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Indiana governor declares statewide disaster emergency as Midwest floodwaters rise

Flash flooding in Henry County, Indiana, caused this street to collapse, Aug. 12, 2026. (Henry County Sheriff’s Office)

(NEW YORK) — Amid floodwaters already up to the roofs of some homes and turning the streets of multiple cities into rushing rivers, Midwest residents are bracing for more severe storms on Thursday.

“When I looked out my window, I saw my fence floating past my window,” Karlie Frey, a resident of hard-hit Cambridge City, Indiana, told ABC Indianapolis affiliate station WRTV.

After being evacuated from her home on Wednesday via a rescue boat, Frey, who has lived in Cambridge City since 2009, said, “I’ve never seen it get this bad.”

Indiana, which recorded three storm-related deaths this week, was in the path of more severe storms expected to pound the Midwest on Thursday.

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun declared a statewide disaster emergency on Thursday.

“Hoosiers’ safety is my top priority. Our state response is fully mobilized, resources are moving where they’re needed, and we will continue working around the clock to support every impacted community,” Braun said in a social media post on Thursday.

Braun is expected to meet with first responders in Cambridge City and survey the damage there to “ensure state resources are available to support the response and recovery efforts,” the governor’s office said in a statement.

Meanwhile, rescue operations resumed on Thursday for one person in Delaware County, Indiana, who was among four people who reportedly went into the Mississinewa River on Wednesday during significant flooding, authorities said. Three others were rescued from the river on Wednesday night, officials noted.

Flood watches also remained in effect in Iowa, Kentucky and North Carolina, where showers and storms are possible on Thursday, keeping the threat of more flooding in place.

Like in recent days, storms expected from Des Moines, Iowa, to Lexington, Kentucky, and Knoxville, Tennessee, have the potential to train, or remain stationary, over the same areas, and could produce rainfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour.

The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center said severe isolated storms on Thursday are expected to occur across Iowa and Illinois, including the cities of Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Springfield and Peoria.

The storms are expected to be accompanied by damaging winds, large hail and possible tornadoes.

Dangerous heat will also be a factor from the Midwest and Plains to the Southeast, all the way down to South Florida. More than 100 million people in over 15 states are under heat alerts on Thursday as a heat dome remains parked over the country’s Mid-South region.

Extreme heat warnings are in effect for Wichita, Kansas City, St. Louis and Paducah, Kentucky. Heat indices, which include humidity, will make it feel 111 in St. Louis and 110 in Kansas City.

Meanwhile, authorities are continuing to assess the damage from storms, floods, and at least five tornadoes, including three in southwest Chicago suburbs, that devastated the Midwest over the past two days.

Images from flooded areas of Cambridge City and elsewhere in Henry County showed floodwaters up to the roofs of some homes and many flooded streets impassable.

In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Cambridge City Town Council President Jim McLane described the flood in his small town of 1,700 people as “pretty devastating.”

McLane said he has lived in the area for 60 years and had never seen flooding “anything remotely compared to this.” He said flood waters rose “several feet higher than most people have seen it here before.”

McLane described a seven-to-eight-block area of flooded homes in Cambridge City, and said dozens of people had to be rescued by boat.

Henry County Sheriff John Sproles said more than 50 people were rescued on Wednesday from a flooded apartment complex in Henry County.

Henry County officials are also investigating a possible tornado that moved through New Castle, Indiana, on Wednesday, toppling trees and ripping the roof off a commercial building.

Sproles said he is concerned about additional rainfall hitting the area.

“Any more rain is really going to put us into much more significant problems,” he said.

Eric Stiles, who owns a plumbing company in Indiana, posted a video this week of damage caused by severe storms that hit Munster, Indiana, on Tuesday. The footage showed a line of massive trees uprooted in one residential neighborhood.

“It’s like driving through a war zone,” Stiles said in the video.

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Judge tosses Trump administration’s case against Harvard alleging school didn’t protect Jewish students from discrimination

By CNN
(CNN) — A federal judge in Boston dismissed the Trump administration’s multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against Harvard University that alleged the school failed to protect its Jewish students from discrimination, marking the latest development in their lengthy dispute over funding and academic independence.US District Judge Richard G. Stearns, a Clinton appointee, wrote in a Thursday ruling the Trump administration had highlighted a handful of concerning incidents on Harvard’s campus but they were “too isolated and episodic” to justify the government’s claim that Harvard was in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.The Trump administration had argued Harvard breached its contract with the federal government under Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs that receive federal funding. To support its claim, the administration pointed to incidents of antisemitism on campus, including many in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.CNN reached out to Harvard Thursday afternoon for comment. The White House referred a request for comment to the Justice Department.Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the administration disagrees with the ruling and is assessing next steps.“The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is actively investigating antisemitism nationwide. The Civil Rights Division has an extensive and active portfolio of antisemitism enforcement, including indictments, prosecutions, settlements, and investigations across the country,” Dhillon said in a statement.In its lawsuit, filed in March, the government sought to halt $2.6 billion in existing federal grants, and asked the court to require Harvard to pay back millions in grant payments.The Trump administration alleged “Harvard fostered and continues to foster a campus climate where hostile antisemitism and anti-Israeli conduct thrives,” according to the filing.But Stearns argued the incidents highlighted by the government overwhelmingly occurred during the 2023-2024 school year and did not prove the school has persistently violated the law. The Trump administration could only point to three other incidents of discrimination in the past two years, the judge wrote.Feuding over fundsThe lawsuit was a marked escalation of a protracted battle between the Ivy League school and the White House, which has featured multiple lawsuits and on-and-off negotiations as Harvard accuses the administration of leveraging funding threats to compel the college to bend to its sweeping policy demands.While Trump’s pressure campaign has yielded changes at other American universities, Harvard has largely refused to comply, saying government efforts to interfere on campus are an overstep of its First Amendment rights.In its motion to dismiss the case, Harvard – which has acknowledged failing to properly confront antisemitism in the past – argued the anti-discrimination claims by the Trump administration were a pretext in its ongoing dispute with elite educational institutions over federal funds.“This litigation is a continuation of the Government’s ongoing campaign of retaliation against Harvard for refusing to capitulate to government demands and for exercising its First Amendment rights,” Harvard attorneys wrote.When it filed the lawsuit, the Trump administration accused Harvard of being “deliberately indifferent” to discrimination against Jewish college members. It highlighted instances in which students were “spit on in the face for wearing a yarmulke, stalked on campus, and jeered by peers with calls of ‘Heil Hitler,’” among others.Harvard pushed back in another filing, accusing the administration officials of ignoring its “extensive efforts” to address known issues on campus in the wake of October 7, 2023.“In the over two and a half years since, Harvard has engaged in sustained, institution-wide efforts to identify and address antisemitism on campus,” Harvard said in the filing. Those efforts were documented in a 300-page report issued by Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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