#WTLCIndyNews: IMPD Investigate Northeast Side Shooting Tuesday Morning; Transgenders Fight For Rights At Statehouse While Taxes Are Discussed; Cruz And Clinton Winners In Iowa; FBI In Flint; Is This It For Peyton Manning?; …More

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Get In the Know With Kim’s Tuesday News & Sports Headlines on Groundhog Day

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Happy Groundhog Day to you! It could be a stormy drive home here in Indy on this evening. Forecasters say a strong line of storms is expected to cut across the city, and some of them could be severe. The worst of the weather is expected to start about 4 p.m. and roll through the evening.

Local:

Indy Metro Police were on the scene of yet another shooting in the city on this busy Tuesday morning. The shooting happened in the 3600 block of North Bancroft Street on the northeast side. Police say the man showed up at the house on Bancroft but claimed he was shot at another location—in the area of 34th Street and Sherman Drive. So that’s where police took their investigation. The victim, who’s name hasn’t been released, is at Eskenazi Hospital for treatment listed in critical condition.

The school day is beginning to feel a bit more like it used to, but there are still tears and sadness at Amy Beverland school. Students are back for their second day on this Tuesday after a school bus jumped the curb hitting and injuring a few students and killing their beloved principal, Susan Jordan, who saved many other students from harm during the freak incident.  Counselors were on hand Monday for students and teachers who needed them.

Transgender Hoosiers don’t want to be left out of any civil rights agreement at the statehouse.  Yesterday, trans activists took their case to lawmakers, with a state capitol rally. State Senator Ron Alting is pushing a plan to include trans protections, but other Republicans at the statehouse aren’t sure they can find support for his proposal.

Also at the statehouse, Republicans there, are inching closer to a nickel-a-gallon tax increase on gas and a dolllar-a-pack tax hike on cigarettes to build roads in the state. GOP lawmakers are also considering a slight cut to the state’s income tax. Democrats on Monday failed to get their own plan for a gas tax hike through the Indiana House.

In International & National News:

First to Politics…

Source: Al Drago / Getty

Source: The Washington Post / Getty

Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz are winners in the Iowa caucuses. Iowa Democratic Party officials say Clinton has 49-point-nine-percent of the delegates compared to Sanders’ 49-point-six-percent. Just one of nearly 17-hundred precincts has yet to report. The Sanders campaign claims results are missing from 90 precincts, and there are reports that the Party may need to “re-stage” the results of caucuses in those precincts. In his Republican Iowa Caucus victory, Cruz called his a victory for courageous conservatives. At a rally last night, he said President Obama’s policies are hurting millions of people across the U.S. Businessman Donald Trump, who was the front-runner and projected to win in Iowa by many polls, came in second.

Ben Carson says he is going to take a short break from campaigning. Carson says he will fly from Iowa to his home in Florida instead of going straight to New Hampshire to campaign before the next voting. His campaign manager says Carson has no plans of dropping out of the race. But Carson is alleging that the campaign staffers of Monday night’s winner, Ted Cruz, used “dirty tricks” and the new front-runner has some explaining to do. Carson says they used underhanded dealings to sabotage him in the Iowa caucuses.  Carson told “Fox and Friends,” the Texas Senator’s staffers encouraged Cruz supporters to tell voters at their caucus sites that Carson was dropping out of the race, which he says, he isn’t. Carson’s state director pointed out that the candidate’s wife, Candy Carson, gave a speech at one precinct where she said her husband is not dropping out of the race and that claims he is, are lies. Cruz came in first in Iowa, with 28 percent of the vote. Donald Trump came in with 24 percent of the vote while Florida Senator Marco Rubio was right behind with 23 percent. Carson ran a distant fourth place, with nine-percent.

Despite a fifth-place finish in the Iowa Republican caucuses, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is still in the GOP race. Normally, only the top three candidates from the Iowa caucuses continue their run for the presidency. However, this election has been anything but normal due to how many Republican candidates are running.  Rand Paul is confident the GOP race is still wide open. Paul is the GOP candidate of choice for the “Party of Lincoln Movement” where minorities and other downtrodden populations are encouraged to switch from the Democratic Party during early caucuses and primaries to the GOP Party to in essence ‘highjack’ the Republican Party and return it to the ideals of President Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves and planned to provide reparations to former slaves before he was assassinated and his successor didn’t follow through. Read more about the Party of Lincoln Movement HERE.

Following poor showings in Monday night’s Iowa caucuses, two presidential candidates are suspending their campaigns. Democrat Martin O’Malley never gained traction and couldn’t keep up with Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. He captured less than one percent of the vote. The former Maryland governor was reportedly running low on campaign funds. On the Republican side, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is also bowing out. Huckabee was the surprise winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses.

The Crisis in Flint, Michigan…

Contaminated drinking water in Flint, Michigan now has the attention of the FBI. The agency is working with a task force including the EPA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Potentially dangerous levels of lead have been found in the tap water of residents since officials started using the corrosive Flint River as a source back in 2014. The FBI’s involvement could hint at an investigation into possible criminal wrong doing. A U.S. House Oversight Committee plans to hold a hearing on the water crisis on Wednesday.

The World Health Organization is declaring the Zika virus a global emergency. The organization’s director general said during a teleconference on Monday that a coordinated international response is needed to fight the mosquito-borne virus. The disease has been linked to thousands of birth defects in Brazil. The declaration is aimed at fast-tracking financial aid and research. Brazil is also the site of the 2016 Summer Olympic games. This Zika virus is causing additional alarm for that world-wide event on the ground in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil is now issuing an Olympic warning. Read more about it HERE.

In what may be a startling move to some, Pennsylvania school districts are getting an anti-overdose drug for free. Officials announced on Monday that Pennsylvania is the first state in the country to offer Narcan to all public schools. This is one to watch to see whether the trend will catch on as the war against drug use and abuse continues to be fought on different levels.

Source: David A. Smith / Getty

Bill Cosby is back inside a courthouse this Tuesday morning. A Pennsylvania judge could decide today whether or not sex assault charges filed by one woman against the entertainer will be dismissed. Andrea Constand is accusing Cosby of sexual abuse. Cosby’s lawyers claim a deal with a former district attorney gives him immunity from prosecution. But prosecutors have no record of such a deal. Cosby recently claimed a victory in court when a defamation suit by one of his accusers was tossed in a Pennsylvania court with prejudice, which means she cannot amend the suit—after her court loss—and refile it taking Cosby back to court. This happened on December 30. Read more about Cosby’s last day in court, one you may have missed, HERE. http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/bill-cosby-accuser-defamation-suit-dismissed-article-1.2504776

A ten-part re-telling of the murder case that spawned the “Trial of the Century” begins tonight. “The People V. O.J. Simpson” stars Academy Award-winner Cuba Gooding Jr. as the former football star accused of killing his ex-wife and her friend. The drama airs at 10 p.m. Eastern Time on the FX network. Simpson was charged with murder in the 1994 brutal stabbing deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. The trial, with Simpson’s defense helmed by the legendary late-attorney Johnnie Cochran and co-chaired by the late-attorney Robert Kardashian (Kourtney, Kim, Khloe and Rob’s dad), went on for months before Simpson was found not guilty. In a later civil trial, he was found to be responsible for the deaths. He’s currently serving a 33-year prison term in Nevada on unrelated charges of robbery and kidnapping.

In Sports:

Peyton Manning is reportedly telling his close friends that Super Bowl 50 will be his last game. NFL.com is reporting the story. Manning will play in his fourth Super Bowl this weekend on February 7 leading the Denver Broncos against Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers. The former #Colts4Life quarterback has battled injuries and age this season.

Current Colts linebacker D’Qwell Jackson is being sued after allegedly assaulting a pizza delivery man early last year, according to a story by The Indianapolis Star, Jackson was arrested on February 15, 2015 in Washington, DC after police said he got into an altercation with the 41-year-old man over a parking spot. The court has set a non-jury trial for March 9.

George Hill scored 23 points but it wasn’t enough as the Pacers fell to the Cavaliers in overtime, Monday night 111-106. They did not protecting the home floor from LeBron James and crew. That ends a short two-game winning streak for the ‘Blue ‘n Gold’.  The Pacers are back in action Wednesday night for a road game against the Nets.

Weather:

Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his burrow and didn’t find his shadow on this Groundhog Day 2016. ‘Phil’ is the legendary weather predicting groundhog in Pennsylvania…he could be this country’s most famous rodent. Because he didn’t see his shadow, that means we’re in store for an early spring with warmer temperatures on the horizon.

Here in Indy, you may want to keep your raingear with you. It will be windy with periods of thunderstorms this afternoon into the evening, some severe. Today’s high around 60 degrees. (This expected weather will call for your ‘good umbrella’ not the flimsy one. The wind could flip that one or carry it off from Indy to Oz.)

Finally:

Source: Alex Wong / Getty

So Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow on this Groundhog Day 2016. But just how reliable is a weather prognosticating groundhog, anyway? The answer is simply, not very, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. The NCEI says since 1988, Phil has turned out to be right 13 times. That’s 13 out of 28 years, leaving him with a losing record. He’s been wrong 15 times, meaning seeing or not seeing his shadow didn’t match the actual weather outcome. That could be most accurate for the folks on the ground in Iowa, post caucuses. They’re under a ‘no travel’ ban today due to the impending blizzard that’s on their way.

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