Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 39
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Around the country, advocates for Christian education have been finding legal ways to tap taxpayer money used more typically for public schools. One new approach in Ohio is benefiting schools tied to a burgeoning conservative political group and facing objections from defenders of the separation of church and state. In President-elect Donald Trump, backers of school choice have gained an ally in their efforts to share taxpayer money with families to pay for things like private school tuition. Trump has cast school c...
BUTLER, Pa. (AP) — Donald Trump returned on Saturday to the Pennsylvania fairgrounds where he was nearly assassinated in July, holding a sprawling rally with a massive crowd of supporters in a critical swing state Trump hopes to return to his column in November's election. The former president and Republican nominee picked up where he left off in July when a gunman tried to assassinate him and struck his ear. He began his speech with, "As I was saying," and gestured toward an immigration chart he was looking at when the gunfire began. The T...
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — Many cities have been reshaped by immigrants in the last few years without attracting much notice. Not Springfield, Ohio. Its story of economic renewal and related growing pains has been thrust into the national conversation in a presidential election year — and maliciously distorted by false rumors that Haitian immigrants are eating their neighbors' pets. Donald Trump amplified those lies during Tuesday's nationally televised debate, exacerbating some residents' fears about growing divisiveness in the pre...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican vice presidential nominee U.S. Sen. JD Vance is preparing to dissolve the vestiges of a charitable effort he launched in Ohio after publication of his best-selling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," the Trump-Vance campaign said. Vance formed two like-named nonprofits starting in 2016 to address problems in Ohio and other "Rust Belt" states. They were primarily supposed to focus on boosting job opportunities, improving mental health treatment and combating the opioid crisis. The original organization folded within f...
BUTLER, Pa. (AP) — Donald Trump appeared to be the target of an assassination attempt as he spoke during a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, two law enforcement officials said. The former president, his ear covered in blood from what he said was a gunshot, was quickly pulled away by Secret Service agents and his campaign said he was "fine." A local prosecutor said the suspected gunman and at least one attendee are dead. The Secret Service said two spectators were critically injured. Posting on his Truth Social media site about two and a h...
BUTLER, Pa. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump called for unity and resilience Sunday after an attempt on his life added fresh uncertainty to an already tumultuous presidential campaign and raised sharp questions about how a gunman was able to open fire from a rooftop near a Pennsylvania campaign rally. A full day after the shooting, the gunman's motive was still a mystery, and investigators said they believe he acted alone. President Joe Biden ordered an independent security review of the attack, which left one bystander dead and two others...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — For more than half a century, Ohio was one of the most important states to watch during presidential election years, a place where both parties competed vigorously for support from voters who were often genuinely undecided. Then came Donald Trump. Beginning in 2016, Ohio became reliably Republican as more and more voters embraced the New York businessman's brash brand of politics. When Trump won the state in 2020 without clinching the White House, he became the first losing presidential candidate Ohio had supported s...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The resignation letter was short and direct. "I can no longer be under an oath to uphold the New Constitution of Ohio," wrote Sabrina Warner in her letter announcing she was stepping down from the state's Republican central committee. It was just days after Ohio voters resoundingly approved an amendment last November to the state constitution ensuring access to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care. For many, the vote was a victory after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to abortion i...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio's Republican attorney general put his weight behind a legislative effort Tuesday to bring nitrogen gas executions to the state, joining what could be a national movement in pro-death penalty states to expand capital punishment on the heels of Alabama's first use of the method last week. Three states — Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma — have already authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, and many more are looking for new ways to execute people because the drugs used in lethal injections have become diffi...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — With Election Day closing in, anti-abortion groups seeking to build opposition to a reproductive rights measure in Ohio are messaging heavily around a term for an abortion procedure that was once used later in pregnancy — but hasn't been legal in the U.S. for over 15 years. In ads, debates and public statements, the opposition campaign and top Republicans have increasingly been referencing "partial-birth abortions" as an imminent threat if voters approve the constitutional amendment on Nov. 7. "Partial-birth abortion" is a...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Groups hoping to enshrine abortion rights in Ohio's constitution delivered nearly double the number of signatures needed to place an amendment on the statewide ballot this fall, aiming to signal sweeping widespread support for an issue that still faces the threat of needing a significantly increased victory margin. Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights said they dropped off more than 700,000 petition signatures on Wednesday to Republican Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose's office in downtown Columbus. LaRose now w...
As Republicans and Democrats fight for control of Congress this fall, a growing number of conservative political action groups are targeting their efforts closer to home: at local school boards. Their aim is to gain control of more school systems and push back against what they see as a liberal tide in public education classrooms, libraries, sports fields, even building plans. Once seen as sleepy affairs with little interest outside their communities, school board elections started to heat up last year as parents aired frustrations with...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican state lawmakers across the U.S. are trying to require schools to post all course materials online so parents can review them, part of a broader national push by the GOP for a sweeping parents bill of rights ahead of the midterm congressional elections. At least one proposal would give parents with no expertise power over curriculum choices. Parents also could file complaints about certain lessons and in some cases sue school districts. Teachers say parents already have easy access to what their children l...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The backward Wright Flyer that was at the center of an embarrassing license plate mistake in Ohio last year flew through the approval process with little to no discussion, records show. Designers at the Ohio Department of Public Safety fussed over such issues as color saturation, centering and image placement. The Ohio State Highway Patrol tested the license plate's lettering for readability. Meanwhile, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and his wife, Fran, controlled the imagery's overall messaging — from its rural and urban themes, t...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Adam Headlee enjoys his political memorabilia. Already at age 25, the legislative aide has packed his office in Ohio's capital with collectible conversation pieces: campaign buttons, historic photographs, a display of founding father bobbleheads. So when Headlee learned that the state Chamber of Commerce had produced a deck of trading cards featuring the names and faces of every sitting state lawmaker, his collector's instincts kicked in. "After I got a couple of members who I knew well to sign their cards, I thought, I w...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Congress and President Joe Biden acted with unusual swiftness this week in approving Juneteenth as a national holiday. That shifted the battle to the states, where the holiday faces a far less enthusiastic response. Nearly all states recognize Juneteenth in some fashion, at least on paper. But most have been slow to move beyond proclamations issued by governors or resolutions passed by lawmakers. So far, at least nine states have designated it in law as an official paid state holiday — Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Mas...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Two days before the assault on the U.S. Capitol, Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican, said supporters of then-President Donald Trump's claims of election fraud were basically in a "death match with the Democrat Party." A day later, right-wing activist Alan Hostetter, a staunch Trump supporter known for railing against California's virus-inspired stay-at-home orders, urged rallygoers in Washington to "put the fear of God in the cowards, the traitors, the RINOs, the communists of the Democrat Party." The s...
Responses to the coronavirus pandemic and police brutality dominated legislative sessions in 2020, leading to scores of new laws that will take effect in the new year. Virus-related laws include those offering help to essential workers, boosting unemployment benefits and requiring time off for sick employees. A resolution in Alabama formally encouraged fist-bumping over handshakes. Legislatures also addressed police use of force against Black people and others of color after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis led to widespread protests...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The four presidential primaries scheduled for Tuesday will go on as scheduled, after a judge in Ohio turned down a request to delay that state's election over concerns of widespread disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Ohio's governor and secretary of state had supported the lawsuit by voters seeking a delay in the primary until June 2, in the hope that the outbreak subsides by then. Ohio Judge Richard Frye ruled against the motion Monday night because he didn't want to rewrite the law, The Columbus Disptach repo...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A federal court in Cincinnati will hear complex legal arguments for and against Ohio's Down syndrome abortion ban Wednesday, in a case viewed as pivotal in the national debate over the procedure. Attorneys for the government contend in legal filings that the sidelined 2017 law does not infringe on a woman's constitutional rights — because it "does not prohibit any abortions at all." That was certainly not how the measure's proponents in the Ohio Legislature saw it, said one backer. "I'm of the mind that it certainly doe...
CLEVELAND (AP) — The nation's three biggest drug distributors and a major drugmaker agreed to an 11th-hour, $260 million settlement Monday over the terrible toll taken by opioids in two Ohio counties, averting the first federal trial over the crisis. The trial, involving Cleveland's Cuyahoga County and Akron's Summit County, was seen as a critical test case that could have gauged the strength of the opposing sides' arguments and prodded the industry and its foes toward a nationwide resolution of nearly all lawsuits over opioids, the scourge b...
Two pharmaceutical companies have reached settlements totaling $15 million to avoid being defendants in the first federal trial on the drug industry's accountability for a nationwide opioid crisis. Dublin, Ireland-based Endo Pharmaceuticals announced Tuesday that it has agreed to pay the Ohio counties of Cuyahoga and Summit, home to Cleveland and Akron, a total of $10 million to settle their suits, which are still scheduled to go to trial against other drugmakers and distributors Oct. 21. As part of the deal, Endo also agreed to supply $1...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — States are heatedly debating whether to make it more difficult for students to avoid vaccinations for religious or philosophical reasons amid the worst measles outbreak in decades, but schoolchildren using such waivers are outnumbered in many states by those who give no excuse at all for lacking their shots. A majority of unvaccinated or undervaccinated kindergartners in at least 10 states were allowed to enroll provisionally for the last school year, without any formal exemption, according to data reported to the C...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — For more than two decades, Nancy Mace did not speak publicly about her rape. In April, when she finally broke her silence, she chose the most public of forums — before her colleagues in South Carolina's legislature. A bill was being debated that would ban all abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected; Mace, a Republican lawmaker, wanted to add an exception for rape and incest. When some of her colleagues in the House dismissed her amendment — some women invent rapes to justify seeking an abortion, they claimed — she...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A now-dead Ohio State team doctor sexually abused at least 177 male students from the 1970s through the 1990s, and numerous university officials got wind of what was going on over the years but did little or nothing to stop him, according to a report released by the school Friday. Dr. Richard Strauss groped or ogled young men while treating athletes from at least 16 sports and working at the student health center and his off-campus clinic, investigators from a law firm hired by the university found. "We are so sorry t...
