees and Venus Williams will announce winners during the online broadcast.

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."

Holcomb says order included abortion clinics to make medical resources available to fight COVID-19. But letter writing campaign preceded his decision

There are two main candidates for the Indiana governor's race in 2020: Republican incumbent Eric Holcomb and Democratic challenger Woody Myers. Here's what we know.

Republican state Sen. Victoria Spartz had the biggest personal loan, giving her campaign $750,000 while raising under $10,000.

Dozens of Indiana Democrats today endorsed Joe Biden for president, his campaign told IndyStar Thursday.

Woody Myers, the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor, thinks Gov. Eric Holcomb is making a big mistake in how he's reopening the economy.

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

Wilson flashed promise in Year 2 after being a second-round pick but was benched last season

Colts GM Chris Ballard: Let's slow down on anointing Jacob Eason the 'messiah.'

After his name popped up in trade rumors the Colts spent a third-round pick on a safety. Are the Colts preparing for a future without Malik Hooker?

According to report from Front Office Sports, former Colts punter Pat McAfee may be a candidate to join the "Monday Night Football" broadcast.

The president said that on taking office he had told the CIA that the al-Qaeda chief's death or capture was to be the agency's top priority. Senior administration officials say that he chaired five meetings in March working out the plans for this attack. It's really not clear to me if the political leadership makes much difference to operations like this, but it is certainly the impression Mr Obama wants to linger.

The raid took 40 minutes. The intelligence operation took years. It started with the search for a courier, perhaps something of a misnomer for a senior aide to Bin Laden, one of the few men he trusted, according to prisoners who had been interrogated. Four years ago they uncovered his identity. The very high level of precautions the man took made them all the more suspicious. Two years ago they discovered the areas in which he operated. Last summer they identified the compound, in an affluent suburb of Islamabad. Eight times the size of similar homes in the area, it had 18ft-high walls topped with barbed wire and inner walls 7ft high. A large place, worth a million dollars, but with no phone, no internet access. The CIA believes it was purpose-built to hide Bin Laden.

The US didn't tell the Pakistanis about the compound or about the raid until it had happened. That may create some diplomatic friction.

But the mood in America is exultant. As Twitter proclaimed the death of Bin Laden, before the president spoke, crowds gathered outside the White House, waving the stars and stripes and chanting "USA, USA". This is not a country that does quiet satisfaction. This is a cathartic moment for the nation, a moment when America's military might, know how and sheer will power seem to have come together to produce a result.

At a time when there are so many doubts about America's role in the world, and so much economic gloom, there is something clear and plain about celebrating the "rubbing out" of a bad guy, an enemy. The president has been congratulated by even his opponents, and this success allows him to appear grimly resolute in pursuit of America's core interests.

Senior administration officials say Bin Laden's death is not just a symbol, it removes a charismatic and respected leader whom al-Qaeda cannot replace. The official suggests the organisation is on a downward path that will be difficult to reverse. The domestic implications for Mr Obama are in the opposite direction, but may be just as important.

The US has had agonised debates about the wars it has been involved in and its role on the world stage. The American reaction to Bin Laden's crimes, the invasion of Afghanistan, the Iraq War, have riven the nation. But most will see the killing of Bin Laden very simply, as an act without shades of ambiguity. The good guys shot the bad guy dead. Mr Obama is trying to use it to repeat one of his main messages: how the country should come together.

"Today we are reminded that as a nation there's nothing we can't do when we put our shoulders to the wheel, when we work together, when we remember the sense of unity that defines us as Americans."

He praised the people who celebrated.

"We've seen that spirit, that patriotism in the crowds that have gathered here outside the White House, at Ground Zero in New York, and across the country, people holding candles, waving the flag, singing the national anthem, people proud to live in the United States of America."

But there is an interesting word of warning in a thoughtful article for NPR by Foreign Policy writer David Rothkopf. The author reflects: "Sept 11 was not Pearl Harbor. Al-Qaida was not and is not a historic enemy like World War II's Axis powers. Bin Laden is not Hitler."

It is a point worth making. Bin Laden could create terrible suffering and appalling disruption, but he could never actually have won. If World War II had gone a different way, Hitler or his henchmen could have ruled from Downing Street. There was never any danger of Bin Laden taking over the White House.

America has had its moment of justice. Maybe it is a moment of closure too.

Thanks for reading this: my blog is moving to a new home. The idea is to bring all my work and analysis together on one page: the blog, of course, but TV and radio pieces and [very soon] my tweets too. It's a great idea, and one the BBC is applying to most of the other editors and correspondents who blog.

I tend to use Twitter to link to either what I've written myself or to the work of colleagues, inside or outside the BBC. But that may change over time, as I see the virtue of live tweeting. The true worth of Twitter was shown on Sunday, when it gave us the first inkling that Osama Bin Laden was dead. Not all the speculation about the details was right but the one huge fact was.

The way I approach Twitter and news on the internet is very much driven by the way I consume it. The built TV bulletin is very far from going the way of the dodo but I want to be able to watch crafted reports online too. This new page should allow this and more.

Prophet Brown's wide-ranging skill set could bring possibilities for Notre Dame.

Notre Dame's John Shannon won the award as the nation's top long snapper but he went undrafted; he decides to change course and pursue a dream

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.