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!
Trump officials came to Ohio in June to highlight investigations of people suspected of cheating Medicaid out of tens of millions, but they didn't mention corporations accused of up-charging the state’s system by a quarter-billion dollars in a single year.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his then-criminal defense attorney Todd Blanche, now Acting Attorney General of the United States. (Photo by Yuki Iwamura-Pool/Getty Images)
By Marty Schladen
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that President Trump and Vice President Vance's war against fraud has come to the great state of Ohio, though he didn’t mention corporations accused of wrongdoing in Ohio. Blanche represented Trump when Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
By Kathiann M. Kowalski, Canary Media
Solar arrays cover a tiny share of Ohio’s farmland — less than one-seventh of 1% — but you wouldn’t know it based on how often renewable energy opponents call to block or limit utility-scale installations in agricultural areas.
By Morgan Trau, WEWS
Ohio is set to have two of the most expensive races in the country for U.S. Senate and governor. Thanks to a new U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down limits on campaign finance restrictions, even more political ads will likely be flooding the airwaves.
COMMENTARY
A mural is displayed in an alley downtown in Springfield, Ohio. (Photo by Luke Sharrett/Getty Images.)
By Rev. Carl Ruby
“I’ve lived in Springfield, Ohio for 45 years,” writes Rev. Carl Ruby. “I’ve seen the city go from an economic and population freefall to a thriving city on the upswing. That miracle turnaround was thanks in part to the thousands of Haitian people seeking safety.”
SPECIAL INVITATION
A Public Policy Briefing from States Newsroom and KFF
Spending Cuts, Work Requirements and What's Next for States, Providers and Families
July 23, 2026
12 p.m. ET / 9 a.m. PT
Featuring
Moderator: David DeWitt - Ohio Capital Journal Editor in Chief
Robin Rudowitz - Director of KFF’s Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured
Jen Tolbert - Deputy director of KFF’s Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured and director of State Health Policy and Data
Kyle Pfannenstiel - Idaho Capital Sun reporter
Anna Claire Vollers - Stateline staff writer
**************************************************
Significant changes to Medicaid – the publicly-funded health insurance for people with low incomes – are expected to put new pressures on states, healthcare providers and those who depend on the coverage. Families and individuals are already feeling caught up in unpredictable and confusing changes, at times when they’re dealing with significant health crises.
Join healthcare policy experts from KFF and journalists from States Newsroom who cover these issues at the state and national level for an in-depth discussion on the impacts that federal funding cuts, work requirements and state policy are having on healthcare in the U.S. They’ll explain the latest developments and discuss the political debate around these changes.
Audience Q&A to follow.
ABOUT KFF
KFF is the leading health policy organization in the U.S. As a one-of-a-kind information organization, we bring together substantial capabilities in policy research, polling, and journalism in one organization to meet the need for a trusted, independent source of information on national health issues—one with the scope and reach to be a counterweight to health care’s vested interests and a voice for people.
ABOUT STATES NEWSROOM
States Newsroom is the nation’s largest nonprofit news organization dedicated to state coverage, providing non-partisan coverage of state policy and politics from all 50 states. With the acquisition of Stateline and the expansion of our D.C. bureau, we now have more than 220 full-time journalists and support staff dedicated to state-level news. Most importantly, all of this content is free to readers and to other outlets to reprint. Thousands of news organizations across the country rely on States Newsroom for coverage from their state capital.
STATELINE
The big challenges and policy issues that cross state lines.
By Kevin Hardy
Upcoming funding shifts in the federal food stamp program are poised to cost states billions of dollars, heightening fears that more Americans will lose access to the nation’s largest food assistance program.
By Robbie Sequeira
This year, at least six states enacted laws trying to reduce the number of students chronically absent from school.
By Anna Claire Vollers
About a dozen states offer “medically tailored meals” to people with conditions such as diabetes and heart disease who get their insurance through Medicaid. Such programs significantly improve the health of the people in them, according to a new study.
By Nada Hassanein
Health insurance premiums are likely to grow more expensive next year as 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.
THE RUNDOWN
News from other states
By Amelia Ferrell Knisely, West Virginia Watch
Only one student has registered for courses at West Virginia University’s new Washington Center, an academic program mandated by Republican lawmakers for the campus.
NATIONAL NEWS
By Jennifer Shutt
After enacting large swaths of their agenda, national Republican 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 U.S. House lawmakers blocking work on the floor.
By Jacob Fischler
President Donald Trump is running out of time to decide what to do with a bipartisan bill meant to lower housing costs by making it easier to build.
SCIENCE FRIDAY
Early in life, neural networks in the brain's memory center are highly connected, and they are only later refined into precise systems, a mouse study finds. Read more from Livescience
CATCHING OUR EYE
Political ads. USA Today Networks Alex Perry reports, “Ohio to see $749 million in political ad spending in midterm elections.”
Political ad spending in Ohio is soaring to record levels, a new report shows, as tight Senate and governor races become some of the most competitive in the country ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Ohio is one of the biggest political advertising battlegrounds of the 2026 cycle, according to AdImpact's 2026 Political Ad Spending Report. The increase in spending is due in part to a competitive U.S. Senate race, a tighter-than-expected governor’s race and heavy outside-group spending.Ohio teachers’ retirement. The Statehouse News Bureau’s Jo Ingles reports, “Ohio teachers urge lawmakers to restore educators' power on their pension board.”
There’s a bill under consideration by state lawmakers that would undo something lawmakers did last year in the budget. And teachers are urging them to pass this change, saying that provision to change the makeup of their pension board should never have added in the first place.
That budget provision changed the composition of the 11-member State Teachers Retirement System board, which oversees the management of $100 billion in investments for Ohio's current and retired teachers. The change would stack the board with four new political appointees and would remove four elected board members at the end of their terms. All of those elected members are teachers; one is retired, and three are still working. That switch would mean the majority of the board would be political appointees, not elected teachers. And it would make it almost impossible for elected members to serve as chair or vice chair.Trump’s Iran war back on. The Associated Press reports, “US launches new airstrikes on Iran, with Tehran firing back at 3 Gulf Arab states.”
The United States launched new airstrikes against Iran early Thursday, and Tehran responded by hitting Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar in crossfire that again threatened an interim deal intended to help end the war in the Persian Gulf.
The strikes came hours after U.S. President Donald Trump said recent Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz signaled the end of the fragile ceasefire. The U.S. struck a variety of military sites and port facilities early Wednesday following Iran’s targeting of several merchant vessels off the coast of Oman, sparking Iranian fire then as well.
But Thursday’s attacks appeared bigger all around, with sirens sounding at least twice in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters. There was no immediate word of damage in the three Gulf Arab countries. Kuwait’s military said it was actively intercepting incoming drones and missiles. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait.Historians vs. Trump’s propaganda. The New York Times reports, “Historians Reject White House’s Criticism of Smithsonian Museum.”
The nation’s largest group of scholars of U.S. history denounced a White House report attacking the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History…
The Organization of American Historians, the nation’s largest group of scholars of U.S. history, blasted the report in a statement on Monday, accusing the administration of presenting a partisan ideological attack in the guise of historical critique.
“The National Museum of American History interprets America’s history through its vast collection,” it said. “This report’s objective is to punish it for doing that in a way that makes U.S. history accessible to and reflective of all Americans. The report is only the latest chapter in a broader, systematic campaign that now targets an institution that was never meant to answer to any single administration.”
The group accused the administration of ignoring decades of scholarship and trying to “erase the conflict, struggle and diversity — the complexity — that have always defined the American experience.”
“Make no mistake: The report represents an attempt to turn back the clock to a time when U.S. history was taught as the history of white Christian men who conquered a continent, U.S. military leaders who rarely lost a battle and U.S. presidents who were single-handedly responsible for national greatness, all under the cover of ‘anti-D.E.I.’ and ‘anti-woke’ crusading,” it said.Disaster aid denied to Democratic-led states. The New Republic reports, “Trump Denies Disaster Aid for Four States That Didn’t Vote for Him.”
President Trump rejected FEMA disaster aid requests from four blue states last Friday, after accepting the aid requests of six red states just two days before, according to Politico. This continues his blatant trend of prioritizing petty political beef over sorely needed FEMA funding—putting Americans at risk in the process.
New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island were all denied after requesting a total of $227 million in aid following the brutal blizzard in February. All four states were well past the damage threshold required to trigger aid consideration.
THE POD
THAT'S ALL FOR NOW, FOLKS.
Mahalo!
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