Last week, first lady Michelle Obama called on the U.S. Conference of Mayors to help her fight the national scourge of childhood obesity. She noted that one-third of all children are overweight or obese.

As a general rule, a proposed law is worth serious consideration if it addresses a commonly agreed upon problem, spells out specific prohibited activities and sets clearly understandable penalties for engaging in the prohibited activity.

In his Jan. 27 guest column, B.J. Paschal states that America's Founding Fathers came together to forge a new national secular compact.

I can't believe the Jan. 18 News-Sentinel front-page article had the audacity to refer to the World Health Organization's rankings, showing the United States ranking 37 among the 191 nations.

This has to be the faintest of silver linings in the biggest and darkest of clouds: The leakage to state revenues is less than it has been, especially on the sales-tax side.

A man who had never been unemployed suddenly lost his job and did not know where to begin to find help.

Poor Elkhart just can't catch a break. Suffering some of the highest unemployment in the nation, it became the poster town for the recession when then-candidate Barack Obama visited there.

Lambro's restaurant earned its reputation by serving great steaks and chops and the best garlic toast in Fort Wayne.

“Although changing social and cultural contexts mean guilt has less power today than it once did, a new study has shown that in the West this emotion is ‘significantly higher' among women.

Alas, FWCS has again shown infinite lack of wisdom in its recent decree to shift some three dozen administrators. This is a lame attempt to gain favor toward Race to the Top federal funding. How much extra money and for what usage remain unknown.

Indiana Republicans were tantalized in that brief period when Republican 6th District U.S. Rep. Mike Pence was said to be considering a run against Democratic U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh.

The Democrats not only swept the last election; they hammered the Republicans. We lost the presidency decisively (after multiple close elections). The Senate had 60 members of the majority party.

I would like a discussion to be started about approving an after- Labor Day school start date for Indiana schools. Michigan passed a law to start schools after Labor Day.

The Indiana Senate has voted 31-19 to approve a bill that would ban schools from starting the year until after Labor Day.

The Indiana State Teachers Association spends a great deal of money every election year supporting candidates who are willing to do its bidding in Indianapolis.