Ohio

While many government offices were closed on Monday due to it being Presidents' Day, protests continued in Columbus, Ohio, at the State House over the controversial Senate Bill 5. A major rally is scheduled to take place in Columbus on Tuesday, with union members and leaders travelling from all over the state to oppose the bill.

Organizers are estimating that about 10,000 people will be gathered on Tuesday to oppose SB 5, which would eliminate collective bargaining rights and salary schedules for public employees across the state.

Governor John Kasich has said that with Ohio facing an estimated $8 billion deficit, union labor costs must be reigned in.

State Rep. Dennis Murray, D-Sandusky, says, however that unions are the "thin blue line" protecting the middle class from discrimination and exploitation. Murray says, they're under attack:

"Public sector employees are being used, really, as a scapegoat for the state's budget problems."

Murray also adds that the bill is a part of a national anti-union campaign that's also playing out quite dramatically in Wisconsin, and suggests bringing the focus back to the budget rather than state employees.

Former Ohio governor Ted Strickland hasn't been out of office for even two months yet, but on Thursday he made his way down to the statehouse, helping to stoke union crowds gathered there to rally against a bill that would eliminate collective bargaining for state workers.

In an interview with Gongwer News Service, Strickland said:

“We had an election and the people chose Mr. Kasich, but they did not give him a mandate to do what he is doing. He got less than 50% of the vote – he got more votes than I did, and I acknowledge that, and I’m not trying to be a sore loser here – but most of the people in this state did not vote to embrace his radical agenda.

They did not vote for him to dismantle organized labor, they did not vote for him to become a tyrant and treat people they way I believe he’s treating them.”

Kasich's spokesman Rob Nichols didn't seem bothered by Strickland's allegations. Nichols told Gongwer:

”It sounds an awful lot like the things I remember him saying before November 2nd.”

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the Cleveland-based Community of Faith Christian School. In the lawsuit, the school is alleged of committing multiple violations of Ohio consumer law, including misrepresenting the degrees that it offered to students.

DeWine said:

"The company sold degree programs through its business location and online and made false promises that students could use the degrees to gain entrance to community colleges. Although the Attorney General's Office made multiple attempts to resolve the issues out of court, the company refused to cooperate."

The Ohio Attorney General's Office has received 30 consumer complaints against Community of Faith and its owner, Jeffrey Sanders. Community of Faith includes both a church and a school.

Consumers said that they paid between $250 and $550 for the school's degree program. However, the diplomas they were sold could not be used as represented. They were told that the degrees would be accepted by local community colleges, but they were not.

Students explained that they worked on study packets at home and online to obtain the degree offered by the school. The degree was allegedly represented to them as a high school or GED equivalent.

Facing a shortage of sodium thiopental nationally, Ohio has been looking for a new drug to use for their next scheduled execution in March. Ohio is planning to use pentobarbital, an anesthetic used in assisted suicides in Oregon and Washington that has never before been used in an execution in the United States.

The U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental stopped making the drug, which created a shortage for the more than 30 states that use it for their executions.

The execution of convicted murderer Frank Spisak, 59, was likely the last execution in Ohio using sodium thiopental. He was executed on Thursday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

Ohio's next scheduled execution is that of Johnnie Baston, 37. He is scheduled to die March 10 for the death of Toledo storekeeper Chong Mah, who was shot in the back of the head. Baston has requested clemency, but the Ohio Parole Board has recommended against it and a decision from Governor John Kasich is still pending.

Pentobarbital has never been used in an execution in the U.S. by itself. Oklahoma uses pentobarbital in its executions, but only in combination with other drugs that paralyze inmates and stop their hearts.

Frank Spisak, who killed three people around the Cleveland State University campus in 1982, has finally been executed by the state of Ohio.

The self-proclaimed neo-Nazi was executed on Thursday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. The official time of death was 10:34am.

Spisak's final hours were spent listening to music on headphones, and planning his final statement. He planned to recite his last words in German.

Carlo LoParo, the communications chief of Ohio prisons, said:

"He arrived calm and reserved."

He added that Spisak appeared emotional during an early morning Catholic mass said on his behalf, but quickly regained his composure. Spisak's final appeal to the US Supreme Court was rejected late Wednesday afternoon.

Ohio governor John Kasich is already facing backlash by taking on the state's unions, and now has enraged police officers after today's revelation that he called a Columbus police officer an "idiot" last month for giving a traffic ticket in 2008.

According to court records, Kasich was pulled over on January 8, 2008, heading northbound on Rt. 315 for not moving over for a stopped emergency vehicle with its lights flashing. Kasich pleaded guilty and three days later he paid the $85 fine.

The "idiot" comment came up during a staff meeting that Kasich held with most of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency's employees on January 21.

Kasich said:

"Have you ever been stopped by a policeman who's an idiot?"
"I had this idiot pull me over on (Route) 315. He says, 'You passed this emergency vehicle on the side of the road and you didn't yield. I said, 'I didn't... officer, are you kidding? I didn't see... where the heck was it? The last thing I would ever do would be to pass an emergency... Are you kidding me?'

"He says, 'Well, I understand, give me your license... goes back to the car, comes back, gives me a ticket. He says, 'You must report to court. If you don't report to court, we're putting a warrant out for your arrest.'

In a new report from Sperling's Best Places, Cleveland was named the cheapest place in the United States to own a car. While the winter weather can wreak havoc on a vehicle, but Cleveland still fared better that every other city considered.

Best Places took several factors into account, including gas prices, insurance prices, daily commuting miles and traffic congestion.

More than 100 dogs were rescued from a stench-filled home that a mother and daughter used to run as an illicit breeding facility. Glenda Curtis, 54, and her daughter, Danielle Tschappat, 27, now face animal cruelty charges from their alleged abuse of the animals.

Sheriff's deputies and humane officers raised the Cleveland-area hs.ome on Friday after receiving numerous complaints were received about foul odors and non-stop barking.

108 dogs were found alive in the home, malnourished in knee-deep muck. Five dogs were found dead, two of which were killed while fighting.

Stephanie Moore, executive director of the Medina County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), said:

"This is the single worst environment I have ever seen," Moore, who took custody of the animals. We literally had to climb onto a layer of feces, urine, and garbage to get inside the house. It was at least 2 feet high."

The women were living inside the barricaded home in Chippewa Lake, about 45 miles southwest of Cleveland. There were not taken into custody, but were removed from the home as it was deemed uninhabitable. Temporary housing was arranged for the pair through a local church.

Art Schlitchter, a former quarterback for Ohio State University, has been charged with stealing more than $1 million from a Columbus area woman.

A charge of theft was filed on Monday against Schlitchter, 50, whose NFL career was derailed by a gambling addiction. The charge was filed in Franklin County Municipal Court in Columbus, and says that he stole more than $1 million from a 68-year-old woman in Dublin by deceiving her about the reason he took the money.

Schlichter surrendered at the county prosecutors office on Monday. He had no comment, and is due to appear in court on Tuesday.

This is not Schlitchter's first run-in with the law. He spent 10 years in prison for gambling related crimes.

Schlichter played for Ohio State between 1978 and 1981.

An Ohio couple faces charges that they kept a 9-year-old girl locked in their bathroom for 6 years, only letting her out to go to school and for special occasions.

Brian Hart, 50, and his wife Rivae Hart, 49, told Dayton Police that they began locking her up when she was 3 years old due to behavior problems. However, a psychologist who examined the girl at that age said her behavior was normal.

Rivae Hart is the girl's grandmother, and the couple are her legal guardians.

According to Sgt. Larry Tolpin, the girl's development is normal for a fourth-grader, despite having been kept in the bathroom for the past six years. The bathroom was blocked by two dressers, and inside the girl slept on a cot wit a blanket but no pillow.

Police believe that the last time she was allowed out of the bathroom for a reason other than school was in 2007. Tolpin added:

"Meals were inconsistent at best, and basically the living conditions were deplorabl."

The situation came to light when the girl told a school nurse about her living conditions. She and three other children who lived in the apartment (the girl's brother and the couple's biological children), have been placed into foster care.