This is the WFHB Local News for Wednesday, August 25th, 2021.

Later in the program, WFHB News speaks with Nola Hartman, co-founder of the Bloomington Mask Drive - who provides clean, high-quality, homemade fabric masks to Bloomington and Monroe County free of charge. More coming up in today’s feature reports.

Also coming up in the next half hour, we have Better Beware - your weekly-consumer watchdog segment on WFHB. More coming up following today’s feature report.

But first, Nathaniel Weinzapfel has your Environmental News Brief:

New research out of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis has a goal of understanding and then implementing insects into human diets. Due to overpopulation and climate change, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization expects agriculture to fall short of feeding the world by 2050. According to the research, the raising of bugs could help feed livestock as well as feed humans. Unlike the rest of the world, the people of the United States are not used to eating insects due to the large amount of land area and water supply for agriculture and livestock. The new Center for Environmental Sustainability Through Insect Farming at IUPUI hopes to find insects that can be farmed and are nutritious and safe.

According to the Indiana Department of Natural Resource the body of a black bear has been found in Elkhart County. The bear was found near a motorway and was greatly decomposed. The Indiana DNR believes that the bear was hit by a vehicle on the motorway. This is the fifth black bear found, dead or alive, in the modern history of Indiana. Black bears were once fairly common in Indiana before the civil war, but between 1871 and 2015 there were no reported sightings. As bear populations grow in neighboring states, it is likely that Indiana will become a more common home for the black bear.

The U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management have recently come to an agreement to amend the 2012 Clean Water Act consent decree with the City of South Bend, Indiana. The amendment allocates more time to South Bend to further reduce and treat sewage in order to meet Indiana’s water quality standards. This is all in an effort to prevent E. coli. Prior to the 2012 Clean Water Act, South Bend was sending 2 billion gallons of untreated human and industrial sewage into lakes and streams. With the amendment to the act, the revised plan and additional time should improve the public health of the South Bend area.

Covid-19 Update: Over 2,000 Hoosiers in the Hospital, Compared to 641 in July

Photo courtesy of University of Michigan.

Governor Eric Holcomb has not given a Covid-19 briefing since July 30th. Since then, Indiana has seen its hospitalizations triple.

On Wednesday, the Indiana State Department of Health reported 5,037 new infections and 19 newly reported deaths. Over 2,000 Indiana residents are currently hospitalized due to Covid-19.

The seven-day positivity rate stands at 10.9 percent, while its unique individuals metric shows 18.6 percent positivity. State data revealed that the Delta variant accounted for almost 98 percent of samples tested this month.

Right now, according to the state’s color-coded map, 62 counties are labeled in orange, 19 are yellow and 11 are in red. Zero counties were in the blue category.

Meanwhile, Monroe County has seen 60 new positive cases and one newly reported death, according to the ISDH dashboard.

Those between the ages of 20 and 29 made up one third of positive cases in Monroe County. Hospital census data shows that the county has 104 patients hospitalized from the virus. The county remains in the yellow advisory level.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say...