Around The Region

Fort Wayne man seeks to lower fees for bone marrow registry\nINDIANAPOLIS -- A Fort Wayne man who survived cancer believes the fee to register as a bone-marrow donor may be costing some cancer patients their lives, so he is asking state lawmakers to help.\nA man in Germany donated the bone marrow that Randy McCune said freed his body of leukemia. McCune, 40, wants to make it easier for others to find a match.\nThe bone-marrow profile needed to match donors and recipients can cost a donor up to $96 and deters some people who might be willing to help, McCune said.\n"It's atrocious that people have to pay to save someone's life," he told The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne for a story published on Sunday.\nMcCune is pushing legislation in the General Assembly that would educate people about bone-marrow transplants and reduce the fee donors pay to have their bone-marrow profile added to the national marrow registry.\nThe Indiana House passed McCune's proposal 94-1 last week, sending the legislation to the Senate. The bill transfers $50,000 from the state's anatomic gift promotion fund to a new fund for the test of bone- and organ-marrow donors.\nLawmaker seeks state Hispanic commission \nINDIANAPOLIS -- A lawmaker from East Chicago is sponsoring a bill that would make Indiana's Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs a permanent entity.\nDemocratic Rep. John Aguilera's bill has made it out of committee with an amendment calling for a separate commission for Native Americans.\n"We have grown threefold in the last decade, and we are projected to grow another threefold in the next decade," Aguilera, Indiana's only Hispanic lawmaker, told the Post-Tribune of Merrillville.\nU.S. Census figures indicate Hispanics comprise 3.5 percent of the state's population -- 214,000 of 6.1 million Hoosiers. Lake County has the state's largest Hispanic population, with 59,000 people or 12 percent.\nWhile Hispanics are well-established in Lake and Porter counties, much of the rest of the state is just beginning to recognize an influx, making it more difficult to maintain a statewide voice, Aguilera said.\nIn the last session, he challenged his own Democratic leadership in the House and refused to vote for the House map of new legislative districts because it did not contain a majority Hispanic district anywhere in the state. Aguilera's district is about 25 percent Hispanic and Latino.\nA survey by the Greater Indianapolis United Way in 2000 found a majority of the local Hispanic community had been in Indiana less than two years.\nIndiana transportation funding next to last\nINDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana's share of federal funding for pet transportation projects put it next to last in the nation on a per-capita basis, according to an Associated Press review of federal data.\nIndiana received $39.1 million -- or $6.44 for each of the state's 6.08 million residents-- from a pot of highway money used for projects dear to lawmakers hearts. Only Ohio received less per capita.\nNo Indiana lawmaker sat on the House-Senate Appropriations conference committee, a 29-member panel which increased funding for local projects requested by individual lawmakers.\nIn doing so, the committee removed general transportation money states can use at their discretion. The AP computer analysis found the shift cost state and local governments about 11 percent of the money they originally expected to get as they saw fit.\nThe biggest per-capita loser was Ohio, which received $5.81 per person for pet transportation projects.\nIndiana's share rises to $6.64 per person if the state's share of a joint Indiana-Kentucky Ohio River bridges project is taken into account.