The Indianapolis Star

WHISTLE BLOWERS

Bo Boroski was so laser focused, so deeply entranced by the game that he could see the tiny drops of sweat bubbling up on the arms of the basketball players. He could spot the furrowing eyebrow of the legendary coach standing on the sidelines. •...

Safeway deli is fried chicken favorite We published bracket without them; you cried out

The best fried chicken in Indianapolis, depending on whom you ask, can be found just past the lunchmeat and across from the household cleaner. After IndyStar unveiled its bracket for our ongoing Fried Chicken Challenge, my email inbox flooded with the...

PRETTY IN PINK

It’s officially springtime in Indianapolis, and at least one park downtown is on the brink of turning pink. ● Several flowering trees grow amid Indianapolis’ urban sprawl, but the Yoshino cherries inside White River State Park attract visitors every...

Talking affordability

State utility regulators on March 24 opened what they have termed an inquiry into energy affordability, kicking off a series of events that aim to find solutions for the rising cost of electricity bills. As Hoosiers scramble to find ways to pay soaring...

Hoosiers in Iran’s diaspora cling to hope that their home country will change for the good as war continues

Hassan Mihankhah can’t stop looking at his phone. ● Ever since a series of joint U.S. and Israel military strikes killed the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28 and sparked war in the Middle East, Mihankhah has...

PROTECTIVE TOOL LOST

City leaders in Carmel and Fishers say they are losing a valuable tool meant to safeguard ownership of single-family homes in their communities — and the cause is a new law that appears to put Indiana Republicans at odds with a priority of President...

STATEHOUSE’S BIG MOVERS

Indiana Democrats pass far fewer bills than superminorities in other state legislatures, according to a report by the nonpartisan Center for Effective Lawmaking. That’s at least true for the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions, which the center, powered...

Reclaiming the vision

WIn the 1970s, shoppers spent hours at G.C. Murphy, a department store on Broad Ripple Avenue, restaurants outnumbered bars and local kids walked to Broad Ripple High School. Today the area remains one of the few walkable neighborhoods in the city, a...

TROUBLING TREND

At a time when “affordability” is the watchword in politics nationwide, recent data shows that Hoosiers faced more risk of losing their homes last month than residents in any other state. Indiana reported the nation’s highest foreclosure filing rate in...

Hyperscale data center in Indy clears a hurdle

A $4 billion data center proposed for the southwest side won approval from the Metropolitan Development Commission on March 18, making it likely to become the first hyperscale facility in Indianapolis. Sabey Data Center Properties LLC, a subsidiary of...

A matter of transparency

Doran Moreland appeared to have checked all the professional boxes by the time he was named the Indianapolis City-County Council’s new chief of staff last month. Throughout the 2000s, he worked for two prominent Indiana politicians, former Indianapolis...

The Rivi will open this summer after members pay extra dues

The Riviera Club, commonly known as The Rivi, will open for the 2026 summer season after all after enough members agreed to pay an extra fee to help the club pay down immediate debt and close a budget shortfall. As of March 13 — the deadline for...

Mooresville man among airmen killed in Iraq crash

An Indiana man died after a refueling aircraft went down in Iraq on March 12, killing all six U.S. Air Force airmen on board and bringing the military death toll from the Middle East conflict to 13. Officials from the U.S. Department of War, formally...

Law says IN cities can’t require energy use data

At first glance, a new law that Gov. Mike Braun signed last month was largely an effort to regulate the power of homeowner associations. But one controversial amendment added to House Enrolled Act 1150 will strip Indiana cities of their ability to...

STATE TRUMPS CITY

In the past year, 29-year-old Caleb Guerrero has found himself coming to the Statehouse more often than ever before. • Ona Tuesday in February, the occasion was a bill granting hundreds of Indiana National Guard members power to make arrests and...

Indiana ruling could expand access nationally

When Indiana’s abortion ban was struck down in part last week, it presented a potential roadmap for similar challenges in other states that could broaden access. A Marion County court ruled that Indiana was obstructing Hoosiers’ rights when it...

Little progress made on data center issue Despite debates, state lawmakers leave it up to local bodies

Over the past year, data centers have been at the forefront of community meetings, local councils and protests, from the shores of Lake Michigan to the urban neighborhoods of Indianapolis. The spirited debates over the hightech facilities have focused...

BUDGET TROUBLES

When Indiana’s community college system announced Marty Pollio as its president last spring, its board of trustees touted his experience as superintendent of one of the largest urban school districts in America. “Marty Pollio is a results-driven,...

Ballard’s entry raises stakes, reshapes race

Greg Ballard, the former GOP Indianapolis mayorturned-independent candidate for secretary of state, might just be the wild card of 2026. Already this was one of the more intriguing races of the year, with an embattled incumbent Diego Morales fending...

Downtown struggles, but other areas boom

Companies are increasingly looking north for space, a sign that employers still want in-person offices just not in the downtown highrises that once drew business. The trend means downtown office space remains in high-supply and low-demand — unless,...

Climate woes could sour maple syrup’s Indiana comeback

On dark winter nights, Indiana sugar maker Emily Blackman sometimes finds her husband, Robert, pacing the floor of their home in Clark County, anxiously thumbing through the forecast on his cell phone, checking to see what the weather might have in...

FALL IN LINE OR RESIGN

Louis Vela Jr. had been banging his head on the wall of his cell, where he was placed after threatening to kill himself. Several employees were near Vela’s holding cell inside the Indiana State Prison’s medical building. A nurse’s station and...

114 people housed, three camps closed

Last summer, Indianapolis officials launched Streets to Home Indy, a cityled campaign to house up to 350 people who lacked shelter and to close all the city’s homeless camps in an organized way. As of March 3, the city is more than a third of the way...

Decision on controversial data center is pushed back

A rezoning vote scheduled for March 4 that would clear the way for a controversial 13-acre data center in Martindale Brightwood was abruptly pushed to April following a request by the district City-County Councilor to let the community learn more about...

Pay $1,500 or leave The Rivi asks members for financial boost

Facing steep financial challenges, the Riviera Club, commonly referred to as the Rivi, is asking its members to pay an extra $1,500 one-time fee — or terminate their memberships and depart the club. The request, which for many families, is nearly as...

Revived bill passes second vote, awaits Braun’s signature

On the eve of the last day of Indiana’s legislative session, a Republican-led bill surrounding carbon sequestration permitting failed due to a lack of support within its party. But the next day, lawmakers scrambled to bend a rule to get the...

3 U.S. fighter jets crash

Indiana election officials say they are working to fix a glitch in how its electronic pollbooks function that could have caused big problems on Election Day if not addressed. A Feb. 17 email obtained by IndyStar, sent from one of the state’s vendors...

Charter school to buy shuttered IPS building

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters. Indianapolis Public Schools will sell the Raymond Brandes School 65 building for $1 to a charter school that serves students with autism. The...

Historic. Hip. Hotly debated

Homeless camping ban heads to Braun

Indiana lawmakers have joined a handful of states in passing a statewide ban on homeless camps on public property, a policy that critics fear will push many Hoosiers living outdoors into the criminal justice system and complicate their search for...

Indiana may bolster partnership with ICE

The Indiana attorney general could sue local government, hospitals, schools and colleges that attempt to restrict immigration enforcement under a bill that passed the Indiana General Assembly on Feb. 25 after hours of attimes tense debate. Senate Bill...

Nearly 700-page bill could give boost to data centers

The Indiana Senate approved a nearly 700-page bill Feb. 24 containing a hodgepodge of language taken from other bills at risk of dying, including a controversial provision that could encourage more local communities to approve data center projects, as...

Smiles, cigars and service

Beech Grove police officer Brian Elliott was a playful and wily friend who once convinced his buddy to place a fake ticket on the car of a woman he was dating – a successful prank to woo her. He could talk for hours about modifications he’d made to...

‘An important lesson’

Mark Hodges was in the third or fourth grade at Carmel’s Smoky Row Elementary School when he used his First Amendment rights to push back against leadership. In an attempt to overturn a new assigned seating policy, he drafted a petition and circulated...

How schools punished students after ICE walkouts

As students flocked out of schools to protest federal immigration enforcement this past month, school leaders were forced to grapple with how to maintain student safety, enforce policies and appease pressure from conservative leaders. Beforehand, many...

Culture shift

Amid concerns about a liberal tilt on America’s college campuses, Indiana lawmakers passed what they considered a first step to recenter the state’s universities nearly two years ago — a first-of-its-kind law that reshaped what professors can say in...

The bills that didn’t make it

A handful of bills that had early momentum have died just yards away from the finish line after not receiving a committee hearing in the second half of the legislative session. They span topics as simple as pork tenderloin and as complex as gender and...

‘While evil does exist, so do heroes like Brian Elliott’

More than an hour before the Feb. 18 vigil for Brian Elliott, his fellow officers and his Beech Grove community began gathering, until they stood a thousand strong. They held candles outside the Beech Grove Police Department, where Elliott’s squad car...

Indiana senators unanimously pass bill to lower electricity rates

In response to the ballooning utility bills facing Hoosier households, the Indiana Senate unanimously voted to pass a dense electric affordability bill on Feb. 17. Despite pages and pages of complex regulatory jargon, consumer advocates said the bill...

‘We’re hurting tonight’

A tip from a citizen led police to a Beech Grove apartment complex laundry room late on Feb. 16, where they arrested a man suspected of shooting two police officers. It ended a manhunt of several hours. The capture was announced by Indiana State...

Data center ‘disconnect’

When lawmakers first approved generous tax incentives for data centers in 2019, few Hoosiers anticipated that the legislation would catalyze the data center drama gripping the state today. Billions of dollars and dozens of data center projects later,...

Indiana’s decade-old syringe exchange law faces uncertain future

The work at a syringe exchange center, like the one housed at the Damien Center on Indianapolis’ east side, doesn’t begin and end with handing out sterile needles. It begins with some reassurance. “We have so many of our folks that are so used to...

Stranger than fiction

When Cary Elwes met with the family of Mike Grable about a year ago, he inquired all about the late Indianapolis detective’s life. The actor wanted to know about Grable’s police work, his favorite sayings, his hobbies, the way he spoke. Elwes wanted to...

Tightening enforcement

As protests against a national immigration crackdown roil across the country and within Indiana, lawmakers are moving to embrace the president’s mass deportation campaign with a bill that would punish employers, schools and local government units who...

Terry: Words used in viral video were ‘unacceptable’

Before the newly minted Indianapolis police chief had been in the position long enough to attend her own confirmation hearing, Tanya Terry had a major controversy on her hands: a viral video of a Feb. 6 traffic stop where an Indianapolis Metropolitan...

Bill would let state shut down bars swiftly in wake of violence Chair of ATC could take action before public hearing is held

The state would be able to temporarily shut down bars plagued by violence and crime before holding a public hearing under a bipartisan bill inspired by a string of recent Central Indiana shootings. Under Senate Bill 5, the chair of the Indiana Alcohol...

‘Do not let this opportunity slip away’

Indiana lawmakers are advancing legislation to address some of the circumstances surrounding the death of Fishers teen Hailey Buzbee, including reviving language that would require parental consent for young people to have social media. “This is a...

Who’s running for Indy’s 3 IN Senate seats?

Three Indiana Senate seats that represent portions of Indianapolis and its neighboring communities are up for grabs, with no incumbents running in this year’s election, and the filing deadline for candidates vying to fill the seats has now passed. The...

Indiana lawmakers: Keep elections under state control

Indiana legislative leaders aren’t on board with President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Republicans nationalize elections, instead reaffirming the role of the state in election administration. Speaking at the Oval Office on Feb. 3, Trump suggested...

VANISHED

Shannon Marie Sherrill was shy, quiet and was not one to talk to strangers. She never liked leaving her father’s side. She never just wandered off alone without telling her mother. • Yet, on a warm fall afternoon, while playing hide-and-seek with other...

Indiana Republicans work to collaborate with TPUSA

Indiana Republican leaders are working to mint a partnership with late conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s youth organization, Turning Point USA, that would strive to start chapters in every school and punish those who block their creation. Turning...

CHANGE ON THE WAY

Before its centennial anniversary next year, the Madam Walker Legacy Center on Feb. 4 unveiled plans to finish a new $1.2 million rooftop venue this spring that will overlook the cityscape. The center held what it called a “skybreaking” as it gets...

Those who knew Buzbee recall life of ‘wonderful young woman’

Hailey Buzbee was excited about attending college and following her passions. The 17-year-old was a hard worker in every sense of the word, and she left a comforting impression on people who met her, even if they were meeting her for the first and only...

North Central students walk out in ICE protest

Cate Charron, Cindi Andrews and Jade Jackson Hundreds of North Central High School students participating in an anti-ICE walkout spilled onto 86th Street in northern Indianapolis on Feb. 2 in an initially chaotic scene. Dozens of drivers passing by...

Attorney: Body of Fishers teen believed found in OH

The body of a missing Fishers teenager is believed to have been found in central Ohio, according to the attorney for a person of interest in her death. Sam Shamansky, the attorney for 39year-old Tyler Thomas, said on Feb. 2 that authorities believe...

Homeless shelters packed amid latest Indy cold snap

Plodding through the snow alongside a road that overlooks the White River, two police officers stepped over a guardrail toward the tent of a man who worried his toes had succumbed to frostbite. “You’re sure you don’t want me to call you an ambulance?”...

See our Hoosiers Tootball coverage

A local developer gained approval last week to build a boutique Hyatt hotel in a blighted area near the Monon Trail and 30th Street, where a master redevelopment plan is slowly coming together after years of delays and lagging momentum. Monon...

‘We’re very concerned’

Yes, Homeland Security was in Indianapolis this week. No, not that one. A rumor that proliferated across many Indianapolis residents’ social media pages in recent days may have arisen over confusion between similarly named state and federal...

Bill OK’ing execution by firing squad fails

Kristine Phillips and Kayla Dwyer Efforts to legalize execution by firing squad in Indiana are stalled after the House failed to pass legislation that would allow condemned prisoners to be gunned to death. But it’s not completely off the table...

Senate passes transgender bathroom bill

Schools could be penalized for failing to stop transgender students from using restrooms or locker rooms that match their gender identity under a bill that passed the Indiana Senate on Jan. 27, the latest in a flurry of legislation targeting...

Snow day finds few Hoosiers braving the bitter cold

With most IndyStar journalists snowed in Monday just like our readers, we checked out our neighborhoods to see what hardy souls we might find outside despite a wind chill temperature of -18 degrees and close to a foot of snow on the...

Plows and residents dig out Indy

After the worst winter snowstorm in a more than a decade hit Central Indiana over the weekend, much of the region focused on bundling up Monday and digging out from under a foot of snow. The National Weather Service of Indianapolis reported a total of...

Eagle Creek faces risk

Indiana’s billion dollar plan to supply water to Boone County’s LEAP district, a region with limited water resources, has been mired in controversy since its conception. Citizens Energy now plans to ship up to 25 million gallons a day from the...

ENERGY COSTS HIT HOME

Sophie Hartley and Karl Schneider Lindsay Trameri spent a good chunk of Thanksgiving weekend hauling fiberglass insulation pads into the attic of her small home in Irvington. After a couple of trips to Menards and some tight squeezes through a small...

The biggest events coming to Indianapolis in 2026

With several attendance records broken and new hotel rooms added to the city, Indianapolis continues to pride itself on being one of the top destinations for conventions. At this point, Indy runs like a well-oiled machine for large events, drawing in...

A CLEAN SLATE

First came Kyle Walker. Then J.D. Ford. Now Andrea Hunley. That makes for three state senators from the Indianapolis area all deciding not to run for reelection to the Indiana General Assembly in 2026, meaning three open seats with no incumbents that...

Area, state leaders at odds over housing affordability solution

Local and state leaders are at odds over how to mitigate Indiana’s housing affordability problems, as Gov. Mike Braun and lawmakers push legislation that would limit cities’ ability to restrict duplexes and other dense development in residential...

IU-phoric

The confetti flying around Hard Rock Stadium is crimson and cream, and so is the 2025 college football national champion as the pro-Indiana football crowd celebrates the Hoosiers’ 2721 victory over Miami in the College Football Playoff championship...

What Indianapolis police, activists want in new chief

Whoever takes the helm of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department will be coming in on years of steadily reduced violent crime, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be significant challenges. IndyStar spoke with dozens of people with close ties...

‘Dad would be so jacked’

Pat Knight can see his dad with that proud smirk on his face, giving a firm handshake to coach Curt Cignetti, telling him what an incredible job he’s done leading Indiana University football to an undefeated season and a chance at a national title. ●...

Braun lays out an agenda for his 2nd year in office

Gov. Mike Braun is putting on record the key issues he wants to address in 2026, his second year in office. Many of these pillars he touched on in his second State of the State address on Jan. 14. A number of them reflect his support for what the...

‘The last straw for IPS’

An effort to transform Indianapolis public education brewing in the Indiana Statehouse would weaken the Indianapolis Public School Board and transfer significant power to an independent entity controlled by the Indianapolis mayor. To many of the...

Police chief: Safety key to new city post

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Chief Chris Bailey says he didn’t see his new job coming. He expected to remain police chief through the rest of Mayor Joe Hogsett’s third term, digging into IMPD’s core issues as part of a new five-year...

Indy crowd rallies against ICE after Good shot, killed

One night after a federal agent fatally shot a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis, hundreds gathered in Monument Circle both to mourn her death and to call for an end to the presidential administration’s aggressive anti-immigration tactics. The...

Judge rejects sentence reduction for Pender

A Marion County judge rejected a request from Sarah Jo Pender, a woman once likened to a murderous cult leader from the 1960s, to modify her 110year prison sentence so that she can be released. The ruling by Marion Superior Court Judge Kevin Snyder...