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Reporting for the People
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By David DeWitt | Editor in Chief
Good morning Ohio!
Two Ohio congresswomen are slamming the FBI over reports that agents on Thursday searched the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, an organization that advocates for voting and labor rights and against outsized corporate power.
The back of an FBI agent. File photo from Getty Images.
By Marty Schladen
Agents also reportedly fanned out across the state to interview people who have worked with the collaborative and in some cases seized their electronic devices such as phones and laptops.
By Megan Henry
Ohio lawmakers went home for summer break without passing a bill to ban child marriage. The Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed Ohio Senate Bill 341 last Wednesday, but the bill was not brought up for a full Senate vote later that day.
Ohio lawmakers pass bill that would increase penalties for passing a stopped school bus, add cameras
By Megan Henry
Ohio lawmakers passed a bill last week that increases the penalties for illegally passing a stopped school bus.
By Morgan Trau, WEWS
Ohio lawmakers worked for two days last week to pass as many bills as they could before going on summer recess. Here are some of the bigger items that passed — and failed.
By Jacob Fischler
Democrats’ prospects in a trio of key U.S. Senate races including Ohio are improving, an influential elections forecaster said last week. Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved three races — in North Carolina, Alaska and Ohio — in Democrats’ favor.
STATELINE
The big challenges and policy issues that cross state lines.
By Nada Hassanein
Forty-six percent of U.S. adults — regardless of insurance type — reported struggling to afford healthcare last year, according to a report released last week by the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research think tank.
By Amanda Watford
Veterans in the United States die by suicide at higher rates than the general population, and firearms are involved in most of those deaths, according to a new analysis of federal data.
By Shalina Chatlani
The 2026 FIFA World Cup, which began last Thursday, is expected to draw between 5 million and 7 million soccer fans to the 11 U.S. host cities. The presence of ICE agents is casting a pall over an event that is supposed to bring the world together.
By Kevin Hardy
The New World screwworm has arrived in the United States. For years, ranchers across Southern states have prepared for a potential invasion of the flesh-eating parasite that can wreak havoc on livestock, pets and even humans.
By Amanda Watford
For many incarcerated people, getting a full night’s sleep is almost impossible. Bright lights, loud noise, overnight head counts, early morning meals can make restorative sleep nearly impossible, according to a new report.
THE RUNDOWN
News from other states
By Ralph Capoco
The U.S. Supreme Court last week upheld two lower court rulings that found Alabama’s nitrogen gas execution protocol unconstitutional, ending for now a short but intense legal battle over Alabama’s execution methods.
NATIONAL NEWS
By Ashley Murray
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Friday halting the Trump administration’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for one week, giving the government time to sign a “clear, unambiguous” agreement that the fund is dead.
By Amelia Twyman
The Trump administration has failed to refund more than $145 billion in tariffs that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unlawful, a pair of U.S. Senate Democrats said in a Wednesday letter to the administration’s chief of customs.
CATCHING OUR EYE
Ohio Haitians. Mother Jones’ Sarah Szilagy reports, “The Supreme Court’s Pending Decision on Haitians’ Humanitarian Status Is a Matter of “Life and Death”.”
Vilès Dorsainvil has thought a lot about desperation recently. Specifically, what desperation forces people to do, and the tragedy it seems to attract. As a Haitian immigrant and the executive director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, Ohio, he has seen a desperate community seeking stability in the United States, only to find that the ground has shifted…
As Haitians and TPS holders around the country wait for the Supreme Court’s decision on whether to allow the Trump administration to end their legal status, in Springfield, they’ve retreated into the shadows. Haitians are leaving the city, Dorsainvil says, though it’s been far from a “mass exodus.” Some have attempted to go to Canada, others to Columbus. “I call it, ‘To leave or not to leave,’ because where are you going to go?” Dorsainvil tells me. “If you leave to go somewhere else in the USA, you will still be a target.”Renter electric bills. Signal Ohio’s Jake Zuckerman reports, “The Ohio Supreme Court set safeguards for renters’ electric bills. Lawmakers rolled them back.”
The Ohio Supreme Court in April issued a landmark opinion on a long-running conflict, ruling that submetering companies are public utilities – a technical finding that triggered a broad set of financial and legal protections for tens of thousands of renters in submetered apartments.
Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate voted roughly on party lines to send to Gov. Mike DeWine legislation to roll that decision back.Data center tax breaks. The Dayton Daily News’ Avery Kreemer reports, “$1.6B tax break dispute stalls Ohio data center regulations.”
The Ohio legislature will have to come back to the table after failing to pass regulations on data centers during a marathon legislative session this week despite fast-tracking proposals through committee…
House leaders were particularly aggrieved when news broke that the state lost out on $1.6 billion in tax revenue in 2025, a year the state estimated it would forgo only $136 million in tax revenues for data centers. The news caused Gov. Mike DeWine to pause additional exemptions altogether, despite the program still being law.
THE POD
THAT'S ALL FOR NOW, FOLKS.
Mahalo!
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