After two teenagers were killed and five other young people were injured in a mass shooting downtown during the wee hours of July 5, the head of the city’s police union swiftly called for state leaders to intervene in local law enforcement — an idea that Braun entertained while Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett batted it away.

Months later, top state Republicans including Braun and Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith saw a salient opportunity to decry downtown violence when former NFL quarterback and Fox Sports analyst Mark Sanchez was stabbed Oct. 4 while visiting to call a Colts game.

But as more details emerged, it became clear that Sanchez, then 38, had drunkenly beaten the 69-year-old man who eventually stabbed him after a dispute over parking, according to police. He was arrested and now faces felony charges in the ongoing case.

Braun and Beckwith deleted their tweets. The man Sanchez assaulted filed a lawsuit against him and his then-employer two days after the attack. In November, Sanchez lost his job at Fox Sports.

6. Jim Irsay’s death and the Colts’ unlikely rise

IndyStar’s initial report on longtime Colts owner Jim Irsay’s death at age 65 described him as “the man who led the Colts out of irrelevancy and made Indianapolis into a football city.”

It’s fitting that in the fall following Irsay’s death, the Colts honored that legacy by beginning the season 8-2 — the team’s best 10-game start since the 2009-10 season, the last time they reached the Super Bowl.

The Colts’ rise came during a breakout year for quarterback Daniel Jones, a player whose unglamorous way of getting the job done made him an apt vessel for Indianapolis. And then, because this is Indianapolis sports in 2025, the team’s leader tore his Achilles.

But Irsay’s impact reaches far beyond the team’s on-field record.

His family’s signature initiative, Kicking the Stigma, has spent more than $25 million to raise awareness about mental health issues and fund organizations focused on treatment and research. His philanthropy is on display across downtown Indianapolis at the Irsay Family YMCA, Riley Hospital for Children and the Colts Canal Playspace.

“I’ve done everything, with the grace of God, that was asked of me,” Irsay once told IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel. “And all that was asked of me was to do God’s will and not my will. To try to follow that image of love as best as I could.”

5. AI may be here to stay, but residents push back anyway

Six years after state lawmakers passed sweeping tax breaks to lure data centers to Indiana, the backlash reached a crescendo in 2025 as new projects kept popping up.

Business titans say hyperscale data centers are needed to power transformative artificial intelligence. The largest tech companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars replacing open fields with these hulking facilities to get ahead in the AI race. Resisting progress, they argue, is futile.

Many Hoosier residents and a growing number of politicians reject that logic. Opponents view the centers as noisy, unsightly and sprawling neighbors that require enormous amounts of electricity and water yet don’t create many local jobs.

Neighbors in Indy’s Franklin Township banded together to stop the conversion of family farms into a Google data center campus. Similar anti-tech fervor has since erupted in response to planned data centers in Martindale-Brightwood, Decatur Township and Pike Township.

It may be true that artificial intelligence is here to stay. But aggrieved neighbors won’t sit out the fight over where data centers are built anytime soon.

4. New governor’s push to cut property taxes squeezes local governments

When Braun became Indiana’s new governor this January, he emphasized that cutting property taxes was his No. 1 legislative priority.

The result of his efforts, Senate Enrolled Act 1, will save most homeowners up to $300 on their property tax bills and slash taxes for businesses. But the response to SEA 1 from local governments has been overwhelmingly negative, as communities prepare to go without millions in expected tax revenue over the coming years.

Indianapolis leaders say they face a $60 million drop in tax revenue projections through 2028 because of the new law. Hamilton County officials have paused plans for a domestic violence shelter. Carmel leaders cut arts funding and their Noblesville peers postponed trail improvements. Indiana school districts — expected to miss out on more than $700 million in property tax revenue through 2028 — are turning to voters to pass tax referendums to plug the gaps.

In order to maintain quality of life, cities and towns could be all but forced to impose new income taxes that offset some of the property tax savings. Otherwise, leaders say they risk falling behind in funding the amenities — schools, public safety, parks and transit — that make people want to live in their communities.

3. Pacers’ unforgettable playoff run ends with a gut punch

The 2024-25 Indiana Pacers gave us so many unforgettable moments.

Here’s one: In a room full of fans at Ralston’s on Mass Ave, I stood tensely as the Pacers trailed the Knicks by two with a few seconds left in regulation of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

A video from that night shows everyone watching raptly as Tyrese Haliburton dribbled back out to the 3-point line to shoot what we all thought was a game-winner. My hands were aloft in some sort of worship. We all leaned forward as Haliburton’s last-second shot careened off the back of the rim, hung in the air and — as if blessed by the basketball gods and Reggie Miller, who was calling that night’s game — dropped straight through the net.

It turned out the shot only tied the game. But the Pacers won in overtime and then claimed the series 4-2, so the memory remains pure.

How often in life are we moved to involuntarily jump for joy, to shout in pure amazement, to hug our loved ones and high-five the nearest strangers?

In 2025, Haliburton and the Pacers gave fans more than our fair share of such moments. We crowded into stadiums and bars and momentarily forgot ourselves while we witnessed something miraculous.

But remember: This is Indianapolis sports in 2025.

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About a month later, Haliburton tore his Achilles seven minutes into Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the Thunder — a game that any Hoosier will tell you the Pacers were poised to win and bring home the franchise’s first NBA championship.

Adrift without Haliburton, the Pacers will be lucky to win 30 games in the 2025-26 season, let alone make the playoffs. As I write this in early December, the Thunder are 24-1. So it goes.

But we will keep watching, because the Pacers taught us time and time again this year not to lose faith. You might miss something miraculous.

2. Hogsett administration weathers multiple scandals

Tony Cook and Peter Blanchard on their reporting of Mayor Joe Hogsett

Indy Star reporter Tony Cook and Mirror Indy reporter Peter Blanchard talk to Mirror Indy’s Ibby Ahmed about reporting on Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett.

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New investigations into the Hogsett administration this year only deepened the fallout from IndyStar’s 2024 reporting on how multiple women accused his former right-hand man Thomas Cook of sexual misconduct and abuse — all under the mayor’s watch.

An October IndyStar/Mirror Indy investigation found that Hogsett ignored conflicts of interest involving a prohibited relationship between Cook and a former top city official, Scarlett Andrews. After Cook left the city to work for a law firm, the agency Andrews led recommended millions of dollars in city incentives to Cook’s developer clients.

Months earlier, an outside law firm found that the mayor allowed Cook to resign quietly rather than be fired after he learned of Cook’s covert relationship with Andrews. Around the same time, an IndyStar investigation revealed that Hogsett himself sent late-night and personal texts to multiple Cook accusers, who said the messages made them uncomfortable.

Through all of this, Hogsett has refused to step down, despite calls for his resignation by five councilors. The mayor has stood behind his administration’s process for reviewing economic incentives and pledged to update sexual harassment policies. Councilors are still debating which harassment reforms to mandate.

1. Indiana Republicans’ embrace — and rejection — of Trump

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From the time President Donald Trump took office Jan. 20, he’s flooded the zone with new policies.

Indiana Republicans embraced the president’s mass deportation efforts and slashed DEI language in state policies. The Miami Correctional Facility became an ICE detention facility, the “Speedway Slammer.” Trump’s directives ran the gamut, affecting agriculture, health research, health insurance, food assistance, clean energy programs and the arts.

But in December, Senate Republicans rejected Trump on the national stage by refusing his demand to redraw congressional maps to eliminate Indiana’s only two Democratic seats.

From the start, critics condemned mid-cycle redistricting as a brazen suppression of liberal voters in Indiana’s most diverse communities. Ultimately, facing down death threats and the specter of Trump-backed primary challengers, most Senate Republicans voted against a new map.

On the cusp of the 250-year-anniversary of the United States, Hoosiers twice this year protested on the lawn of the Indiana Statehouse with a topical message: “No Kings.”

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Trump supporters see that message as a hysterical overreaction. Trump opponents see it as an urgent cry to resist tyranny.

Here’s what both groups believe: We’ve just lived through the first year of a presidency that will change our nation’s trajectory.

Email Indianapolis City Hall Reporter Jordan Smith at JTSmith@usatodayco.com. Follow him on X @jordantsmith09 and Bluesky @jordanaccidentally.bsky.social.