After Mayor Greg Ballard’s upset victory at the polls last November, local arts leaders were in a panic. They worried the
no-nonsense former Marine would put public safety on a pedestal and slash Indianapolis’ funding for cultural groups.
(In deference to ’60s radical Abbie Hoffman and his 1971 cult paperback “Steal This Book,” I hereby relinquish our copyright to this column and give you permission to copy it. I’ll tell you what to do with it later.) Silly me, I thought Mitch Daniels had really shaken things up and done a great job in his first four years as governor. To hear his Democratic opponents in the upcoming election tell it, you’d think he had provided uninspired leadership…
The big stories in the world of motorsports have been coming at such a high rate of speed, it’s been difficult to keep up.
The long weekend kicked off with Tony Stewart getting into an altercation with a U.S. Auto Club…
Two giants of local business are preparing to slug it out in court over a soured sublease deal. Marsh Supermarkets filed
suit in Hamilton County this month to enforce a deal with Swiss pharmaceutical and medical-equipment powerhouse
Roche to sublease the grocer’s entire 148,000-square-foot headquarters in Fishers. The deal, worth more
than $47 million over 18 years, is one of the largest of its kind in central Indiana in years.
Depending upon when IBJ lands in your hands, the 15th Allstate 400 at the Brickyard will be either coming to or going from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. So let’s talk racin’. Let me begin by saying how pleased I am that Tony George took that giant leap in 1994 and welcomed NASCAR to the hallowed openwheel grounds of IMS. By most accounts, the Brickyard 400 instantly became the second-most-coveted prize on the NASCAR circuit and it has remained in that…
Bulldozing history shouldn’t be easy Ivy Tech should keep its promise Ivy Tech Community College says it is continuing to seek feedback from the public about how best to redevelop the old St. Vincent Hospital property just north of downtown, but it already has an architect’s drawing of what could replace the neoclassical structure built in 1912. Does that mean Ivy Tech’s leaders have their minds made up about the property’s future? We hope not. The city turned over the…
Just a few years ago, Carmel businessman Edward Okun was living the high life. By last year, his personal holdings had grown to include four mansions, a helicopter, three airplanes, 20 automobiles, and a 130-foot yacht. Today, Okun is in a Virginia jail, is represented by a public defender, and faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars. And, angry investors say, rightfully so. They charge-and government investigators agree-that Okun financed his lavish lifestyle by misappropriating…
This has been a dizzy stock market, maybe even ill, but it isn’t terminal. Learning how to manage one’s own emotions while investing is an important part of success. And, the most crucial factor is practicing realism over optimism, instead of the reverse. Hope is helpful in most areas of life because it gives us optimism and a reason to live, but in the investment arena, it can quickly drive our portfolio into negative territory. Our desire for excessive investment…
Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Tony George’s open-wheel racing enterprise has gotten a boost from its fendered brethren that few outside racing circles are aware of.
So powerful is the connection between NASCAR and the…
Wall Street rejoiced today after WellPoint Inc. posted second-quarter profit that exceeded analysts’ estimates. Investors bid up shares of the Indianapolis-based health insurer as much as 9 percent. As of late this morning, the stock traded at $52.06, up 6.8 percent. WellPoint stock rose along with broader markets, which surged as the price of crude […]
FedEx Corp. has asked a bankruptcy judge to allow it to sue ATA Airlines Inc. for breaching a contract to carry military personnel. The filing comes a month after ATA sued FedEx, claiming that it was forced into bankruptcy when FedEx notified ATA that the contract would end this fall. ATA was obligated to continue […]
Wall Street often is nothing more than a game of three-card monte, with the majority of players losing because they were looking at the wrong card. It is challenging enough to make money during bull markets. But during bear markets, the distractions and traps are everywhere, and they are lethal. There is a big distraction right now that is masking what could be the falling domino that sends everything else toppling over. The disaster of the month is the near-collapse…
Nathan’s Battle Foundation, led by Phil Milto–who has two sons afflicted with the disease–has evolved over 10 years into
what Milto calls a not-for-profit biotech company that has raised money and guided research that resulted in a promising treatment
for Batten disease. Now, some of the gene therapy techniques researchers developed are being applied to other disorders.
To glimpse the priority list of the honchos running the Indiana University medical complex, drive west along Michigan Street and look north toward the IU Hospital. The 38-year-old facility is now nearly totally eclipsed from view by a sparkling, $150 million addition to the IU Simon Cancer Center, which stretches steel, glass and stone across an entire block between University Boulevard and Barnhill Drive. By bulking up its cancer care and research, IU leaders hope to improve the prestige of…
Subway restaurants won’t be the last NASCAR sponsor racing to the Indy Racing League, according to motorsports marketing experts.
An idea that seemed laughable a year or two ago is now reality. Subway, a big-time NASCAR sponsor, this week announced it…
Sports agent Andrew “Buddy” Baker has left locally based law firm Ice Miller and is taking with him the firm’s sports division,
IM Sports Services, which he wants to develop into a giant agency with a national reach. Baker’s new firm, Exclusive Sports
Group, starts with a list of high-profile clients.
At a time when central Indiana is adding high-tech jobs faster than any other area in the Midwest, the overall health of the industry could be threatened by a lack of interest from college students. The Washington, D.C.-based Computing Research Association’s annual survey of universities with doctorate-granting programs found an 18-percent drop this year in students completing bachelor’s degrees in professional information technology fields. The latest statistics are particularly alarming given they continue a trend seen for several years. Enrollment…
By Chris O’Malley A resident of Broward County, Fla., has filed a class-action lawsuit against a Conseco Inc. unit that allegedly failed to pay the maximum benefit for home health care insurance. Anna M. Cohen, in the July 2 case in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, seeks more than $5 million […]
An Indianapolis law firm has paid $50,000 to the Indiana Department of Insurance in a deal that extricates it from an $18 million jury verdict stemming from the collapse of a health insurance trust. The department released Fillenwarth Dennerline Groth & Towe from the massive judgment that a Marion County jury handed down against the […]
