Portage

A former northwestern Indiana mayor is being allowed to stay out of prison while he appeals his conviction on bribery and tax evasion charges.

A former northwestern Indiana mayor who was found guilty of taking a $13,000 bribe from a trucking company and illegal tax evasion was sentenced Wednesday to 21 months in prison.

U.S. Steel Midwest idled the plant in Portage, about 30 miles east of Chicago, as a precaution after it said a wastewater treatment facility experienced “an upset condition” that sent the rusty colored plume containing elevated levels of lead into the Burns Waterway on Sunday.

State and federal environmental agencies are working with U.S. Steel to investigate the cause of the leak and find out if it's harmful.

A federal judge has approved a revised settlement with U.S. Steel, more than four years after one of the steelmaker's Indiana plants discharged wastewater containing a potentially carcinogenic chemical into a Lake Michigan tributary.

A jury in U.S. District Court in Hammond deliberated less than two hours before finding former Portage mayor James Snyder, 42, guilty on a federal bribery charge.

The former president of the local Iron Workers Local 395 union in Portage, Indiana was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in a federal prison on Wednesday.

The DNR says that shad die-offs are common in Indiana winters, especially when the temperature suddenly drops from the 30s and 40s to well below freezing.

Portage Mayor John Cannon said his police and fire departments want to close a city-managed lakefront pavilion that many people use to enter Indiana Dunes National Park.

U.S. Steel has reopened most of the Midwest Plant as of Tuesday, Nov. 5.