Gary In

Plans to honor late pop icon Michael Jackson and his family's roots here have expanded to possibly include a golf course and an amusement park with characteristics of Jackson's Neverland Ranch and Chicago's former Riverview amusement park. The latest addition to plans that already include a Jackson family museum, a performing arts center and a 300-room hotel are slated to be built on about 100 acres of city-owned vacant land, said Odie Anderson, president of the project. "Everything is in the planning stages at this point, but we're moving on a fast track and we're looking forward to actually breaking ground sometime in 2010," he said.

As the nation impatiently waited Tuesday for primary results from Indiana's Lake County -- and the city of Gary in particular -- Hoosiers had a sinking feeling. Once again, Gary was going to be the butt of a joke. Brian Howey, a syndicated political columnist in Indianapolis, watched the news broadcasts until 3 a.m. with a growing sense of dread. Cynthia Solomon, a retired accountant from Fort Wayne, buried her head in her pillow and groaned.

The mayor of this former steelmaking center said Monday that Gary had earned the unenviable title of U.S. murder capital. "It's the result of too many guns, too many drugs and not enough jobs," Gary Mayor Thomas Barnes said at a news conference. Barnes also blamed a shortage of police for the lawlessness in this city of 120,000, a few miles from Chicago. A record 110 murders were committed in Gary last year, computing to a nationwide high of 91 murders per 100,000 residents.

The most dangerous U.S. city for crime is Gary, Ind., whereas Amherst, a suburb of Buffalo in New York, was ranked safest for a third year in a row, based on 1997 statistics, a publisher said. The Morgan Quitno Press in Lawrence, Kan., ranked cities of more than 75,000 people by six crime criteria, which showed the next safest were: Newton, Mass.; Greece, N.Y.; Thousand Oaks, Calif.; and Clarkstown, N.Y.. The statistics are compiled annually by the FBI.

Plans to honor late pop icon Michael Jackson and his family's roots here have expanded to possibly include a golf course and an amusement park with characteristics of Jackson's Neverland Ranch and Chicago's former Riverview amusement park. The latest addition to plans that already include a Jackson family museum, a performing arts center and a 300-room hotel are slated to be built on about 100 acres of city-owned vacant land, said Odie Anderson, president of the project. "Everything is in the planning stages at this point, but we're moving on a fast track and we're looking forward to actually breaking ground sometime in 2010," he said.

As the nation impatiently waited Tuesday for primary results from Indiana's Lake County -- and the city of Gary in particular -- Hoosiers had a sinking feeling. Once again, Gary was going to be the butt of a joke. Brian Howey, a syndicated political columnist in Indianapolis, watched the news broadcasts until 3 a.m. with a growing sense of dread. Cynthia Solomon, a retired accountant from Fort Wayne, buried her head in her pillow and groaned.

The most dangerous U.S. city for crime is Gary, Ind., whereas Amherst, a suburb of Buffalo in New York, was ranked safest for a third year in a row, based on 1997 statistics, a publisher said. The Morgan Quitno Press in Lawrence, Kan., ranked cities of more than 75,000 people by six crime criteria, which showed the next safest were: Newton, Mass.; Greece, N.Y.; Thousand Oaks, Calif.; and Clarkstown, N.Y.. The statistics are compiled annually by the FBI.

The mayor of this former steelmaking center said Monday that Gary had earned the unenviable title of U.S. murder capital. "It's the result of too many guns, too many drugs and not enough jobs," Gary Mayor Thomas Barnes said at a news conference. Barnes also blamed a shortage of police for the lawlessness in this city of 120,000, a few miles from Chicago. A record 110 murders were committed in Gary last year, computing to a nationwide high of 91 murders per 100,000 residents.