Today’s News
Cohousing developments put the emphasis on neighborhood
When Joanna Vander Plaats moved with her two young daughters to Grand Rapids, Mich., nearly eight years ago, she wanted to find a friendly and welcoming neighborhood. The family’s move from Kalamazoo, a home they’d always known, was nerve-wracking. They didn’t know a single person in their new city — much less a friend who might watch the kids or come over for dinner. As Vander Plaats, 30, was researching Grand Rapids, she came across [...]
Should NYPD lawyers step in to prosecute? Protesters say no
NEW YORK (AP) — Arminta Jeffryes was arrested while protesting police brutality. Then the police department played an unusual role in her court case. A New York Police Department lawyer stepped in to prosecute the jaywalking charge against her, in a low-level court that usually has no prosecutors at all. While many similar cases get dismissed without any admission of guilt, Jeffryes’ lawyer says the police attorney wouldn’t agree to a dismissal unless Jeffryes said [...]
Battle over copper mining in northern Minnesota wilderness starts to heat up
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The fight over whether to allow copper-nickel mining near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of northeastern Minnesota is shifting to the capital city as the U.S. Forest Service opens a new set of public meetings on its proposal to bar minerals exploration and development on more than 234,000 acres near the pristine wilderness for up to 20 years. A meeting held Tuesday in St. Paul and one scheduled in the Iron Range [...]
Whose side are you on? Separate lawyers defend Trump, aides
WASHINGTON — As the government’s Russia investigations heat up, a growing cast of lawyers is signing up to defend President Donald Trump and his associates. But the interests of those lawyers — and their clients — don’t always align, adding a new layer of drama and suspicion in a White House already rife with internal rivalries. Trump himself has both an outside legal team and a new in-house special counsel, Ty Cobb, for Russia-related matters. [...]
‘It’s raining needles’: Drug crisis creates pollution threat
LOWELL, Mass. (AP) — They hide in weeds along hiking trails and in playground grass. They wash into rivers and float downstream to land on beaches. They pepper baseball dugouts, sidewalks and streets. Syringes left by drug users amid the heroin crisis are turning up everywhere. In Portland, Maine, officials have collected more than 700 needles so far this year, putting them on track to handily exceed the nearly 900 gathered in all of 2016. [...]
Trump Tower meeting brings close focus on Russian lawyer
WASHINGTON — Around the time Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya met with President Donald Trump’s oldest son last year, she was drawing attention from U.S. government officials for her work with an investment firm attempting to weaken U.S. sanctions on Russia. Officials tried to seize the attorney’s emails and at times denied her entry into the U.S., according to government and legal documents. The scrutiny focused on Veselnitskaya’s ties to Prevezon Holdings Ltd. and its owner, [...]
Drought in High Plains the worst some farmers have ever seen
BEULAH, N.D. (AP) — Drought in North Dakota is laying waste to fields of normally bountiful food and hay crops and searing pastures that typically would be home to multitudes of grazing cattle. Some longtime farmers and ranchers say it’s the worst conditions they’ve seen in decades — possibly their lifetimes — and simple survival has become their goal as a dry summer drags on without a raincloud in sight. “We’ve never been in this [...]
Netflix still piling up viewers – and big programming bills
SAN FRANCISCO — Netflix is pulling in new viewers and award nominations in droves, but the online video service still faces a long-term problem: Its acclaimed programming line-up is costing far more money than what subscribers pay for it. That hasn’t been a big issue so far, thanks to investors’ willingness to accept scant profits in exchange for robust subscriber growth. Netflix delivered on that front again, announcing that it added 5.2 million subscribers in [...]
Proposal designed to shore up Ohio’s school workers’ health care fund
The annual 3 percent cost of living adjustment guaranteed to Ohio’s retired public school workers through the School Employees Retirement System, or SERS, is at stake if current law and funding remain unchanged, according to a northwest Ohio lawmaker. If the status quo is maintained, Sen. Cliff Hite, R-Findlay told fellow senators seated on the Insurance and Financial Institutions Committee, the system is not forecast to hit the 70 percent funding level until 2030, causing [...]
Ohio’s aspiring marijuana growers: A closer look
CLEVELAND — Long-time natives and carpetbaggers. Construction magnates, toy tycoons, an Olympian and an heir to the Jim Beam whiskey fortune. These are some of investors vying to win approval to grow medical marijuana in Ohio. The state accepted 185 applications in June and now has to decide who gets the 24 cultivator licenses available. Ohio’s medical marijuana law, passed last year, allows people with 21 medical conditions, including cancer, Alzheimer’s and epilepsy, to purchase [...]
Legal News
Powell lawmaker pitches school-funding revamp
A Powell lawmaker has outlined an ambitious plan to fix the state’s method of funding public schools, which was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court [...]
Stalled bill seeks to license roofers
A measure that seeks to license commercial roofers just as commercial plumbers, HVAC specialists and electricians are licensed has made little progress in the Ohio [...]
Legislation designed to update Ohio’s self-defense standards
A bill proposing to shift the burden of proof to a prosecutor challenging an individual’s self-defense claim recently secured a first hearing before committee members [...]
Business News
Get started: Summer is a good time to check a company’s to-do list
With business slower at many companies during the summer with customers and employees on vacation, owners might want to tackle that list of tasks they [...]
NAWBO names Warnick national board chair
The National Association of Women Business Owners appointed Columbus businesswoman and entrepreneur Kathleen Warnick of Warnick Consultants to chair the national organization’s 2017-18 board of [...]
Investors: ‘Pharma Bro’ Shkreli was shady – and profitable
NEW YORK — The jury at the securities fraud trial of “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli has heard investors accuse the quirky former biotech CEO of [...]
Real Estate
Detroit at crossroads 50 years after riots devastated city
DETROIT — Deborah Chenault Green is 62, a writer. But 50 years ago she was a pre-teen, sleeping on the porch to escape the oppressive [...]
Black homeowners struggle as housing market makes recovery
SAN FRANCISCO — Graciano and Buena de la Cruz bought their two-bedroom house in San Francisco two decades ago when the neighborhood teemed with drug [...]
Central Ohio home prices have risen 16% this year
The cost to buy a home in central Ohio continues to go up and up. Last month the average price for a home sold in [...]
Politics
Border patrol officers expected to play key role in enforcing revised travel ban
SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers will be key players in putting President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban that went into [...]
Gun rights advocates had high hopes, but now initiatives are stalled
ATLANTA (AP) — Gun rights advocates entered the Trump era with high hopes. After years of frustration they thought a gun-friendly president and Congress would [...]
Mayors: Look to us, not Washington, for results
Think Washington, D.C., and your statehouse are irredeemable and unproductive? Look to city hall for answers. That’s the message from the nation’s mayors six months [...]
