The morning newsletter of the Ohio Capital Journal
Reporting for the People
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By Susan Tebben
Good morning Ohio!
The Ohio Senate voted Wednesday to put a constitutional amendment before voters requiring photo ID to vote.
Ohio state Sen. Jane Timken, R-North Canton. (Photo by Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal.)
By Nick Evans
Senators introduced the resolution just two weeks ago. A companion proposal in the House is getting similar fast-track treatment.
By Susan Tebben
Foster care families and advocates urged an Ohio Senate committee to support a bill to create a foster-to-college pipeline.
By Morgan Trau, WEWS
Ohio's $4 billion capital budget is made up of millions for community projects, with much of it going to the arts and infrastructure.
COMMENTARY
An aerial view shows an Amazon data center. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
By Rob Moore
In the past year, data center development in the United States has transformed from a topic of excitement among economic development enthusiasts to a widespread issue of concern among regular members of the public.
STATELINE
The big challenges and policy issues that cross state lines.
By Kelcie Moseley-Morris
The increasing costs of fuel for cars and airplanes are adding extra strain to abortion funds that help people pay to travel for care in other states, leaders of several funds said this week.
By Anna Claire Vollers
The federal government released new guidance this week on how states should roll out the Medicaid work requirements that will affect healthcare coverage for millions of Americans.
By Sofia Resnick
The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine published new clinical guidance this week affirming that acetaminophen, better known by its brand Tylenol, should be the “first-line” defense against pain and fever during pregnancy.
By Kevin Hardy
Congress is looking to roll back state animal welfare laws as it wrangles over reauthorization of the federal farm bill.
THE RUNDOWN
News from other states
By Morgan Chilson
A Kansas healthcare leader and a U.S. Representative are questioning why funding needed to continue essential scientific research isn’t being paid out.
NATIONAL NEWS
By Ariana Figueroa
The U.S. House passed a resolution Wednesday to force President Donald Trump to withdraw from the war with Iran and require congressional approval for further military action in the country.
By Jennifer Shutt and Ariana Figueroa
The Trump administration has scrapped plans to use nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer dollars to pay people who believe they were wrongly prosecuted by the Justice Department — a proposal that halted work on legislation to fund immigration and deportation activities.
By Jonathan Shorman
Ahead of the November midterm elections, President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have demanded Congress pass sweeping voting restrictions, including showing proof of citizenship to register — all in the name of election security.
By Ashley Murray
U.S. Senate Democrats, police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection and their legal advocates spoke out Tuesday against the Trump administration’s proposed $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund.
By Ariana Figueroa
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin appeared before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Homeland Security panel Tuesday and defended his threats to cripple international air travel into some cities led by Democrats.
By Ashley Murray
The day after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Trump administration’s "anti-weaponization" fund was dead, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent evaded questions on Capitol Hill Wednesday about whether President Donald Trump, his family and the Trump Organization would be absolved from future tax enforcement, another part of the president’s IRS settlement.
HISTORY THURSDAY
June is Pride month in the U.S., and with it comes a reflection of the history that stands behind the celebrations of today. LGBTQ+ individuals have battled for centuries against laws against homosexuality and barriers to openness, to the point where coded communication was used to express themselves and connect with their community. Read more at History.com
CATCHING OUR EYE
Rural AI. The Ohio Newsroom’s Kendall Crawford is reporting, “A new project aims to bring more AI literacy to rural Ohio.”
For years, there’s been a push to create better broadband infrastructure in rural areas, where access to high speed internet can be hard to come by.
Now, Wright State University is tackling a new digital frontier: artificial intelligence.
The university received $2.5 million in grant money from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education to develop an AI curriculum for rural educators at Ohio and Kansas high schools and colleges
Property tax deadline. The Statehouse News Bureau’s Karen Kasler is reporting, “Effort to abolish Ohio property taxes faces looming deadline for fall ballot.”
The clock is ticking on the volunteers working to gather 413,487 valid signatures to put an amendment to abolish property taxes in Ohio before voters this fall. In April the group’s lead organizer said they’d collected around 305,000 signatures, but didn’t specify if they were valid. They have until July 1 to get those signatures for the fall ballot, and it's expected they'd need to get to around 700,000 signatures in just a few weeks to cover those that are rejected as invalid.Low-income housing? ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Tony Schick are reporting, “A Low-Income Housing Program Is Pouring Billions Into Housing Many People Can’t Afford.”
On any given night, thousands of people sleep on the streets in Portland, Oregon. They seek shelter in tents, bushes and overpasses in a city that has struggled with one of the worst housing crises in the country.Portland, like many cities, has raced to increase its supply of affordable housing by turning to a federal program that’s existed since the 1980s: the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. It provides up to $15 billion worth of tax credits a year nationally to help developers build apartments. Portland supplemented the federal construction money with local dollars, creating incentives that were hard to turn down.
But to meet the affordability requirements, all the developers needed to do in most cases was put rents within reach of someone earning 60% of median income, an earnings threshold that equates to about $75,000 annually for a family of four.
THE POD
THAT'S ALL FOR NOW, FOLKS.
Mahalo!
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