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!
President Donald Trump's undeclared war with Iran and his sweeping tariffs are increasing costs and dampening the economic outlook, some business and community leaders have told the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
U.S. President Donald Trump, with Vice President JD Vance and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., looking on, delivers his State of the Union address. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
By Marty Schladen
The Cleveland Fed represents the Federal Reserve System’s Fourth District — a region that covers all of Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania, Kentucky and West Virginia. Eight times a year, it conducts interviews and online questionnaires with businesses, community organizations, economists, and other sources.
By Megan Henry
A pair of bipartisan Ohio senators want to create a state-funded family and medical leave insurance program.
By Morgan Trau, WEWS
Both frontrunners for governor want to improve Ohio’s mental health care system, and each has a vision for a better state, but neither outlined detailed plans for how they would accomplish these goals.
COMMENTARY
Not everyone on social media is reporting news in a ethical way. (Photo by Anne-Marie Caruso/New Jersey Monitor)
By Leann Ray
“Lately, my Facebook news feed has been inundated by posts from people I don’t follow reporting information that isn’t true. It’s a reminder how many bad actors are spreading lies wrapped as ‘news.’ We should all be careful,” writes West Virginia Watch Editor Leann Ray.
STATELINE
The big challenges and policy issues that cross state lines.
By Anna Claire Vollers
Republican lawmakers and candidates across the country have escalated their anti-Islam rhetoric in recent months, a strategy aimed at energizing voters by claiming without evidence that Muslim culture and religious tenets threaten American political values.
By Shalina Chatlani
Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said Tuesday that the Trump administration will require every state within 30 days to turn in a plan to revalidate the health care providers that participate in their Medicaid programs.
By Tim Henderson
An appeals court on Friday struck down the Trump administration’s closing of United States borders to asylum-seekers.
THE RUNDOWN
News from other states
By Skylar Laird, South Carolina Daily Gazette
The nation’s largest measles outbreak in decades came to an end Sunday, after more than a month without sickening anyone, according to the South Carolina state health department.
By Mukta Joshi
Data released by ICE on April 2 showed that more than 2,100 people were being held in Mississippi’s Adams County Correctional Center. But when U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson visited on April 9 the facility was holding just 1,400 people. What happened?
NATIONAL NEWS
By Zoya Teirstein
Climate change is making the world’s oceans more hospitable to a potentially deadly bacteria called Vibrio. Vibriosis infections are the leading cause of shellfish-related illness in the U.S. and a unique public health threat as climate change grows its pathways of exposure.
WEDNESDAY WISDOM
“I would throw out the old maxim, ‘My country, right or wrong,’ etc., and instead I would say, ‘My country when she is right.’ Because patriotism is supporting your country all the time, but your government only when it deserves it.”
-Mark Twain
CATCHING OUR EYE
Seeking a Trump pardon for the biggest bribery scandal in Ohio history. The Columbus Dispatch’s Jessie Balmert reports, “Larry Householder to seek Trump pardon after loss in Supreme Court.”
The U.S. Supreme Court won't overturn the bribery conviction of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, ending a six-year legal saga that sent the former top Republican leader to prison for 20 years…
After the legal loss, Householder's attorney Scott Pullins said Householder would seek a pardon from President Donald Trump.Trump Homeland Security department targets Ohio voters. Reuters reports, “How Trump is moving to control U.S. elections, one state at a time.”
Reuters uncovered a broader‑than‑previously known Trump administration effort to gain federal control over elections, historically run locally, in at least eight states – using investigations, raids and demands for access to balloting systems and voter ID…
In Ohio, federal investigators have collected voter records in at least six counties, two of them solidly Democratic and the others politically competitive, citing unspecified investigations. The scope of those probes hasn’t been previously reported.Property taxes. The Statehouse News Bureau’s Karen Kasler reports, “Group pushing amendment to abolish property tax in Ohio likely won't make ballot.”
The group that wants Ohio voters to abolish property taxes almost certainly won’t make the fall ballot, even though the deadline to submit signatures is more than two months away.
Members of the Committee to Abolish Property Taxes released their signature total in a livestreamed event, after months of refusing requests to do so from journalists and group volunteers. The group, also called Ax Ohio Tax, needs a minimum of 413,487 valid signatures from 44 of Ohio's 88 counties by July 1 to make the November ballot. That's 10% of the total ballots cast for governor in the last election for that office, in 2022.Ohio Sec. of State race. Cleveland.com’s Laura Hancock reports, “Ohio secretary of state candidates divided over hand-marked ballots, redistricting.”
In the race for Ohio secretary of state are Republicans who believe it’s too easy to cheat in voting and Democrats who believe recent state laws making it harder to vote have crossed into suppression.
Details about what they’d do, however, vary.Haitians. The Dayton Daily News’ Cornelius Frolik reports, “Haiti TPS: Supreme Court to hear in-person argument this week in high stakes cases.”
Legal protections for more than 330,000 Haitian nationals and other foreign-born people living in the United States hang in the balance as the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments this week in litigation about the federal government’s attempts to cancel temporary protected status for Haiti and Syria.
Justices with the highest court in the land are expected to spend an hour or longer on Wednesday, April 29, listening to and asking questions of lawyers for the Trump administration and TPS holders, who dispute whether the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security followed the law and the correct procedures when she tried to terminate protected status for the foreign countries.
THE POD
THAT'S ALL FOR NOW, FOLKS.
Mahalo!
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