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FirstEnergy fights against disclosing more details about alleged HB 6 bribery cases

Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder appeared in federal court on his nuclear power plant bailout public corruption charges on July 21 (photo courtesy of Ohio State House News Bureau)

Case filings and delay of possible nuclear bailout combine to block Ohioans from learning more before voting.

This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join the Eye on Ohio free mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy New Network as this helps us provide more public service reporting.

By Kathiann M. Kowalski

Consumer advocates, industry organizations and environmental groups continue efforts to learn more about claims that FirstEnergy and current or former subsidiaries may have financed an alleged $60-million conspiracy to make sure Ohio’s nuclear bailout bill became law and withstood a referendum attempt.

Yet opposition by FirstEnergy in two regulatory cases and in state court has combined with the legislative recess to prevent those groups and voters from learning more before Election Day.

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Ohio regulators decline to force FirstEnergy to hire an independent auditor

The order agrees that spending should be open to review but first requires the company to review itself.

By Kathiann M. Kowalski

This article provided to Neighborhood Media through an investigative journalism collaboration with Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join Eye on Ohio’s free mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy News Network as this helps us provide more public service reporting.

Regulators are requiring FirstEnergy to show that its Ohio utility ratepayers didn’t foot the bill, “directly or indirectly,” for political or charitable spending in support of the state’s nuclear and coal bailout bill. Yet that order is much more lenient than the state’s official consumer advocate had sought.

Questions about possible improprieties arose after former House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, was arrested on July 21. That case involves an alleged criminal conspiracy by him and others to pass House Bill 6 last year and then to defend it against a citizens’ referendum. The federal complaint and indictment allege that the defendants received approximately $60 million from “Company A” — apparently FirstEnergy — and its subsidiaries and affiliates.

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Project ACT: supporting approximately 1,000 at-risk CMSD children and their families

Wilber Argueta stands outside the Zelma George Salvation Army Shelter, where he helped organize online tutoring for 12 homeless youth this summer (photo by Sydney Kornegay).

by Sydney Kornegay

Sylvia Rucker has been a caretaker most of her life. As the head cook at Hannah Gibbons Elementary School in Collinwood, she prepares meals for approximately 250 students daily, and has four adult children of her own.

But when her oldest daughter died unexpectedly in the summer of 2019, Rucker was suddenly thrust into the role of parent once again.

“My daughter went into the hospital with a toothache. She passed away a week later, and left behind three kids,” says Rucker. “I realized I was going to have to start all over again as a mother.”

Rucker became the primary caregiver for her five-, six-, and 11-year-old grandchildren, all while working full-time. These stresses were compounded in the spring, when COVID-19 forced schools to close and students to stay home.

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Ohioans’ perspectives on COVID, economy differ based on life experiences

John Green, emeritus director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute and designer of the poll, said polling can help people better appreciate diverse life experiences (photo by Chris Montgomery).

By RENEE FOX

Warren Tribune Chronicle

When people make decisions in their everyday lives, they seldom analyze their choices by running through a checklist of who they are – age, race, income, level of education or where they live.

But that checklist is important, especially now, in an unusually tense presidential election as Ohioans try to understand how others think and as politicians and campaigns try to manipulate minds.

A recent Ohio poll conducted by the Your Voice Ohio media collaborative and the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at The University of Akron suggests that there is a great deal of agreement on the issues most important to improving life – COVID-19, the economy, health care, racial equity, income inequality. But those differences in demography – gender, age, education, religion and more – play a role in how those issues are prioritized.

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Local Media: a Place for Your Interests, Your Perspective, and Your Voice

Neighborhood & Community Media Association of Greater Cleveland

by Rich Weiss and R. T. Andrews

The proliferation of fake news in concept and fact has eroded the most important asset any media outlet has: its readers’ trust.

In February, 2020, along with warning of the impending COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) pandemic, the World Health Organization warned: “The 2019-nCoV outbreak and response has been accompanied by a massive ‘infodemic’ — an overabundance of information – some accurate and some not — that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it.”

Now, more than ever, informed and engaged communities are essential for a healthy democracy. Not just for conservatives, or liberals, or independents, but across the board.

A Pew Research study conducted from 2016 to 2017 found “Americans express only a moderate trust in most news source types.” That same study revealed an increase in the number of respondents who trust information from their own local news organization. This increase outpaced trust of information from sources of national news, friends, and family.

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HB 6 costs go well beyond claimed harm to public trust

Ohio Statehouse
(Photo curtesy of Eye on Ohio)

Here’s what’s at stake as Ohio lawmakers debate whether and how to repeal the bailout law at the heart of an alleged $60 million conspiracy case.

By Kathiann M. Kowalski

This article provided to Neighborhood Media through an investigative journalism collaboration with Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join Eye on Ohio’s free mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy News Network as this helps us provide more public service reporting.

A bill to repeal Ohio’s nuclear bailout law has languished for more than a month so far, and signs suggest that House leadership may be angling to defer or stop such efforts as Election Day draws near. Lawmakers filed repeal bills soon after the arrest of former speaker Larry Householder (R-Glenford) and others in July. 

Starting in January, House Bill 6 will require ratepayers to pay approximately $1 billion over the course of six years for subsidies that FirstEnergy had sought for two Ohio nuclear plants. Yet more is at stake, even beyond the $7 average increase in monthly energy spending that some advocates forecast as a result of the law.

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Upset by politics driving COVID-19 policy, Ohioans say they want fact-based leadership

Graphic by Cameron Peters, Kent State University
Graphic by Cameron Peters, Kent State University

By Justin Dennis

Mahoning Matters

They came from all corners of Ohio, all walks of life, and they’re all trying to cope with the coronavirus pandemic in many of the same ways — more face-time with family; experimenting in the kitchen; finally cleaning out that old, junked garage.

They shared many of the same concerns about the vast unknown that still lies ahead for Ohioans and the nation as a whole, while taking heart in the small gestures of everyday humanity that now shine brighter along that darkened horizon.

Your Voice Ohio, a journalism collaborative of more than 50 news outlets across the state, brought those more than two-dozen Ohioans together for a series of virtual roundtable discussions hosted in early August. The topic was COVID-19 because that’s what Ohioans said in a statewide poll in July is by far their biggest concern. The media collaborative wanted to know how the pandemic was affecting their lives, how they’re coping and how they envision the path ahead.

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Why did 77 Ohio prisoners die of COVID-19, but just 10 PA inmates?

Outside Pickaway Correctional Institution. (Photo Credit Eye on Ohio)

A look at how overcrowding and poor design contributed to two of the worst national outbreaks

By Cid Standifer and Brie Zeltner

This article was provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism. Please join our free mailing list as this helps us provide more public service reporting.

For the first two months after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S., Ohio’s response set an example. Thanks to an early shutdown order, the state’s per-capita deaths from the virus as of late April were less than half of those in neighboring Pennsylvania, a state with similar demographics.

But inside the two states’ prison systems, it was a different story. 

By late April , the death rate from COVID-19 in Ohio prisons was 22 per 100,000, a rate more than 4 ½ times the overall Ohio rate and nearly twice the national rate. 

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Erie Chinese Journal Distributes Newspapers by Mail Thanks to a Facebook Journalism Project Grant

Annie Ying Pu direct-mailed copies of the Erie Chinese Journal Saturday as part of a Facebook Journalism Project grant to ensure local Chinese American readers can safely access the Mandarin/English print paper during the COVID-19 pandemic (Photo courtesy of Erie Chinese Journal).

Back in May, The Erie Chinese Journal was one of just 144 local U.S. news organizations—one of only four in all of Ohio—to be a recipient of a Facebook Journalism Project COVID-19 Local News Relief Grant.

The Facebook Journalism Project grant helped save the 18-year-old paper from impending pandemic disaster, and now—right on-schedule—Anne Ying Pu, Publisher of the Chinese community newspaper (headquartered in Cleveland), was able to resume and increase direct-mail home delivery copies of The Erie Chinese Journal print edition through the U.S. Post Office this Saturday.  By having the paper mailed directly to readership mailboxes, these readers now receive information by and for their own community, in their own language, but without having to leave their homes during the pandemic.

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Your Voice Ohio-Bliss Institute Poll Results

Ohio Voters for Biden Worry about Coronavirus; those for Trump Worry about the Economy

by Liz Skalka

The Blade

A new poll that shows President Donald Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in Ohio also reveals that Mr. Biden’s “strong” supporters here outnumber Mr. Trump’s, a snapshot of the state less than 100 days from an election that will determine whether Ohio continues its unmatched swing-state streak.

The poll also revealed the issues motivating each candidates’ backers: Mr. Biden’s identified coronavirus as their top concern, while Mr. Trump’s said it was the economy in a year defined by a global pandemic, economic uncertainty, and a reckoning over racial justice.

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