In 2008, the U.S. foreclosure crisis mushroomed into a global financial crisis.

By spring, missed mortgage payments in Main Street America took down the venerable Wall Street firm Bear Stearns and months later claimed Lehman Bros.

By autumn, the U.S. Treasury was pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into major banking concerns to keep them afloat.

The entire U.S. economy started to feel the hurt, with Northwest Indiana steel mills cutting production as auto sales plunged and Lake Michigan casinos laid off workers as gamblers stayed home.

And home foreclosures continued unabated despite government rescue plans. By June, 1,885 homes had gone on the auction block at the Lake County sheriff's monthly sale. That was more than were foreclosed during all of 2007.

South Shore steams into controversy

The $1 billion proposed South Shore extension to Lowell and Valparaiso remained a lightening-rod issue, with critics scoffing at putting tax dollars into it and backers making a $500,000 advertising blitz to demonstrate its worth.

A bill to use $350 million in state sales tax money to help fund the extension passed the Indiana House but died in the Senate in February.

Backers regrouped over the summer and went before a key legislative committee in October, announcing plans to proceed with funding requests for a Lowell leg while studying an alternative route for Valparaiso.

NIPSCO wants to charge up electric rates

NIPSCO filed its first rate case with state regulators in more than 20 years in August, seeking to increase residential rates by 16 percent.

The filing drew fire from Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. and consumer groups that claim the utility may in fact be earning enough profit to give customers a rate cut.

In December, NIPSCO revised its case, giving residential customers a slight discount on the 16 percent increase. But it dropped the rate for large customers such as steel mills even more, prompting complaints from consumer advocates that the "little guy" was being shortchanged.

Hearings on the rate case are scheduled to begin Jan. 6 in Indianapolis.

Gasoline prices soar to new highs only to fall to historic lows

Oil and gas prices soared throughout much of 2008 only to plunge in the latter half of the year as demand dropped due to the recession.

Oil prices have fallen by about $100 per barrel since hitting a record at $147 in July.

After beginning the year at a little more than $3 a gallon, prices at the pump reached higher than $4 in the summer in Northwest Indiana. But as crude prices continued to fall, local pumps offered gas below $2 per gallon for regular unleaded.

The continuing decreases in gasoline prices were mainly the result of lower crude oil prices coupled with lower demand, according to economists. Crude prices dropped below $40 per barrel as the year came to a close.

Steel industry flies, then falls

The domestic and global steel industry did an abrupt about face during September as steel orders and prices dropped dramatically from record levels in the first half of the year.

Steelmakers also saw profits shrink in the third quarter and possibly disappear in the fourth as the nation's faltering economy brought cars sales, residential and commercial construction, manufacturing and the steel industry's fortunes to a halt. In mid December, steel production fell to its lowest level in 24 years.

U.S. Steel Corp. and ArcelorMittal, which signed generous three-year labor agreements with the United Steelworkers in late summer, took swift action to minimize losses by cutting steel production, outside contractors and steelworker jobs.

U.S. Steel temporarily laid off about 75 workers at its Gary Works and about 4,000 employees at other plants. ArcelorMittal shuttered several of its facilities, cut shifts, the work week and contractors and sought hundreds of volunteers to take layoffs, including workers at its Indiana Harbor, Burns Harbor and Riverdale plants.

Ford navigates in a sloping economy

Ford Motor Co., like GM, Chrysler and Toyota, is suffering from the nation's economic crisis that has killed the credit markets and dampened consumer spending, especially for durable items.

In response to vehicle sales at the lowest levels in decades, Ford accelerated a restructuring plan during 2008, reopening its voluntary retirement package offers, laying off hourly and salaried workers and cutting shifts and part-time employees.

The Ford Chicago Assembly Plant eliminated one of its two production shifts in early November, slashing its 2,200-member work force -- including cutting about 600 temporary workers -- in anticipation of stopping production of the Ford Taurus X and Mercury Sable in February.

The Chicago Heights Stamping Plant, which produces body parts for the assembly plant, also reduced it payroll. Both plants shuttered production for an extended period in mid December as the industry and its union workers tried to make the concessions needed to return Ford to profitability.

Local Union Tank Car gets left on the siding

Chicago-based Union Tank Car was among the Marmon Group properties purchased by investment firm Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in March. A month later, citing a declining market for railroad tank cars, the company announced it was closing its 40-year-old East Chicago plant at the end of May, moving its production to the south and putting its 375 hourly workers and 75 salaried employees out of work.

None of the hourly workers, who were members of Boilermakers Local 524, were allowed to transfer to the company's non-union plants in Alexandria, La., and Sheldon, Texas, which continue to operate. The workers, many welders, were given severance packages as required by the terms of their labor contract signed December 2005.

In June, the East Chicago City Council unanimously voted to rescind the seven-year tax break granted to Union Tank Car Co.

Porter looks to May 2011 opening for new facility

Work is set to begin in spring on a 225-bed facility at the intersection of Indiana 49 and U.S. 6 just north of Valparaiso to replace the aging Porter hospital near the city's downtown.

The new hospital's design includes natural light and private patient rooms overlooking a seven-acre lake at the building site.

The April 2007 sale of the formerly Porter County owned hospital system to Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems included a promise to invest at least $210 million in a replacement hospital.

Porter County also proved appealing to South Bend-based Memorial Hospital and Health System, which in mid-2007 announced its own plans for a new hospital in Valparaiso.

Memorial hospital officials say the hospital is still planned, but a financial plan for funding the $100 million project isn't likely to be worked out before spring.

McFadden takes helm at Methodist Hospitals

The Methodist Hospitals hired turn-around specialist Ian McFadden as chief executive officer and ramped up efforts on behalf of a trauma center for Northwest Indiana.

McFadden took the helm in August of the hospital system with facilities in Gary and Merrillville, banking on a history of turning around financially troubled institutions.

McFadden said he was excited about the potential of the Methodist hospital system, where a $25 million operating deficit in 2006 led officials to temporarily withhold federal and state funding.

Hospital staff continued a push to have the Methodist campus in Gary designated a regional trauma center, funding its ability to handle high rates of local victims of serious injuries.

Lake County hospitals ban smoking outdoors

Several area hospitals in November banned smoking everywhere on their campuses.

Smoking was prohibited in all outdoor areas of six hospital campuses, including in parking lots and vehicles, expanding long-standing bans inside the hospitals.

Joining in announcing the ban in May were officials of Methodist Hospitals, Pinnacle Hospital and the Sisters of St. Francis hospital system.

The initiative by local hospital executives evolved at an Indiana Hospital Association meeting early in the year.