Loveland, Ohio – The Life Food Pantry says their shelves are getting low and they are looking for neighborhood reps, sports teams, congregations, book clubs, businesses, and others to run food drives.
Please consider organizing a food drive and email fooddrives@lifefoodpantry.org to schedule a day and time to drop off donations (due to heavy client traffic it’s important to schedule a drop off).
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As Americans mark Tax Day 2024, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) introduced the Carried Interest Fairness Act today to eliminate a tax loophole that benefits wealthy money managers on Wall Street. The current carried interest loophole allows investment managers to often pay roughly half the tax rate that most other Ohio workers’ pay. Brown was joined by U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) in leading this legislation.
“This loophole is yet another way wealthy special interests have rigged the system to work for them, at the expense of everyone else. Hedge funds and private equity firms shouldn’t pay less taxes than working people in Ohio. This bill is a commonsense solution to promote fairness and make Wall Street pay its fair share,” said Brown.
The carried interest loophole allows investment managers to pay the lower 23.8 percent capital gains tax rate on income received as compensation, rather than the ordinary income tax rates of up to 40.8 percent that they would pay for the same amount of wage income.
The Carried Interest Fairness Act will require carried interest income to be taxed at ordinary wage rates. According to the Treasury proposal, closing this loophole will raise $6.5 billion in revenue over 10 years.
In addition to Brown, Baldwin, and Manchin, this legislation is co-sponsored by U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Ed Markey (D-MA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jack Reed (D-RI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Peter Welch (D-VT), and Cory Booker (D-NJ).
The United States hosts around 1,000 marathons every year, the largest of which see tens of thousands of endurance runners crossing the finish line and conquering the grueling 26.2-mile distance.
To find the top races, USA TODAY 10Best editors and a panel of experts made their nominations, then readers voted for their favorites. Here are the 10 best marathons across the nation for 2024.
No. 1: Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, Ohio
The Flying Pig Marathon is loved by runners, and for good reason. It’s fun, with pig motifs used everywhere, from the “pig pen” corrals where different speed groups are segregated, to crossing the “finish swine” and attending the post-race party with pizza and beer. The course is also super attractive, albeit hilly, running through the most diverse and scenic neighborhoods of Cincinnati and surrounding townships, and alongside the Ohio River. Finishers get medals and mylar blankets to go with all the post-pig party refreshments.
On the heels of the 2024 primary election in Ohio, All Voting is Local Ohio has released The State of Provisional Ballots in Ohio Post HB 458. For the report, All Voting focused on provisional ballot rejection rates over the last several years in order to analyze the impact of House Bill 458, a bill that included a component that limits the number of acceptable IDs usable on Election Day. The report ultimately found that “there has been a substantial increase in provisional ballots being rejected due to voters failing to provide identification… In the November 2023 election alone, the percentage of provisional ballots rejected due to lack of identification jumped up to 28.4%. This is over 20 points higher than the year prior.”
Kayla Griffin is All Voting is Local’s Ohio State Director
“The data is clear: regressive ID laws negatively impact voters from all over the state and prevent their voices from being heard,” said All Voting is Local Ohio State Director Kayla Griffin. “Prior to the passing of HB 458, which has been dubbed one of the strictest voter ID laws in the nation, our elections were touted as being safe and secure, even by our Secretary of State Frank LaRose. This proves that not only did we not need a stricter voter ID law, but the one that passed has only created barriers to the ballot for Ohio voters.”
On January 6, 2023, Gov. Mike DeWine signed HB 458 into law. The bill has severely restricted voting options for Ohioans by limiting the types of IDs being allowed to vote with, shortening deadlines for requesting and returning mail-in ballots, restricting access to ballot drop boxes, eliminating the day before Election Day for early voting, and more.
After HB 458 was signed into law, voters are now required to use a state-issued driver’s license or state ID, U.S. passport, or military ID. Many other forms of identification that were once acceptable, such as bank statements and utility bills, are now banned from being utilized to prove voter identity while voting.
All Voting is Local (All Voting) is a 501(c)(3), nonpartisan, multi-state organization that fights against state and local voting policies that silence Americans’ voices, particularly for Black, Brown, Native American, and other historically marginalized communities — not just in election years, but every year. We were founded on the principle that the problems people face when trying to vote are solvable if state and local decision-makers are accountable to the communities they serve. All Voting is committed to working with our partners to advance fair, inclusive rules on voter registration, remove barriers that make it more difficult for people to vote, and ensure every vote counts. All Voting is on the ground in eight states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Within these states, we are active in more than 60 counties that are home to over 21 million people of color. During the 2022 cycle, All Voting programs expanded access for more than 635,000 voters. Learn more at www.AllVotingisLocal.org
Register today for the second annual Hamilton County Small Business Day on Monday, May 20, 2024, from 9 AM until noon at the Sharonville Convention Center.
Dive into a bustling atmosphere with small business service providers giving hands-on assistance. Connect with local entrepreneurs, discover services, and join workshops designed to grow your business.
What to expect:
Discover your perfect business match during our matchmaking sessions.
Connect to county contracting, major government projects and government certifications.
Expand your network with industry experts, mentors, and service providers.
Engage in expert-led workshops on key topics such as business planning, marketing, community engagement, back office support, access to capital, and more!
Loveland, Ohio – The Apex Sock Monkey is “sporting to support” the new Tee he sold to the Loveland High School Drama Department to promote their production of Puffs!
Loveland High School Drama presents Puffs! For 7 years, a certain boy wizard went to a certain Wizard School and conquered evil – but this is not his story. Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic!
Versions of this story were published by Floodlight, Energy News Network and the Ohio Capital Journal.
A surge in FirstEnergy political spending ahead of the utility’s push to secure a legislative bailout for its nuclear power plants included a $1 million dark money contribution to support the campaign of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s eventual running mate.
The previously unreported gift linked to Lt. Gov. Jon Husted’s 2017 primary bid was revealed as part of a raft of documents obtained under Ohio’s public records law by a coalition of news organizations, including Floodlight, Energy News Network, and the Ohio Capital Journal.
Among the documents are company emails describing behind-the-scenes efforts by Husted to persuade DeWine to support House Bill 6, the utility-backed legislation at the heart of the state’s ongoing $60 million public bribery scandal.
Neither Husted nor DeWine, whose campaign also benefited from a previously reported $1 million in dark money from the utility, has been implicated in the scheme in which eight people, including the state’s former House Speaker Larry Householder, have been indicted.
Two of those charged in the multi-million-dollar scandal surrounding the passage of HB 6 may have taken their own lives, including Sam Randazzo, the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, who was found dead earlier this week of an apparent suicide.
‘Confidential’ email details campaign gift
One of the documents from the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Office is a spreadsheet attached to a January 2020 message labeled “confidential.” It shows $1 million went from FirstEnergy to the conservative group Freedom Frontier in 2017, with “Husted campaign” noted as the reason.
That group backed Husted during his 2017 primary campaign for governor. The group then supported DeWine after Husted dropped out of the race to become his running mate.
Husted was also dubbed the “‘Golden Boy’ for FirstEnergy” by lobbyist Neil Clark, a co-defendant with Householder and others in the federal government’s criminal corruption case. Clark died by suicide in 2021.
In several of the recently released records, Husted is mentioned in the same breath as Householder, the convicted House speaker, and Randazzo, the former PUCO commissioner, by FirstEnergy leadership as they sought to pass and then defend HB 6, the nuclear and coal bailout law at the heart of Ohio’s ongoing corruption scandal.
FirstEnergy records released via public records request show how executives at the power company relied on Ohio Lt. Gov John Husted and convicted former House Speaker Larry Householder to help them pass a $1.3 billion nuclear bailout bill.
Husted has maintained that his support for the 2019 law stemmed from his belief that nuclear energy is an important part of Ohio’s energy portfolio. Parties in HB 6-related shareholder litigation have subpoenaed Husted to answer questions under oath, although a new date needs to be set.
FirstEnergy records released via public records request show how executives at the power company relied on Ohio Lt. Gov John Husted and convicted former House Speaker Larry Householder to help them pass a $1.3 billion nuclear bailout bill.
“The Husted campaign never received this donation and is not affiliated with any of these groups,” said spokesperson Hayley Carducci. By law, candidate campaigns are not supposed to coordinate with groups like Freedom Frontier, which can spend unlimited amounts to support or attack them.
The document and others reflect a major commitment by FirstEnergy to Husted’s political future. Before 2017, the company’s reported political spending to support Husted was less than $25,000 per campaign, according to data from OpenSecrets.
Dark money spending rises sharply
More broadly, the document also indicates a major increase in FirstEnergy’s political spending through nonprofit groups exempt from taxes under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. Those, along with privately held corporations, are common structures for dark money organizations — groups that aren’t required by law to disclose the ultimate source of their funding.
The company’s giving to such groups jumped to more than $12 million in 2017, after much lower levels of $200,000 in 2016 and $100,000 in 2015, according to the spreadsheet.
Starting in 2014, FirstEnergy had sought bailouts for noncompetitive coal and nuclear plants. And in late 2016, regulators approved a $456 million consumer surcharge that ultimately was held unlawful. Yet the company claimed it needed more.
The document details once-secret contributions to groups supporting “everyone from the mayor of Akron to President Trump that FirstEnergy made to secure bailouts for its soon-to-be bankrupt coal and nuclear plants and to gain influence on other key issues,” said Dave Anderson, policy and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute.
A spreadsheet details dark money expenditures by northeastern power company FirstEnergy as it sought to secure a $1.3 billion bailout for its struggling nuclear power plants. The sheet reveals a previously unreported $1 million donation to benefit the candidacy of Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted.
Anderson added that the spreadsheet also “provides some key new evidence for utility regulators and consumer advocates to use to ensure that every dollar of ratepayer money that FirstEnergy misused to fund its secret political spending is publicly disclosed and refunded, with interest and ideally serious financial penalties.”
At the time, the author of the document that details the donations, Kristina Housley, was executive assistant to FirstEnergy’s Mike Dowling, who is now a defendant in a state criminal case along with former CEO Chuck Jones.
Finding out all the details about the dark money spending behind HB 6 is like peeling back the layers of an onion, said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio.
“The reason that transparency matters so much is that money that is spent in the shadows influences elections, and it influences really important policy decisions that impact us every day,” Turcer said. “And we have the right to know what is going on in government and how decisions are being made and who’s attempting to influence those decisions.”
The ‘Golden Boy’ for FirstEnergy
A December 2017 email from former FirstEnergy lobbyist Joel Bailey said Husted was working to get DeWine on board with FirstEnergy’s “issues.” FirstEnergy also supported other pro-DeWine/Husted efforts during the election cycle.
Former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones (top left), former FirstEnergy VP Michael Dowling (top right), former PUCO Chair Sam Randazzo (bottom middle). Graphic by WEWS.
After the election, Husted and DeWine dined with Jones and Dowling on December 18, 2018. Later that night, FirstEnergy agreed to pay $4.3 million to energy lawyer Randazzo, who went on to become DeWine’s first pick for chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. FirstEnergy later identified Jones and Dowling as the two people responsible for paying alleged bribes.
Husted’s office has been evasive about his recollections, despite Jones noting in texts to Randazzo that the PUCO chair position was discussed in at least general terms. Another text by Jones in 2019 said the DeWine/Husted team was forced “to perform battlefield triage” to secure Randazzo’s nomination after a 198-page dossier provided to DeWine’s staff threatened to derail it.
Evidence from last year’s criminal trial of Householder, the former Ohio House speaker, and lobbyist Matt Borges also included messages between former FirstEnergy executives Jones and Dowling about Husted working behind the scenes to build support for the bill. Among the actions were efforts to extend the bailout period for the company’s former nuclear power plants in Ohio.
Husted long a friend of utilities
Husted had been Ohio’s secretary of state immediately before becoming lieutenant governor. Before that, he served as House speaker in the General Assembly. In that role, he played a pivotal part in securing passage of another major energy bill, Senate Bill 221.
At the time, Husted supported the law’s clean energy standards that were ultimately gutted by HB 6. However, SB 221 set the stage for so-called electric security plans. Those have let FirstEnergy and other utilities avoid full rate cases for more than a decade, while allowing cross-subsidies and adding multiple additional charges to consumers’ bills.
“That bill upset the balance” of energy regulation in Ohio, said Ashley Brown, a former PUCO commissioner. “It was a humongous gift for the utilities.”
Lawmakers repealed HB 6’s $1 billion-plus in subsidies for FirstEnergy’s former nuclear power plants and its recession-proofing provisions in 2021, eight months after the arrests of Householder and others.
Earlier this year, Husted told NBC4 in Columbus the rest of HB 6 “needs to be completely removed.” He did not respond to Energy News Network questions this week about whether that includes both the law’s subsidies for two 1950s-era coal plants and its gutting of Ohio’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards.
FirstEnergy spokesperson Jennifer Young declined to comment on the company’s 2017 donation to Freedom Frontier due to ongoing litigation. However, she added, “FirstEnergy will post information regarding its support of 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations on the company’s website on a quarterly basis.”
Meanwhile, FirstEnergy still has not disclosed its dark money spending for the years 2018 through 2020. And proposals for reforms that would require such disclosures from all electric utilities remain stalled in the General Assembly.
“It’s incredibly frustrating that Ohioans can be aware that dark money impacted decision-making at the statehouse,” Turcer said, “and yet we still haven’t gotten the legislators to create greater transparency.”
The Energy News Network is a nonprofit news site dedicated to keeping influencers, policymakers and citizens informed of the important changes taking place in the transition to a clean energy system. Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.
This article first appeared on Energy News Network and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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MARIO ALEJANDRO ARIZA, FLOODLIGHT
Mario Alejandro Ariza is an investigative reporter and a Dominican immigrant. His byline has appeared in publications like the South Florida Sun Sentinel, The New Republic, and The Atlantic. Mario wrote a book called “Disposable City: Miami’s Future on the Shores of Climate Catastrophe,” which was published by Bold Type Books. His essays have been featured in The Believer and selected for Best American Essays. He lives in South Florida with a cat, a dog, and a sturdy pair of waterproof boots.
Kathi is the author of 25 books and more than 600 articles, and writes often on science and policy issues. In addition to her journalism career, Kathi is an alumna of Harvard Law School and has spent 15 years practicing law. She is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and the National Association of Science Writers. Kathi covers the state of Ohio.
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LOVELAND, OHIO – This LOVELAND MAGAZINE TV video features David Miller with Loveland Magazine and Linda Bergholz the Executive Director of the LIFE Food Pantry. It was recorded on April 4, 2024 in the new space the LIFE Food pantry has acquired in Shoppers Haven Shopping Center for a significant expansion. Linda spoke about the need for more space and how it will allow the Pantry to better serve our neighbors in a more dignified way.
The Pantry is currently located in Shoppers Haven at 541 Loveland-Madeira Road, and the new space is next door to Ace Hardware. Clients currently wait extended times outside to be served. The new space will have a waiting room where they can wait their turn with dignity and not wait outside in inclement weather.
If you are interested in volunteering or helping as the expansion moves forward, please reach out – 513.583.8222 or lifefoodpantry@yahoo.com.
