Free Republic

Elkhart, IN - An Elkhart boy who climbed into a crane machine last week has garnered national attention including an appearance on the Today Show but the media spotlight almost landed his mother in jail. According to our reporting partners at The Truth, the boy's mother, 22-year-old Danielle Manges, violated her probation Monday when she went to New York and appeared on the Today Show with her son. Manges pleaded guilty last year to a felony charge of auto theft and was sentenced last October to 18 months of probation. Her Today Show appearance was her third violation in...

A judge has revoked the bond of Larry Towns, the former head of the Elkhart County Drug Task Force, because he failed to show up for a hearing. Towns was indicted in May on 13 counts, including felony theft and misdemeanor charges of official misconduct and criminal conversion. He was to have appeared at a hearing on Friday. Towns is accused of stealing a gun, drugs and $9,000 while he was head of the task force. He is also accused of failing to turn over records to his successor in a timely manner. Towns took the job in 1999, when...

<p>SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- A judge ordered Elkhart County to remove a Ten Commandments display that hangs along historical documents in the Elkhart County administration building in Goshen.</p> <p>U.S. District Judge Robert L. Miller Jr. ordered the display's removal in a judgment filed Monday, saying the Constitution forbids a government to post the Ten Commandments in a government building.</p>

Man of the Year: Roy Moore by Ann Coulter Posted Dec 19, 2003 Uttering the standard liberal cliché a few years ago, Richard Reeves described "representatives of the new South" as "Republicans of old Puritan definition, righteous folk afraid that someone, somewhere, is having fun." (I'll skip the context of Reeves' insight, except to note that apparently aging liberals view sodomy with the chubby intern in the back office as "having fun.") Like all beliefs universally held by liberals, Reeves's aphorism is the precise opposite of the truth. It's the blue states that are constantly sending lawyers to the red...

Two inmates at the Elkhart County Jail who police believe are brothers were able to escape the county facility Sunday morning by squeezing through a hole in the wall. According to Elkhart County police and Sheriff Michael Books, David S., 34, 2208 Pleasant Plain, Elkhart, and Roger A. Delucenay, 33, 58120 C.R. 29, Goshen, apparently broke out of jail between 9 and 11:45 a.m. “They breached an interior wall,” Books said in describing how the two men got out of their jail ward. Books said investigators are not sure exactly how the two men hid their escape plan, but said...

GOSHEN -- Residents may not be happy about the next tax coming their way, but elected officials don't want them to dodge potholes or wrecked cars on their way to complain. By a 2-1 vote, the Elkhart County commissioners recommended installing a wheel tax to pay for road maintenance. Members of the county council seem poised to agree, and they'll take their vote June 14. The money will make up for funds state government started taking away when the excise tax was cut a decade ago. "If the state chooses to increase the gas tax and let us have the...