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Ivy Tech is getting some federal funding to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds finish college. Ivy Tech's Lake County Campus has gotten more than $323,420 from the U.S. Department of Education's Talent Search Program. That will be used "to provide academic, career, and financial counseling," according to an announcement from U.S. Representative Frank Mrvan's office.

First-generation college students living in Northwest Indiana, and others similarly struggling to pursue higher education, may find an easier route to academic success thanks to programs and services made possible by a federal grant.

The Lake County campus of Ivy Tech Community College recently was awarded $323,420 from the U.S. Department of Education to provide academic, career and financial counseling to individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds who have the potential to succeed in higher education.

The Miller Beach Arts & Creative District landed a state grant to promote arts and creativity in the Steel City.

The arts group hosts exhibits, film screenings, lectures and other cultural programs at the Marshall J. Gardner Center for the Arts at 540 S. Lake St. in Gary's lakefront Miller Beach neighborhood. It also stages the popular Miller Beach Farmer's Market.

U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif., put it bluntly — "Democrats are horrible about talking about our victories."

Sitting beside U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan, D-Highland, on the campus of Purdue University Northwest on Wednesday, the five-term Los Angeles-area congressman said his party's habit of focusing on the next task ahead, instead of taking credit for past accomplishments, is a real problem because Democrats have a lot to be proud of over the past two years.

U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan, D-Highland, spent Tuesday on the beach, but it wasn’t just for fun. He toured a series of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects in Northwest Indiana to see federal dollars at work.

At Michigan City’s Washington Park, the Corps placed armour stone — boulders — along the detached breakwater. The Corps also did emergency dredging work for the Coast Guard station, which needed deeper water to do its search and rescue work.

Ongoing work at the Indiana Harbor and Canal in East Chicago is an economic development project with an environmental benefit, U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan, D-Highland, said Tuesday.

Mrvan was on hand to tour the work on the Confined Disposal Facility where contaminated sediment from the first dredging of the IHC in 40 years is stored. Work currently underway at the site is designed to increase the CDF storage capacity so continued maintenance dredging can go on for decades.