“Early information has shown lettuce as a common product that regularly comes up during the investigation,” said Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, in a news release. “We will continue to provide updates as we learn more.”

Officials cautioned they haven’t ruled out other food items as the source. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed 843 cases in 31 states, but that is a significant undercount based on the numbers being reported by state health officials.

Cyclosporiasis is caused by the parasite cyclospora. Symptoms include watery or “explosive” diarrhea, nausea and stomach cramps. It’s often contracted by eating or drinking something contaminated with the parasite, which lives in feces.

Michigan first reported an outbreak of cyclosporiasis on July 1 after nearly 200 cases were reported across seven counties. The state now leads the nation in cases, with the state health department reporting 2,640 cases Monday and 44 hospitalizations. The case numbers jumped 69% from Friday.

New York, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky also have reported a higher than usual number of cases. New York City alone has seen 403 cases this year, most of them since May 1. The New York City Health Department said in a statement to Stateline that it’s working with partners to determine a common source.

Ohio health officials reported 177 cases as of July 2, with 28 hospitalizations.

“Fortunately there have been no deaths in Ohio, as is consistent with our past experiences with this illness,” said Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the Ohio Department of Health, in a statement.

“Nevertheless, this is a serious illness that can cause dehydration and require people to seek emergency medical care, and it should be taken seriously.”

Safer Salad Greens

Given the historical links between cyclospora and prepackaged salad greens, here are some recommended safety measures if you’re going to eat lettuce:

Purchase whole heads: Buy whole heads of lettuce rather than pre-washed, bagged lettuce or pre-mixed salad kits.

Discard outer layers: Before preparing the lettuce, throw away the outer two to three layers of leaves.

Wash inner leaves: Thoroughly wash the remaining inner leaves under clean running water.

Prioritize cooking: For any greens that can be cooked, heating to a temperature of at least 158 degrees F (70 degrees C) is safest. The parasite is resistant to routine chemical disinfection, and washing alone can’t guarantee its removal.

Source: Michigan Department of Health & Human Services

The CDC expects case numbers to continue rising, given a typical six-week lag between the onset of illnesses and when cases are typically reported to the CDC. The New York Times reported it has independently confirmed at least 4,800 cases this year.

States such as  Michigan are rushing to do their own sleuthing after cutbacks have reduced surveillance capabilities at the federal level. Last year, the CDC scaled back its surveillance program that monitors foodborne illnesses. It no longer requires monitoring for six pathogens, including cyclospora, only requiring reporting for two: salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E.coli.

The CDC acknowledged that while it’s working to collect and analyze data at the national level, “State health departments may have more timely information about the situation in their jurisdictions.”

The Trump administration said on social media on Monday that the CDC is working with 3,000 health departments to gather data, and that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating the outbreak alongside the CDC and state and local partners.

Local health departments in Michigan have conducted more than 1,000 interviews of those who’ve tested positive for cyclosporiasis, to try to trace the source of the outbreak, state officials said.

But in many states, the risk to the public remains low.

It’s  not uncommon for states to see at least a few cases of cyclosporiasis each year. Michigan typically identifies 40-50 each year, while Rhode Island documented six cases last year and 12 in 2024. Because it can take up to two weeks for symptoms to develop after a person is exposed to the parasite, state officials say it takes time to investigate the source.

There’s currently no evidence that links recreational water exposure, such as swimming in lakes, as a risk factor for the illness. And in none of the cases confirmed by the CDC did the affected person report any travel during the two weeks prior to falling ill.

In previous cyclosporiasis outbreaks, bagged salad mixes and kits were identified as the culprit, along with fresh cilantro, basil, raspberries, snow peas and green onions. One of the largest outbreaks of cyclosporiasis was in 2020, which resulted in 701 people falling ill in 14 states, and which the CDC linked to Fresh Express bagged salads.

The CDC has identified cases in the current outbreak in the following states: Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Janine Weisman of the Rhode Island Current, Kyle Davidson of the Ohio Capital Journal and Jon King of the Michigan Advance contributed to this report. Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Federal Judge Kathleen Williams of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida excoriated Trump, his sons Eric and Don Trump Jr., and their private Trump Organization for using the presidency to “manipulate the judicial process to pursue benefits unavailable in litigation.”

The Trumps and their private company voluntarily dropped a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in May in exchange for the departments of Justice and Treasury creating a $1.776 billion fund for alleged “victims of lawfare.”

Critics pounced on the settlement as a “slush fund” for “cop beaters,” referring to Jan. 6 defendants who assaulted police officers. Trump pardoned all Jan. 6 rioters on the first day of his second term. 

The Department of Justice maintained the fund was open to victims of any political leanings.

Williams, appointed during President Barack Obama’s first term, noted in her order the pot of settlement money was created to “fund claims premised on events including those arising from, inter alia, the Mar-a-Lago Documents Case and the events of January 6, 2021.”

The settlement agreement, signed May 18 by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward and IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank Bisignano, also forever absolved Trump, his sons and the Trump Organization from government prosecution and tax enforcement.

“No sitting President has ever sued federal agencies completely subject to his control for monetary benefits, or any benefits that inure to him, his family, and associates. The failure of any attorney in this case to address, on this docket, the relationship of this Article II proscription with the benefits conferred by the ‘settlement’ is a glaring omission that speaks to the control of the Lead Plaintiff,” Williams wrote in the 56-page order.

Lawyers, Trump and family cited

Williams referred Trump’s attorney Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar for review of possible disciplinary action, and will prohibit for at least one year applications to the Southern District of Florida by Trump’s other attorney, Daniel Z. Epstein.

Trump, his sons and the Trump Organization are “prohibited from referring to the purported ‘settlement agreement,’ or using, offering, admitting, or citing any of its provisions in any judicial, administrative, regulatory, arbitration, or any other official proceeding as evidence of a ‘settlement’ reached in this matter,” Williams wrote. 

Further, she ordered the Trumps and their company to reimburse fees for attorneys appointed by the court to examine Trump’s case against the IRS, an agency under his control as president.

35 former judges

The president and his family sued the IRS in January over the late 2019 leak of their tax information to news media by a government contractor. The contractor had already been sentenced for the leak in early 2024.

The creation of the “anti-weaponization” fund sparked lawsuits, including from two former police officers who deployed to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump’s IRS case was revived in late May when 35 former federal judges intervened, arguing the settlement fund was “a product of collusion and is itself a fraud on the Court.”

Lawyers representing the former federal judges hailed Williams’ ruling.

“The court’s opinion is a resounding victory for the rule of law. We are proud to represent these former judges in presenting the arguments that the court adopted,” according to a statement from Norm Eisen, co-founder and board member of Democracy Defenders Action, Matt Platkin, founding partner of Platkin LLP, and Susman Godfrey.

The Trumps and their private business maintained the president sued the IRS in his personal capacity and that the court lacked authority to review the settlement.

In her order Monday, Williams said the court declined to “accept the credulous exercise of divorcing President Trump’s current job title from an understanding of what happened here.”

Promise to scrap fund

Outrage over the fund, including from members of Trump’s own party, delayed the Senate’s eventual passage of a bill to fund Trump’s mass deportation agenda for the rest of his term.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified to Congress on June 2 that the administration would scrap the fund.

The White House referred States Newsroom to the president’s personal attorneys for comment. 

A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement, “The IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically-motivated employee to leak private and confidential information about President Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization to the New York Times, ProPublica and other left-wing news outlets, which was then illegally released to millions of people. President Trump continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice provided States Newsroom with a written statement. 

“There was no collusion in this case, and the partisan judge who speculated otherwise has disregarded decades of precedent. This case was brought by President Trump in his personal capacity, as well as by several members of his family, who were all victims of admitted violations of law. There was a live dispute because the plaintiffs sought relief that the government had not provided. The plaintiffs did not receive any money and were barred from receiving any from the now-defunct Anti-Weaponization Fund,” according to the spokesperson.

The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

School librarians have been navigating challenges in their work as long as they’ve been among the stacks in their local districts.

Proposed legislation to filter the reading choices students can make has brought concern, and budget reductions make some worry about the future of public school librarians as a mainstay in schools.

“Right now, a lot of administrators and school boards look at having school librarians as a luxury,” said Gayle Schmuhl, president of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association. “I think a lot of school librarians (in Ohio) are just hoping to stay employed.”

Schmuhl said many members of the association were wondering about the future of their jobs with cuts to public school funding in Ohio and debate over property taxes that go to education.

Cuts to state public education has been talked about for decades, especially after multiple Ohio Supreme Court decisions that said the state was not paying its constitutional fair share.

In 2022, a model called the Fair School Funding Plan came about with bipartisan sponsorship, and was passed in what some saw as a new era for Ohio. The plan was to fund schools based on actual need from school district to school district.

The model almost made it through the six-year phase-in as planned, but Ohio Republican lawmakers abandoned it in the last operating budget.

While the most recent state operating budget included a $226 million increase in school funding, the Fair School Funding Plan model needed at least triple that amount to maintain its initial calculations and keep up with inflation.

Lawmakers, however, increased private school voucher funding into the billions.

Courtney Johnson was a school librarian in Columbus for 10 years, and seeing funding plans decrease for public schools played a part in her move back to teaching English.

She worried that though the funding priorities for schools hadn’t been spelled out, the cuts might mean she’d be splitting her time as the librarian in multiple district buildings.

“I’m a person who likes to have roots in a place and go to my ‘work home’ every day,” Johnson told the Capital Journal.

Johnson said returning to the classroom also means following an entire class through their year-long experience, and still means helping kids with reading and writing, two things that are among the passions that brought her to the profession.

“Every kid has a story, even if they don’t trust that they do at first, and I love making space for them to tell their stories,” Johnson said.

As a librarian, she saw the importance of parents reading to their kids, students receiving the context of other subjects in school for “full background knowledge” to help them decode the words they’re reading, and encouraging the connection between kids and books.

“We’ve known this, that when kids see themselves represented in books, they feel more connected to the books, they’re going to like reading better,” Johnson said. “Likewise, kids can see how other people live in books, and develop empathy that way.”

Part of the job of the modern school librarian is discussing material with parents that they may find objectionable enough to demand it be taken off the shelves.

Sharon Hawkes, a retired librarian who is also part of the group Right to Read Ohio, decided to survey school librarians, with the help of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association’s member list.

Of those who participated in Hawkes’ study 56% “experienced censorship incidents” between 2021 and 2025.

While she only received responses from 32 school librarians, about 10% of the total school librarians in the state, she said the experiences were still indicative of a challenge in Ohio.

“We’re getting some clues about what’s going on,” Hawkes said, noting that because there’s no standard survey system in each state to study censorship in libraries, the count made by organizations like the American Library Association may be less than the actual amount happening across the country.

The American Library Association reported 98 attempts to censor 355 books in Ohio from 2021 to 2024, and last year, there were seven attempts to censor 129 books, according to the ALA.

Schmuhl agreed that the study was representative of the experience she’d heard of in the state.

“I did see that school librarians in our areas were being proactive and trying to have good communication within their school districts (about attempts to ban books),” Schmuhl said.

In Hawkes’ study, of the 16 censorship requests in Ohio between 2021 and 2024, eleven were “challenges without removals,” while eight resulted in a book ban of some kind, and three involved “relocations of books or other materials.”

According to the researcher, librarians use “objective criteria” in decisions about what materials are age-appropriate and relevant for the school libraries. Their training qualifies them to decide on the inventory, and to deal with challenges from parents, where the majority of material challenges came from in the study.

The majority of school librarians who responded to Hawkes’ survey had between 11 and 15 years of experience as the director or manager of their current library, and more than 62% had a Master’s degree in Library Science.

“More than anything, I wanted people to understand that parents do have the right to guide what their children read and when they read it … they can approach their librarians about it,” Hawkes said. “What they can’t do is ban books for other people’s children.”

For Johnson, moving back to English doesn’t mean she’ll avoid the topic of censorship.

“I think I’m going to deal with that in public schools under what we have going on right now, no matter what my position is,” she said.

The legislature approved one measure to compel public libraries to relocate “inappropriate” materials out of the sight of minors, but Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed it as “not workable.”

Another bill still in consideration by the legislature would order vendors of online educational resources that go to public libraries and schools to create protections to prevent “inappropriate” content from making it to kids’ eyes.

Opponents of the materials have said the bill could have unintended consequences, removing materials that are educational as well.

Johnson’s classroom goals include helping kids maintain reading to “get them ready for this really difficult world that we’re navigating,” and bring the parents in as part of it.

“We need to work together as parents and school communities to make sure kids are achieving literacy, and we know that having access to books at home, and at school, at their fingertips, is just the beginning of it,” she said.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Brine waste traveled underground from the Redbird #4 injection well in Marietta to active oil and gas wells about five miles away in 2019 and pressure on those wells has increased significantly ever since. 

Citizens are now concerned it’s only a matter of time until the radioactive waste infiltrates Marietta’s aquifer at the bottom of the Muskingum River Valley.

“I think eventually (brine waste) will get to the city of Marietta’s water wells,” said Bob Lane, an oil well producer in Washington County. 

“I actually believe this may take a few years before you lose your water well,” he said at a recent press conference.

“I would like to see the injection company instantly put a bond, made out to the city of Marietta, for $18 million or $20 million because what are you going to do 10 years from now when you have no drinking water? You’re going to have to spend a bunch of money.”

This is a serious environmental problem, said David Jeffery, a professor at Marietta College.

“It’s clear that it’s expanding as we’re speaking,” he said. 

And if nothing prevents it from happening, it will require lots of work and money to fix the city’s water. 

“You’re going to have to have hundreds of geotechnical people and engineers come in and put interceptor wells in and track down every little ounce of that radioactive fluid, and it’s going to be very expensive,” Jeffery said. 

“That’s going to cost tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to try to make sure that those fluids do not reach our aquifers or the surface.”

What is an injection well?

An injection well is a pipe in the ground that takes the waste left over from fracturing operations. 

A conventional well is a vertical pipe in the ground and most of them were drilled anywhere from 150 years ago to a few decades ago. Most abandoned wells are conventional wells. 

Ohio has more than 20,000 documented orphan wells, but there’s likely thousands more. 

Horizontal wells are now being drilled, which can extract more gas. 

Injection wells have been pumping more waste into the ground at higher pressure since 2010 when the U.S. shale boom started, said Buckeye Environmental Network Appalachian Organizer Bev Reed. 

“The brine waste fluid is pumped into geological layers thousands of feet deep, where it’s supposed to be disposed of, never to interact with the surface in any way, ever,” Reed said. 

“However, we are seeing that this has not been the case, especially in southeastern Ohio.” 

Brine waste fluid is radioactive, carrying radioactive components including radon gas, radium, other isotopes of uranium and thorium.

“We do not want (brine waste) anywhere near the surface,” Jeffery said. 

He said he couldn’t imagine a more clearly failed business concept. 

“The intention of this business is to pump the fluids down into a formation, and they’re supposed to stay there forever,” Jeffery said. 

“The problem with these formations in southern Ohio is that they have very low porosity and permeability, especially these deep formations that are down below.”

Some of the fractures are letting the toxic fluids travel upwards. 

“You’re trying to push more fluids into an area that is already under high pressure and already has non-compressible fluids in it,” Jeffery said. 

“The problem is that there’s no room for the fluids down in that layer. This stuff is coming up through these fractures because that’s the easiest way out.” 

When an injection well floods out, the brine waste flows to the next one, Jeffery said. 

“Little by little the (brine waste) is going to be coming up these fractures … as quickly as they can pump that stuff in, ruining everybody’s well,” he said. 

There are 227 active Class II injection wells in Ohio, according to ODNR. 

Washington County receives the most amount of brine waste into Class II injection wells in Ohio and about half of it comes from out-of-state, Reed said. 

“Ohio has become the dumping ground for this toxic radioactive waste stream,” Reed said. “The Marietta and Warren Township areas are particularly vulnerable due to the close proximity from the injection wells to the drinking water aquifers for thousands of people.” 

Redbird injection well

Back in 2019, Washington County oil producers noticed their wells were flooded with fluid and stopped producing gas and oil. Twenty-eight production wells that had been active for decades stopped working within weeks. 

The well owners correctly suspected the excess fluid was injected brine waste that had leaked from a nearby injection well. 

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas Resource Management did an investigation in 2020 that confirmed brine waste from the Redbird #4 well in Marietta migrated and leaked into nearby oil and gas wells. 

ODNR has identified seven injection wells where fluids have migrated underground since 2019, ODNR spokesperson Andy Chow said in an email. 

**“**Six of these wells were suspended by the division,” Chow said. “The owner of the seventh well modified the well to address the issue before the division’s investigation concluded.”

“The division relies on evidence observed at production wells near an injection well to determine when migration outside a permitted injection zone or beyond an approved area of review occurred.”

An abandoned well in Veto Lake — less than a mile from Redbird— blew out in 2021. 

ODNR passed new rules overseeing Class II injection wells in 2022. 

Buckeye Environmental Network filed a lawsuit against ODNR last year, claiming the state department of natural resources improperly approved two injection wells near Marietta using outdated regulations. The case is in the Tenth District Court of Appeals.  

Pressure increasing

Bob Wilson of Wilson Energy LLC was one of those who initially noticed the increase in brine waste in his oil and gas wells. 

“I noticed the gas falling off on all the wells,” he said. “Water just kept coming, and I was losing three or four wells a week, so I called ODNR, and I told them that I believe that injection water was infiltrating my wells.” 

Three of Wilson’s oil and gas wells near the Redbird wells have continued to increase in pressure readings since 2020, especially within the past several months.

One of his wells about three mile and a half miles northeast of Redbird has increased 1,800% from September 2023 to last month, he said. 

“Oil and gas wells basically lose pressure over time, so there’s something unnatural going on there,” Jeffery said. 

Wilson owns about 170 oil and gas wells, but 50 of them are no longer producing — something he attributes to the brine waste migration underground. 

“My wells can’t be repaired,” he said. “The damage they’ve done in Washington County can’t be repaired. … I get up and go to work every day and lose money.” 

Some of Wilson’s wells are 60 years old and he said they should have been able to produce for another 40-50 years. 

Of the 17 injection wells in Washington County, eight have had serious problems, according to Buckeye Environmental Network. 

Washington County water concerns

The future of Marietta’s drinking water is the biggest concern for Bob Anderson, another local oil well producer who has drilled more than 75 wells. 

“I’ve got two great-grandchildren now under the age of three years old, and every time I look at their faces, I think of this,” he said. “What are we leaving you?” 

Ohio state Rep. Tristan Rader, D-Lakewood, said he gets more scared the more he learns about the brine waste migration. 

“Clearly we are at the precipice of an emergency,” he said. “We have water aquifers that are being threatened as we speak, as we sit here.”

Buckeye Environmental Network is calling on the state department of natural resources to stop injection operations in Washington, Athens, Noble counties and monitor for changes after injection has stopped.  

“At the request of the ODNR Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management, operations have stopped at four class II disposal injection wells in Washington County,” Chow said. 

“On July 1 and 2, the owners of the wells agreed to voluntarily cease operations after the division notified them that their class II disposal injection wells were suspected to be causing impacts to other nearby wells that produce oil and gas. … While the class II disposal injection wells are voluntarily shut down, the well owners and the division will work towards a plan to address the issues.” 

Buckeye Environmental Network is also calling on ODNR to investigate oil and gas waste brine migration across southeastern Ohio, apply consistent pressure monitoring and reporting standards to wells with a history of migration concerns, and test private water wells within at least five miles of any injection well suspected of migration. 

“The division already applies consistent pressure monitoring and reporting standards to these wells,” Chow said. “The division is working on a contract to have a third-party consultant conduct a study of the private water wells near the impacted production wells in Washington County.”

A map of production wells near Redbird. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

A poster showing Ohio’s geological layers. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

A poster showing Ohio’s geological layers. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

The Ohio River on July 7, 2026. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

The Ohio River on July 7, 2026. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

The Ohio River on July 7, 2026. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

Veto Lake in Washington County on July 7, 2026. An abandoned well in Veto Lake — less than a mile from Redbird— blew out in 2021. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

Redbird #4 injection well in Marietta. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

Bob Wilson, an oil producer in Washington County (left) reads the pressure of an injection well in Marietta while Ohio state Rep. Tristan Rader, D-Lakewood looks on. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

Bob Wilson, an oil producer in Washington County (left) reads the pressure of an injection well in Marietta while Ohio state Rep. Tristan Rader, D-Lakewood watches. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

Bob Wilson, an oil producer in Washington County (left) and Ohio state Rep. Tristan Rader, D-Lakewood (right). (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

Bob Wilson, an oil producer in Washington County (left) and Ohio state Rep. Tristan Rader, D-Lakewood (right). (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

Buckeye Environmental Network organizer Bev Reed (left) and Bob Wilson, an oil producer in Washington County (right), in Marietta on July 7, 2026. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on X or on Bluesky.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The report, based on newly released data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that 44,447 people died from firearm-related injuries in 2024, down about 5% from the previous year. The decline was driven largely by a nearly 16% drop in firearm homicides, which fell to 15,364 deaths.

At the same time, firearm suicides rose to a record 27,593 deaths, accounting for about 62% of all firearm deaths in 2024.

The report’s authors also found that firearms remained the leading cause of death for children and teens ages 1 to 17 for the fifth consecutive year, with 2,214 deaths in 2024.

About 86% of firearm deaths were among men, according to the report. But rates have risen over the past decade among some groups of women, particularly Black women. From 2015 to 2024, the firearm homicide rate among Black women increased 63%, compared with a 2% increase among white women. Over the same period, the firearm suicide rate among Black women rose 169%, compared with a 4% increase among white women.

The report also found increases among other groups of women. From 2015 to 2024, firearm homicide rates rose 39% among Asian or Pacific Islander women and 31% among Hispanic or Latina women, while firearm suicide rates increased 57% and 51%, respectively.

Overall, firearm deaths remain about 9% below their pandemic-era peak of 48,830 deaths in 2021 but are still higher than pre-pandemic levels, according to the report.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at awatford@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The new lawsuit is part of an ongoing legal battle between Democratic-led states and the U.S. Department of Education over a mental health grant program that Congress established following the 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

At stake is a $1 billion program that offers grants to school districts across the country to help them hire and train more mental health professionals to work in schools.

Democratic attorneys general in 15 states say the Trump administration, in defiance of a December 2025 court order, plans to unlawfully terminate the grants at the end of this month, resulting in millions in lost funding.

“Our children deal with a unique set of problems which arise from growing up in 2026 — from loneliness to substance use disorder to the ever-present fear of violence — and the programs funded through these grants are designed to help them cope and hopefully thrive,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha, a Democrat, in a statement announcing the lawsuit.

In 2022, after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers, Congress allocated $1 billion to the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program to increase the number of school-based mental health professionals.

That funding effort was bipartisan; at the time Republican U.S. senators including John Cornyn of Texas, Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina publicly supported it. And within a year, the grants had funded mental and behavioral health services to nearly 775,000 students nationwide.

But in April 2025, under President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Education told grantees the funding would be halted because their programs conflicted with Trump administration priorities. At that time, the grants were supporting efforts in 49 states to prepare thousands of mental health professionals to work in K-12 schools.

Trump administration officials told the media that the grants were cut over what the administration saw as connections to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

A coalition of 17 Democratic state attorneys general sued last July, and a court ruled in their favor, ordering the Trump administration to stop the grant discontinuation. In the months since the order, the education department has threatened to withhold funding or terminate the grants altogether.

The Democratic attorneys general said they filed the new lawsuit to cover gaps in the previous court order that could allow the Trump administration to follow through on its desire to halt the funding.

“The courts have repeatedly ruled that the Trump Administration does not have the power to arbitrarily revoke grant funding that provides critical mental health services to our students,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, a Democrat, in a statement about joining the lawsuit.

“Still, the federal government continues its attempts to terminate funding.”

Stateline reached out to the U.S. Department of Education for comment but did not receive a response before publication.

Attorneys general participating in the lawsuit are from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The proposed policy statement, which is open for public comment through July 31, would affect how the FTC regulates AI companies. The agency said it’s meant to address concerns that “AI companies that distort their systems’ outputs to achieve undisclosed ideological objectives” could be deceiving consumers in violation of federal law.

“The FTC wants to hear from businesses and consumers about their experiences and concerns regarding the subversion of AI systems for ideological ends,” Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said in a statement.

The proposal specifically mentions a first-of-its-kind Colorado law that had banned “algorithmic discrimination,” or AI output that might lead to decisions disfavoring people on jobs, loans or healthcare based on their race, religion, gender and other protected categories. But the Colorado legislature already has repealed that provision. The revamped law instead focuses on regulating technology that results in “consequential decisions” for consumers. 

The controversial law prompted a lawsuit from xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, which the U.S. Department of Justice supported.

In December 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order targeting state AI laws, including creation of a Department of Justice AI Litigation Task Force to challenge state AI laws. His order also directed the FTC to issue a policy statement on regulation of state laws that “require alterations to the truthful outputs of AI models.” 

Stateline asked the FTC if there were any state and city laws that officials felt were currently in violation of federal laws, but received no response.

Tyler Thompson, a Denver-based lawyer with firm Reed Smith who tracks emerging technology law, said the FTC proposal is important because it raises the possibility that companies could face deceptive-practices claims based on how they tune, weight or steer AI models, which could also prompt state policy on the issue.

“Just the fact that companies could be tweaking their models and that could lead to a deceptive trade practice, I think is huge news,” Thompson said.

Thompson believes the legal battle and the FTC’s focus on restricting similar laws will lead to “a more niche” policy focus on AI – such as deepfakes, nonconsensual sexual content, children’s safety, companion chatbots and data centers — areas where there is bipartisan agreement.

Noah M. Kenney, founder and principal consultant of Digital 520, an AI governance, security and privacy consultancy, who also responded to the FTC’s request for public comment, said the proposed statement carries more political pressure rather than being an enforceable federal regulation.

“The real effect of this statement is signaling and pressure, not legal preemption, especially paired with the December executive order’s AI litigation task force.”

Kenney said there is also an irony in the federal government’s argument.

“A federal effort to dictate what counts as a ‘neutral’ or ‘accurate’ output raises its own First Amendment concerns about compelled speech,” he said.

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The public comment period on the draft rule, posted on May 29 with 41 co-signing federal agencies, closes at the end of the day Monday, July 13. The current rule emphasizes that grant applications should be reviewed based on merit, with language about measurable results that align with an agency’s strategic goals and objectives, while considering available data, evidence and results from past programs.

The proposed rule, which runs more than 100 pages, would make a host of changes related to applications, decision making, oversight and cost sharing. The wide-ranging rule could affect billions of dollars in federal grant funding for criminal justice, healthcare, the environment, elections administration, housing and education.

The Democratic governors writing about reproductive healthcare Monday also expressed concern about the speed at which the rule is set to be adopted. There were more than 278,000 public comments on the draft proposal as of Sunday afternoon, and the office said it intends to adopt the formal rule by Oct. 1. According to Regulations.gov, after a comment period closes, the agency typically reviews all comments received and conducts an analysis responding to the issues raised.

The proposed new rule states that senior political appointees would be part of the merit review process to ensure that awards “advance the president’s policy priorities.” The proposal says this approach would improve transparency, accountability and proper oversight that was not used during the Biden administration.

“Federal awards were often used during those years to promote a ‘woke’ policy agenda that did not reflect the values of the vast majority of the American public,” the proposed rule says. “For example, federal programs and funding opportunities were designed to advance unlawful identity-based ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ (DEI) policies and preferences across the country.”

The Democratic governors said in their comment that the proposed rule would jeopardize  states’ ability to maintain stable access to reproductive healthcare and support critical service providers in their states by allowing agencies to “unilaterally terminate discretionary grants based on political considerations, even where the award terms never reserved that right and the grantee did not have advance notice.”

One example is Perinatal Quality Initiatives meant to improve maternal health and funded in part by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are 34 collaboratives that address issues such as bloodstream infections in newborns, reducing pregnancy complications associated with high blood pressure and hemorrhaging, and maternal mental health care.

The funding is passed along to healthcare providers, hospitals and community-based organizations. Other programs include Safe Motherhood and Infant grants, Rural Maternal Health grants and others that are meant to improve services and care over a period of years.

The proposed rule would also prohibit the use of federal funds for statistical or demographic analyses, which the letter said is key to achieving longstanding federal health goals that help identify and address problems specific to certain populations. That portion of the rule could cause confusion among grantees and result in worse health outcomes, the letter said. 

The draft rule states that there would be broad authority to cancel an award at any time, at the federal government’s discretion, without notice. 

Stateline reported the Trump administration recently canceled most of the active grants under the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, telling 53 of 67 grantees that their funding was terminated immediately because their programs normalized or promoted sexual activity for minors. The grants were canceled two years before their expiration dates.

The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association and a family planning organization in Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Health and Human Services agency in June alleging that it is politicizing the Title X grant funding program by requiring grantees to pass an “alignment review” before being awarded any funds.

“We’re sort of already getting a preview of what they’re thinking about and trying to solidify and put into official regulation,” said Christina Chang, executive director of the Reproductive Freedom Alliance, in an interview with Stateline on Friday. The governors signing the letter are all members of the alliance, which exists as a way for governors to speak in support of reproductive healthcare.

The Reproductive Freedom Alliance letter also highlighted a portion of the proposed rule that refers to an existing federal budget rule called the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being used for abortion services with limited exceptions. The draft rule would add that costs associated with “elective abortions” are not allowable under federal awards. The governors called that language vague and overly broad, which could discourage providers from offering comprehensive reproductive healthcare out of fear of losing their funding.

Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at kmoseley@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The nonprofit hospice where Washington state nurse Milli Palmer has worked for nearly two decades announced in October 2024 that it was entering a “joint venture” with Compassus, a private equity-backed home health company. The deal was billed as a 50/50 partnership between Compassus and Providence, Palmer’s employer.

But within months, Palmer said, her employer’s priorities shifted.

After Compassus assumed control over day-to-day operations at the hospice and home health company in May 2025, management began pushing nurses and case workers to see more patients during their eight-hour shifts, she said. Staff who had been doing 13-15 patient visits per week were pressured to complete 20-25 visits.

Meanwhile, some of Palmer’s colleagues were asked to lie on paperwork or backdate legal documents, she said. The new expectations have dramatically changed the job she loved, prompting some of her colleagues to quit. The hospice now employs more traveling nurses and is seeing fewer referrals, she said.

“It has really limited our ability to make sure that patients are safe in their home,” she told Stateline. “What ends up happening is our staff is so committed to our patients and communities that they will not provide substandard care, so that pushes them into overtime, and then that impacts their abilities to care for their own families.”

Providence declined Stateline’s request for an interview. Compassus did not respond to multiple requests for comment before publication.

Joint ventures in health care are not new. But private equity firms and nonprofits that co-own hospitals, urgent care clinics and home health agencies are partners with fundamentally different missions.

Nonprofit health systems are legally obligated to prioritize their community’s healthcare needs. In exchange for being exempt from paying most taxes, they must provide needed services that may not be profitable, and reinvest excess revenue into patient care and community health. Private equity firms generally focus on maximizing returns for investors, often within a few years.

As these joint ventures grow increasingly popular, they will test a wave of recent state laws that were designed to increase oversight of private equity in healthcare and prevent a repeat of the patient harm, hospital closures, mass layoffs and financial failures that have followed some of the industry’s most troubled investments.

Last year, at least seven states enacted laws erecting guardrails around private equity’s involvement in healthcare. But some private equity critics are concerned that the recent state laws may not extend to the joint venture model.

“Policymakers need to take a look and make sure that they’re future-proofing their states’ regulations for stuff like this,” said Matt Parr, communications director with the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a watchdog group that tracks private equity.

More than a fifth of private equity-backed hospitals in the U.S. are now owned through joint ventures with nonprofits, according to a new study from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project.

Proponents of joint ventures say private equity provides a stabilizing infusion of cash for nonprofits, as well as the expertise and connections to help them improve their operations and scale up their services. Nonprofit systems provide clinical expertise and a name the community trusts that can allow private equity entry to new markets.

“As our communities age, we have been thoughtfully evaluating how to best meet the growing need for these services,” Terri Warren, chief of community services at Providence, said in a news release announcing its joint venture with Compassus. Bringing in the private-equity backed partner, she said, would enable Providence to expand access to its hospice and home health services.

Palmer, who lives in Renton, Washington, a Seattle suburb, has worked as a nurse since 1988 and joined Providence, which operates in several Western states, in 2007. Compassus, a Tennessee-based home health company with locations in 32 states, is owned by private equity firm TowerBrook Capital Partners and Catholic health system Ascension.

Their new joint venture rebranded Palmer’s employer as Providence at Home with Compassus.

“I think the public still sees us as Providence Hospice, not Providence at Home with Compassus, so they tend to blame the Providence system for what they see as a lack of response,” Palmer said. “I think Compassus is gleaning patients strictly on the Providence name.”

Investigations

One of the nation’s largest rural hospital operators is Lifepoint Healthcare, a company owned by private equity giant Apollo Global Management. Last year, a bipartisan U.S. Senate Budget Committee investigation found that underinvestment in a Lifepoint hospital in rural Iowa led to deteriorating conditions and worsening patient care even as Apollo investors made millions.

Lifepoint is an example of the growing reach of joint ventures: More than 60% of its hospitals are owned through such partnerships with nonprofit and other healthcare providers in multiple states, according to research from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project.

One of Lifepoint’s largest joint ventures is with the not-for-profit Duke Health, the top-ranked North Carolina health system that’s connected with Duke University and anchored by the highly rated Duke University Hospital.

Their joint venture, Duke LifePoint Healthcare, owns 15 acute care hospitals in Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Although Duke’s name comes first in the branding, Lifepoint owns 97% of the venture.

In recent years, some of the Duke LifePoint’s hospitals have been the subject of both state and federal investigations.

Its hospital in Wilson, North Carolina, was at risk of losing federal Medicare funding three times in 2022 and 2023 for problems with patient safety and care. In one cited incident, a man was given contrast dye for a CT scan at the hospital, against his physician’s orders, which led to kidney damage that made him dependent on dialysis. The feds also cited the hospital for two 2022 incidents that they said resulted in patient deaths.

And the hospital was investigated by the North Carolina attorney general’s office for chronic understaffing and allegations the hospital reduced the amount of free or discounted care it provided to uninsured patients, and prioritized patient services with higher reimbursement rates.

Earlier this year a different Duke LifePoint hospital, in Hickory, North Carolina, faced an investigation over care quality problems.

The Lown Institute’s Hospital Index ranked four Duke LifePoint hospitals among the worst in North Carolina.

“To the average consumer patient, you’re going to a Duke LifePoint facility and expect a level of trustworthiness for the system that you know, but really it’s Lifepoint running most of the show,” said Parr, of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project.

Duke Health officials declined to comment on the investigations but in a statement to Stateline said the partnership is meant to pair Duke Health’s clinical expertise with Lifepoint’s experience supporting smaller community and rural hospitals.

“Duke Health joined the Duke LifePoint partnership to help strengthen access to high-quality care in communities where maintaining local healthcare services can be particularly challenging,” officials said in the statement.

In some cases, private equity investment has breathed life into healthcare enterprises. A 2017 case study out of West Virginia found that the formerly private equity-backed MedExpress urgent care chain benefitted rural Appalachian communities, lowering costs and reducing hospital crowding.

Proponents point out that many of the problems associated with private equity involvement also happen in other types of funding models, including publicly traded outfits or nonprofits. And some private equity firms have shifted away from extractive financial maneuvers and toward more responsible practices.

But critics are worried that increasing private equity interest will bring with it the bad actors that sacrifice care quality for the sake of boosting shareholder profits. They cite a growing body of research that indicates that the private equity model increases the likelihood of understaffing, poor patient outcomes and higher care costs.

Testing state laws

Palmer, the Washington state hospice nurse, said she and some of her coworkers have filed complaints about Compassus with the Washington state attorney general’s office, as well as the state labor department. Palmer is a member of the executive board at her local union that represents healthcare workers.

April Frazier, a hospice chaplain and Palmer’s coworker, said she’s filed a complaint because management told her and other employees to lie about missed patient visits. She said they were told to mark a missed visit as due to patient request, when it was actually the result of no staff member being available to make the visit.

Frazier has worked at Providence for 13 years and told Stateline the company has changed.

“A really big issue is taking on patients and making promises that they can be cared for, and it’s not possible due to lack of staffing,” Frazier said. For example, she said, some patients who are supposed to have aides help them with bathing can’t get that help because there aren’t enough bath aides. The aides who are available have been pressured to shorten their time with patients, she said.

“If somebody is frail and can’t move fast, their skin is delicate and they’re dying, it is disrespectful to try to rush a bath for the sake of productivity numbers,” Frazier said. “That’s the heartbreaking part, when we know what good care looks like and to be pressured to do less than that.”

The office of Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat, declined Stateline’s request for an interview. A representative said his office has a policy of not commenting on any potential investigations.

It remains to be seen whether new state laws that restrict private equity’s involvement in healthcare will extend to joint ventures with nonprofit systems, said Parr.

“It is interesting that as you get more legislation coming through in the last few years, we see private equity may be pivoting more toward this type of business model,” he said.

The announcement of Compassus’s joint venture with Providence triggered official reviews in states where the new home health companies would be operating, including California, Oregon and Washington. Those states have laws that require varying levels of oversight for proposed healthcare mergers or acquisitions.

While each state eventually approved the deal, Oregon spent more than a year reviewing it and extracted promises from the companies before signing off in May.

Oregon has one of the toughest laws in the country aimed at private equity. Passed last year, it strictly limits the power of non-physician-run companies, such as those backed by private equity, to control clinical and business decisions for medical practices.

In their initial report on the Providence-Compassus joint venture, Oregon regulators noted the conflicting goals of nonprofits and private equity firms: “To the extent providing better care to community members conflicts with profit objectives, for-profit owners would be expected to prioritize the latter.” They expressed concern that conflict could drive cost-cutting and revenue-maximizing strategies that could hurt patient care and access.

More than 200 public comments were filed, most opposing the partnership.

Oregon eventually approved the deal earlier this year, with conditions: The joint venture must hold to its promise to invest $30 million in home health and hospice operations in the state over the next five years, and continue Providence’s community benefit programs.

As Palmer and her colleagues continue to ask Washington state officials for help, she said she hopes they’ll take a harder look at how the joint venture is affecting her community. And she’s puzzled why Compassus, a company with years of experience providing hospice and home health care in other states, has adopted policies she believes have undermined care for her patients.

“I know our communities are used to a certain standard of care,” she said, “and if we don’t provide that, we’re not going to have a business here.”

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Salgado Araujo was driving three men to a work site early Tuesday morning when they noticed an unmarked vehicle following them, according to a Texas Tribune interview with Hugo Balderas Ibarra, an attorney representing two of the three passengers in the van with Salgado Araujo. Surveillance footage captured snippets of the leadup to the shooting; an unmarked vehicle driving in the oncoming traffic lane to pass Salgado Araujo’s white van, and an agent opening the passenger door. 

“My clients reiterated that at no point was there ever an agent standing in front of the vehicle, nor was an agent ever placed in the line of danger,” Balderas Ibarra said in a news conference Friday. 

The killing of Salgado Araujo marked the 21st shooting by immigration agents since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term. Four people have been shot at in Minnesota, resulting in two deaths. 

In many such cases — including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti — video evidence contradicted the government’s accounts, though the feds so far have rarely investigated officers for their use of force. 

And, in the majority of cases, federal agents shot someone who was inside a car. 

Policing and use-of-force experts have long advised law enforcement officers not to stand in front of, or shoot at, vehicles. 

“Most of the policies I’ve seen around the country tell officers you don’t shoot at vehicles except as a last resort,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a policing researcher at the University of South Carolina who has taught at the FBI National Academy and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. “But you can’t have that last resort if you’re the one who put yourself in that position — we call that officer-created jeopardy.”

U.S. Department of Justice’s Use of Force policy

“Firearms may not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles. Specifically, firearms may not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless: (1) a person in the vehicle is threatening the officer or another person with deadly force by means other than the vehicle; or (2) the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause death or serious physical injury to the officer or others, and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle.”

On July 1, an ICE officer shot at Clemente Lara-Hernandez in Harrisburg, Pa., as he tried to drive away from the agents ordering him to get out of the vehicle. An ICE spokesman said the shooting happened because Lara-Hernandez “weaponized” his vehicle by “ramming it” into the feds’ sedan, according to reporting by PennLive.

But surveillance footage obtained by PennLive shows agents breaking the driver’s side window, then firing at the vehicle after Lara-Hernandez drove around the ICE vehicle, clipping the front end as he fled.

In the Chicago area during the September immigration surge dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” an ICE agent shot and killed 38-year-old Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez. Agents said Villegas-Gonzalez hit and dragged an officer with his car, causing serious injuries, but video from the scene casts doubt on whether an agent was hit at all; one officer said immediately after the incident that his injuries were “nothing major.”

When ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Good in January, that was the ninth shooting in four months, all of them involving people in cars. 

Not every shooting was caught on camera. 

In December, ICE agents fired at a St. Paul man, Juan Carlos Rodriguez Romero, as he attempted to evade arrest. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security posted on X accusing Rodriguez Romero of using his car to ram multiple agents, asserting that the agent fired shots in self-defense, though interviews with agents on the scene contradicted the official account. 

The U.S. Department of Justice charged Rodriguez Romero with assaulting federal officers but dropped the charges six months later for lack of evidence. No video has emerged of the incident. 

The federal government has rarely investigated or punished officers for the shootings, nor has it released the names of agents involved. (ICE opened investigations into two officers accused of making false statements after one of the agents, Christian Castro, allegedly shot Julio Sosa-Celis in north Minneapolis in January. Castro is facing state charges.)

“When there’s no discipline and there’s no being held accountable for doing something like that, it becomes a practice and a pattern,” Alpert said.

Salgado Araujo’s family is calling for an independent investigation into the shooting. 

This story was originally produced by Minnesota Reformer, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Mark Hauser gave the money on May 6 to the campaign committee of Ramaswamy and his running mate, Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, according to Ohio Secretary of State campaign finance records. The filing lists Hauser at a Cincinnati business address and identifies his occupation as managing partner of Hauser Private Equity. The contribution appears on the ticket’s post-primary report.

Hauser founded Hauser Private Equity, which operates out of Cincinnati and Los Angeles, and serves as chairman of HAUSER Inc., the Cincinnati-based national insurance brokerage he built from a small local agency.

He is also, by his own admission in federal court, a participant in Operation Varsity Blues — the college admissions scandal that swept up dozens of wealthy parents, including Hollywood actors, who paid to cheat their children into selective universities.

Hauser pleaded guilty in September 2020 to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. On May 27, 2021, a federal judge in Boston sentenced him to two months in prison, three years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine and 300 hours of community service, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

Prosecutors said Hauser agreed with admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer to pay $40,000 to cheat on his daughter’s ACT. A co-conspirator traveled to Houston, posed as the proctor for the exam, and corrected her answers after she finished.

A donation that lands against the candidate’s own message

Ramaswamy has built his political identity on the argument that Americans should rise or fall on individual merit rather than on race-conscious policy or institutional advantage. During his 2024 presidential run he pledged to end federally mandated affirmative action. He has campaigned against diversity, equity and inclusion programs and against what he calls woke ideology in schools and business.

At his campaign launch in Cincinnati, Ramaswamy said he would lead Ohio to be a state “where we embrace capitalism and meritocracy” and promised that Ohio would become the first state in the country to put every public school teacher, principal, superintendent and administrator on merit-based pay.

The federal case against Hauser described conduct at the opposite end of that principle: a parent with substantial means paying to manufacture an academic credential his child had not earned, inside a system already tilted toward families like his.

The money race

The Hauser contribution appears on the same post-primary report that showed roughly $116,000 flowing to Ramaswamy from founders of World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, and their associates — nearly all of it on primary day or the morning after. TiffinOhio.net reported on that cluster of maximum-legal donations last month. Hauser’s $10,000 falls under the $16,615 individual maximum.

Ramaswamy holds a commanding financial position heading into the November 3 general election against Democrat Amy Acton, the former state health director. He has loaned his campaign $25 million of his own money, roughly 83% of what the campaign raised this year, and the contest is on pace to be the most expensive governor’s race in Ohio history.

His campaign finance reporting has also drawn scrutiny. The Ohio Capital Journal reported last month that the campaign has run more than half a million dollars through a credit card while disclosing only the monthly bill rather than the individual purchases state law requires. State Sen. Kent Smith, a Euclid Democrat, has since filed a complaint with the Secretary of State’s office over the reporting. A campaign spokesperson has said the Ramaswamy-McColley operation complies with Ohio campaign finance law.

The campaign has previously declined to address a contribution that drew attention. In February, TiffinOhio.net reported that Ramaswamy’s campaign had accepted a $500 donation from Richard Iott, a former northwest Ohio congressional candidate whose 2010 House bid collapsed after photographs surfaced of him in a Nazi SS uniform. The campaign issued no statement and gave no indication it would return the money.

For a candidate asking Ohio voters to accept that merit alone should decide who gets ahead, the Hauser contribution puts a name and a dollar figure on the question of who is helping fund that argument.

Ramaswamy’s campaign did not return requests for comment.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Stevens issued the release Monday, July 13. He wrote that a second statement was necessary “to address misinformation circulating in our community” about the July 7 shooting of Jeffrey R. Sergent, 43, at Township Road 8 and State Route 67.

The release does not say what the misinformation is, who spread it, or where it appeared.

It arrives while the criminal investigation into the shooting is still open. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is the lead agency, and it has released no findings. The Sheriff’s Office previously told TiffinOhio.net it could not provide records from the shooting because BCI had taken over the case, and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office has withheld the entire investigative file, citing the exemption in state public records law for material assembled for a pending case.

The deputies who fired have not been named. The Sheriff’s Office says they are crime victims whose identities are protected. In the new release, Stevens wrote that the deputies and a Bloomville officer “were, by law, victims of crime in the incident,” and that personal information had to be manually redacted from the footage under Marsy’s Law before any of it could be viewed.

What the Sheriff’s Office says the video shows

Viewer discretion is advised for the bodycam video below.

“The video evidence establishes many facts,” Stevens wrote. The release makes four points.

First, it says deputies did not have their guns drawn while they spoke with Sergent, and drew them only after he put the truck in reverse, struck a guardrail and then drove toward deputies.

Second, it addresses the weapons question. Sergent said he had only knives, according to the release, but deputies could not assess whether other weapons were in the truck because he rolled his windows up. The release says deputies assumed there could be more weapons because they knew his record.

Third, it addresses sound. The release says “popping sounds” audible on the clip came from a window punch tool, then an asp breaking the window, then the truck striking the guardrail. Gunfire comes after those sounds, according to the release, followed by the engine backfiring after the truck hit a cruiser.

Fourth, it addresses where deputies were standing. The release says deputies were on both sides of the truck during the arrest attempt and “never in front of it,” and that when Sergent put the truck in motion, deputies were forced to move to avoid being hit — which placed some of them in front of the vehicle.

The Sheriff’s Office account issued on the day of the shooting said deputies were positioned in front of and beside the truck when they fired into it. Both releases place deputies in front of the vehicle at the moment shots were fired. The new one describes how they got there.

“The Deputies drew their weapons and fired only when their lives and the lives of their fellow officers were in danger, as the video clip clearly shows,” Stevens wrote.

The stills

The four released images are watermarked and carry redactions applied by the agency. Two, timestamped 10:26:03 a.m., show an officer with a handgun raised toward the front of a dark pickup truck stopped along a guardrail. A third, timestamped one second later, shows the truck from the driver’s side. A fourth, at 10:26:13 a.m., shows the truck’s front end against the push bar of a cruiser, its windows shattered.

The Sheriff’s Office said in its first release that the traffic stop began at about 10:17 a.m. and that deputies negotiated with Sergent for roughly 10 minutes. The timestamps on the stills are consistent with that timeline.

The Sheriff’s Office also posted a partial body camera clip to Facebook. It has not released the full footage, and it has not said how many deputies fired, how many shots were fired, or how much of the recorded video the clip represents.

The record the Sheriff’s Office cites

Much of the new release is devoted to Sergent’s criminal history, which the Sheriff’s Office says shaped how deputies approached him. Stevens wrote that Sergent is “a known violent felony offender with our office.”

According to the release, Sergent had convictions in Ohio and Tennessee and faced charges in Georgia. His Ohio charges included resisting arrest, failure to comply, vandalism, being a fugitive from justice and assault of a police officer, the release says, and he was convicted in Ohio of escape and assault.

Those convictions stem from a 2018 case in which Sergent assaulted a Seneca County deputy and tried to take the deputy’s gun during a domestic violence arrest, according to the release, and resulted in a prison sentence.

The release also says deputies had spoken with Sergent about the felony domestic violence charges before the July 7 arrest attempt. Sergent denied the allegation and said he had evidence disproving it, according to the release, but never produced it, and the charges were filed.

The legal argument

The release closes with a legal case for the shooting. Stevens quoted Ohio’s statutory definition of a deadly weapon — any instrument, device or thing capable of inflicting death that is designed, adapted, possessed, carried or used as a weapon — and wrote that a second section of Ohio law “further clarifies a motor vehicle as a ‘deadly weapon.’”

The definition Stevens quoted matches the statute word for word. His description of the second section does not.

That section is Ohio’s felonious assault law. It nowhere classifies motor vehicles as deadly weapons. It borrows the same definition, and it mentions a motor vehicle in a single place: a sentencing provision requiring a license suspension when a vehicle turns out to have been the deadly weapon used in an assault.

Under Ohio law, almost nothing is a deadly weapon by default. Courts have held that knives, BB guns and pocket knives are not deadly weapons on their own, and that the question turns on how an object was actually used. Vehicles are treated the same way. Ohio appeals courts have held that a vehicle qualifies only when used in a manner likely to produce death or great bodily harm, and that the driver’s intent, manner of use and actions must all be examined. One Ohio appellate decision put it directly: a car can be a deadly weapon if used as one, but the state must prove the driver intended to use it as a weapon and was not merely attempting to flee the scene.

Stevens wrote in the same release that Sergent “put their lives at risk by attempting to escape instead of simply complying.”

None of this establishes that the deputies acted unlawfully. Whether an officer’s use of deadly force is justified is judged by a different standard entirely — whether the force was objectively reasonable from the perspective of an officer at the scene — and an officer may lawfully fire at a vehicle he reasonably perceives as a threat even if the driver could not be convicted of assault. Those are separate questions, and BCI is examining the first one, not the second.

What the Sheriff’s Office has done is tell the public that the law already answers a question the law does not answer, while the investigation that will answer it remains open.

What is still not public

The state’s investigation has produced no public findings. The full body camera and cruiser footage has not been released. The deputies have not been identified.

In November, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that police officers attacked in the line of duty are crime victims under Marsy’s Law and that their names may be redacted from public records. Agencies across the state have relied on that ruling to withhold the identities of officers involved in shootings. The Sheriff’s Office is invoking the same protection here.

The Seneca County Coroner’s Office has said Sergent suffered a gunshot wound to the head and a gunshot wound to the arm. Final cause and manner of death and a toxicology report remain pending.

WTOL-11 reported last week that Jacob Kendrick, a friend of Sergent’s, was on a video call with him during the encounter and described what he saw. The Sheriff’s Office release does not reference that account.

TiffinOhio.net previously reported the shooting and the coroner’s findings.

Questions about the investigation are being directed to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, according to the Sheriff’s Office. This is a developing story.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Officers were sent to the residence at about 4:43 a.m. on Monday, July 13, according to a press release from Police Chief Donald A. Karr. When they arrived, they found three injured people — two adults and one juvenile. A fourth person, also a juvenile, was not hurt.

Both adults had serious injuries and are receiving treatment, Karr said. A juvenile is in custody and is being treated for minor injuries.

The department did not say how any of the four people were hurt, what led to the call, how the four are related to one another, or why the juvenile was taken into custody. No charges have been announced.

Karr said the department is not releasing any names.

“We will not be releasing names at this time out of respect for the family,” the release said. “Further details will be released as required.”

The chief said required steps were taken at the scene and that the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was called in to process it. BCI, a division of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, is routinely requested by small departments to handle crime‑scene forensics and major‑case work.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their family,” Karr said of the injured adults.

Gibsonburg police were assisted by the Woodville Police Department, the Sandusky County Sheriff’s Office, Sandusky County EMS, Gibsonburg Fire and the Sandusky County Prosecutor’s Office, according to the release.

Gibsonburg is a village of roughly 2,500 people in Sandusky County, about 25 miles northwest of Tiffin.

TiffinOhio.net will update this story as police release additional information.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The source of the outbreak is unknown and under investigation, the health district said in a news release.

Cyclosporiasis is an intestinal illness caused by a microscopic parasite. People become infected by consuming food or water contaminated with the parasite. Symptoms include intense, watery diarrhea, loss of appetite, weight loss, cramping, bloating, nausea and fatigue, and typically develop within two to 14 days after exposure. The health district said person-to-person spread is extremely unlikely.

The illness can cause prolonged illness in older adults, pregnant women, young children, and people with weakened immune systems or underlying health conditions, according to the health district. Anyone experiencing symptoms should contact a healthcare provider; early diagnosis and treatment can shorten the illness and prevent complications.

Part of a broader Ohio and Midwest increase

The Seneca County cases come as cyclosporiasis case counts climb across Ohio and neighboring states.

The Ohio Department of Health reported 177 cases statewide in 2026 as of July 2, with 171 of those occurring in June, mostly after June 20. Twenty-eight Ohioans had been hospitalized. No deaths have been reported in Ohio.

ODH Director Bruce Vanderhoff said the illness is not typically life-threatening but called it “a serious illness that can cause dehydration” and said it can require people to seek emergency medical care.

The state’s most recent public county-level breakdown, reflecting data as of July 2, listed 2 cases in Seneca County. The health district’s figure of 5 lab-confirmed cases reflects a later date and is drawn from cases reported directly to the district; the two counts are not a direct comparison.

That same state breakdown shows heavier concentrations elsewhere in northwest Ohio: 30 cases in Lucas County, 20 in Wood County, 10 in Wyandot County, 7 in Crawford County, 5 in Fulton County and 2 in Sandusky County.

ODH said it is working with local health departments and with state and federal partners on interviews and traceback investigations to identify any common exposure. As of that release, no common source had been identified. The illness is generally transmitted by eating contaminated produce, and ODH said it can be treated with antibiotics, along with rest and fluids.

How to reduce your risk

The health district listed several preventative steps residents can take while the investigation continues:

• Wash your hands with soap and water before preparing or eating food.

• Carefully wash all produce.

• When able, cook produce to at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit.

• If you are experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea, do not swim or visit splashpads. The health district noted that one person with diarrhea can spread germs to everyone else in a pool.

The Seneca County General Health District can be reached at its Tiffin office, 92 E. Perry St., at 419-447-3691, or its Fostoria office, 801 Kirk St., at 419-435-4401.

More information about the illness is available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

According to the campaign, the endorsement was made by the executive committee of the UAW Ohio State CAP Council on the recommendation of the Fostoria Area UAW Community Action Program, which represents members in Seneca County. That route matches the process the union describes publicly: candidates are vetted by UAW Region 2B’s area Community Action Program councils, which then make recommendations to the Ohio or Indiana state CAP boards, made up of rank-and-file members and retirees.

The endorsement lands in a district built on factory work. Manufacturing is the largest employment sector in both Seneca and Sandusky counties, with roughly 7,000 workers in each — about a quarter of employed residents in each county — according to U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey estimates.

Jones has spent more than 20 years as a production supervisor at JVIS Tiffin USA, formerly Toledo Molding & Die. Before that, he served four years in the U.S. Army as an airborne infantryman with the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment — the Old Guard — the Army’s official ceremonial unit. He has represented Tiffin’s 1st Ward on City Council since 2024.

“I’ve spent two decades on a plant floor in Tiffin,” Jones said in the campaign’s announcement. “I know what it means when a line goes down, when a shift gets cut, when a plant that’s been here for generations starts talking about consolidation. The people who build things in Seneca and Sandusky County don’t need somebody in Columbus who’s never done it. They need somebody who has.”

The campaign also said Jones does not accept corporate PAC money, that more than 90 percent of the money he has raised this cycle has come from donors inside House District 88, and that his average contribution is about $73.

Campaign money was a live issue in the district this spring. During the Republican primary, challenger Eric Watson repeatedly criticized incumbent Rep. Gary Click over filings showing Click drew the bulk of his fundraising from corporate political action committees and donors outside the district.

A district Click nearly lost

Click, R-Vickery, is a three-term incumbent who is term-limited after the coming cycle and is seeking a fourth and final two-year term. He survived the May 5 Republican primary by fewer than 600 votes, finishing with 6,859 votes to Watson’s 6,260 — 52.28 percent to 47.72 percent — according to returns from the Sandusky and Seneca county boards of elections. Click carried his home county of Sandusky but lost Seneca County, where Jones lives and holds elected office. Watson declined to endorse Click after the race.

Jones ran unopposed in the Democratic primary. The UAW endorsement adds to a growing list of labor and veterans’ backing for his campaign: the national veterans group VoteVets endorsed Jones in March, and the Ohio Federation of Teachers endorsed him in a June 18 letter from union President Melissa Cropper.

Ohio’s 88th House District covers all of Seneca and Sandusky counties. The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3.

More information about the Jones campaign is available at jonesforohio.com.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

“I recommended, to Governor Henry McMaster, Lindsey Graham’s wonderful sister, Darline, to serve as interim Senator from the Great State of South Carolina,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!”

McMaster is scheduled to announce his appointment to the Senate at 4 p.m. Eastern during a press conference. The person selected for the role would serve out the remainder of Graham’s term through early January. Graham was close to his sister, Darline Graham Nordone, after their parents died when she was a teen.

Graham, 71, died unexpectedly this weekend of an aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, according to preliminary findings from the District of Columbia’s medical examiner that were shared by Graham’s office. 

Graham’s death has also triggered a special election process in his home state to determine who will advance to the November general election for a full six-year Senate term. 

Graham won the Republican primary in June and was set to face Democratic candidate Annie Andrews later this year. 

The special election to determine which Republican will advance is scheduled for Aug. 11, with a runoff taking place on Aug. 25 if necessary. 

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Allies of an Ohio progressive advocacy group that is being probed by the FBI are hoping to use news of the investigation to mobilize voters this November.

Innovation Ohio launched a social media ad campaign this week referencing the June 11 raid of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. The investigation’s exact focus remains unclear, but the FBI previously asked elections officials in at least Cleveland and Columbus about voter registration work performed in 2023 and 2024 by a company owned by an OOC founder.

The ads, which feature clips of TV news coverage, describe the raid as “a deliberate attempt to scare Ohioans, suppress participation, and silence those fighting to protect our freedom to vote.” It directs viewers to Hands Off Ohio, a website that’s raising money to continue the OOC’s voter registration drives in Ohio and to help targets of the investigation push back publicly. 

Innovation Ohio President and CEO Michael McGovern said the Hands Off Ohio coalition is taking its message directly to voters after previously holding in-person rallies. The ad campaign costs at least $100,000, and is being targeted at progressive voters in the state, McGovern said. In addition to social media platforms, the ads also will air on streaming video devices.

“We think Ohioans are smart enough to see through the BS. Rather than allow themselves to be intimidated, we believe these authoritarian tactics will motivate everyday people from across the state to come together to defend their freedoms,” McGovern said.

The Ohio Organizing Collaborative and its political arm, the Ohio Organizing Campaign, are major progressive groups in Ohio, helping fund voter registration drives, ballot initiatives and other forms of political organizing and advocacy. 

The groups also serve as a conduit for tens of millions of dollars coming from large national foundations that fund liberal political causes across the country. The Ohio Organizing Campaign spent $9.6 million in 2024, the group’s public tax filings show – of which $9.1 million went to Black Fork Strategies, a political firm owned by Ohio Organizing Collaborative founder Kirk Noden. 

Black Fork, in turn, was the subject of several complaints by elections officials in Cuyahoga, Franklin and Hamilton counties that year, among others. Elections officials referred their concerns to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, saying Black Fork’s canvassers committed multiple instances of apparent voter registration fraud, including changing voter registrations without those voters’ knowledge, and in a handful of instances, registering dead people to vote. Elections officials said they detected the questionable registrations and blocked them. An elections official in Cuyahoga County told Signal Statewide in an interview last month that none of the registrations resulted in fraudulent voting.

Federal officials haven’t commented on the case, and officials with the Ohio Organizing Collaborative have denied wrongdoing.

Signal Ohio is a nonprofit news organization covering government, education, health, economy and public safety.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

As of Thursday night, the U.S Election Assistance Commission has no members. The White House in an email dismissed Democrats Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland. Republican Christy McCormick resigned, and GOP member Donald Palmer left earlier this year.

Trump’s move guts, for now, a four-member board created in 2002 after the chaos that dogged the 2000 presidential election. That result came down to the vote count in Florida, where the question was debated of whether “hanging chads” on ballots counted or not.

The commission legislation, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002, is designed to have the panel help states establish credible voter registration and voting systems.

Activists saw Trump’s sudden firings as the latest, and perhaps most ominous, chapter in his efforts to influence elections in a way opponents say is meant to help his party in the fall midterms.

To them, it becomes part of a growing list that includes extraordinary congressional map-drawing in Republican-leaning states, a fierce effort to require voters to provide photo ID and proof of citizenship and the Supreme Court’s curtailing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

“Here we go again,” said a joint statement by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Rep. Joe Morelle, D-New York., after the commission decision became public. They’re the top Democrats on the congressional committees that deal with election law.

“Purging commissioners just months before the midterm elections and further gutting support for our state and local elections officials is a blatant part of his plan to politicize our elections and enable more unlawful and dangerous election interference,” they said.

The White House insisted it is interested only in a fair election.

“The Administration from the start has been working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain that mission especially in the midterm elections,” a White House official who asked not to be named told States Newsroom in an email.

Trump’s election orders

To skeptics, Trump’s latest action was part of an ongoing push to influence election procedures – an effort unheard of in modern times for an incumbent president – that shows no signs of abating.

The election commission would not alter the national voter registration form as Trump wanted so that it would include proof of citizenship. Trump issued an executive order requiring proof of citizenship for voters, but a federal judge blocked the effort, saying states and Congress had that authority.

He is also attempting to restrict voting by mail. The Supreme Court last month rejected a bid to bar mail votes from being counted after Election Day. The votes can count as long as they are postmarked by that day.

But the administration is trying another court challenge, aimed at preserving Trump’s executive order telling federal agencies to come up with a national list of documented adult U.S. citizens who could then vote.

The order would also have the U.S. Postal Service establish a system for dealing with mail-in votes from the approved lists. A federal judge has blocked the order. The case could wind up at the Supreme Court later this year.

Can the SAVE America Act be saved?

On Capitol Hill, when Congress returns to work Monday from the Fourth of July recess, House lawmakers will confront how or whether to proceed with the SAVE America Act, Trump’s bid to require voters to show identification and proof of citizenship.

The legislation is expected to go nowhere, since it needs 60 votes in the Senate, which has 47 members who caucus with the Democrats.

Trump, though, has put enormous pressure on supporters to move the bill. “THE SAVE AMERICA ACT’S non-passage is CRAZY, and a serious threat to any politician who votes against it!” he wrote on Truth Social Friday. He explained he will not sign a housing reform bill, which passed Congress by big bipartisan margins last month, in protest. Without his signature, the bill will become law anyway at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

The SAVE America Act has paralyzed the House, as supporters refused to let members consider any other legislation until the chamber passes the act.

Trump has been moving on other fronts. His administration backed a successful challenge to a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a law that tore down decades-old barriers that kept minority voters in the South from voting and gaining political clout. 

The president also energized movements across conservative states to redraw congressional district lines, normally done after censuses in years ending in zero.

Instead, eight states, including Texas, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Missouri have adjusted their maps this year in ways expected to help Republicans.

California and Utah have redrawn maps to create more potential Democratic seats. But all the changes, said the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, have created “a Republican advantage of some size.” 

Trump’s initiatives have sparked bitterness for and against.

“Democracy doesn’t disappear overnight, it erodes piece by piece. SCOTUS weakens voting rights. Trump guts the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission and pushes the SAVE America Act to choke voter registration and fair elections. We cannot stay silent. We must resist,” Rep. Analilia Mejia, D-N.J., said on X.

Rep. Abe Hamadeh, R-Ariz., applauded Trump’s latest action.

“President Trump is right to clean house at the Election Assistance Commission,” Hamadeh said on X.

“For too long, it has enabled weak standards & defended vulnerable machines that fueled irregularities in 2020 & 2022. Rather than address legitimate concerns with transparency & accountability, the EAC circled the wagons & politicized a sacred nonpartisan process,” he said.

Rigged elections?

At the heart of all these efforts is Trump’s long-held view that elections are too often rigged. He made that claim after losing in 2020, despite no evidence of much if any fraud.

Most recently, he alleged rigging in the Los Angeles mayoral primary, where Republican Spencer Pratt failed to advance, topped by two Democrats. Again, there’s been no evidence of wrongdoing.

The independent Election Assistance Commission that Trump gutted helped in establishing the credibility of elections by, in its description, “advancing Safe, Secure, Accurate, and Accessible Elections.”

The Center for Election Innovation & Research has found that over the past 25 years, “states have implemented several innovative policies that streamline the process of voter registration, promote voter list accuracy, and create more options for eligible citizens to register or update their voter registration.”

Among the changes: more online voter registration, same-day voter registration, and automatic voter registration. Forty-six states and Washington, D.C., use at least one of these methods, up from seven states in 2000.

Next steps

The commission’s ability to effect change now appears stymied.

“Congress deliberately structured the Election Assistance Commission as a bipartisan agency to help states administer free, fair, and secure elections,” said Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law.

“These removals leave the agency without leadership and unable to carry out its major responsibilities,” he said.

Trump is using the authority that the Supreme Court appeared to give him in a decision last week allowing him to remove members of independent agencies, except for Federal Reserve governors.

Trump would have to appoint two Democrats as well as two Republicans to the EAC, but they would need Senate confirmation.

Asked if the president planned appointments anytime soon, the White House official said, “The Administration from the start has been working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain that mission especially in the midterm elections.” 

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Legislators at an annual conference hosted by Future Caucus, an organization that aims to strengthen bipartisan dialogue among Gen Z and millennial leaders, engaged in tech-related policy discussions and agreed states should impose some guardrails on online activity, especially for kids.

South Carolina state Rep. Brandon Guffey urged lawmakers to pursue policy that would hold Big Tech companies accountable for exposing kids to harmful online content. He said he champions “guardrails” over device bans because “we cannot keep kids (offline) right now.” 

“I don’t want to take away anybody’s rights to be free,” the Republican said. “But at the end of the day, we have a responsibility to protect the next generation.” 

Guffey wrote Gavin’s Law, an act passed in 2023 that made “sextortion,” or the use of explicit content for blackmail, a felony in the state. The law was named after his 17-year-old son Gavin Guffey, who lost his life in 2022 due to online sextortion, and whose story Guffey shared with the roomful of quiet, attentive legislators.

Tomicah Tilleman, president of the organization Project Liberty that works to shape and advance AI policy, also warned state lawmakers of the addictive nature of the technology, a feature he said comes at the cost of users’ personal data for tech companies’ financial gain. 

“Take a hard look at the structures that have led us to where we are, and start thinking at a very first-principles level about how we can build something better,” Tilleman said.   

State Rep. Christine Cockley, a Democrat from Ohio, highlighted the growing issue of young people turning to AI chatbots for suicide assistance. 

She is working to pass a bill alongside a Republican colleague that would require AI developers to build their models using mental health frameworks because she said she is “sick of hearing” stories about chatbots helping children write suicide notes and encouraging self-harm.

“The biggest thing I’ve learned is that we have to listen to the people with the lived experience to create good, sound policy,” Cockley said.

What to do about AI? 

AI was a dominant theme throughout the rest of the morning.

State Reps. Monique Priestley, a Vermont Democrat, and Joe Hogan, a Republican from Pennsylvania, talked about the speed and scale of AI’s growth into almost every sector of society and weighed the pros and cons of managing the technology at the state level versus federal level. 

Hogan said he believes states can succeed in protecting children and consumers from chatbots, but he thinks a “national framework” is more effective when it comes to developing the actual AI models. 

On the other hand, Priestley said states should lead on the issue because it would help them address harms that only happen in certain areas, she said. 

Plus, she added, it would protect states’ rights to self-govern. 

Though the panelists expressed a handful of different views on questions related to AI policy, they agreed that the technology requires government regulation. 

“It is the one bipartisan issue where we can come together and experiment,” Priestley said. “We are the laboratories of democracy, and when we are scared into not being those laboratories, then I think all of America is let down by that.” 

Bipartisan look to the future 

Future Caucus has convened summits of young lawmakers since 2017, with the goal of strengthening bipartisanship.

This year’s Future Summit, as the meeting is called, focused on the country’s 250th birthday with the title “Next 250 — The Courage to Build.” 

Organizers invited Gen Z and millennial lawmakers to look back on the history of American politics, share their visions for the country’s future and work together to build a plan for that next chapter. 

Aside from Friday’s internet safety and AI sessions held, state legislators sat in on discussions led by their peers throughout the week on topics such as passing bipartisan legislation, bridging the gap between elected officials and public constituents and empowering female leadership. 

“There is joy in this community that surprises people, and it comes from discovering that politics doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game,” Future Caucus president and CEO Layla Zaidane said in a speech Thursday. “Solving problems (with people) who think differently from you is not only possible, but it is deeply fulfilling.” 

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Department of Homeland Security agency issued new guidance to employers saying work authorization for hundreds of thousands of immigrants with Temporary Protected Status impacted by a recent Supreme Court decision would expire in one to two weeks, instead of Friday.

The agency said Haitians with TPS will have valid work authorization until July 24, while nationals of Burma, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen with TPS will have it until July 17.

The decision came hours before immigrants hailing from those countries were set to lose their work authorizations under earlier USCIS guidance.

The Supreme Court ruled June 25 that the Trump administration could move forward with a plan to end TPS for immigrants from Haiti and Syria, even while the lower courts continue hearing legal challenges. 

The conservative justices found the Trump administration’s decision to end TPS was not subject to judicial review, impacting several other cases challenging the termination of humanitarian protections.

But the lower courts had not aligned their cases with the Supreme Court order by Friday, leaving in place, for now, their orders forbidding deportation.

Typically, decisions from the high court go into effect 32 days after a ruling. USCIS jumped ahead of that schedule with its July 1 guidance. The July 24 expiration date is still within 32 days of the court decision and could be further delayed.

Trump and asylum

During his second term, President Donald Trump has ended TPS for about 1 million immigrants who were initially granted humanitarian protections because they hail from countries deemed too dangerous to return. 

Federal judges are still hearing arguments about if the Trump administration’s decision to end TPS was based on discriminatory practices, such as race or country of origin. 

But the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority did not find that immigrants challenging their legal protections being revoked were “entitled” to any judicial holds postponing the end of their TPS. 

TPS recipients from Haiti and Syria will have their deportation protections in place until lower courts lift them or unless they have a protected status other than TPS, such as a pending asylum case. 

But not every TPS recipient can apply for asylum. For example, if someone has TPS due to a natural disaster, they are unlikely to meet the criteria for asylum, which is fear of persecution “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

The Trump administration last year stopped processing asylum cases for immigrants from dozens of countries, including Haiti and Syria, but a federal judge in June struck down that policy. 

DHS has said that it plans to deport those who have lost TPS following the Supreme Court’s decision.

So far, the administration has declined to renew protections for 14 countries under TPS. The remaining countries with TPS are El Salvador, Lebanon and Ukraine. 

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has until Saturday to extend TPS for immigrants from El Salvador, who were the first to receive protections from the program. 

TPS can be renewed on cycles ranging from 6 to 18 months. It does not provide a path to citizenship.

Healthcare crisis

TPS beneficiaries from Haiti make up one of the largest shares of immigrants in the program Congress created in the 1990s.

The states with the largest population of TPS recipients from Haiti are Florida, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio according to the immigration advocacy group fwd.us.

More than 50,000 Haitians with TPS work in the healthcare industry, and lawmakers from both parties have raised concerns about the consequences of such a sudden loss of workers.

New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, warned that “immediately shutting off TPS will create a crisis in our hospitals, nursing homes, and in the (intellectual disabilities) community.”

Members of a union that represents healthcare workers along the East Coast gathered in New York City Friday to protest their opposition to work permits ending for TPS recipients and raised concerns that a sudden loss of workers would exacerbate the shortage of caregivers. 

A 2024 report found that nearly half of all nursing homes in the U.S. struggle with staffing shortages. 

“If TPS ends, we will face a caregiver crisis, the likes of which we’ve never seen,” said Andy Cassagnol, the executive vice president of Service Employees International Union Local 1199.

He said the move will worsen staffing shortages in home care settings and nursing homes. 

“This is a cruel, heartless, and inhumane policy that will rip parents away from their children and devastate whole communities,” Cassagnol said of the Supreme Court’s decision. “Imagine seniors and individuals living with disabilities waking up to find their favorite aide is just gone. Maybe someone who is the only familiar face in their lives has disappeared.”

U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat who sponsored a bill in the House that would extend TPS for Haiti for three years, said in a statement following the Supreme Court’s decision that the “implications of this ruling are nothing short of catastrophic.”

Haitians allege racism

But even if Pressley’s bill managed to garner 60 votes in the Senate, it’s unlikely that Trump would sign the measure after he vowed on the campaign trail to end TPS for Haitians and used pejorative language to describe Haiti and its people. 

The president’s words regarding Haiti have been central to TPS recipients’ claims that the decision to end protections was due to racism, not an evaluation of improved country conditions.  

The conservative majority of the Supreme Court noted equal protection arguments were unlikely to prevail in the lower courts. 

“None of the cited statements by either the President or the Secretary was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The justices also decried the state law that requires partisan labels on state supreme court races, an Ohio Supreme Court decision to allow judges to endorse political candidates, and movements throughout the country to politicize judges’ seats.

“When average citizens start to talk about judges and justices by putting them in a political tribe, it undermines who we are,” said former justice Yvette McGee Brown, in a press conference outside the Joseph P. Kinneary federal courthouse in downtown Columbus.

Brown stood with fellow former justice Michael P. Donnelly and former Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor during the press conference with the organization Justice in Motion.

Donnelly said the fear is not just the loss of independence for judges and justices, but of societal and legal norms that were once believed to be concrete.

“You all grew up with the same norms that we accepted as Americans: that America was the great melting pot; if you were born here, you were an American; no one is above the law,” Donnelly said. “You see these norms being broken … it’s like a firehose coming at us.”

The justices were also joined by former North Carolina Supreme Court justice Robert Orr, along with former Ohio attorneys general Nancy Rogers and Richard Cordray, and judges from across the state.

Orr said the separation of powers between the branches of government is critical for democracy.

“The founders of our nation feared the consolidation of power into the hands of any one branch or any one person, and it was the judiciary that the framers of our Constitution … turned to, to abide by the law, to be independent, to be judges not for a party or a person, but for a Constitution and the people,” Orr said.

_Former Ohio Supreme Court justice Yvette McGee Brown speaks at a press conference on Wednesday, as part of a movement to promote the elimination of partisanship in the judicial branch.

(Photo by Susan Tebben / Ohio Capital Journal)_

Justice in Motion puts judges from multiple states on a tour bus that travels from Pennsylvania to Michigan, holding events like the one in Columbus “focused on the rule of law, constitutional democracy, and public trust,” according to the organization.

Donnelly said the “assault” on the rule of law “could not be overstated,” especially with enormous ramifications possible from the midterm elections in November.

“In my lifetime, I have never seen this danger to the rule of law,” Donnelly said. “Call it out, don’t be afraid, exercise your vote as an American, it’s all on the line.”

Cordray said the danger to judicial independence starts at the very top.

“We’re here because we believe in the rule of law, and hate to see it corrupted by people who think they’re above the law, including the president of the United States,” he said.

O’Connor was flanked by her own “defender of democracy,” her 19-month-old dog Carlo. She pointed back to the redistricting battles that lasted the better part of four years in Ohio, with the supreme court she led rejecting five statehouse district maps and two congressional maps.

The former chief justice and former state lieutenant governor also mentioned the defeat of Issue 1, an effort she championed to overhaul the redistricting system in Ohio, and eliminate the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

Because Issue 1 was voted down in 2024, the commission continues to be made up of elected officials, mostly from the majority party, and includes the governor, secretary of state, and auditor of state.

But hard work in the next election could not only bolster the integrity of the judiciary, but bring about hope to address gerrymandering again, O’Connor said.

“We have the opportunity to vote for people who will make up the redistricting commission that we still have, that will make a difference how maps are drawn,” she said.

O’Connor added there is “talk” of a possible push to try redistricting reform again in 2027, depending on the results of the midterms.

The judges and justices urged Ohioans to educate themselves on the judicial candidates running in the November election, from the supreme court, down to their county courthouses.

Partisan politics should play no role in an independent judiciary, Donnelly said, and public confidence in it “is its lifeblood.”

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

“I don’t understand the idea of a championship golf course near the nation’s capital. There are already world-class golf courses there,” said former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, who served from 1999 to 2007. He is the great-grandson of William Howard Taft, the 27th president.

“Now is not the time to devastate cherry trees that have an important role as part of the cultural alliance between the United States and Japan … It’s very concerning.”

Taft, a Republican as is Trump, is an avid outdoorsman and golfer. He said chopping down cherry trees is an afront to his family heritage and a threat to the beauty of Washington as an international tourist attraction.

“They are a United States institution,” Taft said. “People from all over the world come to the Cherry Blossom Festival.”

Cherry trees were given by the Japanese to former President Taft and his wife, Nellie, who had ambitions to beautify the nation’s capital. She admired the flowering trees when her husband was the presidentially appointed Governor General of the Philippines.

Some of those historic trees plus others could be removed to make way for Trump’s plan to turn the public East Potomac Golf Links into a “championship” venue capable of hosting major tournaments such as the PGA Championship and Ryder Cup.

The plan would also eliminate a riverside bike trail and other public recreation areas. Trump toured the course June 28 with government officials and golf course planners. The project could begin as early as Sept. 1.

The Ohio connection to the threatened Japanese cherry trees goes back to 1912-1913 when 3,020 saplings from the banks of the Arakawa River in a Tokyo suburb were planted along the Tidal basin.

“Without President and Nellie Taft, the trees wouldn’t be there,” the former governor said. “They make Washington a more beautiful setting.”

Bob Taft had an emotional ceremony in 2000 in Japan during his first foreign trade trip as governor. He joined Yukika Sohma, daughter of former Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki, to plant Ohio dogwood trees in a Tokyo park across from the building housing Japan’s legislative assembly.

“Times change, but the flowers will keep on,” Sohma said at the time in a story published in the Columbus Dispatch.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

This article was first published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.

Some people on Ohio’s death row praised Gov. Mike DeWine for having the courage to come out against the death penalty. Others said actions speak louder than words, and they want the governor to commute their death sentences to life without the possibility of parole.

But all agreed with the governor on one thing: Ohio’s death penalty law is broken. DeWine said long delays in carrying out executions undermine its intended function as a deterrent. Condemned prisoners resoundingly said that the possibility of being executed never stopped anyone from committing murder.

In the days after DeWine called on legislators to abolish the death penalty in Ohio during a press conference last month, The Marshall Project turned to the people who are awaiting execution in the state’s prisons. Sixteen responded, providing a rare perspective on capital punishment from those most directly affected by it.

DeWine helped enact Ohio’s death penalty law 45 years ago as a young state legislator. In his statement last month, he said the decades it takes, on average, to carry out executions have rendered the sentence meaningless.

Several of the people we heard from said they had hoped, or even expected, to hear him say he would commute the sentences of the more than 100 people on the state’s death row to life without parole. But during his two terms in office, DeWine has commuted only one person’s death sentence.

Since his announcement, the governor has not answered questions about whether he might commute more before his term ends in January.

“All he did was kick the can down the road for others to deal with. And, to me, that made him a coward!” said Grady Brinkley, who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend and sentenced to death in 2002.

Jeremiah Jackson, 46, was convicted in 2010 of murdering a laundromat employee in Cleveland during a series of robberies. He compared DeWine’s announcement to a candy wrapper: “Nothing sweet inside to have. Just something to look at.”

DeWine has not carried out an execution during his time in office, routinely saying that the drugs needed for lethal injection are not available. In his statement, he did not address the morality of executions, though some commended him for supporting a position increasingly embraced by pro-life conservatives.

“It takes courage to reexamine your beliefs and speak openly about that change,” said Stanley Jalowiec, who was convicted of murdering a police informant in 1994.

Nearly all of the people we heard from on death row agreed that the death penalty does not deter crime.

It “never even entered my mind as I was committing my crimes. Why should it have?” asked George Brinkman, who received two death sentences for five murders in 2017.

“Nobody thinks: ‘I’m gonna rob this gas station and shoot a clerk,’” said Thomas Knuff Jr., who was convicted of fatally stabbing two people and sentenced to death in 2019. “I’m sure some crimes of murder are planned. But those people never think they will get caught, so they never think about a death penalty beforehand.”

Several said they were unaware, prior to their arrests, that Ohio has a death penalty, or that it has executed 56 people since 1981.

“I don’t know that capital punishment could ever be a deterrent to murder, no more than prisons are a deterrent to crime,” said Keith LaMar, who maintains that he is innocent of killing five prisoners in a 1993 riot at the state prison in Lucasville, for which he was sent to death row.

“People make decisions based on what they themselves perceive their options to be, and sometimes — most times — we can’t see what we can’t see,” he said.

Jalowiec agreed.

“Most of the guilty men I have spoken with never seriously considered the possibility of a death sentence before committing their crimes,” he said. “Many acted under the influence of drugs and alcohol, acted in a moment of rage, or simply believed they would never be caught. The possibility of execution was not part of their decision-making process.”

A growing body of research has found that the brain’s ability to fully reason, assess risks and check impulses continues to develop until a person’s mid-20s and sometimes later. About a third of Ohio’s death row prisoners were sentenced before they turned 25, and some were convicted of crimes committed when they were teenagers, according to a Marshall Project review of state prison records.

“I believe most death row inmates were kids when we caught our cases and hadn’t fully matured into adulthood,” said Jonathan Monroe, who was 25 a quarter century ago when convicted of killing two women in Columbus in search of drugs. “Our upbringing, the abuse that we endured and the lack of proper guidance should all be factored in.”

As governor, DeWine cannot unilaterally repeal the death penalty. He asked lawmakers to do that. And, if they don’t, he urged them to put the issue on the ballot for voters to decide.

Since 2011, Democratic legislators, and more recently some Republicans, have tried to repeal Ohio’s death penalty, proposing legislation that would set the maximum punishment at life without the possibility of parole.

Death row prisoners are not optimistic that lawmakers will give voters the chance, or that voters would ultimately support repeal.

“They have been talking about abolishing the death penalty since 2005. I know. I have been on this case since 1985,” said Percy Hutton, who has an execution date set for 2028. Hutton was convicted of fatally shooting a man during an argument.

Though DeWine said nothing about the possibility of wrongful convictions, several people said exonerations of people sentenced to death should give everyone pause.

“Lots of guys have been released over actual innocence from death sentences in America, and some were ultimately killed before DNA or other evidence cleared them,” said Knuff. “Death is absolute. Death is final.”

Opponents of the death penalty in Ohio released a report earlier this year highlighting a dozen people freed from the state’s death row after being wrongfully convicted.

Beyond abolishing the death penalty, state officials should extend rehabilitation programs to people on death row, many respondents argued.

Edward Lang III was sentenced to death nearly 20 years ago at the age of 18 after being convicted of killing two people during a drug deal in Canton. If his sentence were commuted to life without parole, he said he would “join a college program. Get a state job to help provide for myself. These things are not available to death row, as we are just left to rot away.”

If the governor were to grant them mercy, several said they dreamed of participating in prison programs, getting educated, being less of a financial burden to their families and mentoring younger prisoners. One man said he relies on his family to supplement his $16 monthly prison stipend, which isn’t enough to cover his hygiene needs.

“Things can change for the better, and holding on to that hope is important,” said Taci Jordan Vixen, who along with co-defendent Archie Dixon, is scheduled to be executed in 2027 after being convicted of burying a man alive in 1993.

But a couple of people said that life without parole would be a fate worse than death.

Richard Bays, who was convicted of killing a man during a home robbery while under the influence of crack cocaine, said he would contemplate ending his own life in that situation.

“I don’t want commutation,” said Knuff. “Life in prison is no life I want.”

James Conway III was convicted of fatally shooting an Ohio State University student and wounding another person outside a club in 2002. He’s had the same nightmare over and over again during his 23 years on death row.

“They come get you, to take you to the execution chamber, and you can’t contact family or legal counsel. Many of us, including myself, suffer panic attacks and other conditions related to the extreme long-term stresses of living under the threat of being executed,” he said.

“It just comes over you, and you go through it until your body can’t take it anymore. Then you sort of pass out and hope things are better when you wake up.”

Decades of waiting to be killed are psychologically torturous, many said.

LaMar is the next person scheduled to be executed in Ohio, with a date set in January. He called the years he has waited since arriving on death row in 1995 “soul-murdering.”

“I noticed almost immediately that most of the men were mentally unstable and should have been in some kind of mental institution,” he said.

While some cling to hope, others say they feel like they are already dead, emotionally and spiritually.

“Just being on the Row will suck the very life out of a person! Year after year of this makes a person want to die! There is no reason to go on!” said George Skatzes, who was convicted of murdering three people, including a corrections officer, during the 1993 prison riot in Lucasville.

The families of condemned prisoners also suffer under death sentences.

“The tears, the fear and the grief were simply too much for her,” Jalowiec said of his mother. “My family has spent decades living with the uncertainty, stress and emotional burden that comes with a death sentence.”

Conway said his mother talked about killing herself when he was convicted in 2003. Her grandchildren — his kids — grew up without a father present in their lives.

“In my opinion, they should have access to the same resources that are available to victims’ families through the prosecutor’s office,” Conway said. “Regardless of what anyone thinks about me, they are victims of this situation as much as anyone.”

Austin Myers, the youngest person on Ohio’s death row, said he feels forgotten “by nearly all except for those who want you dead.”

“I believe that much of my family mourned the loss of me at the time that I was convicted and sentenced to death, and I never heard from them again,” he said.

One man said his children took their mother’s last name. Some said they have become estranged or watched most of their family members die while they waited to be executed.

They struggle daily with a legacy of pain and suffering that will not die with them.

“The victims are waiting to cheer on our death. Our families are waiting to grieve us,” said Lang.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Why did the legislature last fall, as we were preparing to give thanks for our blessings, rush through changes in our election laws that made it harder to vote and easier for Donald Trump to stifle resistance? 

The answer comes from a multi-layered 22-year story that points to one conclusion: The Ohio Republican Party has stolen voters’ power in elections and access to the franchise, and is equipping Donald Trump to do the same in the next few months.

First, let’s get the simplicity of grace periods out of the way.

In Ohio last year, if you dropped your absentee ballot in the mail five days before Election Day and for some reason it was routed through the Detroit Post Office (I speak from recent experience) it might arrive at the local board of elections a day or two after Election Day.

In 2025, Ohio’s four-day grace period meant your vote would have been counted if it was postmarked before Election Day and arrived within four days after the election. 

Not this year. The legislature and Gov. Mike DeWine changed the rules.

A ballot that arrives after midnight election night won’t be opened. It’s headed to the incinerator rather than counted in what promises to be one of the most consequential mid-term elections in American history.

More than 11,000 votes in the November 2024 presidential election would have been destroyed rather than counted under the new rule.

Let’s go back two decades and find out why we had a grace period in the first place.

In 2004, Ohio was one of three closely watched pivotal states in the hot Bush-Kerry presidential election. Polling showed them neck and neck. Adding to Ohio’s tension was a constitutional amendment proposing to ban same-sex marriage, plus new voting machines across the state. Turnout promised to be extraordinary — and it was.

The system failed. There weren’t enough machines, not enough poll workers, and some voters were waiting in line for more than eight hours.

At one polling place at closing time there were 400 people still in line. Worse, a machine in a Columbus suburb gave George W. Bush 3,893 extra votes and Kerry lost the state by only 2 percentage points. 

For only the second time in American history there was a Congressional motion to reject a state’s slate of electors. It was Ohio’s.

The election was a public relations nightmare for Ohio Republicans. They controlled the state legislature, governor’s office, Ohio Supreme Court, and the Ohio Secretary of State’s office with J. Kenneth Blackwell at the helm.

Republican state Rep. Larry Wolpert of Hilliard offered a solution in 2005: Let anyone who wants to vote by mail do so. The supporting argument was that mail-in ballots would take the pressure off of having enough machines and poll workers on election day.

Absentee ballots were not as common then. In the 2004 election and for decades previously, Ohioans could only cast a mail-in ballot if they knew they would be out of town or otherwise incapacitated on election day. In 2004, about 10 percent voted by mail, and many were overseas military as the U.S. engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The legislature approved Wolpert’s idea. 

But as Wolpert anticipated the first test in the 2008 presidential election he had a new concern: What if the U.S. Postal Service can’t handle all the ballots in a timely manner. And again, Ohio was in the spotlight as the first Black presidential candidate faced off against a military and citizen hero.

Wolpert proposed another fix: A 10-day grace period. As long as a ballot was postmarked no later than Election Day, it had 10 days to arrive at the local board of elections to be counted. The legislature approved.

In those days, Republicans didn’t know who would be most likely to vote by mail. They did it to prevent another election disaster.

But now they know who is most likely to vote by mail: Democrats, about 2-1.

Which brings us to the Trump-MAGA regime.

What began as an effort to help all Ohioans vote and avoid embarrassing catastrophes has become a tool for disenfranchising Democrats and concentrating power in the hands of Republicans who claim to be populists but instead are working against the people of Ohio.

(For anyone who wishes to argue that Republicans would not do such a thing, I’ll remind them that the Republican Speaker of the Ohio House and former chairman of the Ohio Republican Party were arrested in 2020 and now in prison for orchestrating what a federal prosecutor described as the largest bribery scandal in state history. The GOP goal was to use the bribes to orchestrate elections and pass laws that benefited those who would do the bribing. In this case, it was First Energy, and Ohioans were on track to pay billions in higher utility rates as a result.)

The 10-day grace period stood the test of time. In 2020 and the height of the coronavirus pandemic, 57% of Ohioans voted by mail or early to avoid large crowds and the deadly infection. 

But Donald Trump lost that election. And that’s when it all started. The steal.

His false claims of voter fraud, especially for mail-in ballots, and attempts to prevent the peaceful transfer of power energized his MAGA adherents in Ohio.

The state was overrepresented among those arrested in the Jan. 6 insurrection. When Mar-a-Lago was raided, a Columbus-area man attempted to shoot up an FBI office. 

And an emboldened Ohio legislature came to Trump’s aid. 

Emboldened how? Despite the Speaker of the House and director of the Ohio GOP indicted in a massive bribery scandal months before the 2020 election, gerrymandered district borders resulted in Ohio voters returning the GOP to power at the Statehouse.

More importantly, this emboldened legislature and Gov. DeWine in 2021 drew district boundaries again that the Ohio Supreme Court ruled violated the constitution’s anti-gerrymandering clause. They defied the state court and we proceeded to elect an unconstitutionally districted legislature. 

Today, of our delegation to Congress, 66% are Republican. In the Ohio Senate, 77% are Republican. In the Ohio House, 65% are Republican. But only 19% of Ohio voters have registered as Republicans and in polling, about one-third of Ohioans identify as Republican. 

People wonder: Will Donald Trump defy the courts? In Ohio, the legislature and governor already have. 

In the midst of that battle, in May of 2022, then-Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman was quoted in the Columbus Dispatch as saying that as the supermajority we “can pretty much do what we want.”

But while the Ohio GOP was riding high in 2022, the same wasn’t the case at the national level. The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection held a series of hearings concluding in December 2022 that poured emotional testimony and photos into the political ecosphere as it explored Trump’s role in attempting to block the election certification, his failure to stop violence, and his baseless claims of voter fraud. 

At the same time, a predicted Republican sweep of Congress in midterm elections failed to materialize, raising concerns among GOP leaders that they might be facing headwinds.

And Trump announced his plan to run again in 2024.

The Ohio GOP jumped to action to complicate free and fair elections. A bill languishing in the Senate for a year, Ohio House Bill 458, introduced in October 2021, proposed to eliminate August special elections. That’s all.

The bill was grabbed in the first week of December 2022 and more than 40 new provisions were added, imposing new identification requirements to register to vote and to cast a ballot on Election Day. Failure to present the required ID meant the voter had to use a provisional ballot and then go to the board of elections to prove identity. 

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose defended the ID requirements saying that polling shows people overwhelmingly favor some form of photo ID for voting. That was true. About 80% of Americans liked the idea. But while that was the main talking point, the legislature went way beyond photo IDs to make it harder to vote.

Lawmakers also reduced the time voters had to prove their identity in the event they were challenged at the polling place. The time period was reduced from seven to four days, meaning they might need to secure a certified birth certificate and visit the Bureau of Motor Vehicles by Saturday rather than have a full week. 

How many Ohioans might be ill-prepared to meet these new requirements? Bureau of Motor Vehicles data suggested that about 500,000 registered voters did not have the necessary state identification to continue to vote. Trump beat Kamala Harris by 640,000 votes in 2024 and Hillary Clinton by 447,000 in 2016.

For people who might be challenged at their polling place in Cincinnati’s densely populated Price Hill area, a trip to the board of elections in Norwood to prove their identity might require a half day’s bus ride. If they needed a certified birth certificate, another few hours on the bus and $24. 

The bill also reduced the number of days in which a voter can request an absentee ballot, eliminated the option of voting at the board of elections the day before the election — one of the busiest days — and limited the number of drop boxes for absentee ballots to just one per county.

Franklin County, Ohio’s 17th most sprawling county with 891,435 registered voters has one box, as does Lake County, Ohio’s tiniest county: one box and 80% fewer registered voters (161,867). 

And after Republican Ohio Senate General Government Committee Chair Theresa Gavarone of Bowling Green said the 10-day grace period for mail-in ballots might be eliminated, they instead reduced it from 10 days to four. Her argument for the reduction was two-fold: People want to know who won, and more days to count means more opportunities for fraud. 

But her suggestion that people wanted to know who won meant they wanted the vote count within hours of the polls closing. Knowing who won didn’t include taking time to make sure that everyone who put their ballots in the mail on time or were challenged at the polling place were counted. That, historically, was tens of thousands of voters.

Moreover, lawmakers offered no evidence that fraud ever occurred in those grace periods. 

There was little time to muster public testimony in the 10-day window in which the bill was debated, but 19 presented opposition testimony and only one, speaking on behalf of the Florida-based Opportunity Solutions Project, was in favor of the bill.

Two days after the last opponents spoke, the bill was voted out of committee, approved in the Ohio Senate and the Ohio House concurred. 

Did any of these changes make a difference?

In the five years prior to this bill, an average 7.2% of people who didn’t have adequate identification were unable to satisfy requirements in time to prove they were legitimate voters.

In 2023, the first year of the new identification requirements, the rejections surged four-fold to 29% and remained high at 25% in 2024, according to a study by All Voting is Local, a voter-rights advocacy group.

In total, 34,364 provisional ballots were rejected in 2024, the group said.

The report is head-exploding.

Who are the people who were rejected? Were any of them legitimate voters who were unable to gather the new documentation? Did they have transportation? What communities did they live in? What was their life situation?

This information wasn’t explored by GOP lawmakers in public, though it is very possible they had it then (and LaRose is able if not required to know most of this now).

And with so few people in Ohio paying for quality local journalism these days, there aren’t enough investigative reporters to find out.

As he signed Ohio House Bill 458, Gov. Mike DeWine said that he believed that the provisions should assure the state’s election integrity “and I do not expect to see any further statutory changes in Ohio voting procedures while I am governor.”

Except the opposite happened.

Trump took office and began an effort to take control of elections. 

On Oct. 14 last year, Gavarone and Republican state Sen. Andrew Brenner of Delaware County introduced Ohio Senate Bill 293 with one purpose: Eliminate those last four days of grace. That’s all. Keep the talking points simple. But like the previous bill, it would grow to be much more.

For context, in the same week that the no-grace bill was introduced, the federal government was shut down over healthcare-benefit cuts that were about to go into effect, Vice President JD Vance said the president was considering invoking the insurrection act, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued an order that Pentagon news media were not permitted to publish any information that wasn’t authorized by the Defense Department, an alleged drug boat was exploded killing three people and the president posted an AI video of himself in a fighter jet dropping fecal matter on No Kings protestors, tens of thousands who had gathered that weekend.

In that head-spinning news on a weekly basis, the bill was through both houses in five weeks — a remarkable feat for Ohio lawmakers. Bills and resolutions usually don’t move that fast unless Republicans want to control women’s reproductive rights or, well, elections.

In her public statement about eliminating voters’ grace, Gavarone did not disclose publicly that this was an idea considered and discarded three years earlier — which might require explanation as to why it was kept.

Instead, Gavarone cited a Donald Trump March 25, 2025 executive order that said all ballots must be received no later than Election Day to be counted. 

One might conclude that she believed Trump had the authority to do so and states had to act. It was a curious position for her to take, considering that the U.S. Constitution grants election powers to the states and Congress, not the president.

Though Trump’s order was most likely unconstitutional, and some states said they would resist, Ohio Republicans were just getting started.

Only one week after introduction, the first hearing on Ohio Senate Bill 293 was held in the Senate General Government Committee chaired by Hudson Republican Kristina Roegner.

Gavarone and Brenner offered more reasons for the legislation. Brenner’s statement was simple: Four days of grace are four more days for cheating, though he offered no evidence that the grace period had facilitated any cheating.

Gavarone told her colleagues that the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that Mississippi’s grace period was unconstitutional. Ballots had to be counted on Election Day, the 3-judge panel said. She argued that states needed to respond swiftly to the ruling and named a few other states that already had changed their rules.

An example she gave was Minnesota, which she described as a “reliably blue state.” But Minnesota’s mail-in ballots always were required to arrive by the close of polls on Election Day. They only adjusted the time for in-person delivery on Election Day — it had nothing to do with the grace period. Moreover, the “reliably blue state” was actively opposing Trump’s executive orders in the courts. 

Thus, Gavarone’s contention that this was a bipartisan mutually-shared concern about election integrity loses credibility. The audacity to suggest it flies in the face of the name of the plaintiffs on the case: The Republican National Committee and the Mississippi Republican Party.

That wasn’t the end to her fog of disinformation. Gavarone apparently was unaware of the following as she proposed restrictions on Ohio voter rights:

• The three judges on the 5th Circuit panel who heard the appeal of the Mississippi District Court ruling were all Trump appointees. A disproportionate number of the 5th Circuit’s cases are appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and a disproportionate number are overturned. In other words, this court’s record wasn’t stellar.

• The U.S. District Court for the southern District of Mississippi, which originally heard the arguments, threw it out on a summary judgment, meaning the judge had heard enough. Republicans had no case. The judge, Louis Guirola Jr., was appointed to the bench by Republican George W. Bush, had been the senior judge for six years and also served at the time on the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court at the behest of Chief Justice John Roberts. He was respected.

• The 5th District ruling was a year old. If the ruling is foundational to her bill, why did the GOP wait a year?

• More importantly, Gavarone didn’t disclose potentially disqualifying information. Several states had filed suit to block Trump’s executive order and they won just a few months earlier. A U.S. District Court in Massachusetts found that grace periods were indeed constitutional – NOT unconstitutional. The court went as far as to block Trump’s order.

• And finally, the Mississippi 5th Circuit ruling was not binding on Ohio, though the Massachusetts case had implications for Ohio because Trump’s executive order was blocked.

Public hearings on the no-grace bill began a week after her testimony and public opposition was 50 to two.

The only supporters were not from Ohio. One was a lawyer from Texas, the other a lobbyist from Indiana and both working for organizations tied to Project 2025, a playbook for dismantling the separation of powers in the federal government and shifting governing authority to the president.

The Texas man was Chad Ennis. He assisted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in questioning the integrity of the 2020 elections in Harris County, Texas, a county of 5 million people which votes Democratic. Paxton is a 2020 election denier who led Republican states in attempting to block certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Ennis is now vice president of the Honest Elections Project, which was among about 100 conservative organizations supporting the creation of Project 2025. 

The other proponent was Paul Lagemann, a former Indiana flooring-business owner who became a political consultant and for the last 19 months has been a lobbyist for Heritage Action, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation was a key leader in Project 2025.

On the other hand, 50 Ohio citizens delivered opposition testimony.

Unfazed, Republicans moved the bill to the Senate floor where it was approved immediately after opponents finished their testimony. 

Then the black magic happened.

When the bill moved across the building to the Ohio House, it grew from five pages to 67 and contained several new cumbersome requirements that for all practical purposes gave Donald Trump what he wanted from Congress in the so-called SAVE Act — if not more.

The changes require the secretary of state to compare the state registered-voter database with the Department of Homeland Security’s database of U.S. citizens.

Should there be a discrepancy, the person’s voter registration would be summarily canceled with no warning or opportunity to respond. 

Moreover, the secretary of state must routinely check every voter, compare birth dates, name-spellings, driver’s license numbers, addresses and Social Security numbers across other databases.

If a jot or tittle is out of place, a letter is to be sent to the voter seeking proper documentation and verification or they will be challenged when they try to vote and have only four days to fix discrepancies.

In the Ohio House, there was no public support for the more restrictive bill.

Opposition grew – 74 provided testimony against it. That’s 74-0.

But despite there being no public support, the bill was voted out of committee to the full Ohio House where it was approved the following day, back to the Ohio Senate for approval of the House amendments, then to the governor for his signature.

DeWine signed it Dec. 19 and it went into effect three months later.  

Left in the ether was the opposition testimony from Ohioans. Like that of John Sheehan. He is a Dayton-area retired Air Force major who did his research. He found that in the three previous elections, 20,896 votes would have been incinerated rather than counted if the four-day rule had not been in effect.

“Is it actually the intent of the Ohio legislature to disenfranchise over 20,000 registered Ohio voters?” he asked in his testimony.

Another was Columbus attorney Andrea Yagoda, who in the short time she had to prepare her 7-page testimony she spelled out many of the same arguments used in the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the  5th Circuit ruling. She delivered an angry demand.

“These legislative committees always ask the voters for data, etc when we testify and yet conveniently fail to provide any to support their bills. Tell us Senators Gavarone and Brenner how does the four-day grace period encourage fraud? Ohioans like myself would like to know.”

What are Ohioans to do as the legislature dismantles public education, facilitates taxpayer subsidies of artificial-intelligence factories, prohibits free speech on campus, and operates its own newsroom that attempts to discredit the free press?

“Vote” is too simple of an answer. While voters do in fact need to turn out Ohio elections already are stolen at the state level and the final machinations for a Trump takeover are only months away.

The questions are: What do Ohioans hope for and how do we get it? 

First of all, the majority of Americans no longer support this administration. In Ohio, Trump’s approval has dropped from plus 11 in the 2024 election to minus 14 in a recent Fox News poll.

The right to vote is identified by 85% of Americans as extremely or very important to our country’s democratic identity, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll done in anticipation of the 250th anniversary.

Alarmingly, the poll shows 33% believe there is NO threat to voting rights. If you are concerned, you are in the majority.

Ever hear of Alcoholics Anonymous? They meet regularly and challenge each other to live constructive, productive lives. Form a Trump Derangement Syndrome Anonymous group. Meet often with friends, discuss shared values, challenge each other to constructive action, and figure out how to be seen, heard, and respected. 

Each time you meet, talk about what you did. Freedom of speech and assembly and the right to address our government — to irritate if necessary — may be our last resort.

Find and contact your state legislator here: https://www.commoncause.org/find-your-representative/

Doug Oplinger is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist who worked at the Akron Beacon Journal for 46 years and led the statewide Your Voice Ohio media collaborative of 50 newsrooms for five years. He is a contributing author in the Kettering Foundation book “Reinventing Journalism to Strengthen Democracy” and provides pro-democracy news analyses of Ohio current events in The Ohio Defiant on Substack and Facebook. He can be contacted at oplingerdoug@gmail.com.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Researchers at Stanford University and other institutions studied how a hotter, drier climate is poised to spike water bills for residents of Santa Cruz, California, in a peer-reviewed study published this week in the journal Nature Sustainability. While the study focused on that coastal city, the outlook is similar for many cities that will be forced to make costly upgrades to water systems as climate change intensifies, said lead author Jennifer Skerker, who worked on the research while studying for her doctorate in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford. 

Without significant government funding, the costs of new water transport systems, desalination plants and sewage water reuse systems are likely to be borne by individual water systems, which are expected to pass them onto consumers through water bills.

“So this really pits water affordability against water reliability, when in reality we need both of these to have safe, accessible and affordable water for everyone,” said Skerker, who now works for a local water utility.  

Though low-income residents use significantly less water, they will be hit hard by rising rates, which force them to spend a larger share of their resources, she said. Water rates have increased at three times the rate of inflation over the past two decades, as water providers updated aging infrastructure and addressed deferred maintenance backlogs.

The research comes as many Americans are already struggling with high energy bills: One in six American households are behind on utility bills, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. While rising electric prices have sparked outrage among ratepayers, regulators and state lawmakers, relatively cheaper water has not always received the same level of attention. 

“I think water affordability definitely needs to be part of the conversation with energy affordability,” Skerker said. “…On the water side, households might be using less water than is healthy, or we can even see households making tradeoffs between paying for water or energy, or paying for groceries or medical bills.”

Like other Western cities, Santa Cruz has implemented many water conservation practices: By 2021, locals had cut water use by nearly two-thirds over two decades. That leaves few low-cost options to increase water supplies in an area entirely reliant on surface water.

The study lays out several potential scenarios for local water bills depending on climate conditions and water investments. In one of the driest scenarios, researchers predict median water bills for the poorest residents could rise from about $60 to $111 per month (in 2026 dollars) by the middle of the century. That means more than one-third of households in Santa Cruz could struggle to afford water. 

The study acknowledges that cities with larger reservoirs, more interconnected systems or access to lower-cost water sources may not experience the same acceleration in water bills. But it does envision “water affordability hotspots” across the country as more areas struggle to source and treat enough drinking water.

“It does seem unsustainable,” Skenker said, “and I think cities really need more help from the state and federal government.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Jai Chabria, now Ramaswamy’s chief strategist, was then a senior advisor to Gov. John Kasich. The Columbus Dispatch reported in August 2011 that he was among senior administration officials “heavily involved in strategy and decision making” for the pro-SB 5 committee.

The Dispatch story was not primarily about Chabria. It was about Connie Wehrkamp, Kasich’s deputy press secretary, who took a leave of absence from the governor’s office that week to go work for Building a Better Ohio full time.

Wehrkamp is now Connie Luck. She is Ramaswamy’s campaign spokeswoman. Her LinkedIn profile lists her as Connie (Wehrkamp) Luck.

The campaign they worked on lost, and it lost badly. On Nov. 8, 2011, Ohioans repealed SB 5, 61% to 39%. In Seneca County the margin was wider: according to the county board of elections’ official canvass, 11,825 voters here rejected the law and 7,122 voted to keep it — 62.41% to 37.59%, across all 51 precincts, on 51% turnout. It was not close. It was buried.

Neither Chabria nor Luck wrote SB 5. The bill was sponsored by a state senator, and nothing in the record makes either of them its author. But when the law reached the ballot, and Ohio’s teachers, firefighters and police officers were fighting to kill it, both were working to save it.

The campaign points to its union endorsements. The Ohio Conference of Teamsters and the statewide construction trades have backed Ramaswamy, citing his opposition to a right-to-work law and his support for prevailing wage. Chabria has noted that a decade ago, Republican endorsements from organized labor “would have been unfathomable.”

What Senate Bill 5 actually did

Since 1983, Ohio law has given public employees the right to bargain collectively — to negotiate as a group, through a union, with the government that employs them. It applies to teachers, firefighters, police officers, dispatchers, school custodians, snowplow drivers, nurses at public hospitals and clerks at the county courthouse. The law says they may negotiate over wages, hours and the other conditions of their work: health insurance, pensions, staffing levels, safety rules, how layoffs are handled.

Senate Bill 5 would have cut that down to wages. Health insurance and pensions would have come off the table entirely. Public workers could still have argued about their paychecks. They could not have bargained over what came out of them.

The bill also would have banned strikes by every public employee in Ohio, and required workers to pay at least 15% of their health insurance premiums. It would have replaced negotiated salary schedules with merit pay, and ended the “fair share” fees that non-members pay toward the cost of bargaining that covers them.

Then there was binding conciliation, and that one hit the firehouse hardest.

Police officers and firefighters in Ohio already cannot legally strike. That was the trade in 1983: safety forces give up the walkout, and in exchange, when talks deadlock, a neutral arbitrator hears both sides and picks one of the final offers. It is the leverage they have instead.

SB 5 would have taken the arbitrator away too. A Tiffin fire captain could not have struck, could not have gone to a referee, and could not have bargained over her pension or her family’s health coverage in the first place. About 350,000 Ohio public employees would have been covered.

The law never took effect. Ohio’s constitution lets citizens veto a statute directly: gather enough signatures and the law is frozen until voters rule on it. Opponents gathered 1.3 million — the most in state history for a referendum — and on Nov. 8, 2011, Ohio struck the law down.

The unions SB 5 would have covered are not with him

SB 5 was a public-employee bill. It never touched the private-sector building trades. Every worker it would have hit was on a public payroll.

Most of those unions have endorsed Democrat Amy Acton.

The Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, the Ohio Association of Public School Employees, AFSCME Ohio Council 8 and AFSCME Retirees Chapter 1184 endorsed Acton jointly in December. So has the Ohio Federation of Teachers. So have the United Auto Workers, SEIU District 1199, the Communications Workers of America, the United Mine Workers and the painters’ district council.

Ramaswamy’s labor support comes almost entirely from the one corner of organized labor that SB 5 left alone.

Even that corner is splitting. In April, the Dayton Building and Construction Trades Council — 18 unions across 10 counties — publicly broke with the statewide trades body that had endorsed Ramaswamy and backed Acton instead.

The lawmaker Ramaswamy endorsed for state treasurer

In January, Ramaswamy’s highest-profile down-ballot endorsement went to state Sen. Kristina Roegner of Hudson in her candidacy for state treasurer. Roegner, who previously served in the Ohio House, was sworn in weeks before SB 5 reached the floor. She voted for it. The House Journal for March 30, 2011 records final passage at 53 to 44, with Roegner in the affirmative column.

It was not a party-line vote. Five Republicans broke with their caucus and voted no. Roegner was not among them. She also voted with the majority to reject a Democratic motion to have the 300-page bill read aloud in full, and again to reject a motion to table it.

She backed the bill publicly as well, calling it “a bill that should cause the taxpayers of Ohio to celebrate” in comments reported that spring.

Two years later, she and then-Rep. Ron Maag announced three measures at a Statehouse press conference: bills barring mandatory union dues in the private and public sectors, and a joint resolution to put right-to-work before voters. Roegner argued the proposals were about individual freedom, not a rerun of SB 5. Then-Senate President Keith Faber said the Senate would not take them up. The bills died.

Ramaswamy endorsed her anyway, calling her “kind and deeply loyal” and joining a letter urging the state party to back her.

He was not alone. State Rep. Gary Click, the Vickery Republican who represents Seneca County, endorsed Roegner too. She was one of three candidates Click endorsed who lost on May 5. Click’s own standing with the top of the ticket has wobbled: his name was quietly removed from Ramaswamy’s endorsement page in April, then restored.

Roegner lost. Jay Edwards, the former state representative backed by Vice President JD Vance and U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno — and dogged by questions about his HB 6 vote and Householder ties — beat her 53% to 47%. He faces Democrat Seth Walsh in November.

Chabria waved off the Vance-Ramaswamy split as “a headline in search of a story.”

Where Ramaswamy draws his line

Ramaswamy has never claimed to oppose unions across the board. He opposes particular ones, and he says so. During his 2024 presidential campaign he called for eliminating teachers’ unions and federal employee unions. As a candidate for governor he has said he is “certainly not running a campaign not to eliminate teachers’ unions either.”

David Pepper, Acton’s running mate, has argued in appearances with northwest Ohio union members that a candidate who reserves the right to eliminate the unions he dislikes is a threat to all of them. Ramaswamy’s campaign points to its labor endorsements as the rebuttal.

11,825 votes

The workers SB 5 covered teach in Tiffin and Fostoria. They ride the trucks out of the firehouses. They drive the patrol cars. In 2011, voters in this county were asked whether those workers should keep the right to bargain, and 11,825 of them said yes — a 25-point margin against the law.

The people who lost that fight now run the campaign of the Republican nominee for governor. Whoever wins in November decides whether it gets picked again.

Attempts to reach Ramaswamy’s campaign for comment were unsuccessful. The election is Nov. 3.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The U.S. Marshals requested help from the Wyandot County Major Crimes Unit/METRICH Enforcement Unit and the Wyandot County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday, July 9, to locate James D. Fisher, who was wanted on an outstanding warrant out of Huron County. Investigators identified a home at 16368 State Highway 231 in Nevada as the place where Fisher was believed to be staying.

With assistance from the Wyandot County Sheriff’s Office and the Ohio State Highway Patrol Special Response Team, the Marshals carried out the operation at the residence and took Fisher into custody.

While speaking with people inside the home, investigators learned that firearms and suspected illegal narcotics were on the property, according to the release. Detectives also determined that James E. McDaniels was barred from legally possessing or having access to firearms. Based on that information, investigators obtained a search warrant for the residence.

During the search, deputies and detectives recovered more than 2 pounds of suspected methamphetamine, $81,263 in cash and more than 140 firearms, the release said.

McDaniels was arrested and charged with aggravated possession of drugs and having weapons while under disability. The suspected narcotics will be sent to a laboratory for analysis, and additional charges will be submitted to the Wyandot County Prosecutor’s Office for review, authorities said.

The Wyandot County Major Crimes Unit, U.S. Marshals Service, Wyandot County Sheriff’s Office and Ohio State Highway Patrol all took part in the investigation.

Wyandot County Sheriff Todd Frey encouraged residents to report suspicious activity through the Wyandot County Sheriff’s Office app, the METRICH app or by contacting their local law enforcement agency. Anonymous tips are accepted.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Creech, R-West Alexandria, was investigated by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation over allegations that in 2023 a minor female relative accused him of climbing into bed with her while wearing only his underwear. Creech told investigators he had gotten into bed with the minor in his underwear but denied the sexual nature of the allegations. Clark County Prosecutor Daniel Driscoll, brought in as a special prosecutor, declined in October 2024 to bring charges, writing that Creech’s behavior was “concerning and suspicious” but that the evidence fell short of the threshold needed for prosecution. No charges were filed. Creech has denied wrongdoing and called the allegations “demonstrably false.”

Click and Creech are among the cosponsors of House Bill 249, the Indecent Exposure Modernization Act, which the Ohio House passed in March and which is now pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republican sponsors describe the measure as a way to shield children from obscene public performances and to preserve privacy in restrooms and locker rooms. Opponents, including the ACLU of Ohio, call it a drag ban that would criminalize gender nonconformity and raise First Amendment concerns.

In its statement, the party put two direct questions to Click: whether he will call on Creech to step aside, and how he justifies cosponsoring what its backers market as child-protection legislation alongside a colleague whose conduct a special prosecutor labeled “concerning and suspicious.”

“Let’s be entirely blunt about Gary Click’s silence,” said party chair Gina Grandillo. “Rodney Creech admitted to state investigators that he climbed into bed with a minor relative. His own Republican Speaker was troubled enough to strip his committees and ask him to resign. Yet Gary Click looks the other way.” Grandillo accused Click of being “entirely comfortable using ‘child protection’ as a political talking point” while staying quiet about Creech, and said families in Seneca and Sandusky counties “deserve to know why their representative won’t stand up.”

The allegations first cost Creech his committee posts. House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, stripped Creech of all four of his committee assignments — including his chairmanship of the House Agriculture Committee — in May 2025 and asked him to consider resigning, calling the matter “very serious.” Huffman reversed course in February 2026, restoring Creech to his committee seats, though not to the Agriculture chairmanship, and signing a letter requesting that the Ohio Republican Party endorse him for re-election. The party did so, and Creech went on to win his May primary. He is the Republican nominee for re-election in House District 40, which covers Preble County and parts of Montgomery and Butler counties.

Click and Creech are frequent legislative allies. Click is also a primary sponsor of House Bill 693, the Affirming Families First Act, which would write the disputed concept of “parental alienation” into Ohio law — the same term Creech used publicly to dismiss his accuser. That bill remains before the House Judiciary Committee.

Click, who represents House District 88 covering Seneca and Sandusky counties, has not publicly called for Creech to step down, according to a review of endorsement materials, campaign statements and public reporting by TiffinOhio.net. He has previously disputed the outlet’s coverage of his record. Click faces Democrat Aaron Jones in the Nov. 3 general election.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Andrew Havas, whom Husted’s campaign named a Franklin County campaign chair in December, was one of 112 volunteers the campaign appointed to represent Husted across Ohio’s 88 counties. He also serves as vice chair of the Franklin County Republican Party executive committee.

Amy Natoce, a spokesperson for Husted’s campaign, told NBC News that the senator’s team had been unaware of the case. “Mr. Havas did not disclose his history to the campaign,” Natoce said. “Upon learning the facts, we immediately accepted his resignation as a campaign volunteer.” NBC News reported that Havas did not respond to its requests for comment.

According to court records reviewed by NBC News, Havas pleaded guilty in 2009 in a case involving a 15-year-old in Ohio’s Mahoning County. He was originally charged with sexual misconduct with a minor, and the charge was later reduced to a single misdemeanor assault count, NBC reported. A 2008 criminal complaint accused him of “being reckless” as to the minor’s age. NBC reported that Havas, who was 22 at the time, was sentenced to 90 days in jail and served his sentence in the Mahoning County jail from May to August 2009.

NBC News reported that Havas had represented the Husted campaign at events this year, including a June luncheon in Columbus and a late-June meeting of two suburban Republican clubs, and that he introduced Husted at a December party.

The resignation is not the first time Husted’s campaign has faced scrutiny over the Ohio Republicans it has elevated. As TiffinOhio.net has reported, the campaign’s Sandusky County chair, state Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), told an Ohio House committee in 2023 that “young girls” had described to him how painful sex was, during testimony supporting his legislation restricting gender-affirming care for minors. Click, a former Baptist pastor, has never publicly identified who those individuals were, and he has not been accused of a crime.

The campaign also promoted a March 2026 graphic touting endorsements from Ohio House Republicans that included state Rep. Rodney Creech (R-West Alexandria). A minor female relative accused Creech in 2023 of climbing into bed with her while erect and wearing only his underwear, according to Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation records. A special prosecutor declined to file charges, and Creech has denied the allegations.

Husted, Ohio’s former lieutenant governor, was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine in early 2025 to fill the Senate seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance. He faces former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown — who lost the seat to Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024 — in a Nov. 3 special election that will appear on ballots statewide, including in Seneca and Sandusky counties. The contest is among the most closely watched Senate races in the country.

Havas’s departure lands amid a separate line of Democratic attacks on Husted over his campaign finances. TiffinOhio.net has reported that Husted accepted $116,892 from Columbus billionaire Leslie Wexner between 2001 and 2025, including a contribution two months before he voted in September 2025 to block a Senate amendment directing the release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. In February 2026, the Justice Department unredacted an FBI document that named Wexner as an Epstein co-conspirator, and Wexner later confirmed the donations under oath in a congressional deposition. Wexner has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime.

Husted’s campaign has said it gave Wexner’s contributions to charity, reporting $34,300 in donations from Wexner and his wife to a Columbus nonprofit that supports human-trafficking survivors.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The flight was first reported by The Rooster, the Columbus newsletter that has tracked Ramaswamy’s air travel throughout the campaign. Citing flight-tracking data and an aviation source, it reported that a Bombardier Global 5500 left John Glenn Columbus International Airport around 10:20 p.m. and landed at Paris’s Le Bourget the next morning — the newsletter’s count put it as his fifth international private-jet trip of the year, after Portugal, Greece, the Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos and Puerto Rico. The transatlantic leg alone, by The Rooster’s estimate, burned roughly 3,511 gallons of jet fuel and put about 34 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air, at a fuel cost near $21,000.

To be fair to him: he showed up in Ohio first. He worked a parade in Lancaster and made the rounds in Upper Arlington before wheels-up. His campaign has said he pays for the plane himself, not with donor money, and that the aircraft is how a candidate covers all 88 of Ohio’s counties. Supporters make a reasonable point that wealthy, self-funding candidates get scrutinized for private travel that nobody would notice from a candidate who flies coach. A man is allowed to own a jet. A man is allowed to take a vacation.

But you tell people what you value by where you choose to be when it counts. And on the one day the country marked 250 years, Ramaswamy chose to be somewhere else.

Here is what he chose to leave. According to the state’s own tourism office, America 250-Ohio spanned all 88 counties, part of more than a thousand events staged across the year. Columbus — the city his jet departed from — hosted the state’s signature homecoming and picnic at the Statehouse, cannon fire at 11 a.m., a concert and fireworks downtown, the weekend after Red, White & BOOM! lit up the same skyline. Lancaster, the town where he waved from the parade, celebrated until its own fireworks at 10 p.m. Even here in our corner of northwest Ohio, people gathered: a 250th concert and picnic in Fremont, the Flag City festivities in Findlay, fireworks up and down Sandusky, Hancock and the surrounding counties.

“There is something uniquely Ohio about spending the Fourth of July on a courthouse square, along a parade route, at a hometown festival, or under a sky full of fireworks,” the state tourism director said in announcing the celebrations. Millions of Ohioans did exactly that. The Republican nominee for governor of Ohio watched the country’s 250th birthday recede beneath a wing.

It would be easy to file this under bad optics and move on. It is more honest to file it under pattern.

This is the same Vivek Ramaswamy who, in December 2024, sat down and typed that “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” Not a rival’s paraphrase — his own words, his own keyboard, posted while he was still co-chairing a federal cost-cutting effort. It is a strange thing to campaign to lead a state full of people whose culture you have publicly graded as mediocre. It is a stranger thing to spend the nation’s 250th birthday abroad after saying it.

And it is the same Vivek Ramaswamy who built his fortune in Ohio and then, in 2024, moved his company to Texas — relocating Strive, its staff and roughly $1.7 billion in assets to Dallas. Ohio was a good enough place to make the money. It was not, apparently, a good enough place to keep it. Now the state is a good enough place to run.

Look at the trajectory and a shape emerges. Ramaswamy has never held elected office of any kind. The first job he ran for was the presidency, in 2024. When that ended, he took a perch in a new federal agency. When that ended, he came home to run for governor. For a man who started his political life reaching for the top of the ballot, the Ohio governorship can look less like a calling than a landing — a platform, a credential, a place to stand while looking at something higher. Governors of Ohio have looked at the White House before. It is not cynical to suspect he is one of them; it is only reading his own resume back to him.

None of this is illegal. None of it is even unusual for a certain kind of ambitious, very rich candidate. That is rather the point. The private jet to Paris on the Fourth of July is not a scandal. It is a tell — a small, unguarded window into how a man ranks his obligations when he thinks the cameras have been packed away for the night. The country was having a birthday. His neighbors were on the square. He had somewhere better to be.

Ohioans will decide on November 3 whether that instinct belongs in the governor’s office. They spent the 250th the way they always have — together, at home, under the fireworks. They are entitled to ask why the man asking to lead them could not be bothered to do the same.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Scoops & Slices Trail officially kicks off Saturday, July 11, with two events open to the public. A geocaching information session runs from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, hosted in partnership with Cachers Anonymous and built for both first-time and experienced geocachers. Destination Seneca County staff will also be on hand from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Tiffin-Seneca Farmers Market to help people sign up for the free digital trail pass.

How the trail works

Participants sign up for a free digital pass, then choose between two tracks — or complete both. The Foodie Trail sends people to participating pizza shops and ice cream stops, where a minimum $5-per-person purchase and a QR code check-in count toward a prize. The Geocaching Trail sends people hunting for 30 hidden caches placed around the county, each scanned through a Bandwango QR code inside.

The two tracks work differently on the back end. Business check-ins earn points toward the trail’s hat prize, while geocache finds do not earn points at all — instead, the system automatically unlocks a bonus prize location once a participant logs 25 cache finds.

What you can win

Visiting five participating businesses, with the $5-per-person minimum purchase at each, earns participants the trail’s official Skippy Hat, named for the trail’s mascot. Multiple people can split a single purchase and still qualify individually, as long as each person’s share meets the $5 minimum and each has their own pass.

On the geocaching side, finding 25 of the 30 hidden caches — each named for a pizza or ice cream flavor, from “Pepperoni” to “Rocky Road” — earns participants a trackable, collectible Scoops & Slices Geocoin. Both prizes are claimed through the digital pass and picked up at the Hampton Inn of Tiffin.

Where to go

The Foodie Trail includes 27 businesses across seven Seneca County communities:

• Attica: Smitty’s Pizza

• Bascom: Bascom Stumble Inn; I.C. Treats -N- Things

• Bloomville: Rose Marie’s Eats & Treats

• Fostoria: Domino’s Pizza Fostoria; Fostoria Pizza Palace; J B Twisters Ice Cream & Things; Jac & Do’s Fostoria; Marco’s Pizza – Fostoria; Red’s Pizza

• New Riegel: Left Field; New Riegel Cafe

• Republic: Fat Head’s Family Restaurant

• Tiffin: Big Dipper Ice Cream and More; Big Mike’s; Domino’s Pizza Tiffin; Fort Ball Pizza Palace (North and South locations); FroZone Frozen Yogurt; Heavenly Pizza; Jac & Do’s Pizza; Jolly’s Drive In; Little Hugo’s; Marco’s Pizza – Tiffin; Napoli Pizza; Reino’s Pizza & Pasta; Shake Shak of Tiffin

Other details

The trail pass itself is free. The only required costs are the $5-per-person minimum purchases at Foodie Trail stops; a Geocaching Premium membership is optional and only needed for those who also want to log finds in the official Geocaching app.

People without smartphone access can request a paper passport at the Destination Seneca County Welcome Center, 96 S. Washington St. in downtown Tiffin. Business visits on the paper passport must be verified by an employee signature, and geocache finds are verified with a secret word found inside each cache.

Separately, the Hampton Inn of Tiffin is offering trail participants 15% off a stay, subject to room availability, for anyone who tells the front desk they’re completing the Scoops & Slices Trail.

More information, including sign-up for the free digital pass, is available through Destination Seneca County’s trails and passes page.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

On June 30, hours after the court reaffirmed that nearly everyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen, Moreno, R-Ohio, announced he would reintroduce a revived version of a 1993 immigration bill written by the late Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid. Moreno said he would formally introduce the measure — which his office is calling the Immigration Stabilization Act of 2026 — when he returns from recess on Monday, July 13. As of this writing, no bill number has been assigned.

“Before far-left radicals took over the Democrat Party, their leader Harry Reid introduced a great bill to end birthright citizenship, ensure no illegals could vote, and crack down on employers who abuse illegal labor,” Moreno said in a statement. “It’s a great bill, so I say let’s vote on it and find out once and for all if Harry Reid would still have a home in the modern Democrat Party.”

Reid, who died in 2021, disavowed the 1993 legislation years later, calling it a mistake.

According to a backgrounder from Moreno’s office, the bill would cut legal immigration, cap annual refugee admissions at 50,000, expand border enforcement, and make it a federal crime for noncitizens to vote in any election. Its citizenship section states that birthright citizenship would not apply to children born in the United States to mothers who are “neither U.S. citizens nor lawful permanent residents.” That wording is significant: it would leave the children of green-card holders untouched while targeting the children of parents who are in the country temporarily or without legal status.

What the court actually decided

The legislation follows the Supreme Court’s June 30 decision in Trump v. Barbara, which struck down Trump’s executive order seeking to deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who were undocumented or on temporary visas. The court voided the order 6-3, splitting 5-4 on the underlying constitutional question. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts held that children born in the country to parents “unlawfully or temporarily present” are citizens at birth, and described citizenship as “the right to have rights.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed the order was invalid but on narrower grounds, suggesting Congress could write new exceptions into federal law. Moreno and other Republicans have seized on that opening. Even so, such a bill would need 60 votes to advance in the Senate, and immigration analysts have described the current round of Republican proposals as messaging measures unlikely to reach the president’s desk.

The Ramaswamy question

The renewed fight over who qualifies for birthright citizenship runs directly through the top of Ohio’s Republican ticket. Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP nominee for governor, was born in Cincinnati in 1985 to parents who immigrated legally from India. His citizenship is not in dispute: he is a citizen by birth under the 14th Amendment.

His parents’ immigration status is where the details matter. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Ramaswamy described his parents as noncitizens when he was born, saying his mother later naturalized and his father never did. This year, as questions about his background resurfaced in the governor’s race, his campaign told the Toledo Blade that his parents held green cards — lawful permanent resident status — at the time of his birth. If accurate, that status is precisely the category Moreno’s bill would exempt, meaning the measure as written would not reach someone in Ramaswamy’s circumstances.

Ramaswamy has, at the same time, campaigned to narrow birthright citizenship for others. He has said the right should not apply to the children of parents who entered the country illegally, and he has supported Trump’s mass deportation agenda — positions that sit alongside a national profile built on attacking identity politics. That record has not spared him from attacks on his own citizenship from within his party. Far-right commentator Nick Fuentes has called him “an actual anchor baby,” and his former primary rival Casey Putsch repeatedly used the same slur — a term that denies the citizenship the Constitution guarantees to U.S.-born children of immigrants.

A local voice in the fight

The tension is not confined to Washington. State Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, whose district covers part of Seneca County, criticized the court’s ruling in comments to News 5 Cleveland, republished by the Ohio Capital Journal.

“I don’t think that makes sense in any civilized society to say people can come over here, you know, pop out a kid and go back home, but that kid is now an American citizen and can have influence over our elections, can run for office, be a president someday,” Click said.

Click’s objection — that a U.S.-born child of immigrants could one day “run for office” — describes, in broad strokes, the path of his own party’s nominee for governor.

Moreno’s own biography adds another layer. Born in Colombia, he immigrated to the United States as a child and became a citizen at 18, renouncing his Colombian citizenship. He is now among the Senate Republicans pressing hardest to restrict how citizenship is granted to the next generation of immigrants’ children.

Whether Moreno’s bill advances or stalls, its arrival sharpens a question Ohio Republicans have not been able to avoid this year: how a party campaigning to narrow birthright citizenship squares that goal with a statewide ticket led by a candidate who holds his own citizenship by birth. Ohioans will decide the governor’s race on Nov. 3.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes FEMA, sent states last month notices of available federal funding for non-disaster grants under the Homeland Security Grant Program, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and the Transit Security Grant Program.

Those notices included “blatant attempts to force communities to comply with the Trump administration’s political demands” or risk losing $200 million in federal funds, the letter said.

“As we approach the 25th anniversary of September 11th, it is deeply alarming that DHS and FEMA, under Donald Trump, continue to manipulate the very funding born out of a national tragedy,” they wrote. “Playing political games with counterterrorism funding undermines public safety and deprives first responders of the resources they need to do their jobs.”

The panel’s 15 Democrats, led by ranking member Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, signed the letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and acting FEMA Administrator Robert Fenton.

Spokespeople for DHS, FEMA and the committee’s Republicans did not immediately return messages seeking comment late Thursday. A White House spokesperson referred a request for comment to DHS.

SAVE computer system

The department is withholding up to 20% of the programs’ congressionally appropriated grant funding unless states and cities update their election laws, the Democrats wrote. The administration wants states to use the department’s powerful SAVE computer system to verify the citizenship of every voter, among other demands, the letter said.

The department also continues to retain more than $600 million in 2025 funding, the lawmakers said.

Some of the administration’s demands are unworkable or illegal under federal court decisions or state law, they said.

For example, two days before the notice went to states, a federal judge ruled that states could not use the SAVE system to check voter eligibility.

“It is unclear how or why DHS and FEMA published (notice of funding opportunity) guidance that would deliberately conflict with a court ruling,” they wrote. “To date, FEMA has not provided a revised (notice) that complies with court orders on the use of the SAVE system.”

‘Costly and impossible’ for states

Several requirements, demanded barely five months before midterm elections in November and one month before grant applications are due, “are costly and impossible to achieve on the unrealistic timeline dictated by the administration,” the letter said.

Other criteria were unclear, such as a requirement to “reconcile voters and ballots using a methodology the Secretary has not disclosed,” the Democrats wrote. The department has also not said how post-election manual audits must be conducted.

The lawmakers asked the administration to revert to 2024 guidance, which would remove confusion about the grant programs’ requirements and their legality, release materials that informed the department’s decision to tie the grant funding to election security and to immediately release all holds “explicit or de facto” on last year’s grants.

Constitutional mandate 

The changes would “very likely harm” states’ election integrity, David Becker, the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said in a media briefing earlier Thursday. 

Becker predicted that the order would be “very easy to block” in court.

The department’s requirements are not authorized by Congress or the Constitution, which empowers states to administer elections, Becker said.

“This administration continues to either fail to understand or openly defy the constitutional mandate that gives authority to run elections to the states,” he said.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

A July 4 White House report accused the Smithsonian Institution and its National Museum of American History of promoting what it called a “radical, activist ideology” that downplayed U.S. achievements and promoted injustices related to race, gender and sexual identity.

But the report does not advocate for a neutral presentation of history, said Asim Ali, an American studies professor at the University of Maryland. Instead, the report’s authors are promoting their own vision of American history that downplays the country’s shortcomings to promote national pride, Ali said.

“The report frames what the National Museum of American History is doing as being ideologically and politically motivated,” Ali said. “But what it is actually saying in the first several pages is that it should be following a different ideology — one that is focused on what the authors of the report want to see.”

A spokesperson for the Smithsonian, a constellation of museums largely funded by the federal government, said the museum had a nearly two-century track record of nonpartisan service.

Television chef Julia Child gave her Model 182 Garland Commercial Range to the Smithsonian Institution. (Photo courtesy National Museum of American History, copyright Garland Group)

“For more than 180 years, the Smithsonian has served the American public with nonpartisan and independent scholarship, and we remain committed to doing so,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement to States Newsroom. 

Lonnie G. Bunch III, the secretary of the Smithsonian, was more forceful in an internal email, according to a July 8 Washington Post article.

His email to employees said the White House report was “not a fair characterization of the work and totality of the National Museum of American History,” according to the Post.

‘Ideological capture’

The scathing 162-page report published by the White House Domestic Policy Council represents the latest push in a broader Trump effort to restructure some of the nation’s hallmark cultural and artistic institutions to hew more closely to the nationalistic vision that animates his MAGA movement, American University history professor Pamela Nadell said.  

It alleges the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has “explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated,” instead painting the country in a “problematic” light with “thinly veiled anti-Americanism.”

“This ideological capture has moved the Museum’s mission away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country,” the report said. 

The Star-Spangled Banner flew at Baltimore’s Ft. McHenry to celebrate a crucial 1814 victory over British forces in the War of 1812 and became the subject of the national anthem written by Francis Scott Key. Eben Appleton, the grandson of Ft. McHenry’s commander, George Armistead, gave the original flag to the Smithsonian in 1907. It is on display at the National Museum of American History. (Photo courtesy of National Museum of American History)

Struggle to define history

Ali said he thinks the report’s introduction reads like “propaganda” due to its focus on ideology and disregard of the contributions of academics and researchers. 

Nadell also said the Trump administration is trying to get the Smithsonian — along with other cultural and educational institutions across the country — to conform to a certain “patriotic, heroic narrative.” 

She said she disagreed with the report’s attempts to deemphasize flawed parts of America’s story that are “essential to tell the complete history of the nation.”

The White House report also has its defenders, who agree with Trump that U.S. educational and cultural institutions ought to show the country’s history in a more positive light.

U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican who introduced a bill to codify a 2025 Trump executive order on the presentation of U.S. history, said in a social media post Tuesday that the White House was right to criticize the National Museum of American History. 

“The Museum of *American* History has no major exhibits dedicated to *America’s* founding,” the senator wrote. “Instead, it focuses on ‘social justice’ and ‘decolonization.’ This is wrong.” 

An 8-foot section of the original lunch counter from Woolworth Department Store in Greensboro, North Carolina, on display at the National Museum of American History. Four African American students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College began a nonviolent, direct-action protest by sitting at at the “whites only” lunch counter in February 1960. (Photo courtesy National Museum of American History)

‘Woke’ institutions

The Domestic Policy Council, which is led by former Trump campaign speechwriter Vince Haley, accused museum leadership of advancing personal ideological agendas that contradict the institution’s founding patriotic principles.

The language used in the White House report echoes arguments the second Trump administration has made against academic and cultural institutions the president has deemed too culturally liberal or “woke.” 

Last year, less than one month after he assumed office, Trump named himself chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and took control of much of the center’s programming. 

He has also ordered colleges and universities to make changes to their diversity, equity and inclusion-related programs and threatened to withhold federal funding if they did not comply. 

And the July 4 report is not the first move the Trump administration has made against the Smithsonian Institution. The president issued a March 2025 executive order to “restore the Smithsonian Institution to its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness” and get rid of any “improper ideology.”

Then, beginning in August of last year, he launched an investigation into exhibitions and materials from eight of the Smithsonian’s 21 museums.

Constructive criticism OK

Andrew Taylor, an associate professor of arts management at American University, said the Smithsonian should not be immune from criticism.

“I think anybody and everybody in the country has the right to hold the Smithsonian accountable and to make their best case for the things they’re concerned about,” he said. “That’s fine, that’s harmless and it’s useful.”

But, he added, the White House’s critique seemed more designed to disrupt an honest public accounting of the nation’s story.

“It feels like the report is intended to change what we consider to be our shared history, without actually going through the process of knowing what that should be,” he said. 

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Graduate-level programs such as nursing, occupational therapy and speech-language pathology are, for now, considered “professional” degrees by the U.S. Department of Education after a court order in late June halted the agency’s new “professional” definition while a legal challenge unfolds.

That definition had limited the number of advanced degrees eligible for higher annual and lifetime loan limits to just 11 fields, while excluding several programs, such as nursing.

In response to U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell’s interim ruling, the department temporarily expanded the list of degrees considered “professional” to 29 fields, per guidance given to institutions. 

Pushback from Trump administration

But the Education Department said it was confident its definition is “lawful” and vowed to keep defending the regulations. 

The agency also stressed in its guidance that the temporary “professional” designations “are provided solely to facilitate implementation of the Court’s order and may change as litigation in the case proceeds.”

A department spokesperson, speaking on background, declined to comment on whether the department would appeal the ruling. 

The department said in its guidance that while the case continues, institutions may wish to consider limiting loan amounts to the graduate-level caps for programs temporarily deemed “professional” in an effort to “mitigate potential disruption to student borrowers resulting from changes in program classification that may arise from the ongoing litigation.” 

The programs on the expanded list from the department include: veterinary medicine; law; divinity/ministry; rabbinical studies; clinical psychology; counseling psychology; school psychology; clinical child psychology; health/medical psychology; family psychology; forensic psychology; clinical, counseling and applied psychology; chiropractic; audiology; speech-language pathology; dentistry; anesthesiologist assistant; physician associate/assistant; athletic training; medicine; osteopathic medicine; podiatry; optometry; pharmacy; occupational therapy; physical therapy; registered nursing; nurse anesthetist; and nursing practice. 

On the flip side, the department identified several programs that may have been considered “professional” prior to the court’s ruling but no longer carry the status while the court order is in place, such as theology, pharmaceutical sciences, environmental psychology, and clinical and industrial drug development. 

Schools ‘not sure what to do’

Denise Morelli, of counsel at Sligo Law Group, a firm made up of former Education Department attorneys, said the department’s late June guidance lacks clarity, especially in spelling out any repercussions for schools and students if the agency prevails in court and can keep its “professional” degree definition.

“I do think that has an impact on schools and students because schools are, kind of, not sure what to do because now … these people in these programs are allowed to have the higher loans, according to the department, but the department’s not saying they can keep them,” said Morelli, a former attorney for the Office of the General Counsel at the department. 

“You could be partway through the program, the department prevails, now the student has to get their loan amount cut, and it could also affect their annual limits, so it puts both students and schools in a very precarious position right now,” she added. 

Student loan system overhaul

The new definition is part of President Donald Trump’s administration’s sweeping overhaul of the federal student loan system stemming from the GOP’s 2025 “big, beautiful” law. Most provisions in the overhaul took effect July 1. 

Part of the regulations axed a program allowing for unlimited borrowing for graduate and professional students and set new caps on federal student loans, with much different limits based on whether a degree is deemed “professional.” 

Now, graduate student loans face a $20,500 annual cap and $100,000 lifetime limit. Professional student loans are subject to a $50,000 yearly limit and $200,000 aggregate cap. 

Lawsuits crop up

The department’s new “professional” degree definition prompted a handful of legal challenges against the administration, including the suit that sparked Howell’s June order. 

That case stems from a pair of combined challenges brought by a total of eight groups representing people in fields outside of the department’s new “professional” definition. 

One of the lawsuits was brought in May by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners; the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners; the American Association of Colleges of Nursing; the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health; the National Education Association; and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. 

The PA Education Association and the American Academy of Physician Associates filed the other lawsuit in June. 

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

D.C. Superior Court Associate Judge Carmen Guerricagoitia McLean, who is presiding over the felony case against David C. Hearn, scheduled a status hearing for Aug. 5. McLean was nominated by President Barack Obama and, when that nomination expired, by President Donald Trump.

Mary L. Dohrmann, senior counsel at the Washington Litigation Group and a member of Hearn’s legal team, said during the arraignment hearing that he is an “upstanding citizen and member of the community” and three-time Olympian canoeist who regularly represents the United States in international competitions. 

Dohrmann said it would be a “waste of the court’s resources to impose any conditions” on Hearn ahead of a future trial. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Reddington said prosecutors have “a lot of evidence” in the case and that he wanted the status hearing to be scheduled before a trial. He later said the government wants to “quickly” share its evidence with Hearn’s legal team as part of the required discovery process. 

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro charged Hearn, of Bethesda, Maryland, with destruction of property of more than $1,000 for allegedly vandalizing the newly refinished Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on June 19. Trump, who has closely overseen the multi-million-dollar renovation of the Reflecting Pool, has blamed vandals for damage to it.

During a brief press conference outside the D.C. Superior Court Building after the hearing, Norm Eisen, co-founder and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund and a member of Hearn’s legal team, said “every American should be alarmed about this prosecution.”

“This indictment reflects the administration’s effort to scapegoat Davey and to shift blame for their own failures,” Eisen said. 

Federal prosecutors, he said, should never have charged Hearn. 

“It is not a crime to touch the Reflecting Pool, to touch water in the United States of America,” Eisen said. 

Maryland Democratic U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, in whose congressional district Hearn resides, wrote in a statement released during the hearing that “Hearn would never desecrate a federal building or landmark by writing his name on it or affixing his name illegally to it or engaging in any other kind of political graffiti, vandalism or delinquency.”

“I hope—and will do everything I can to guarantee—that Davey gets true due process and a fair trial on these absurdly trumped-up charges,” Raskin added. “It is only a matter of time before an impartial judge and jury recognize that this case has been built on a Kafkaesque arrest and Orwellian charges.”

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

They didn’t mention the corporations that have huge contracts with the state Medicaid system — even after several have been sued and two were accused of up-charging the system by a quarter-billion dollars in a single year.

“President Trump and Vice President Vance’s war against fraud has come to the great state of Ohio,” acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said from a stage in Whitehall with other administration officials and Ohio Republicans arrayed behind him.

“And this is a war that we will win. The team behind me, federal and state partners, have come together to battle what is a fraud crisis in this country. It has crippled our taxpayer programs and robbed the American purse for too long.”

Blanche focused on suspected cheats such as two Ohio state employees and two others who are accused of billing the state Medicaid system $30 million for behavioral health services that weren’t delivered.

“Some criminals have gotten so bold, so audacious as to defraud the government of tens of millions of dollars…,” Blanche, who formerly worked as Trump’s criminal defense lawyer, said. “It should shock your conscience.” 

Blanche represented Trump when Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

The acting attorney general ticked off allegations that Ohioans ripped off the pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program and other alleged scams as he touted Trump’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. The group is led by Vice President JD Vance, an Ohioan. 

All told, the alleged scams described by Blanche and the others appeared to total about $100 million.

“These numbers are staggering, but just the tip of the iceberg,” Blanche said. 

He later added, “Americans deserve to know that if someone lies or cheats or steals to get ahead, they will be punished, and they deserve a government that will never be taken advantage of by fraudsters.”

What never came up were giant health conglomerates that have huge contracts with the state Medicaid program.

In Ohio, for example,UnitedHealthcare provides health plans financed by Ohio Medicaid. Similarly, CVS Health offers Medicaid managed-care programs through its insurance company, Aetna. 

The cooporations are, respectively, the third and fifth-largest by revenue in the United States. And they own a “vertically integrated” gamut of companies, including health insurers, physician practices and pharmacies. They do business with each other and with competitors.

They also own two of the three dominant pharmacy middlemen — known as “pharmacy benefit managers” — in the country. They’ve been accused of abusing their dominance in multiple aspects of healthcare to take huge profits and drive up costs.

In 2017, pharmacy benefit managers owned by CVS and UnitedHealth served all of the Medicaid managed-care companies under contract with Ohio Medicaid. 

A newspaper investigation a year later turned up evidence suggesting that the middlemen might have charged taxpayers far more for prescription drugs than they reimbursed the pharmacies that had bought and dispensed them.

When the Medicaid department obtained all reimbursement data for 2017 and hired a company to analyze it, Ohioans learned they’d paid $224 million more for Medicaid prescriptions that year than already-struggling pharmacies received.

The conglomerates denied doing anything wrong, and continue to insist that they save money for consumers.

Details unearthed in the same investigation led then-Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to sue Centene, the country’s largest Medicaid managed-care provider.

Yost accused them of using redundant pharmacy middlemen to overbill the state. 

Within months, Centene settled with Ohio for $88 million and announced it was setting aside more than $1 billion to settle with other states that hadn’t even sued it.

Centene never admitted wrongdoing, and it’s unknown how much it made off of the disputed pharmacy arrangement.

Despite the company’s conduct, Buckeye Health Plan, a Centene-owned managed-care company, still does business with Ohio. It collected more than half a billion dollars in 2024.

Yost has sued the drug middlemen owned by the big health conglomerates over other things. For example, he accused them of defrauding state pension funds. 

In 2022, Yost announced that he’d collected more than $100 million from the companies, with other cases still pending.

But Yost did not mention the hundreds of millions he’s accused big corporations of improperly collecting from taxpayers when he took the podium during the June 4 press conference.

Speaking just before his planned resignation, he instead focused on alleged fraud by smaller players — and on praising Trump.

“Today marks something different,” Yost said. “I’ve been engaged in this fight since I was the elected auditor of state back in 2011. Through my eight years as auditor of state and almost eight years now as attorney general, I have been doing Medicaid investigations, prosecutions… I have never had the level of interest and support from the federal government under any administration that you’re witnessing here today.”

One of those less-supportive administrations Yost was referring to was Trump’s first.

“It’s sometimes been a lonely fight,” Yost said. “It’s no longer a lonely fight. What’s the difference? President Trump, Vice President Vance and this team that you see arrayed here today.”

Antonio Ciaccia is a Columbus-based expert on drug pricing who has worked with numerous state attorneys general to investigate government spending on drugs. 

He said there has to be a focus on provider fraud, as the Trump team is doing. But, Ciaccia said, it doesn’t go nearly far enough. 

“There are billions of dollars flowing through the system. You should look at it essentially as a spigot that people think they can just pull out as much as possible,” he said.

“In the era of managed care, fraud, waste and abuse prevention has to extend far beyond the provider level because providers can engage in small-scale fraud. But now that insurance companies and their vertically integrated subsidiaries stand in between the provider and the state paying the bill, vertical integration has created conflicts of interest and opportunities for fraud, waste and abuse to be conducted at a far larger scale.”

Blanche and other members of the Trump administration blamed laxness by former President Joe Biden for Medicaid fraud in Ohio. But John Kulewicz, a Democrat running for state attorney general, pointed out that Republicans have been in charge of the Ohio Department of Medicaid since January 2011. 

“It seems to me that here you have a classic case of people who were either asleep at the switch, or they looked the other way,” Kulewicz said in an interview.

“The folks who got together a few weeks ago for that press conference have had absolute control of the state government for the past 16 years now. So they’ve had the unimpeded ability to audit and prosecute any issues like that and nothing’s been done.”

Ohio Auditor Keith Faber is the Republican nominee for attorney general. He was on the stage during the June 4 press conference, but he didn’t speak.

His campaign was asked whether he intends to investigate possible fraud by corporations that contract with the state, and whether he intends to continue Yost’s efforts.

“Keith opposes fraud in whatever form and wherever it might be. He looks forward to serving as Attorney General and working with the administration and General Assembly to limit fraud, waste, and abuse,” Matt Dole, an advisor to the Faber campaign, said in an email.

“One of Keith’s first steps as Attorney General will be to learn more about ongoing investigations and litigation. He won’t commit to any outcome now, but rather encourages voters to look at his record and philosophy to understand the strong stance he’ll take to support law enforcement, protect consumers, and defend Ohio’s Constitution.”

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Solar panels sit on less than one-seventh of 1% of prime farmland in Ohio, according to a map recently released by the Solar Energy Industries Association, or SEIA.

In Ohio — and increasingly around the U.S. — fears over farmland loss have become one of the most common arguments against proposed large-scale solar development.

For example, agricultural issues were on Republican state Sen. Bill Reineke’s list of reasons for sponsoring a 2021 law that now lets Ohio counties ban most solar and wind projects and imposes added hurdles for those that might move ahead.

Two years later, a presentation to Ohio lawmakers by Mitch Given, then Ohio director at pro-natural gas group The Empowerment Alliance, included slides on ​“lost Ohio farmland” and ​“fighting the nonsense of turning corn fields into solar fields.” Shortly after that, Given spoke at a rally to build opposition to the Frasier Solar project in Knox County.

When Richland County banned large-scale solar and wind energy in most of its territory last year, all three commissioners voted for the resolution, saying they were deferring to officials at the township level who wanted to preserve the agricultural nature of the area.

“They are very protective of farmlands, and it was clear to those township trustees that they did not want to lose farmland to large wind and solar,” Richland County Commissioner Tony Vero told Canary Media last fall.

When residents mounted a referendum effort to overturn the ban, Richland Farmland Preservation was the group whose campaign successfully kept it in place.

It’s not just Ohio. Last week, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins invoked arguments about the loss of prime farmland to push back against New York’s approach to siting solar energy. She made similar claims last August while announcing that her agency — which has long helped farmers install solar arrays on their own properties — ​“will no longer fund taxpayer dollars for solar panels on productive farmland.”

Local officials in Idaho, Wisconsin, and several other states have also passed ordinances restricting or banning solar on certain farmland, according to a 2025 report from the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

Calls to reject solar on farmland often focus on the acreage of a proposed installation — but they rarely provide context on what a few hundred acres looks like in practice, or how it compares to other uses that may encroach on agricultural areas. That’s where SEIA’s new map comes in.

Overall, about 31 of Ohio’s 37 square miles of solar generation area overlap with what the U.S. Department of Agriculture would deem prime farmland, the SEIA map shows.

Meanwhile, golf courses take up more than 2.7 times that much. Suburban sprawl from 2014 through 2024 used more than five times as much.

“That farmland is being permanently lost,” said Tom Bullock, executive director for the Citizens Utility Board of Ohio, a consumer advocacy group. In contrast, building solar on leased land ​“doesn’t destroy the ability to make it arable land once again.”

Calls to protect farmland from solar also tend not to acknowledge the fact that a significant amount of active farmland is, in fact, being used to produce energy already — just in a far less efficient manner.

Ohio farmers harvested corn from more than 3.1 million acres last year, Department of Agriculture numbers show. About 40% of that is used to make ethanol, most of which is blended into gasoline. Corn ethanol biofuels require about 30 times the land per unit of energy as solar, according to a 2025 study by Cornell University researchers.

The increasing pushback against solar on farmland comes as Ohio and other states face growing electricity demands that are pushing energy bills ever higher.

“With energy demand rising at a historically fast rate, Ohio needs every electron it can get, as soon as possible,” said Andrew Linhares, Midwest state affairs director for SEIA, noting that solar and storage accounted for 91% of new capacity added in the U.S. for the first three months this year.

“We need all forms of energy, but gas plants take five to seven years to build, and we are still years away from bringing new nuclear online,” Linhares said. ​“Solar-plus-storage is available now.”

From a local perspective, these statewide concerns may not ​“move the needle,” Bullock noted, ​“because a local township is worried about their township, and not the macro numbers.”

Even so, better data can help local officials make better decisions as they scrutinize different development proposals.

“Land use planning, not necessarily at a federal or even regional level, but at a local level … has got to be critical,” said Dale Arnold, director of energy, utility, and local government policy for the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, which advocates for farmers.

That’s because officials must juggle a slew of other priorities alongside agricultural needs, from boosting economic development and tax revenue to ensuring adequate housing and the protection of natural areas.

But, many advocates point out, solar and farming do not need to be at odds.

A farmer in Knox County teamed up on a sheep-grazing agreement with the Frasier Solar project, for example. And pilot studies at a Madison County development aim to develop best practices for growing forage or other crops at scale amid rows of panels.

“Achieving a clean energy future does not have to be a choice between agriculture and energy production,” said Karin Nordstrom, an attorney with advocacy group the Ohio Environmental Council.

This story was originally published by Canary Media.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

In that time I’ve seen the city go from a seemingly unstoppable economic and population decline to a thriving locale fully on the upswing.

That miracle turnaround was thanks in part to the thousands of Haitian people seeking safety, many of them recipients of a little-known legal protection called Temporary Protected Status (TPS), who’ve arrived in recent years ready to contribute to the community and make Springfield flourish.

Haitian residents are business owners, workers, and church members. They’re parents, they’re students. They’re our neighbors, and they belong here. Yet our political leaders continue to attack them.

Every Springfield resident has their own story of the terrible days and weeks following Donald Trump’s dissemination of a racist hoax targeting hard-working Haitians making their home here.

There were bomb threats, assaults on the street, and children being pulled from school due to dangerous conditions.

Personally, I’ll never forget the fear on my congregation members’ faces during Sunday service.

But I also remember the good, the resilience and bravery from the broader community throughout that terrible period.

We resisted Trump’s cowardly bullying, sticking by each other when it mattered most. And now it’s time to do so again.

The president’s recent efforts to eliminate TPS for tens of thousands of Haitian residents aren’t just callous — they represent a new attack on our entire community.

Since it was first established in 1990, the TPS program, which offers safety and status in the U.S. to people from other countries who cannot return to their homes because of perilous conditions, has been uncontroversial and with bipartisan support. But no more.

Trump has been belligerent in his efforts to kick out TPS recipients with little consideration for both the dangerous conditions they fled in the first place as well as the lives they’ve built in the U.S., now teetering on the verge of collapse.

In response, we’ve witnessed not just indifference from members of Congress, including those representing us Ohioans, but in some cases, even celebration of this cruelty.

One sees this and can’t help but wonder how they could have strayed so far from the teachings of Christ.

As a pastor, it’s my job to help guide my congregation towards holiness not just in word but also in deed — a commitment that requires real courage and conviction.

It’s a responsibility I take with complete seriousness, something severely lacking these days among our political leaders.

It’s hard to imagine a faith leader taking the pulpit to deliver insults and inspire hate towards those brave enough to flee their homelands in perilous times, to label kindness as weakness or tell us to ignore essentially every moral teaching in the Bible.

They’d be run out of the parish, and with good reason. Yet that’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from the president and his supporters in Congress.

Luckily, there’s a better path. As soon as this month, the U.S. Senate could vote on a bill to preserve TPS protections for Haitians for three more years (the same bill already passed the House with bipartisan support).

This wouldn’t just thwart Trump’s reckless rug-pull from beneath people fleeing unimaginable danger back in Haiti, it would also offer stability and security to the broader Springfield community.

Now is the time for our leaders in Congress and justices of the Court to stand up for Ohio communities and against Trump’s bullying of our hard-working residents and neighbors. They must keep Haitian residents here, at home, where they belong.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act made major changes to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, including new eligibility and work requirements. Already, more than 4 million Americans have lost SNAP benefits, putting more pressure on food banks and food pantries across the country.

But beginning in fall 2027, states for the first time must begin to fund some SNAP benefits themselves. Analyses of newly released data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show states could be on the hook for more than $9 billion. Some states, county officials and advocates fear this will remove more Americans from the safety net program and even push some states to consider dropping out of SNAP altogether.  

The new law will penalize states depending on their payment error rates — a technical calculation by the feds of SNAP overpayments and underpayments, not fraud. States with a payment error rate above 6% will have to fund 5% to 15% of their benefit payments. Previously, the feds provided the aid.

In USDA’s most recent analysis, the error rate slightly improved across the states in fiscal year 2025, but officials said states still made a collective $10.1 billion in improper payments. 

“These payment error rates are further proof that state accountability is severely lacking in SNAP,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a June news release. 

As many as 36 states will face new cost share requirements in the fall of 2027. And nearly half of those are expected to be on the hook for $100 million or more a year, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

For example, in Michigan, the current error rate could cost the state $300 million a year, the center estimates. Texas could be on the hook for an estimated $725 million and New York may need to spend more than $1 billion. 

“States are going to have to make some really painful decisions as they have to balance their budgets about how they are going to cover those costs, and if they can’t fully cover the required cost-sharing requirement, by raising revenue or cutting elsewhere in their budget,” said Katie Bergh, senior policy analyst at the center. 

The change is heightening fears that states will slow down benefit approval, cut access or even choose to drop out of the program altogether, Bergh said. While advocates and some officials have unsuccessfully pushed Congress to reverse its SNAP changes, many are now asking for at least a delay in implementation to give states time to improve their payment error rates.

After USDA released its new data last month, New Jersey Human Services Commissioner Stephen Cha said the error rate measurement is “fundamentally flawed.” Though the state significantly cut its error rate from 14.33% to 6.86%, it could still be on the hook for an estimated $100 million. 

Cha reiterated previous calls for Congress and the Trump administration to eliminate or delay the changes.

“Penalizing states will do nothing to improve payment accuracy or meaningfully address waste, fraud, or abuse,” Cha said in a statement. “Instead, they impose a significant financial and administrative burden on State and county governments, threatening our ability to effectively administer SNAP and meet the critical needs of families across New Jersey.”

In a statement to Stateline, a USDA spokesperson noted states have had decades to improve erroneous payments. “Perhaps now, States will stop spending other people’s money so recklessly,” the statement said. 

Looming budget pressures

In 10 states — California, Colorado, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin — counties administer the SNAP program. 

The National Association of Counties has said the cost shift will threaten not only food access, but could squeeze the ability of counties to fund public safety, emergency management and infrastructure needs.

“These cost shifts threaten to destabilize county budgets, forcing reductions in staffing and delaying critical nutrition assistance for vulnerable residents,” association CEO Matthew Chase said in a letter last year to congressional leaders. 

The National Conference of State Legislatures, which represents lawmakers and legislative staff, said states are committed to administering SNAP benefits accurately and to being held accountable for their performance. But in a statement, the organization said USDA’s most recent data “make clear that additional time is needed” to implement meaningful improvements. 

State efforts to improve their payment accuracy also have substantial tradeoffs.

This spring, the Urban Institute and the American Public Human Services Association surveyed all SNAP agencies across the country. Thirty-nine states responded to the survey, representing a 78% response rate.

The survey found that SNAP administrators are investing in staffing, technology and automation to respond to the federal law. But many states are turning away from efforts to improve timeliness and may have to reduce staffing and benefits to comply. 

In the survey, 29% of states identified narrowing eligibility policies as a potential risk and 11% saw a wholesale withdrawal from SNAP as a potential risk. 

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, said churches, food banks and other organizations would ensure that people are fed there.

Stitt, the chair of the bipartisan National Governors Association, said he believes federal programs like SNAP are operated with “a lot of fraud and abuse.” He also suggested that the program had become too seamless, with cards that resemble credit cards allowing recipients to easily purchase groceries. 

“Maybe it’s going back to the day where there was a little stigma attached and you had to actually go to a food bank and pick up commodity cheese and commodity groceries, and it had a little stigma so you were a little bit embarrassed,” he told Stateline. “Maybe we should go back to a little bit of that instead of just making it so easy…” 

“Nobody’s going to go hungry in Oklahoma,” he said. “…I can assure you people were eating, getting married, graduating from high school before we even had anything called SNAP benefits.”

The error rate

The federal focus on error rates is incentivizing states to slow down or entirely halt benefits in some cases, said Gina Plata-Nino, SNAP director at the Food Research & Action Center, a nonprofit working to combat hunger.

That’s because states face no penalty for wrongfully denying benefits, she said, only for paying too much or too little in benefits. The rate, calculated by a random sample of households, adds the number of overpayments and underpayments together. And states can still be penalized for overpayments they later recover from recipients. 

“There is no oversight in terms of the people who are eligible and being cut off,” Plata-Nino said. 

In Massachusetts, nearly 175,000 people lost SNAP benefits between July of last year and May of this year. And understaffing at the Department of Transitional Assistance has caused thousands of incoming phone calls from residents to get disconnected, according to the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, a poverty law and policy center.

That organization has pushed for more caseworkers, though a legislative budget proposal last week would cut $26 million from existing operations, said Victoria Negus, senior economic justice advocate at the institute.  

“What is happening is a version of what I’ve been calling ‘can’t see the forest for the payment error rate trees,’” she said. “They have set up this system that forces states to try to meet a number that is almost impossible for them to meet without fully decimated access to SNAP, because it takes time to methodically and carefully reduce payment error rates.”

In Alabama, officials said the state continues to prioritize staff training, automation and other changes to reduce the state’s error rate. The current error rate of 9.52% could cost the state an estimated $170 million.

Alabama’s legislature has set aside nearly $150 million for the SNAP program. But state Sen. Greg Albritton, a Republican who leads the budget committee, told the Alabama Reflector in April that those funds won’t be released unless the state can reduce its error rate to 6% or develop another plan to cover costs of the federal cuts. 

Kathryn Shoupe, spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Human Resources, noted that the federal data can be over a year old. She also noted that it isn’t evidence of fraud, but usually unintentional reporting errors from recipients.

LaTrell Clifford Wood, the hunger policy advocate at the anti-poverty nonprofit Alabama Arise, said the state needs hundreds more employees to fully meet the need. She noted that more than 52,000 people have already lost SNAP benefits in Alabama. And with rising grocery prices, she said the focus on the error rate will force difficult budgetary decisions that could affect other parts of the state budget, such as education.

“It is a metric with moral ambiguity,” she said. “We are putting paper pushing over people.” 

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The measures include requiring monitoring of absences and publicly releasing data, developing new guidance on the best ways to address the problem and increasing punishments for parents and guardians of chronically absent students. 

Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of school days in an academic year, which equates to about 18 days or two days per month. 

A Utah law signed in March creates a student attendance monitoring system and requires the identification of at-risk students. Parents of students in grades 1-6 will receive a notice of violation after five truancies. If parents don’t meet with school officials to address the truancy, they could face a class B misdemeanor. 

Oregon’s new law requires every school district and public charter school to compile data about the students who regularly attend class or are chronically absent, which will be made publicly available by the state’s Department of Education.

Vermont’s new law overhauls how the state defines and handles chronic absenteeism and truancy. Chronic absenteeism will remain categorized as 10% or more days of missed attendance. Truancy is classified as 20 or more unexcused absences within a school year.

If a student is considered truant and school-based interventions haven’t improved attendance, the law allows the state’s attorney to fine parents a maximum of $1,000 or to file a court petition against the parents. 

Additionally, by July 2027, the state’s Agency of Education must develop a model policy on chronic absenteeism and truancy, including guidance on excusing absences, addressing absenteeism among students with disabilities and considering how bullying and hazing could impact a student’s attendance.

Under a new Tennessee law, a student transferring during the school year will have the number of unexcused absences reported to their next school, and any future unexcused absences will be added on a cumulative record. And it removes the five-hour limit on the amount of community service a judge may order for the parent or guardian of a student with five or more unexcused absences during a school year.

Under a sweeping K-12 education legislative package enacted this year in Mississippi, the state is required to fund one attendance officer per 4,000 compulsory‑school‑aged children. 

And a recent New Jersey law establishes a chronic absenteeism task force, which will develop recommendations on the best way to address the problem.

According to FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University, lawmakers filed more than 70 bills across 24 states this legislative session about chronic absenteeism. 

Of the 44 states and Washington, D.C., that have released 2024-25 attendance data, most states showed improvement, FutureEd found. But Colorado, Oklahoma, Mississippi, New Mexico and the district reported a rise in missed school days. And no state has fully returned to pre-pandemic levels, it said. 

According to its most recent data, the U.S. Department of Education says the national rate of chronic absenteeism reached about 31% in 2021-22 and fell to 28% in 2022-23. 

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Medically tailored meals are fully prepared, home-delivered meals that are customized by a registered dietitian nutritionist for people with diet-linked conditions like diabetes, heart failure or chronic kidney disease. They’re part of a broader category of “food is medicine” interventions that use free, healthy food to improve people’s health

The “food as medicine” movement has picked up steam in recent years, propelled by some in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement who share the philosophy of using nutrition to help prevent and manage chronic diseases.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has championed “food as medicine” and praised the potential of such programs to improve health and lower healthcare costs. However, Kennedy attracted criticism last year after praising one company that makes such meals for Medicaid and Medicare enrollees. The Associated Press reviewed the company’s offerings, finding the menu included the type of ultra processed foods high in sodium and sugar that Kennedy has often criticized.

Massachusetts was the first state to broadly offer medically tailored meals to Medicaid recipients with diet-related diseases, so researchers with Tufts University, the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and other groups focused their research on that state.

They found that enrollees in Massachusetts Medicaid who received medically tailored meals had 31% fewer hospitalizations and 20% fewer emergency department visits.

Per-person health costs declined by an average of $3,433 while participants were in the program, which offset nearly all of the program’s cost to taxpayers.

“Our results show that food really is medicine, with major clinical and policy implications for health-insurance coverage of medically tailored meals to impact diet-related diseases and healthcare costs,” said the report’s senior author Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and director of Tufts University’s Food is Medicine Institute, in a June statement announcing the findings.

Medicaid, the federal-state public health insurance for people with low incomes, has increasingly given states flexibility to launch medical meal programs. Poor diet is a leading cause of death, disability and the use of emergency health services, researchers noted.

States offering medically tailored meals include California, Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington.

Researchers in the Massachusetts study found that the program not only improved health outcomes, but also yielded significant cost savings for the state’s Medicaid program, even when accounting for the cost of the meals, for people with certain conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease and depression.

While the research was limited to one state with meals delivered by one established nonprofit provider, the study’s authors were hopeful the findings could help guide other states considering similar programs.

“It’s rare to find anything in medicine that both improves health and saves money,” Mozaffarian said in June. “It should be a no-brainer to extend similar programs to patients in other states and covered by other health insurance programs, such as Medicare and employer-based insurance.”

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Affordable Care Act Marketplace insurers are proposing a median premium increase of 14% for 2027, which would be a double-digit hike for the second year in a row, according to a new analysis of preliminary rate filings.

Insurers must submit their requested premium changes to state regulators by July 15, per Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services deadlines. Rates should be finalized later this summer.

Released Wednesday by the Peterson Center on Healthcare and healthcare research group KFF, the analysis looked at proposed rate changes among 77 Marketplace insurers across 16 states and Washington, D.C., that have made proposed rates publicly available. Those are Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont and Washington state.

The majority of insurers across those states are proposing a median ACA Marketplace premium increase between 10% and 20%, while 20 insurers are requesting premium increases of more than 20%. None included in the analysis proposed a decrease in premiums. 

Along with the expiration of enhanced premium subsidies, insurers are also citing rising healthcare costs and changes in federal regulations as reasons behind the increases.

At the end of last year, enhanced premium tax credits expired, leading to more out-of-pocket costs for some people enrolled in Marketplace plans. Premiums increased especially for those with incomes at 400% or more of the federal poverty level — or roughly $63,000 for a single person — who completely lost subsidies. That caused many healthier enrollees to leave the Marketplace, leaving behind enrollees who are more expensive to cover, according to KFF.

While the proposed increases are lower than last year’s median nationwide proposed rate change of 18% — the finalized change was 20% — it’s the second-highest requested change since 2018, according to the report.

ACA Marketplace enrollments have seen a steep drop, with 2.6 million fewer Americans on the rolls in February compared with the same time last year, The Associated Press reported.

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Marietta gathering follows months of similar events in Columbus, Toledo, Youngstown, Westlake, Steubenville, Lima and Norwalk. Most of the people stepping to the microphone have been local residents — teachers, city and school-board officials and, in at least one case, a survivor of sexual abuse — who say they want answers about Husted’s judgment.

Campaign finance records from the Federal Election Commission and the Ohio Secretary of State, reviewed by TiffinOhio.net, show Husted accepted $116,892 from Wexner across 21 contributions between 2001 and 2025. The most recent was a $3,500 maximum donation to his Senate campaign on July 3, 2025. According to those records, Husted is the only senator up for re-election in 2026 who took money from Wexner during the current election cycle.

About two months after that July contribution, on Sept. 10, 2025, Husted voted against an amendment offered by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer that would have directed the attorney general to publicly release documents related to Epstein. The amendment, attached to the annual defense authorization bill, failed on a largely party-line vote of 51–49.

Husted’s campaign rejects the idea that he opposed releasing the files. A spokesperson called that framing a “gross mischaracterization,” saying Husted objected to attaching the Epstein language to a defense spending bill, which he called “utterly inappropriate.” When the Senate later took up standalone legislation, in November 2025, it approved releasing the records by unanimous consent, and Husted did not object; the day before, he told Columbus television station WBNS that the files should be made public while protecting victims and any future prosecution.

On the donations, Husted’s campaign says it has given the money away. Communications director Tyson Shepard said Husted “directed the campaign to donate Wexner’s money to charity,” and the campaign has reported donating $34,300 in combined contributions from Wexner and his wife, Abigail, to Freedom a la Cart, a Columbus nonprofit that supports survivors of human trafficking. The campaign has also pointed to donations former Sen. Sherrod Brown received from people described as Epstein associates. TiffinOhio.net’s earlier coverage of the charitable-donation pledge has more detail.

Wexner, the New Albany billionaire who founded Victoria’s Secret parent company L Brands, has never been charged with a crime in connection with Epstein. His name appeared in an Aug. 15, 2019 internal FBI document that referenced him as a co-conspirator; the Department of Justice unredacted that reference on Feb. 10, 2026, after pressure from Reps. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican. The same document noted “limited evidence” of Wexner’s involvement. A legal representative for Wexner has said federal prosecutors told his counsel in 2019 that he was “neither a co-conspirator nor a target” and that he cooperated with investigators. Wexner later confirmed the donations under oath during a February congressional deposition, acknowledging it was plausible he had given Husted about $117,000 over the years.

At the earlier stops, the criticism has come mostly from people who live in those communities. In Lima in June, Fourth Ward city councilor Jeannine Jordan said Husted’s eventual vote to release the files did not show “courage of conviction,” because his September vote had aligned with most Senate Republicans. Alice Donahue, a Lima school board member, spoke as a survivor of sexual abuse and said Wexner’s name appears thousands of times in the files released so far. In Steubenville, resident and educator Karen Lloyd said “a profound shadow hangs over the office of Sen. Jon Husted.” At several events, demonstrators carried signs criticizing Husted, including some reading “Pedophile protector.”

Husted has repeatedly declined to answer reporters’ questions about the money and his vote. During a February campaign stop in Norwalk, the Norwalk Reflector reported that Husted turned his head and did not respond when asked directly about the Wexner contributions and the Epstein files.

Democrats and the campaign of Brown, Husted’s opponent, contend Husted took roughly 10 times as much money from Wexner as any other sitting senator. Brown’s campaign has made the Wexner donations a central line of attack, while Husted’s campaign has run its own ads tying Brown to Epstein-associated donors. Reviews by FactCheck.org have noted that people who gave to Brown, unlike Wexner, have not been charged with crimes or labeled co-conspirators by the FBI, and that not all of the $116,892 went to Husted alone — a portion flowed to a joint gubernatorial committee and transition fund Husted shared with Gov. Mike DeWine.

Husted was appointed to the Senate in January 2025 by DeWine to fill the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance. He faces Brown in a November 2026 special election that is among the most closely watched Senate contests in the country. The Wexner donations have surfaced alongside other scrutiny of Husted, including his documented role in the House Bill 6 utility-bailout scandal.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Under a deal reached March 3, Moderna agreed to pay Genevant Sciences, a subsidiary of Ramaswamy’s Roivant Sciences, and its partner Arbutus Biopharma a settlement worth up to $2.25 billion to resolve patent litigation over the lipid nanoparticle technology used to deliver Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines, including Spikevax. A $950 million upfront payment was due on or before Wednesday, July 8, according to securities filings by both companies. A further $1.3 billion is contingent on the outcome of a federal appeal.

Ramaswamy spent the days before that deadline abroad. Hours after marking the Fourth of July at events in Lancaster and Upper Arlington, he flew by private jet from Columbus to Paris on the night of July 4 — his fifth international trip of the year, according to flight-tracking data cited by the Columbus newsletter The Rooster.

A shareholder, not a bystander

Ramaswamy founded Roivant in 2014 and served as its chief executive until 2021, stepping down from the company’s board in early 2023 to run for president. He holds no current role at the company and is not a party to the Moderna case; the settlement money is paid to the companies, not to him. But he remains one of Roivant’s largest shareholders, holding roughly 7 percent of the firm — a stake that stands to benefit from a deal that has strengthened the company’s balance sheet and its stock.

Roivant recorded a $770.2 million gain tied to the settlement in its most recent earnings. Its shares rose about 6 percent the day the deal was announced — Arbutus jumped roughly 24 percent — and Roivant’s board authorized a $1 billion share repurchase program that returns cash to shareholders.

A campaign built on the pandemic

Ramaswamy faces Democrat Amy Acton, the former state health director who led Ohio’s early COVID-19 response, in the general election on Tuesday, November 3. He has made Acton’s 2020 record a centerpiece of his campaign, accusing her at rallies of spreading dangerous “COVID ideology,” and a super PAC backing him has aired ads that TiffinOhio.net has reported to contain false claims about her role in the shutdowns.

He has also distanced himself from the vaccine his former company’s technology helped make possible. On a July 2023 podcast appearance during his presidential run, Ramaswamy said he was vaccinated but regretted it: “Had I had the facts that I do now, as a young, thankfully healthy male, I would not have chosen to get vaccinated,” he said at the time.

His own pandemic ghosts

Ramaswamy’s public posture as a COVID skeptic sits alongside a 2020 record that ran the other way. As Roivant’s CEO, he served as an adviser on COVID-19 to then-Lt. Gov. Jon Husted — now a U.S. senator — a role he described in a 2021 op-ed. During that period, the Associated Press reported, Ramaswamy supported vaccines, received one himself and advocated mask-wearing, though he said he never backed government mandates for either. A Roivant company, Datavant, pushed for a national registry that would sort Americans by immunity status, allowing those with natural immunity to “get back to normal life.” Roivant also spent $70,000 lobbying the federal government on COVID-19 drug issues in 2020 and 2021.

The central premise of his attacks on Acton has been contested by the Republican who appointed her. Gov. Mike DeWine, who has endorsed Ramaswamy, has repeatedly said the decisions to close businesses and schools and to postpone Ohio’s 2020 primary were his own. “I told her to issue the health order,” DeWine has said of the primary postponement. “The decision was mine.” Acton’s campaign has said she is “proud of the work she did alongside Governor DeWine to put public health over politics, save lives and keep Ohioans safe.”

After entering politics, Ramaswamy moved to strip part of that history from public view. In early 2023, a Wikipedia editor who disclosed being paid by Ramaswamy removed a reference to his service on Ohio’s “COVID-19 Response Team.” Ramaswamy has called the edit a simple correction, saying the panel never met. His campaign has acknowledged paying an editor but denied the change was politically motivated.

Ramaswamy has defended his record as consistent. In an interview with the AP, he said both his support for the registry and his talks with Husted were about “getting the economy going again,” and described his overall position on the virus as “nuanced.” “As a decision maker, you have to weigh the costs and benefits of your actions,” he said. “You can’t be unmoored from the data.” His campaign referred questions about his time at Roivant to the company, which did not respond to the AP.

Critics see a contradiction

Innovation Ohio, a progressive research and communications group, has seized on the settlement. “This sums up exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is: someone who did everything he could to get rich off of the COVID pandemic,” said the group’s president, Michael McGovern. “We can’t trust him to look out for Ohioans best interest because the only thing he seems to care about is looking out for himself and his own ambitions.”

“Vivek wants to have it both ways: attack Ohio’s COVID response in public, while quietly making millions,” McGovern said. “Vivek is a total fake, and Ohioans can see it.”

The settlement TiffinOhio.net first reported in the spring resolves only part of the litigation over the vaccine technology. Genevant and Arbutus are still pursuing a separate case against Pfizer and BioNTech, whose Comirnaty shot accounts for roughly two-thirds of global COVID-19 mRNA vaccine sales.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Democrats would need a perfect political storm to flip any of Ohio’s Republican-held congressional districts. 

Increasingly, they think one could be brewing in a Cleveland-area district Trump won by 11 points.

Ohio’s 7th Congressional District is held by Rep. Max Miller, a former Trump aide who’s represented the district since 2022. Democrats hope Brian Poindexter, a union official and council member in Brook Park, will overperform in the district thanks to his blue-collar background and roots in the legacy Ford factory town.

“I think Brian’s building things up,” said Dave Brock, chairman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party. “And if we’re going to have a Blue Wave, this is going to be one of the seats we can get.”

“If anybody else won the primary, they were essentially going to concede it to Miller,” Brock added. “With Brian, we’ve got a shot.”

Jim Renacci, a Republican who held the seat in the 2010s, said this year’s political environment reminds him of 2018. He ran for U.S. Senate that year, losing to Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown by 6 percentage points even as Republicans won every other partisan statewide office. 

“Do I think Max Miller’s going to win that seat? Yes,” Renacci said. “Do I think it’s close? Yes. Do I think he’s going to spend a lot of money? Yes.”

Why Democrats like their odds

Democrats see three fronts converging over the 7th Congressional District: a candidate with a biography that fits the district, an incumbent Republican in the middle of a tabloid-fodder divorce and a national political climate that historically hurts the party holding the White House. 

The district consists of Cuyahoga County’s affluent western suburbs, its more blue-collar or exurban southern suburbs, as well as Medina, Wayne and part of Ashland counties. 

The district, on balance, is safe Republican. But the path to victory for a Democrat would include doing well in Parma and nearby Brook Park – communities that elect Democrats to local office, but which Trump won in 2024. Sherrod Brown won the district by four percentage points in 2018, even as he won statewide by six points – showing a Democrat can win in the district, even if it’s very tough to do so.

Democrats officially rate the 7th Congressional District as a second-tier priority – it and two other Ohio districts appear on a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee list of “in play” districts. The DCCC’s “Red to Blue” district list, meanwhile, represents Republicans they view as being easier to defeat, based on their districts’ designs. None of those are in Ohio. 

Ohio’s 7th District was not included in an initial reservation of ads placed earlier this year by the House Majority PAC, a political action committee associated with House Democrats. Data provided to Signal Statewide by Medium Buying, a Republican firm in Columbus that tracks political spending, confirmed that hasn’t changed. 

Instead, Democrats have made small initial ad reservations in the two other “in play” Republican-held districts in Ohio where Trump won by at least 10 points – the 10th Congressional District, represented by Dayton Rep. Mike Turner, and 15th District, represented by Columbus Rep. Mike Carey. 

But Democrats recently have grown more bullish on the 7th District as the best of the three potential pickup opportunities, specifically because of the head-to-head matchup between Poindexter and Miller.

Part of that is due to the candidates’ personal backgrounds. Poindexter worked odd jobs before getting involved with the building trades at age 27. He became a union ironworker, working on construction sites before later taking a position as an apprentice instructor at the Ironworkers Local 17 training center**.**

Miller, in turn, is a member of one of Cleveland’s wealthiest families, which got rich by founding and later selling Forest City Enterprises, a real-estate company. After getting a job as a trusted political aide for Trump, Miller ran for Congress in 2022, vowing to defeat then-Rep. Anthony Gonzalez for voting to impeach Trump in 2020. Gonzalez dropped out, and Miller won the seat comfortably.

Democrats aren’t saying how. But they’ve signaled they may make a political issue out of Miller’s messy divorce. 

Emily Moreno has accused Miller of abusing her in court filings tied to their 2025 divorce. Miller has denied the allegation, and countersued Moreno for defamation. It’s not the first time Miller has sued an ex – in 2021, he sued Stephanie Grisham, a former aide to First Lady Melania Trump, for defamation after Grisham accused Miller of abusing her toward the end of their relationship. Comments Miller made about Grisham in connection to his divorce led Grisham to sue him this week, accusing him of violating a non-disparagement clause in their eventual legal settlement.

Miller also made some state Republicans cringe with a post in May in which he called out his former father-in-law, U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, for funding and enabling “his daughter’s malicious campaign to ruin my life.”

Tabloids and other non-Ohio media have followed along, providing coverage complete with photos, statements from lawyers and police videos.

Several race-rating websites cited the divorce in part when they recently downgraded Miller’s chances of getting reelected. The Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Inside Elections still view Republicans as likely to win the district, but now give Democrats a chance of winning. This distinction could force Republicans to change their plans and unexpectedly defend the seat if Democrats see enough of a political opening to fund ads in the district.

Likely trying to entice potential donors, Poindexter’s campaign released an internal poll last week that it said showed Miller with a narrow 44%-43% lead. Perhaps more notably, it showed Trump’s disapproval rate at 54%, which would be a dramatic shift in sentiment from the president’s double-digit victory. 

Kyle Kondik, managing editor for Sabato’s Crystal Ball, in an interview called the Ohio 7th Congressional District race a “sleeper.” 

“I think there’s something going on there. Miller’s favored – but I could see it being competitive,” Kondik said. 

Tom Coyne, a Republican former mayor of Brook Park, is among those who think Poindexter could win.

Coyne, a vocal Trump supporter and former longtime Democrat, said in an interview that some district voters may have soured on the president due to the war in Iran. Coyne said he personally supports Trump’s rationale for attacking the country, but said the president has done a poor job at explaining it. He also said there are independent voters in the region who support Trump but aren’t wedded to either major party.

“If Brian runs an independent campaign on his own, on working man’s values, then I think he has a good chance,” Coyne said. “If he is part of the Bernie Sanders total program there with [New York City Mayor Zohran] Mamdani and company, I would be shocked if Brook Park would support that.”

Kevin Kussmaul, a Republican city councilman in Parma, said Miller has delivered for Parma since getting elected to Congress, such as by helping attract federal funding to deal with flooding issues, and maintaining close ties with the city’s large Iranian-American population.

“I don’t think there’s a hesitation not to vote for Max,” said Kussmaul, the first elected Republican to serve on Parma City Council since the 1980s. “But they’re very cognizant of prices right now. So, it will be very interesting to see what happens on the national front, and what President Trump does for the rest of the summer.”

The Bernie factor

Poindexter won a crowded primary election in May, thanks to eclectic support that unified more left-wing and centrist elements of the Democratic Party coalition. 

Several voters interviewed for this story said they became interested in Poindexter after he got an endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont. Sanders came to Parma Heights the Friday before the election to hold a rally for Poindexter.

In his remarks, Sanders name-dropped New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who’s become increasingly influential on the left since getting elected last summer. The audience cheered, according to a recording posted by Sanders’ political operation. Mamdani has other ties to Poindexter – they also share a consulting firm, FIGHT Agency, which helped Mamdani in his improbable victory, and is backing progressive and union-backed Democratic candidates in other high-profile races.

“What we are trying to do, with, I think, some success, and with Brian’s help… is build a new political movement in this country,” Sanders said.

Meanwhile, a PAC funded by Anthropic, the AI company, spent $1 million on pro-Poindexter ads, while a PAC associated with Blue Dog Coalition, a centrist Democratic group, spent another $360,000 on pro-Poindexter mailers, according to federal campaign finance records.

Poindexter said in an interview he doesn’t know why the AI-affiliated group spent money on his race. But he said it shows that someone with resources decided the district is winnable for a Democrat. 

“I think they see in me somebody who can win this seat, and they made the decision to invest in the race,” he said.

Clayton Henson, Miller’s campaign manager, cited the late pro-Poindexter spending spree in a statement provided for this story.

“Congressman Miller will be reelected. A special interest PAC bought a primary win for Poindexter against a group of underfunded candidates. That’s not an option for the general election. Over the course of this campaign, voters will learn about every extreme position Poindexter has taken.”

National and state Republicans in turn have tried to tie other Democratic candidates in Ohio to Mamdani, and are likely to do the same with Poindexter.

Zach Bannon, a spokesperson for the National Republican Campaign Committee, issued a statement for this story that offers a preview of what to expect from Republicans if the race becomes competitive.

“Radical far-left liberals are working to bring the socialist wave to Ohio through Democrat Brian Poindexter,” Bannon said. “With support from Mamdani’s Working Families Party and AOC’s Progressive Caucus to Bernie Sanders himself, Poindexter has proven he’s all-in for socialism which is one of many reasons he will be rejected this fall.”

‘I’m not a Democratic socialist‘

Poindexter has held a couple town hall rallies since securing the Democratic nomination, first in affluent, suburban Bay Village in late June and then again last week in Brook Park.

About 40 people filled green plastic chairs in a library conference room to watch Poindexter, who gave a 10-minute speech before fielding questions for another 30 minutes or so. 

During his speech, Poindexter described how he was first inspired to run for office in 2016, when he saw Sanders speak at Cleveland State University while campaigning for president that year.

“I liked what Bernie had to say, because he was saying the things that I knew were wrong,” Poindexter said. “Working people were working harder and getting less.” Fast-forwarding a decade, Poindexter said he was floored when Sanders agreed to speak at his campaign rally in May.

“It was,” Poindexter said, “​​like Santa Claus coming to your house for Christmas dinner. It was the best gift I could ever get.”

Poindexter then immediately pivoted to playing pre-emptive defense.

“A lot of people don’t like Bernie Sanders’ politics,” Poindexter said. “A lot of people in our area go, ‘He’s a Democratic Socialist.’ And that’s a big buzzword right now on all the cable networks and stuff, right? But I also think a lot of people in our district respect Bernie Sanders, because he’s stood firm on what he’s been fighting for for so long.”

Poindexter made a similar point in an interview following the event when asked how he thought Sanders’ backing might play in his Trump-supporting district.

“Even the people who don’t agree with Sen. Sanders’ politics respect his commitment to the things he cares about… So, I think it’s a net positive. And regardless of what people think, I’m proud to have his support.”

During the event in Brook Park, an audience member asked Poindexter about the term “Democratic socialist,” which has increased in cachet after left-wing candidates won congressional Democratic Primary elections last month in New York and Colorado. 

“How do you embrace people who are going to accuse you of being a commie, because I’m dealing with the same thing myself,” she said.

“They see a ‘D’ next to my name, and they go, ‘Oh, you’re a commie,” Poindexter said. He went on to say that Democratic Socialists are part of the Democratic tent, but so are moderate Democratic groups, who also support his campaign.

“I’m not a Democratic Socialist, if that’s what people want to hear,” he said. “However, they have some ideas I like, like lifting the cap on Social Security.” 

Poindexter went on to name-drop a senatorial Bernie who supports the idea – Sen. Bernie Moreno, the Ohio Republican.

The Sanders’ endorsement likely played well with the audience at the library, some of whom wore T-shirts that promoted the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus and the Working Families Party. 

Nan Mager, a retired prison therapist who lives in Fairview Park, said she voted for Poindexter in the primary election after learning that Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Sanders-aligned Democratic congressman from California, had endorsed him. She said she thinks Poindexter is the right candidate to defeat Miller, with his background as an ironworker contrasting with Miller’s background coming from generational wealth.

“I’m hoping Brian can break through to people who are suffering financially because of what’s happening in Washington,” Mager said. 

Another attendee, Sam Sheffield, also cited the Sanders endorsement as a positive in an interview. He said he also liked Poindexter’s views on workers’ rights.

Finally, Sheffield, a lawyer from Seven Hills, said he thinks Poindexter “would be the strongest candidate to take on Max Miller.” 

“And I think unseating Max Miller was probably my primary motivation.”

Nickie Antonio, a Lakewood lawmaker who’s the top Democrat in the state senate, said a decade ago, she would have thought Sanders was too “far left” to be an effective campaign asset in Ohio.

“Today in 2026, Bernie is speaking the truth of where we’re at in this country,” said Antonio, who spoke at the Sanders-Poindexter rally in May. “It is so far to the right, they are so far to the extreme, that Bernie is talking about issues that affect the middle, as well as anybody on any side of the middle,” Antonio said.

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

After enacting large swaths of their agenda during the last year and a half, GOP lawmakers can’t seem to agree on what comes next, with senators openly debating each other on social media and a group of far-right House lawmakers blocking work on the floor, forcing the speaker to send them home early for the Fourth of July break. The infighting and limited time in session could prevent Republicans from notching any more wins before voters head to the polls in November.

The disagreements, largely over a voter identification bill known as the SAVE America Act, have held up the annual government funding measures needed to avoid another shutdown and a defense policy package that provides lawmakers one of their best opportunities to shape the country’s military objectives. 

Agreement on a farm bill to address agriculture and food safety net programs is years overdue with few signs of true momentum. And lawmakers are no closer to reauthorizing a foreign surveillance program that lapsed earlier this year for the first time in decades. 

On top of all that, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wants to use the complex budget reconciliation process to pass a third party-line bill, though his Senate counterparts aren’t fully on board with that idea. 

Johnson said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream” in early July that he believes the package could include elements of the voter identification bill, possibly clearing the way for other legislation to move forward. He said the reluctance from some Republican senators “is based upon what they think may be in it.” 

“What we’re planning to do is send over a bill that will be irresistible for any Republican. A really incredible piece of legislation that will get the job done, meaning that we will continue to increase affordability; we will reduce fraud, waste and abuse in government; and we’ll secure elections,” Johnson said. “Every Republican will vote for that if packaged correctly. And that’s what we’re planning to do right now.” 

Lawmakers’ time to get that done will be extremely limited when combined with other work on Congress’ to-do list. 

Both chambers return to the nation’s capital on July 13 but will be out for nearly all of August and October. In total, the House will be in session for about 24 days and the Senate at work on Capitol Hill for approximately 28 days ahead of the November midterm elections. 

GOP argues for keeping majorities

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during a late June press conference he wants to “get as much done as we can in the amount of time we have left between now and the midterm elections.”

“There are things that I believe will create a record of accomplishment that our candidates can run on that will enable us to take an argument to the American people that will persuade them that they want to keep majorities here in Congress, in the United States Senate and in the House, that are Republican to work with the president to get good things done for this country,” he said.

While GOP senators “have differences of opinion,” Thune said, they agree that their goals should be “to keep the country safe, to put more money in the pockets of the American people and to give them better opportunities to get ahead.”

Republican senators, however, do not agree when it comes to the SAVE America Act that would, among other things, require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and a photo ID to cast a ballot. 

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee posted to social media in early July that the chamber must pass that package, even if that means changing the rule that requires at least 60 lawmakers vote to cut off debate. Republicans control the chamber with 53 seats.

“History will not look kindly on us if we don’t pass the SAVE America Act,” he wrote. “Neither will voters.”

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn responded in a post of his own: “Then show us the votes!”

Filibuster fight

Michael Thorning, director of structural democracy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said the slim majority in the House and narrow majority in the Senate combined with President Donald Trump’s focus on the voter identification bill has led to “a lot of negotiation between different factions within the party about what is going to be on the agenda.”

While the House can pass bills with a simple majority, the Senate needs bipartisan support for most bills to move past procedural votes. This requires compromise between Republicans and Democrats in the upper chamber on some of the more pressing and politically fraught issues. 

That requirement often results in changes to House-passed bills or an inability to move forward with them at all — leading to considerable tension between GOP lawmakers who want to keep the procedural step and those that want to get rid of it.

The 60-vote threshold gives Democrats a chance to force compromise, but it also gives them a way to slow down or gridlock the Senate during an election year, compounding the challenges Republican leaders face from within their own party. 

This year is no exception. Democratic leaders must balance calling on voters to reject Republican incumbents while on the campaign trail and then work with some of those very lawmakers to negotiate certain must-pass bills when back on Capitol Hill. 

“This, really unfortunately, is a part of a longer term trend that we’ve seen for quite a while in Congress, which is that the minority party does not have a lot of incentive to cooperate with the majority,” Thorning said. “And so, you know, it’s not unusual to see the minority party sort of trying to posture and position itself to deny the majority party perceived legislative wins.”

That calculation is particularly acute on government funding ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline, following three shutdowns of varying impact and length during the last year.

“I would say on appropriations, the difficulty there on funding the government is that it’s never clear which way the blame is going to cut,” Thorning said, adding it would be “a pretty risky assumption” that a funding lapse this year would be blamed on Republicans. 

“If Democrats were to deny the appropriations process from going forward and the government were shut down, it’s not clear who the voters would blame,” Thorning said. “And that would really be happening for the first time ever right up to an election. You know, voters have rarely had the opportunity to weigh in quite that proximate to a government shutdown on who they do or don’t blame. So that’s sort of uncharted territory.”

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

If Trump does not sign the measure, it would become law at 12:01 a.m. Saturday under a provision of the Constitution that gives the president 10 days, excluding Sundays, to sign or veto a bill. Trump has said he would not sign the bill to pressure the U.S. Senate to pass an unrelated election security measure he considers a higher priority.

The constitutional provision does not apply if Congress is adjourned, resulting in what is called a pocket veto, but the current July Fourth recess does not count as an adjournment, experts agree.

“This would be considered a recess so the bill will become law without signature 10 days after presentment,” Jason Roberts, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina, wrote in an email to States Newsroom. 

The White House has not publicly communicated its legal position and spokespeople did not return a message seeking comment Wednesday. 

Trump has vetoed only two other bills passed by the GOP-controlled Congress during his second term. Both were noncontroversial and targeted to local projects in Florida and Colorado.

‘A huge problem’

Groups representing a vast array of housing interests, from low-income renters to bankers, have endorsed the wide-ranging legislation that packages together numerous bills affecting every corner of the industry.

“Housing affordability is a huge problem for almost everybody,” Alys Cohen, the director of federal housing advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center, said in an interview. “And so there’s broad consensus that Congress needs to do something about that, period. So, as a result, they have a lot of different stakeholders coming together to really get something done.”

The bill, called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, generally seeks to lower housing costs by expanding the supply, while also adjusting loan programs backed by the federal government. 

Estimates of the number of housing units needed to meet demand vary, but it is “probably” near 4 million units, Kristen Klurfield, an associate director for housing policy at the Washington, D.C.-based Bipartisan Policy Center, said.

The package includes an assortment of smaller bills to update regulations on manufactured homes, loosen requirements for home construction and adjust a rural loan program to help lower income people qualify for and keep mortgages. The wide scope of the bill gives every segment of the policy space a reason to support it.

“In general it modernizes federal programs,” Klurfield said. “It incentivizes pro-housing policies locally, streamlines regulations that have been hindering housing production and really expands options for affordable housing financing. And so we think that the bill tackles the problem from these several angles, and that’s really what it’s going to take to chart a path forward.”

Trump quiet

As the package was gaining momentum in Congress last month, White House staff said Trump supported it. After it passed both chambers of Congress with broad bipartisan votes, he was set to sign it at a high-profile ceremony at the Capitol. 

But the president changed course and canceled the signing ceremony at the last minute in a protest of Congress’ failure to pass an election security measure, the SAVE America Act, he considers a top priority.

Since the Senate passed the housing measure, 85-5, and the House cleared it, 358-32, in June, Trump has disparaged the bill as “a big yawn” and “unimportant” compared to the election bill. 

That bill would introduce a series of restrictions on voting, especially vote-by-mail, and would require voters to provide photo ID to cast ballots. Critics say it raises new barriers to voting while attempting to limit noncitizen voting, which is exceedingly rare. The GOP-controlled House has passed a version of the SAVE America Act, but it does not have the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate.

Trump has not commented on the bill in several days and spent Wednesday attending a NATO conference in Turkey.

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The losses come after the Republican-controlled Congress last year allowed pandemic-era subsidies to buy insurance on ACA exchanges to expire. That caused premiums to double for most of the 25.2 million Americans who got their insurance there.

After the subsidies expired, national enrollment dropped by 2.6 million in February 2026 when compared to February 2025, the AP reported. That’s about a 10% drop.

In Ohio, the losses went much deeper. 

Enrollment dropped from just under half a million in February 2025 to 336,000 four months ago. That’s a loss of nearly a third of enrollees, 32.4% or 161,385 people.

Oklahoma, the state with the next-highest losses, saw a decrease of 32.3%.

Among neighboring states, Michigan and Indiana also saw big losses of more than 25%. Meanwhile, Kentucky and West Virginia lost 14.3% and 13.1%, respectively. 

Pennsylvania lost just 1.2% of its enrollees. 

Congressional Republicans — including Ohio’s senators — allowed the subsidies to expire months after voting in favor of President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Act. 

The legislation kept Trump’s 2017 tax cuts from expiring. That provision is estimated to have created a $1 trillion windfall over 10 years for the richest 1% of Americans while the law cut a similar amount from Medicaid and nutrition assistance.

During his first term, Trump tried repeatedly to repeal the ACA — or Obamacare — but he was unsuccessful. However, the provisions in Trump’s 2025 spending bill have diminished former President Barack Obama’s signature program.

Simply dropping coverage purchased on Obamacare exchanges doesn’t mean people didn’t get it elsewhere, but some are likely to become uninsured. 

The subsidies helped bring down the share of uninsured Americans to its lowest level ever. With them expiring Dec. 31 and with the Trump bill’s Medicaid cuts, it’s reasonable to assume that the portion of Ohioans who lack health insurance is going to go up substantially this year, said Natasha Murphy, health policy director at the Center for American Progress.

“While it’s still too early to quantify the full increase in the uninsured population for 2026, the direction is becoming increasingly clear,” Murphy said in an email. “Early marketplace enrollment data already show coverage declines, and the combination of the loss of enhanced premium tax credits and other recent federal policy changes is making health insurance harder to afford, leaving many families without a realistic alternative.”

The cuts to Medicaid are also leading some insurers to exit states that expanded eligibility to include Americans making 138% or less of federal poverty guidelines. For example, the Arkansas Advocate on Monday reported that Centene — the largest provider of Medicaid managed care in the United States — was exiting that state’s Medicaid program.

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Nearly half said unaccepted health insurance was the reason their child did not receive mental healthcare treatment while 40% said provider availability and 29% said cost (people surveyed could select more than one barrier). 

“Many young Ohioans experience mental health challenges, and families often have difficulty navigating the mental healthcare and insurance systems,” according to the study. 

“Accessing needed mental health treatment is important, especially for children, because mental health conditions often continue into adulthood.” 

The average out-of-pocket cost for an individual 60-minute psychotherapy visit with an out-of-network provider cost $55 in 2021, according to the study.  

“If a child needs to receive treatment from an out-of-network provider for therapy once a week … the family would pay an average of $220 per month,” the study said.

Seeing an in-network provider came with a $28 out-of-pocket price tag, it showed.

That cost jumps to $164 for someone without health insurance or someone who pays without insurance, the study said.

“Healthcare for mental health issues can be expensive, and as many mental health conditions are chronic, they often require ongoing treatment,” according to the study. “Costs of care and prescription drugs can accumulate quickly with or without insurance.”

OhioGuidestone — Ohio’s largest community behavioral health provider that is not a federally qualified health center — charges $142 per hour for therapeutic behavioral services. They charge $206 per day for their day treatment group and $41 per hour for group psychotherapy.  

Just under half of Ohio children were on Medicaid and 46% had commercial insurance in 2023. 

Health Policy Institute of Ohio found commercial plans rarely cover therapeutic behavioral health support, case management, intensive home-based treatment, behavioral health nursing, crisis services/mobile response, and peer recovery services. 

“One of the most important takeaways from this brief is unlike traditional physical health care, it tends to be that insurance problems are more substantial for kids who are on commercial insurance compared to a program like Medicaid,” said Health Policy Institute of Ohio Analyst Brian O’Rourke.

“This can range from really narrow provider networks in terms of difficulty finding an in-network behavioral health provider to help with those mental health needs,” he said. “It could include really high out-of-pocket costs, even when you do find a provider in network, and then limitations on the types of covered services.”

An Ohio patient was 1.6 times more likely to see an out-of-network provider for a behavioral health office visit and 3.6 times more likely to see an out-of-network provider for inpatient behavioral healthcare. 

The state has a lack of mental health providers and 75 Ohio counties are mental health shortage areas, according to a study last year from the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. 

Ohio behavioral health clinicians are reimbursed an average of 18% less than medical or surgical clinicians, which can “lead some providers to not accept insurance and instead require patients to self-pay, which is out of reach for many families,” according to the study. 

Sometimes having a health insurance plan is not always enough. 

Going without behavioral health services over time can ultimately make things worse, O’Rourke said.

“If someone’s going through with untreated severe anxiety or depression, they’re going to have to deal with the burdens of that condition, but also it’s going to affect their school performance, potentially their ability to find a job and secure employment,” he said.

Ohio lawmakers have introduced a handful of insurance related bills. 

Ohio House Bill 219 would create network adequacy standards for Ohio health insurers. Ohio state Rep. Kellie Deeter, R-Norwalk, introduced the bill which has had two hearings so far. 

Ohio House Bill 220 prohibits health insurers from retroactively denying a prior authorization for mental health or substance use disorder treatment. Ohio state Rep. Heidi Workman, R-Rootstown, introduced the bill which passed the House earlier this year. 

Ohio House Bill 709 would require private insurers to cover telehealth mental health services. Ohio state Reps. Karen Brownlee, D-Symmes Twp., and Meredith Craig, R-Smithville, introduced the bipartisan bill earlier this year and it has had one hearing so far. 

The lawmakers are on break and will return after the November election. Any bill that does not pass before the end of the year must be reintroduced in the new General Assembly to be considered. 

Health Policy Institute of Ohio recommends the state monitor costs of behavioral healthcare, expand provider availability, and consider changes related to insurance limitations and mental health parity. 

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on X or on Bluesky.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.