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!
As data centers continue to grow both in numbers and unpopularity, the candidates in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race are calling for more oversight. While they offer contrasting visions for data centers, neither has embraced a full halt in construction desired by advocates.
Former U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, left, and U.S. Senator Jon Husted, right. (Photos from WEWS.)
By Siddarth Sivaraman
Incumbent Republican Ohio U.S. Sen. Jon Husted played a pivotal role in bringing several billion-dollar data center projects to Ohio as lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2025. Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown slammed Husted’s record of supporting tax breaks for data center developers in multiple TV ads.
By Morgan Trau, WEWS
Each of the candidates for Ohio governor now wants to restrict the data center boom, all proposing some form of moratorium unless certain guidelines are met.
By Megan Henry
The race for Ohio’s 9th U.S. Congressional district is one of the state’s most closely contested, and the candidates have contrasting records and positions when it comes to data center development.
By Jeff St. John, Canary Media
PJM Interconnection, the biggest grid operator in the U.S., has finally settled on a plan to prevent data centers from causing other customers’ utility bills to soar further in its 13-state territory that includes Ohio. That plan relies heavily on states themselves.
By Ariana Figueroa
Even before Haitian immigrants in Ohio officially lost their Temporary Protected Status, the Department of Homeland Security required dozens of them to report to immigration appointments and accept ankle monitors, according to their attorneys and local advocates.
COMMENTARY
Members of the Somaliland Ohio Association. (Photo provided.)
By Ibraahim Mohammad
Ohio’s future depends on communities working together. When immigrant communities are empowered to participate fully in education, business, and civic life, the entire state benefits. That’s what the new Somaliland Ohio Association is all about.
STATELINE
The big challenges and policy issues that cross state lines.
By Carolyn Jones
The Trump administration appears poised to gut the central policies that shape Head Start, a popular and long-established early childhood education program that serves the country’s neediest children.
By Anna Claire Vollers
Until the last decade, marriage under age 18 was legal in all 50 states. In 33 states, marriage under 18 is still allowed with varying restrictions, such as requiring parental consent or court approval for marriage involving someone aged 15-17.
By Sofia Resnick and Shalina Chatlani
Crisis pregnancy centers have received hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars just in the past few years. But there’s been little government oversight of how that money is being used and whether such centers are meeting high standards of medical care.
THE RUNDOWN
News from other states
By Gloria Rebecca Gomez, Arizona Mirror
The federal government’s decision to award a small Texas law firm run by a Trump ally a $150 million contract to represent migrant children is an attempt to undermine their rights and fast-track the removal of minors, immigrant legal aid organizations say.
NATIONAL NEWS
By Ariana Figueroa
President Donald Trump on Thursday signed two executive orders in his second attempt to deny citizenship to babies born to noncitizens, following the Supreme Court’s defeat this summer of an earlier order to redefine birthright citizenship.
By Jacob Fischler
After a lengthy battle over the status of Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to reimburse those convicted in Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol assault, Todd Blanche was confirmed as attorney general by Republicans in the U.S. Senate early Saturday.
By Jennifer Shutt
The U.S. Senate on Friday approved Cameron Hamilton to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency, giving the agency its first administrator since President Donald Trump took office last year.
By Shauneen Miranda
The U.S. Senate adjourned for its summer recess early Saturday after approving a stopgap spending bill but declining to advance legislation that would require photo ID for voting.
By Jacob Fischler
Republicans on a U.S. Senate panel voted Thursday to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he declined to answer any questions at a hearing last week about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
CATCHING OUR EYE
Insults, expletives, and fat-shaming: JD Vance’s sad, insecure version of ‘statesmanship.’ The New York Times reports, “Insults, Expletives and Fat-Shaming: Vance Trolls Critics on the Right and Left.”
In an era when playground insults pass for political dialogue, few have leaped into the online flame wars with more gusto than Mr. Vance. The first millennial vice president has long dispensed with the decorum and restraint of his older predecessors to go after the “idiots” and “scumbags” who anger him, from the “limousine socialists” on the left to the “disgraceful” conservatives on the right.
He works, of course, for the master of the personal put-down, and perhaps that explains Mr. Vance’s emergence as one of the administration’s chief trolls. But even if he hopes to impress President Trump, Mr. Vance also appears to have a natural appetite for conflict, the product of a generation that grew up with gladiatorial political instincts. It is not enough that someone else may be wrong about policy or politics; they must be stupid, mendacious, vile or, yes, even overweight.Iran. Politico reports, “Iran makes dramatic new demands around Strait of Hormuz.”
Iran’s politburo-like body known as the Supreme National Security Council said the Strait of Hormuz will not open until the United States “corrects its behavior,” issuing new demands that could shake up talks on a deal to manage the waterway and traffic on it…
The United States must never threaten Iran again, the statement said, and must permanently end the war with Iran and its armed allies in the region. The U.S. must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area. It also must “completely compensate” Iran for war damage, lift sanctions and “unconditionally” release frozen assets.What’s the big whup, just a little money laundering? NPR reports, “Capital One says it closed Trump Organization accounts over money-laundering concerns.”
Capital One bank has asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit from the Trump Organization over the closure of hundreds of bank accounts back in 2021, arguing in new papers that the shutdowns were the product of a monthslong anti-money-laundering review — not retaliation for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, as the Trump family businesses have claimed.
In a motion to dismiss the case filed Friday in a Florida federal court, Capital One's lawyers wrote that the bank's own filings and the Trump businesses' allegations "make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs' accounts for anti-money laundering ('AML') reasons."
THE POD
THAT'S ALL FOR NOW, FOLKS.
Mahalo!
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