Operations are returning to normal at Bally’s after a strange incident this morning.
In the midst of the normal morning routine at Bally’s Casino, the sense of normal disappeared in one frightening moment when a car came crashing through the roof of the conference center. That car came from the top floor of the attached parking garage.
At the time of the crash, Koorsen Fire and Safety was hosting a conference for building inspectors and firefighters at the site. Koorsen is the fire protection company for Bally’s, and they aided in getting the building’s systems turned off. Firefighters and others attending the conference rendered aid at the scene.
The vehicle hit a concrete barrier, causing it to drop through the roof of the conference center, followed by the Ford SUV. The driver of the vehicle was the only injury.
A crane was brought in during the afternoon to lift the SUV and the concrete barrier out of the conference center.
The unanswered question is, “Why?” Police are putting together all of the information, looking at video footage, and planning to talk to the driver to determine what happened.
Bally’s was able to continue with normal casino operations through the day today and the parking garage will remain close until further notice.
Bally’s released the following statement: “We are currently investigating an incident involving a vehicle that drove off the seventh floor of our parking garage and will provide updates as necessary. Upon initial review, the incident appears to be the result of driver error. There are no signage or structural issues with the parking garage. The safety of our guests and staff remains our top priority.”
On 12/1/2025 officers were dispatched to the 2500 block of Sunburst Blvd. in reference to a holdup in progress. The caller reported her boyfriend was robbed of his firearm. On scene the victim told officers that David W. Johnson (36) asked to see his firearm. The victim initially gave the gun to Johnson unloaded. Johnson then asked for a magazine to see how much the gun weighed loaded. After loading the firearm, Johnson pointed it at the victim and told him he would not be getting the gun back. Witnesses gave the same account of the incident.
Johnson fled the scene, but was later located by officers. Johnson was stopped and taken into custody. Johnson has prior criminal convictions that prohibit him from possessing a firearm. Johnson was charged with
Robbery with a Deadly Weapon, Unlawful Carrying of a Handgun and Possession of Marijuana.
EVANSVILLE, Ind. – University of Southern Indiana Men’s Basketball senior guard Ismail Habib earned Ohio Valley Conference Newcomer of the Week honors for the second time this season on Monday. Helping lead USI to a pair of wins last week on the road at Valparaiso University, 64-56, and at home against Kentucky State University, 93-56, Habib averaged 21 points on over 43 percent shooting overall and a blistering 54.8 percent from beyond the arc. 11 of Habib’s 14 made field goals last week came from three-point range. The guard also hauled in 6.5 rebounds per game and dished out 4.5 assists per contest. Habib opened the week at Valparaiso with a team-high 25 points to get the Screaming Eagles a road win. The senior had 18 points on six three-pointers just in the first half to spark the Eagles early against the Beacons. Habib ended the week with a 17-point performance against Kentucky State, and once again, getting USI off to a good start by scoring the team’s first eight points of the game. Habib was in the neighborhood of a triple-double against Kentucky State, adding eight rebounds and seven assists to his tally. On the season, Habib is pacing the Screaming Eagles with 19 points and 3.4 assists per outing, while starting all eight games this season. Additionally, Habib is averaging nearly five rebounds per contest. He is also shooting a team-best 35 percent from three-point range. Overall, Habib is shooting just over 41 percent from the floor.
With winter approaching, warming centers will be open across the state for those in need of a safe and warm place to stay. Indiana 211 is your community’s resource for up-to-date information on warming center locations and hours in your area. To find warming centers in your community,click here.
Report or add a warming center to the Indiana 211 database by contacting Indiana 211’s resource team by email at in211database@fssa.in.gov.
Your support is key to making sure every Hoosier knows how to find the resources they need.
Please partner with Indiana 211, a division of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, to help ensure Hoosiers know they can call 2-1-1 or 866-211-9966, or visit IN211.org, to find their nearest warming center. Share the information below, and follow Indiana 211 on Facebook, Instagram and/or X to stay aware of of important updates and resources that could affect your community.
Dec. 1, 2025 (INDIANAPOLIS) — Indiana hospitals are making meaningful strides in reducing health care costs for Hoosiers, with national studies showing a clear downward trend in Indiana hospital prices.
Recent rankings from WalletHub show Indiana’s steady improvement in health care affordability. In 2025, the state ranked as the eighth best in the nation for health care costs—up from 15th best in 2021. This four-year improvement reflects the impact of hospital-led efforts to make care more cost-effective for Hoosiers.
A 2024 Forbes report also highlights Indiana’s progress, ranking the state 24th out of 50 in health care costs—an improvement of 13 spots from its 2023 position as the 11th highest. This shift underscores the broader impact of pricing reforms and cost containment strategies across Indiana’s hospitals.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), Indiana has consistently ranked at or below the national average in employer-based health insurance premiums since 2020. This stability suggests that reductions in hospital costs are helping to keep premiums in check for families and businesses.
Hospital pricing is showing a clear downward trend in the RAND Corporation’s studies as well. Indiana has moved from being the most expensive state in the RAND 2.0 report to ninth in RAND 5.1 – surpassing eight other states in health care affordability in just 5 years. While the Indiana Hospital Association (IHA) has raised concerns about RAND’s methodology, the consistent improvement across reports points to meaningful progress.
“Indiana hospitals are committed to making care more affordable without compromising quality,” said IHA President Scott B. Tittle. “These rankings reflect the hard work and collaboration happening across the state to lower costs and improve access for Hoosiers.”
Tittle emphasized Indiana’s progress compared to other states. “Indiana’s trajectory stands out nationally,” he said. “We’re controlling costs better than many states and making measurable improvements relative to the rest of the country.”
As health care costs remain a top priority at the state and national level, Indiana’s hospitals are demonstrating that consistent, long-term investment in affordability works – and can deliver real results for patients and communities.
Critical Need for Red Cross Disaster Volunteers in the Evansville Area
EVANSVILLE, Ind., December 1, 2025 — In 2025, local volunteers became a lifeline for hundreds of neighbors reeling from disasters across our community.
In a powerful display of service, volunteers with our Southwest Chapter responded alongside local partners to more than 200 disasters, from devastating floods and tornadoes to home fires. Our volunteers provided safe refuge, hot meals, emotional support and basic health services for families affected. Their compassion made a profound difference for those facing their darkest moments.
Among the volunteers answering the call is Disaster Action Team member Charlene Kaufman. As a member of the team, Charlene responds to home fires across the Southwest Chapter. She says that volunteering fulfills her purpose to help people, “To just be there for the folks who have basically lost everything. I’m able to help them make it through the disaster that they’re involved in.”
“Emergencies don’t wait, and because of dedicated volunteers like Charlene, we’re able to show up right after a home fire to provide comfort, hope, and support,” said Beth Sweeney, Executive Director of the Southwest Chapter of the American Red Cross in Indiana. “The demand for Disaster Action Team volunteers is urgent, and I encourage community members to step forward and join us.”
The need for this support shows no sign of slowing. Across the U.S., Red Cross home fire responses spike nearly 20% during the holidays, when cooking and heating risks increase. In the Indiana Region alone, more than 1,100 people typically rely on the Red Cross after home fires in November and December.
Access Disaster Action Team/Home Fire B-roll here.
This Giving Tuesday and throughout the holiday season, visit redcross.org to give back through volunteering.
Our lifesaving mission is also made possible by generous financial donations, which ensure volunteers have the resources they need to bring light to a family’s darkest days — right when it’s needed most.
To read stories of how people in our community and across the region made a difference in 2025, visitredcross.org/inyearinreview.
About GivingTuesday:
GivingTuesday is an annual event dedicated to boosting radical generosity, held on the Tuesday after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Created in 2012 at New York’s 92nd Street Y, the idea behind GivingTuesday was to set aside a single day to give back. Over 13 years, this idea has grown into a global movement that inspires millions of people to donate, volunteer and spread awareness. For many nonprofits, funds raised on GivingTuesday serve as an important kickoff for year-end charitable campaigns.
EVANSVILLE, IND. (12/01/2025) The University of Evansville (UE) Athletics Department and the Evansville Promise Neighborhood (EPN)are teaming up to bring college basketball excitement to students and families across EPN. Through a new collaboration, UE Athletics will provide season tickets to both men’s and women’s basketball games for students and families within the six EPN focus schools.
As part of the partnership, tickets will be distributed as incentives and giveaways to students across all EPN schools. The initiative is designed to reward positive behavior, encourage student engagement, and strengthen the relationship between UE Athletics and the broader Evansville community.
Building on the success of Education Day at the Ford Center, each EPN focus school is also planning a dedicated School Night at the Ford Center, inviting the entire school community to attend remaining home basketball games together this season. Additionally, UE Athletics and EPN are exploring ways to expand the partnership into spring sports in 2026, further extending opportunities for family engagement and school pride.
“We are thrilled to welcome Evansville Promise Neighborhood students and families to the Ford Center and Meeks Family Fieldhouse this season,” said Dr. Ziggy Siegfried, UE Director of Athletics. “This partnership reflects our commitment to investing in young people, building community pride, and creating memorable experiences for families across the city.”
EPN leaders echo the importance of building lasting connections that go beyond the classroom.
“This collaboration is a win for students, families, and our community partners,” said Derek McKillop, Director of the EPN. “Opportunities like this help students feel connected to their community, and experience the excitement of cheering on the Aces together.”
UE Athletics and EPN look forward to continuing this partnership and exploring future opportunities to support youth development and community engagement throughout the Evansville Promise Neighborhood.
The months-long political drama over possible Indiana congressional redistricting has snarled up campaign plans for some Hoosiers with U.S. House ambitions.
Indiana House members are returning to the Statehouse this week for debate over President Donald Trump’s demand for Republican-led states to draw more GOP-leaning congressional districts.
Uncertainty clouds whether such a plan will clear the Republican-dominated state Senate. Such has been the campaign ambiguity since August when Indiana became ensnared in the national redistricting debate.
“It’s definitely muddied the waters,” said Randy Niemeyer, who was the 2024 Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan and is considering a 2026 run.
Northwestern Indiana’s 1st Congressional District now held by Mrvan has been in Democratic hands since the 1930s. But it has trended more Republican in the Trump era and is seen as the easiest potential GOP pickup in the state.
The current 1st District takes in all of Indiana’s Lake Michigan shoreline areas, including all of Lake and Porter counties and part of LaPorte County. Many unofficial map proposals create a more Republican district by pairing Lake County — the state’s second-most populous — with numerous rural counties to the south and southeast.
The uncertainty of what map will be used for the 2026 election hangs over many campaign decisions, said Niemeyer, who is the Lake County Republican chair and a County Council member.
“It becomes a factor in fundraising,” Niemeyer said in an interview. “It becomes a factor in a ground game. You’re talking about a difference between covering two and a half counties and possibly 12 or 13 counties. What I’ve kind of been doing in my own consideration is, ‘All right, let’s build two business models and see what this looks like.’”
Republican hopeful faces unknowns
Similar troubles exist for candidates in what are now among solidly Republican districts.
Redrawing maps so that all nine of Indiana’s congressional districts favor Republicans would mean also carving up the heavily Democratic 7th District in Indianapolis now held by Rep. Andre Carson.
That could mean a chunk of Indianapolis going into the 4th District, where state Rep. Craig Haggard is challenging four-term U.S. Rep. Jim Baird for the Republican nomination.
Rep. Craig Haggard, R-Mooresville, speaks in committee on Jan. 23, 2024. (Leslie Bonilla Muñiz/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
Haggard said he’s spent most of the past two years traveling the district that spans from the western suburbs of Indianapolis more than a hundred miles north to the Kankakee River separating Lake and Newton counties.
“I’ve spent a lot of resources. I have volunteer coordinators in each of those counties,” Haggard said. “They could go away. It really could upend everything and then I have a very, very short time to start over again.”
Indiana’s candidate filing period for the 2026 primaries opens Jan. 7 and closes Feb. 6. Early voting is scheduled to start April 7 for the Republican and Democratic primaries on May 5.
So even though U.S. House candidates aren’t required to live in their districts, most serious campaigns for a congressional seat start months or years ahead of the filing period — especially with fundraising.
Haggard acknowledged some potential financial supporters were holding back until the district lines were finalized, but said he believed that was a small percentage.
The most recent Federal Election Commission reports show Haggard raised $49,500 during the three months ending Sept. 30, compared to Baird’s $70,610. Haggard’s campaign had about $117,000 in the bank, while Baird had $182,000.
Complications for Carson challenger
George Hornedo has faced an even more complicated political landscape since May when he announced his Democratic primary challenge to Carson in the 7th District.
Hornedo says he is pressing on despite the prospect of the district being split up among perhaps two or three others to favor Republicans.
Congressional candidate George Hornedo. (Courtesy photo)
Hornedo, an attorney who was a staffer with Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign, decided to narrow his campaign team’s focus to northern Indianapolis, knocking on doors and making phone calls to both oppose redistricting and support his candidacy.
“Every ounce of volunteer energy, every phone banking shift, every hour canvassing, it was going to identify and support us for the campaign, but also educating neighbors with what’s at stake with redistricting and helping to enable them to take action,” he said.
Hornedo had an initial burst of fundraising success, collecting nearly $160,000 in the first three-month period when he announced his bid. That dropped to about $18,000 for the three months ending Sept. 30, leaving his campaign with about $43,000.
Carson, who has held the House seat since 2008, ended September with more than $600,000, having raised about $155,000 in the previous three months.
Hornedo said he is committed to a 2026 campaign regardless of how the redistricting debate plays out.
“I would organize in whatever the new district is, but I would continue to organize in the district as it is now — Indianapolis at large — because part of the reason I got into this race was talking about rebuilding the Democratic Party from the bottom up,” he said.
Carson’s campaign said it is running a coordinating effort “to support Democrats up and down the ballot.
“This year, that work has continued — and the congressman has also collaborated with local leaders to raise the alarm on redistricting,” Carson spokesperson Caroline Ellert said in a statement.
Democratic enthusiasm boost?
The biggest political change from the 2021 congressional maps drawn by Republicans after the 2020 census was strengthening the GOP’s hold on central Indiana’s 5th District following U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz’s narrow 2020 general election win for her first term.
Spartz easily defeated Democratic candidates in the 2022 and 2024 elections, even after surviving a tight Republican primary last year.
No 2026 Republican challengers have emerged against Spartz as the redistricting debate has lingered.
But Democrats say they have stirred up animosity among voters with a redistricting push that they see as unfair.
“They want to know where the district lines are, but people are just paying attention to what’s going on and they’re stepping up,” said 5th District Democratic chair Terri Austin, a former state legislator from Anderson. “They’re stepping up in their activism. They’re stepping up to run for local office and they’re fired up. They really are.”
Mrvan challengers jumping in
Mrvan, the Democratic congressman from northwestern Indiana, told an anti-redistricting rally at the Statehouse in August that he planned to seek reelection next year “no matter what district they put me in.”
Mrvan argued Trump was pushing redistricting to help Republicans overcome unpopular policies and retain a narrow U.S. House majority.
“They are afraid, they are afraid to face voters,” Mrvan said during the rally.
A Mrvan spokeswoman did not return recent messages seeking additional comment.
The unknown makeup of the 1st District hasn’t stopped Republicans from entering the race to possibly challenge Mrvan.
Those who’ve already declared candidacies include Porter County Commissioner Barb Regnitz and Jennifer-Ruth Green, who got 47% of the vote in a 2022 loss to Mrvan.
Green campaign spokesman Tim Edson said in a statement that Green “is receiving a lot of support from Republican activists, donors and Hoosiers across the Region excited to have an outsider, a conservative and a fighter who will stand with President Trump in this race. We remain confident Indiana will redraw the congressional map to combat Democrats efforts to rig the game through gerrymandering and counting illegal immigrants in the census.”
The Regnitz campaign did not reply to messages seeking comment.
Some Republican legislators who oppose the redistricting push argue that it has taken focus away from supporting a GOP candidate against Mrvan.
Niemeyer said he would be making a decision soon about seeking a rematch against Mrvan and scoffed at the argument the redistricting debate hurts Republican candidates.
“We built a really legitimate campaign and not a single one of those people saying that lent a hand,” Niemeyer said. “I find it to be a very hollow statement and actually a statement that is trying to deflect what’s at play, because I doubt that they will help.”
GOP U.S. House members in support
All seven of Indiana’s current Republican U.S. House members have endorsed Trump’s redistricting call — despite not seeing what those new maps might look like.
Baird, the 4th District incumbent, said he would be running for reelection “no matter what the final map looks like.”
“I would hate to lose any of my constituents, but I also recognize how important it is for Indiana to get this process right so every Hoosier has a fair voice in Washington,” Baird wrote in an email.
Baird said he trusted the Legislature “to do what is right for Indiana and all Hoosiers.”
“Neither my staff nor I have been involved in drafting any maps,” Baird wrote. “That responsibility lies solely with the Indiana General Assembly.”
Haggard, the legislator from Mooresville challenging Baird, said he supported the redistricting push despite the impact on his candidacy.
“If I can’t handle this, I shouldn’t go to Congress anyway,” Haggard said. “… It hurts a campaign like mine but at the end of the day, I think that this is bigger than me.”
