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Indiana will next year cut off food stamp benefits to tens of thousands of residents who have not secured jobs or participated in work training programs.

Just weeks after the Fort Wayne City Council passed legislation ending collective bargaining for city employees, it has taken the assault on workers rights further by passing a new law which would make union membership for all public safety employees optional. This local “Right-to-Work” law goes further than the state’s bill which exempted policemen and firefighters.

While serving in the House of Representatives, Mike Pence railed against the economic stimulus bill, repeatedly denouncing it as a failure and calling instead for a federal “spending freeze.”

Three days after spilling crude oil into Lake Michigan, BP has doubled its spill estimate to between 470 and 1228 gallons. The leak happened at its refinery in Whiting, Indiana, which just went through a $4 billion "modernization project." Although some of the oil has been cleaned up, it's unclear how much is left in the lake, a drinking water source for about seven million Chicagoans.

An Indiana company, Clear Path Construction, Inc., has been accused of intimidating and harassing workers who are seeking to find information on joining a union. An investigation into the matter has found merit to these claims.

In a surprising victory for gay rights' advocates in Indiana, the statehouse used a parliamentary move to push back voting on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage by at least two years. Due to a rewrite in the wording of the amendment in both upper and lower houses, the entire process must start fresh.

A Lake County, IN, judge decided yesterday that the state’s “Right-to-Work” law is unconstitutional, sending the dubious anti-worker legislation to the Indiana Supreme Court for further review. The law was signed into law by then-governor Mitch Daniels, and has been challenged in court before. But this latest development, which stems from an International Union of Operating Engineers’ lawsuit, sets the path for a conclusive legal fate for “Right-to-Work” in the Hoosier state.

Ball State University in Indiana is facing scrutiny for hiring a science professor who wrote a book on intelligent design, a move that comes after another professor at the state college was accused of teaching creationism.

The Supreme Court will not disturb a lower court ruling that blocks Indiana's effort to strip Medicaid funds from Planned Parenthood because the organization performs abortions among its medical services. The justices did not comment Tuesday in rejecting the state's appeal of a federal appeals court ruling in favor of Planned Parenthood.

Indiana Senate Republican candidate, Richard Mourdock, last night:

"I believe life begins at conception. The only exception I have for to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother. I struggled with myself for a long time but I came to realize life is that gift from God, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape. It is something that God intended to happen."

The AP is reporting from a Romney campaign stop in Nevada 20 mins ago that Romney spokesperson, Andrea Saul, said that Romney disagrees with his opposition to exceptions for rape and incest but that Romney still supports Mourdock.