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Tag Archives: bestof2013

Best of 2013 #2 – The Board vs. the State: Scandals in Public Education

2013 was a volatile year for education in Indiana. Education leaders made national headlines with their highly visible dysfunction and disputes, most stemming from a rocky relationship between newly-elected State Board of Education Superintendent Glenda Ritz and the Indiana Department of Education. CREDITS The Best of 2013 is a production of the WFHB News Department. Today’s episode was produced by …

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Best of 2013 #3 – “Where Do You Want Us To Go?”: The Search for Shelter in Bloomington

While political battles in Congress forced cuts to social services across the country in 2013, the year also saw a combination of local events affecting a population that has long depended on the social safety net. People experiencing homelessness were at the center of controversies over police harassment, city zoning laws, and a lack of adequate shelter. The issue that …

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Best of 2013 #4 – Restricted Access: Indiana Reinterprets Medical Abortions

Indiana Senate Bill 371 easily passed into law this year, but the act, which reclassifies health clinics and imposes unnecessary procedures and counseling to families seeking abortions, has yet to be implemented due to a recent court ordered injunction declaring the law unconstitutional. Today, we look back at the legislators who passed an entire bill aimed to close down a …

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Best of 2013 #5 – Neighbors Clash Over Trash: The Fight Over A Downtown Garbage Station

Issues surrounding trash and recycling were in the news all year long during 2013. Early this year the local solid waste district expanded its services for rural customers. Then, over the summer, a business that accepted recyclables in downtown Bloomington was forced to close due to financial troubles. And in recent months there has been debate over whether the solid …

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Best of 2013 #6 – House Joint Resolution 6: the Battle for Marriage Equality in Indiana

The fight for marriage equality reached the boiling point in 2013. From the landmark Supreme Court decisions striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and deferring to the lower court decision that found the ban of same-sex marriage created by California’s Proposition 8 referendum to be unconstitutional under California law to Maine, Maryland, Washington State, Rhode Island, Delaware, Minnesota, …

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Best of 2013 #7- Indiana stays HIP: the ACA & the Twenty-Nine Hour Work Week

A source of national controversy and the impetus behind the October shutdown of the federal government, the ACA produced two big issues in Indiana. The creation of the 29-hour work week allowed employers to avoid providing health care benefits to part-time workers, and Indiana lawmakers refused to create an Indiana insurance exchange, rejected Federal Medicaid expansion monies, and chose to …

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Best of 2013 #8 – A Year of Government Dysfunction: The Sequester and the Shutdown

One of the biggest national stories in 2013 was the continuing inability for the Federal Government to govern in a bi-partisan manner or in fact to govern at all. Beginning with the automatic cuts commonly referred to as the sequester in March as a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011 and reaching a breaking point with the October …

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Best of 2013 #9 – Muddying the Waters: New Interstate Brings New Contamination

After decades of debate and protest, 2013 saw the first segments of Interstate 69 begin construction in Monroe and Greene counties. In 2012, a 67-mile stretch of the new road was finished in Southern Indiana, connecting Evansville to the area near the Crane Naval base. Then, by early this spring, landowners in the WFHB listening area began reporting trees were …

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Best of 2013 #10 – School Assembly: Indiana University on Strike

The Occupy Movement and a string of student sit ins and protests during the 2012 election year led to a standing assembly of students staff and faculty working together to include their voice in conversations typically reserved for IU administrators and trustees. This year the group organized a two day strike coinciding with the trustees’ Bloomington meeting and continued to …

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