A panel of three judges in the Eighth District Court of Appeals recently found little merit to a man’s appeal from the judgment of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas convicting him of several counts of gross sexual imposition and rape.

The defendant, Albert Finklea, was originally charged with 12 counts each of kidnapping, rape and gross sexual imposition for the abusive sexual relationship he had with his own daughter since 2002.

A Warren lawmaker is pushing for the Senate Criminal Justice committee to back a bill crafted to help eliminate the backlog of rape kits.

“In 2011, (Ohio Attorney General) Mike DeWine issued an open call to law enforcement offices to send all untested rape kits to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation for processing,” said Sen. Capri Cafaro in recent sponsor testimony for Senate Bill 316.

“This resulted in an increased number of untested kits to be submitted.”

WASHINGTON — After months on the defensive over his health law, a more combative President Barack Obama has emerged to fight about gender politics, leading to an election-year competition with Republicans for support from women.

No single group will be more important to Democrats’ fortunes, say White House advisers, than unmarried women, who are likely to go Democratic — if they vote, and that’s far from certain when trust in Washington is low.

PRENTISS TOWNSHIP, Maine — The members of the Passamaquoddy tribe have looked under their feet for a bottled water plant and have turned to the sky for a wind farm. But it’s the forest that will be the first to deliver as the impoverished tribe seeks to become one of the biggest maple syrup operations in Maine.

The tribe, which owns 60,000 acres of land near the Canadian border in western Maine, has big plans for the syrup operation deep in the woods. Operating this season with nearly 3,000 taps, the tribe plans to expand over the next three years to 60,000.