The city of Indianapolis and the Indy Chamber announced a $10 million rapid response loan fund for small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.

The financial disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic are growing. April brings new challenges for renters, homeowners and small-business owners.

Indiana businesses operating during the coronavirus should follow certain sanitation measures. Guidelines vary based on a worker's risk of exposure.

Indiana officials have investigated several hundred complaints about businesses accused of violating state-mandated safety restrictions.

Here's what business leaders and economists say Indiana needs to do to reopen the state's economy and recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Indiana businesses are receiving a second round of payroll protection loans to assist with the economic downturn from the coronavirus pandemic.

At Indianapolis Motor Speedway, even the old and the great must constantly be made new in today's world, and that's happening. The greatness of the Indianapolis 500, and of race weekend, remains.

The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 14.7 percent in April, the highest level since the Great Depression, as many businesses shut down or severely curtailed operations to try and limit the spread of the deadly coronavirus. From a report: The Labor Department said 20.5 million people abruptly lost their jobs, wiping out a decade of employment gains in a single month. The speed and magnitude of the loss defies comparison. It is roughly double what the nation experienced during the entire 2007-09 crisis. As the virus's rapid spread accelerated in March, President Trump and numerous governors imposed restrictions that led businesses to suddenly shed millions of workers, putting the economy in a deep freeze. Analysts warn it could take many years to return to the 3.5 percent unemployment rate the nation experienced in February in part because it's unclear what a new economy will look like even if scientists make progress on a vaccine, testing, and treatment.

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Uber lost $2.9 billion in the first quarter as its overseas investments were hammered by the coronavirus pandemic, but the company is looking to its growing food delivery business and aggressive cost-cutting to ease the pain. Tech Xplore reports: The ride-hailing giant said Thursday it is offloading Jump, its bike and scooter business, to Lime, a company in which it is investing $85 million. Jump had been losing about $60 million a quarter. "While our Rides business has been hit hard by the ongoing pandemic, we have taken quick action to preserve the strength of our balance sheet, focus additional resources on Uber Eats, and prepare us for any recovery scenario," said CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in a statement. "Along with the surge in food delivery, we are encouraged by the early signs we are seeing in markets that are beginning to open back up." On Wednesday, San Francisco-based Uber said it was cutting 3,700 full-time workers, or about 14% of its workforce, as people avoiding contagion either stay indoors or try to limit contact with others. Its main U.S. rival Lyft announced last month it would lay off 982 people, or 17% of its workforce because of plummeting demand. Careem, Uber's subsidiary in the Middle East, cut its workforce by 31%. Uber brought in $3.54 billion in revenue in the first quarter, up 14% from the same time last year. Revenue in its Eats meal delivery business grew 53% as customers shuttered at home opted to order in. Gross bookings grew 8% to $15.8 billion, with 54% growth in the food delivery business and a 3% decline in rides, on a constant currency basis. The report adds that rides were down 80% globally during the month of April. "But rides have been increasing for the past three weeks and bookings in large cities across Georgia and Texas, two states that started re-opening, are up 43% and 50% respectively from their lowest points," the report says.

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Google's move to put Javier Soltero, VP and GM of G Suite, in charge of Messages, Duo, and the phone app on Android, puts all of Google's major communication products under one umbrella: Soltero's team. Dieter Bohn reports via The Verge: Soltero tells me that there are no immediate plans to change or integrate any of Google's apps, so don't get your hopes up for that (yet). "We believe people make choices around the products that they use for specific purposes," Soltero says. Still, Google's communications apps are in dire need of a more coherent and opinionated production development, and Soltero could very well be the right person to provide that direction. Prior to joining Google, he had a long career that included creating the much-loved Acompli email app, which Microsoft acquired and essentially turned into the main Outlook app less than two months after signing the deal. Soltero has also moved rapidly (at least by the standards of Google's communication apps) to clean up the Hangouts branding mess, converting Hangouts Video to Google Meet and Hangouts Chat to Google Chat -- at least on the enterprise side. Google Meet also became free for everybody far ahead of the original schedule because of the pandemic. Cleaning up the consumer side of all that is more complicated, but Soltero says, "The plan continues to be to modernize [Hangouts] towards Google Meet and Google Chat." "Soltero will remain on the cloud team but will join Hiroshi Lockheimer's leadership team," Dieter adds. While Lockheimer believes there are opportunities to better integrate Google's apps into its platforms, he says it doesn't make sense to force integration or interoperability too quickly. "It's not necessarily a bad thing that there are multiple communications applications if they're for a different purpose," Lockheimer says. "Part of what might be confusing, what we've done to confuse everyone, is our history around some of our communications products that have gone from one place or another place. But we're looking forward now, in a way that has a much more coherent vision."

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The iconic restaurant still conjures up fond memories of the food and the cruising.

After coronavirus restrictions are lifted, Indianapolis bars and breweries will face challenges in terms of short-term staffing and long-term survival

Miss an episode of "Dogfish Head Brewery presents IndyStar Sessions at Square Cat Vinyl"? We have the musical highlights.

Austin Burton announced last week he's transferring from UCLA to Purdue. He'll be a graduate transfer with two years of eligibility.

Lawrence North, Silver Creek, Fort Wayne Blackhawk, Greenwood Christian on top of my ballot this week

Shenandoah moves up to No. 1 in Class 2A and Greenwood Christian No. 1 in Class A

Bloomington South No. 1 on my Class 4A ballot this week

Bloomington South, Silver Creek, Shenandoah, Greenwood Christian are No. 1 teams this week

Bloomington South, Lawrence North, Lawrence Central top three on my Class 4A ballot this week

Linton-Stockton new No. 1 this week in Class 2A

Bloomington South, Silver Creek, Fort Wayne Blackhawk, Greenwood Christian on top of my ballot

Bloomington South, Silver Creek, Shenandoah, Greenwood Christian on top of polls this week

Bloomington South, Silver Creek, Fort Wayne Blackhawk, Barr-Reeve No. 1 teams on my ballot for this week

Bloomington South, Silver Creek, Shenandoah and Barr-Reeve ranked No. 1 this week

IHSAA basketball: IndyStar's high school insider Kyle Neddenriep ranks boys basketball teams statewide.

Bloomington South, Silver Creek, Shenandoah, Barr-Reeve are No. 1 teams going into tournament

The startup anti-patterns section of my blog summarizes the repeatable ways startups waste time & money and, often, fail. Learning from startup failure is valuable because there are many more examples of failures that successes. (Anti-)Patterns become more noticeable and … Continue reading →

Life changed for Avon High School alum Jesse Kramer in June, when he made his TV network debut on "The Four: Battle for Stardom."

We report on Britain's success at the Oscars and asks if this will affect the future of British film.

He's interesting, he's intelligent and he's back. The Teacher returns with his hilarious lessons.

Hear how people are making changes to their lifestyle to adapt to the current economic trend.

Do you think you could make your living from magic like Harry Potter? Why not become a professional witch?

How lazy are British people? This week's Take Away English looks at a survey on the subject.

The fifth annual Bacon Fest brought faithful bacon lovers flock Downtown.

The iconic restaurant still conjures up fond memories of the food and the cruising.

Dom Bess talks about England, the Ashes and why he looks up to Australia's Nathan Lyon.

England bowler Jofra Archer impresses with a 4-1 win over Newcastle's Rolando Aarons in the best of the action from the first day of the second Premier League Fifa invitational.

Former footballer turned personal trainer Bradley Simmonds has designed 10 exercises that will help players of all levels keep in shape during lockdown.

Defying shelter-in-place orders over coronavirus, some Napa Valley businesses have reopened.

It's not much, but Los Angeles County has announced the first steps in easing stay-at-home rules that have slowed the spread of the coronavirus.

Home color kits and Zoom crystal readings fill the void. But underground services break the lockdown.

11 photos: Businesses and restaurants open to customers in rural California counties.

California allows some retailers to open with curbside service, including bookstores, florists and toy stores. Many parks will reopen Saturday.

Vanessa Bryant has filed a claim against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department over deputies sharing "unauthorized" photos of the scene of the helicopter crash that killed her husband Kobe Bryant, their daughter and seven others.

California's tepid reopening amid the coronavirus sparked a mix of excitement, confusion and uncertainty.

Indianapolis Colts linebacker Darius Leonard discusses the team's workouts during the pandemic.

Kevin Peoples has been mentored by Pete Jenkins, a defensive line master for decades.

Leonard has made 284 tackles, 12 sacks and seven interceptions in his first two years, but says he only met 3 or 4 of his 15 goals last year.

Evansville native and pro golfer Dylan Meyer discusses what his plans would have been this spring, his dream golf foursome and more.

We should not use the blanket approach that government took in shutting down the economy to reopen it.