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Reporting for the People
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By David DeWitt | Editor in Chief
Good morning Ohio!
A federal judge sitting in Cincinnati, Ohio on Friday ruled that federal authorities are making illegal immigration arrests. Then she dismissed a case seeking to stop the practice.
In Ohio case, federal judge says warrantless ICE arrests are illegal, but denies motion to stop them
This one-sentence cutline should be identical to the caption used on your website (Photo by Name/Newsroom)
By Marty Schladen
U.S. District Judge Sarah D. Morrison, a 2018 Trump appointee, ruled that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had made many arrests in Ohio that “deeply trouble the Court.” They were illegal, she said, because they were made without a warrant and without making a determination that a person would flee before a warrant could be obtained.
Then she dismissed the case because she said the plaintiffs didn’t do an adequate job of showing the Trump administration is likely to keep making such arrests. She made the ruling even as ICE insists it doesn’t need warrants.
Elon Musk, 3 other billionaires put $12 million behind pro-Ramaswamy super PAC in Ohio governor race
By Siddarth Sivaraman
Elon Musk joined billionaires Jeffrey Yass, Ratmir Timashev, Bill Ackman, and Ross Stevens as the primary backers of V-PAC: Victors, Not Victims, a super PAC dedicated to supporting Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s election bid for Ohio governor.
By Morgan Trau, WEWS
Ohio Republican candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy is changing his tune on shutting down “subpar” universities after facing bipartisan backlash.
COMMENTARY
Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno speaks with reporters in the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
By Marilou Johanek
Generating sensational headlines for pure clickbait — in lieu of conducting serious policymaking for constituents — is the stand-alone goal of many politicians these days. Ohio U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, a former luxury car dealer, is good at it.
STATELINE
The big challenges and policy issues that cross state lines.
By Tim Henderson
Seeking to stop a “flood” of court cases freeing immigrants from mandatory detention, Trump is asking an appeals court to put three immigrants back in detention. The immigrants were freed by federal judges who ruled against indefinite detention.
By Anna Claire Vollers
Youth sports is now a $40 billion industry. It’s a sprawling, commercialized ecosystem where parents pay thousands of dollars each year for club teams, elite camps, tournaments, private coaching, and professional-level uniforms and equipment.
THE RUNDOWN
News from other states
By Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury
ER visits by uninsured patients in Virginia hospitals spiked by 8% last year. That number is expected to grow as current and looming federal healthcare changes lead Virginians to drop or lose their insurance.
NATIONAL NEWS
By Ariana Figueroa
In the wake of two fatal shootings in Texas and Maine, U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement officers will wear “at least one body camera” during traffic stops, Tom Homan, the president’s border czar, said over the weekend.
By Amelia Twyman
Democrats in Congress are pushing back against a proposed Trump administration rule introduced by the Office of Management and Budget that would substantially change the way federal grants are reviewed and distributed.
By Shauneen Miranda
Former U.S. Department of Education officials in Republican and Democratic administrations sounded the alarm Monday over the agency’s efforts to outsource its special education programs and civil rights enforcement to other agencies.
By Jennifer Shutt
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Monday encouraged the Trump administration to preserve the sections of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that it says a Maryland man damaged to ensure the case moves forward.
By Ashley Murray
President Donald Trump ordered 50% tariffs on several Canadian products Monday in response to what his administration describes as retaliatory restrictions on imports of American goods, including alcohol, dairy and automotives.
WEDNESDAY WISDOM
I stand at the seashore, alone, and start to think.
There are the rushing waves
mountains of molecules
each stupidly minding its own business
trillions apart
yet forming white surf in unison.
Ages on ages
before any eyes could see
year after year
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
On a dead planet
with no life to entertain.
Never at rest
tortured by energy
wasted prodigiously by the sun
poured into space.
A mite makes the sea roar.
Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts.
Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
Out of the cradle
onto dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe.
-Richard Fenyman
CATCHING OUR EYE
Fracking Ohio’s only national forest. Signal Ohio’s Jake Zuckerman reports, “Feds advance plan to open 2,800 acres of Ohio’s Wayne National Forest to fracking.”
The federal government took a major step forward Friday toward opening more than 2,800 acres of Ohio’s only national forest to oil and gas development.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a lease sale scheduled for Sept. 15 of 41 parcels of land in the Wayne National Forest totaling 2,840 acres.
Vivek seeking to be first billionaire Ohio governor. The Columbus Dispatch’s Alexander Coolidge reports, “Ramaswamy could be Ohio's first billionaire governor.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for Ohio governor, could become the state's first billionaire governor. His net worth has doubled to over $2 billion since he began his campaign, largely due to his stake in Roivant Sciences.
State financial disclosures do not fully capture his wealth, but federal filings reveal his extensive holdings.Gas prices. The Associated Press reports, “US gas prices back up to an average of $4 a gallon as Iran war heats up.”
U.S. gas prices jumped back to $4 a gallon on average Monday, as Washington’s latest fighting with Iran renews strain on the flow of fuel worldwide.
According to motor club AAA, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is now just above the $4 mark. That’s about 13 cents more expensive than it was a week ago, and far higher than where prices at the pump stood at this time last year, when American drivers could fill up for about $3.14 a gallon on average.
The U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran plunged the world into a global energy crisis, notably as the cost of crude oil — the main ingredient in gasoline — soared due to supply chain and production disruptions across the Middle East.Withholding injuries. The New York Times reports, “Pentagon Withheld Dozens of U.S. Military Injuries in Iran War.”
In the week leading up to the Iranian attack on Friday that killed two U.S. soldiers and left one service member missing in Jordan, Iran carried out three other strikes against U.S. forces in the country.
Those attacks injured dozens of U.S. service members and damaged several helicopters, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
But the Pentagon did not disclose the earlier strikes, nor the casualties and damage they inflicted.
The episode is the latest example during the Iran conflict of the tension between what the Pentagon says is the need for operational security and the government’s obligation to inform the public about the conduct of the war.
THE POD
THAT'S ALL FOR NOW, FOLKS.
Mahalo!
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