The morning newsletter of the Ohio Capital Journal
Reporting for the People
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By David DeWitt | Editor-in-Chief
Good morning Ohio!
Another Central Ohio public safety leader has come forward to say he was molested by former Ohio State University doctor Richard Strauss.
Gahanna Public Safety Director and former Columbus Police Deputy Chief Tim Becker speaks at a recent event where he spoke about abuse he says he received at the hands of former Ohio State University doctor Richard Strauss. (Photo by Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal.)
By Nick Evans
Tim Becker is Gahanna’s public safety director and a former deputy chief of the Columbus Police Department. Becker explained former Columbus Fire Chief Jeff Happ’s decision to publicly share his abuse helped encourage him to do so as well.
Educators testify against a bill that would ban diversity and inclusion efforts in Ohio K-12 schools
By Megan Henry
Opponents spoke out against a bill that would ban diversity and inclusion efforts in Ohio K-12 public schools — specifically critiquing the bill’s lack of definition of DEI.
By Susan Tebben
The Ohio Supreme Court began oral arguments in a second case over pandemic unemployment benefits by wondering why the case was back before the justices.
STATELINE
The big challenges and policy issues that cross state lines.
By Tim Henderson
A surge in voluntary departure agreements in immigration courts is raising concerns that Trump administration tactics are unfairly pressuring immigrants into leaving the United States, even if they have a legal right to stay.
THE RUNDOWN
News from other states
By Tess Vrbin
The legal challenge to Arkansas’ near-total abortion ban remains alive in Pulaski County Circuit Court after a judge reversed her dismissal of the case.
NATIONAL NEWS
By Ashley Murray
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued in a court filing that a shooting Saturday in the vicinity of the White House further proves the need for an East Wing ballroom with “a heavy steel, drone proof roof, missile resistant and drone proof columns, bullet, ballistic, and blast proof glass,” among other features.
By Jonathan Shorman
The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday urged American corporations to condemn efforts to dilute Black voting strength, as Southern states eliminate congressional districts where most residents are Black.
WEDNESDAY WISDOM
“What is meant by ‘reality’? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable—now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying. It overwhelms one walking home beneath the stars and makes the silent world more real than the world of speech—and then there it is again in an omnibus in the uproar of Piccadilly. Sometimes, too, it seems to dwell in shapes too far away for us to discern what their nature is. But whatever it touches, it fixes and makes permanent. That is what remains over when the skin of the day has been cast into the hedge; that is what is left of past time and of our loves and hates.” - Virginia Woolf
CATCHING OUR EYE
Solar. WOSU Public Media’s Mark Ferenchik is reporting, “Ohio Supreme Court says Madison County solar project must provide more information before approval.”
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a state board must thoroughly address the visual impacts of a proposed solar farm in Madison County before approving it.The Ohio Power Siting Board had approved the Oak Run Solar project in March 2025 despite opposition from the Madison County commissioners and Somerford, Deercreek and Monroe townships. The court heard oral arguments in October.
Among local government concerns was that Oak Run's application failed to fully show how it might address potential safety concerns.
National Forests. The Ohio Newsroom and WOUB Public Media’s Amanda Pirani is reporting, “An Ohio research station could shut down as part of national Forest Service reorganization.”
A U.S. Forest Service research station in McArthur is one of 57 “under evaluation” for possible closure as part of a national reorganization announced at the end of March.In April, the Trump administration released a Forest Service budget proposal asking to terminate forest and range land research entirely with plans to offload research onto universities and the private sector.
The closures are part of a plan that moves the USFS headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, Utah, in an effort to “streamline” the agency.
Critics of the plan have said it’s an effort to cut the agency’s staff and funding.
Higher Ed. Signal Ohio’s Amy Morona is reporting, “Pool noodles, ladders and memories: What Notre Dame College left behind.”
Students, faculty and staff are long gone from Notre Dame College. Yet their presence – and their stuff – still lingers across the Northeast Ohio campus.One of those items is an April 2024 calendar tacked to a bulletin board, showing events happening the month before the college closed. Officials cited ongoing financial and enrollment issues as motivating factors. Notre Dame and 16 other small nonprofit private colleges closed across the country that year, a record high.
…
Notre Dame College enrolled about 1,400 students, but its campus – in this current, almost-apocalyptic form – won’t be around for much longer.The property sold earlier this month, and thousands of campus possessions were auctioned off online last week as part of a court-ordered sale. As those deals wrapped up, Signal Statewide visited to get a first-hand look at what gets left behind when a college shuts its doors.
THE POD
THAT'S ALL FOR NOW, FOLKS.
Mahalo!
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