A bill in the Ohio Senate aims to stop diversity and equity training for faculty and students at state colleges and universities.
Senate Bill (SB) 83 known as the Ohio Higher Education Enhancement Act introduced by state Senator Jerry Cirino, (R-Kirtland) would eliminate the need for professor, staff, or student participation in diversity, equity, or inclusion training or courses. It would also create transparency for all tasks, as well as compulsory and suggested reading.
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A bill that would stop Ohio law enforcement officers from enforcing federal gun regulations that are more restrictive than state law is drawing opposition from country prosecutors, chiefs of police and mayors.
State Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland, called the proposed legislation a response to federal regulations she said infringes on Second Amendment rights.
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Republican lawmakers have reintroduced a plan to allow state education dollars to be used by every Ohio parent to pay for private school or other education expenses. House Bill (HB) 11, sponsored by State Representatives Riordan McClain (R-Upper Sandusky) and Marilyn John (R-Richland County), aims to make all public, nonpublic,…
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Taking a different position than his old boss on a key foreign policy issue, former Vice President Mike Pence told a gathering of Iowans Saturday that the U.S. must continue to help provision Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression.
While he repeatedly trumpeted “Trump-Pence” successes, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate definitely differs with potential top presidential race rivals, former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, on U.S. involvement in the war-torn European country.
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The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday ordered states to stop preventing the transportation of contaminated debris from an Ohio train disaster that resulted in a fire from reaching hazardous waste storage facilities around the country.
This announcement follows Ohio Governor Mike DeWine calling on both the EPA and Norfolk Southern Railway to authorize more sites to take East Palestine’s contaminated soil due to some states with sites that are certified to take in hazardous materials not accepting it.
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Former Vice President Mike Pence will be in Des Moines Saturday morning for a foreign policy discussion.
The presumptive GOP presidential candidate will be joined by former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, who recently dropped out of the Republican presidential sweepstakes and whose former chief of staff is wanted by the FBI.
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Ohio Governor Mike DeWine visited East Palestine, Ohio to receive remediation updates on Friday, exactly six weeks since a Norfolk Southern train derailed wreaking havoc on the environment and negatively impacting the health of residents.
Although soil is being removed in the area more swiftly than before, according to DeWine, “it’s never fast enough.” Despite the fact that 1,620 tons of earth were removed last week as opposed to 910 tons the week before, there is still a substantial amount.
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Alan Shaw, CEO of Norfolk Southern, drank a glass of East Palestine, Ohio, tap water in front of a group of reporters at a media round-table on Thursday while promising to clear the scene of a horrific train derailment and contribute to rebuilding the community.
According to Shaw, he is sorry for what happened and wants to make it right.
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U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Thursday grilled Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on whether she still believes inflation is a positive for Americans and the economy.
During the Senate Finance Committee hearing on President Joe Biden’s $6.9 trillion budget proposal, Grassley also asked Yellen whether her boss has it in him to rise about politics and lead on shoring up a troubled Social Security system headed down the road to insolvency.
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Cincinnati city officials have stalled its attempt to sell a city-owned rail line to Norfolk Southern, the same company that caused the toxic disaster in East Palestine last month.
The elements required for the proposed sale of the Cincinnati Southern Railway are no longer included in the state’s transportation budget, hence Norfolk Southern cannot currently purchase the city-owned railroad.
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After more than two years, Attorney General Dave Yost’s civil lawsuit against FirstEnergy, former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, and others connected to the House Bill (HB) 6 scandal is once more being permitted to move forward.
Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Chris Brown has granted Yost’s motion to lift the stay on proceedings in the case.
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Vice President Kamala Harris, who hasn’t been to Iowa in years, is heading back to the Hawkeye State this Thursday for a roundtable discussion on abortion rights, according to the White House.
Harris will be in Des Moines to talk about “extreme” measures to limit abortion across the country in the wake of last June’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, according to multiple media outlets.
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An Ohio pro-woman and pro-parent group has released a $5 million ad buy to underscore the dangerous and extreme nature of a constitutional amendment championed by abortion and transgender industry giants, including Planned Parenthood.
In its 30-second spot, Protect Women Ohio (PWO), a statewide coalition, emphasizes the provisions of the radical constitutional amendment pushed by anti-life activists, including one to abolish parental rights and eradicate the basic health and safety standards that currently protect Ohio women and girls.
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Republican Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Megan Shanahan has announced her bid for a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court in 2024. Shanahan is the first to announce her candidacy.
According to Shanahan, she is running for an Ohio Supreme Court Seat because she understands the proper role of the judiciary “interpreting the law, not legislating from the bench.”
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Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost released a statement outlining the next steps in the House Bill (HB) 6 scandal following the guilty verdicts declared against Larry Householder and Matt Borges in federal court on March 9th.
According to Yost, with the completion of the federal prosecution the state’s racketeering lawsuit should be able to resume.
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Cleveland aimed to encourage increased rail safety in response to the February disaster of the East Palestine train derailment, particularly because the train that derailed also passed through the city.
Cleveland City Council Member Jenny Spencer sponsored a railroad safety resolution on Monday urging Congress to pass U.S. Senate Bill (SB) 576, the Federal Rail Safety Act of 2023, introduced in Congress by U.S. Senators JD Vance (R-OH) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH).
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Although the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ordered rail company Norfolk Southern to test for dioxins following the catastrophic February 3rd train derailment, and says that East Palestine suggests a “low probability” of dioxin contamination a retired chemist told The Ohio Star that dioxins “were produced” during the burn “it’s not a question of maybe.”
The EPA has maintained there is a “low probability” that dioxins were released from the derailment based on its sampling for “indicator chemicals” that it says would signal the presence of dioxins in East Palestine.
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It’s Sunshine Week, and U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) is recognizing the week-long celebration of transparency in government by shining a spotlight on some dark places in the federal government.
Ernst in particular is calling out the Biden administration for “keeping taxpayers in the dark about Washington’s wasteful spending.”
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On Monday, U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) pushed the Biden administration and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to transport dangerous waste to authorized facilities after seeing a pile of toxic waste in East Palestine, Ohio.
Vance visited the waste site after giving testimony at a March 9th U.S Senate railroad safety hearing regarding how the waste was still in East Palestine weeks after a railway catastrophe caused dangerous chemicals to contaminate the community.
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The cleanup at the toxic train derailment site in East Palestine last month has stalled because Ohio is having problems locating sites to accept the 24,400 tons of excavated contaminated soil. According to Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s office only 2,980 tons have actually been removed so far.
DeWine says that some states with sites that are certified to take in hazardous materials aren’t accepting the soil. He said that refusing the soil is unfair to the residents of East Palestine, which isn’t where it belongs.
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The Ohio Supreme Court has formally accepted an appeal by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost in a case involving the state’s six-week abortion ban.
The court announced on Tuesday morning that it will only consider two of the three legal issues Yost asked the court to consider: whether he has the right to appeal a lower court’s decision to put the heartbeat law on hold and whether abortion clinics have “standing” or the legal authority to challenge the law in the first place.
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The state of Ohio this week announced a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern in connection with the February derailment of one of its trains near the town of East Palestine.
Attorney General Dave Yost filed the suit on Tuesday, contending that the railroad violated state and federal laws, among them the Ohio Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), CNN reported.
The Feb. 3 derailment saw toxic materials leak from the railcars and force an evacuation of the town. Authorities were later forced to implement a controlled release of the toxic materials to prevent an explosion.
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Former President Donald Trump was back in Iowa Monday night and he was loaded for bear, taking aim at woke liberals, the mainstream media, the Deep State, “Paul Ryan RINOs” and the current unpopular top resident of the White House.
And Trump, arguably the leading contender for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, made the crowd packing Davenport’s 2,400-seat Adler Theatre some big promises. Chief among them: He’ll always have Iowa’s back and he’ll “stop World War III.”
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On Monday, the Ohio Ballot Board unanimously certified that the proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize abortion throughout the state called “The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety,” incorporates only one constitutional amendment and therefore advances.
The Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, a coalition of radical pro-abortion activists that includes Planned Parenthood, Pro-Choice Ohio, the Abortion Fund of Ohio, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio, along with the Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, must now gather over 413,000 signatures from registered voters in at least 44 counties, which equals 10 percent of the votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election before July 5th. The amount of signatures must equal at least 5 percent of the votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial race in each county.
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The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio has attracted the ire and attention of the public and government officials. Unfortunately, train disasters are just one of many contributors to the threat posed by environmental contamination. According to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data analyzed by The Guardian, the U.S. is averaging one chemical accident every two days. Some of the top culprits are water treatment plants, which regularly use hazardous inputs such as chlorine and sulfur dioxide in their operations. (Mostly) government-owned plants fail to place proper safeguards on these chemicals, resulting in dangerous exposures to the public. Policymakers should consider alternative approaches that incentivize careful treatment operations at affordable prices for consumers.
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The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chair said on Sunday that Norfolk Southern’s proposed “six-point strategy” safety plan is “not robust enough,” following multiple mishaps from the railroad giant that included the derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.
Norfolk Southern’s CEO, Alan Shaw, testified before the U.S. Senate last week over a month after a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine creating a fiery catastrophe which jeopardized both the health of residents and the environment.
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Ohio Republican lawmakers have reintroduced legislation that would ban providing minors puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones for “gender transitioning” which it’s sponsors postponed last November rather than rushing it through lame duck.
House Bill (HB) 68 known as the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act sponsored by State Representative Gary Click (R-Vickery) aims to prohibit certain procedures from altering a minor child’s sex.
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A new report shows Ohioans have some of the highest gas price increases in the nation from 2022 to 2023.
Zutobi, an online drivers ed organization, analyzed fuel prices in every state and more than 170 countries to create its “Global Gas Prices Report” for 2023. The report shows the states with the cheapest and most expensive gas prices, along states that showed the most significant changes.
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A recently proposed law that is now making its way through the Ohio Statehouse would lower the age requirement for an Ohioan to join the police department.
In Ohio, applicants must currently be 21 years old to become police officers, but Senate Bill (SB) 53 would lower that age limit to 18. Senators Michele Reynolds (R-Canal Winchester) and Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson) have sponsored the legislation.
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The two-star commander of the Ohio National Guard is not facing charges despite the outcry generated by police body camera video that appeared to show the general shoving a journalist during a news conference last month.
Captain Jenna Walton, State Public Affairs officer for the Ohio National Guard told The Ohio Star that “there have been no charges, either civilian or military, filed against MG John Harris, Jr.”
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis may still be mulling over a run for president, but the Republican looked and sounded every bit a contender for the GOP presidential nomination Friday evening in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.
DeSantis joined fellow Republican, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. at a packed, standing-room only stop at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, ostensibly to promote his new book, The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.
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Farmers from the East Palestine region met with officials from the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) on Thursday to discuss the potential effects of last month’s Norfolk Southern hazardous train crash on their crops and livestock.
The conference was held in order to address any worries local farmers might have regarding the forthcoming planting season, even though the ODA has stated it has no reason to believe crops cultivated in the area would be harmful.
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Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley asserts the war in Ukraine is about freedom and “one we have to win.”
The former South Carolina governor discussed national security and foreign policy with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) Friday morning in suburban Des Moines at an event sponsored by the Bastion Institute.
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Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy assigned Matthew Byrne, a Twelfth District Court of Appeals judge, this week to preside over a state appeal of a preliminary injunction on Ohio’s abortion law.
Byrne takes over for newly appointed Ohio Justice Joe Deters, who recused himself after the abortion clinic plaintiffs argued that he couldn’t rule on the state’s heartbeat bill ban because he was an original defendant on the case when serving as Hamilton County Prosecutor.
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Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw faced questions about who authorized the controlled burn at a Senate hearing on Thursday as Washington lawmakers held their first hearing on railroad safety about a month after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio.
U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullins (R-OK) asked Shaw “when the vent and burn process was being made, who made those decisions and what were the considerations other than just burning it and letting the material burn off.”
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A bill passed by an Iowa House committee and currently making its way through the state House aims to put a stop to the woke agenda in state colleges and universities by prohibiting the schools from spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices and personnel working in roles associated with such ideology.
“For too long, the DEI bureaucracies at our institutions of higher education have been used to push a woke agenda on the faculty, staff and students,” Iowa state Rep. Taylor Collins told Fox News. “Under the guise of diversity and inclusion, these programs work to indoctrinate students into their preferred political ideology.”
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In her latest swing through Iowa, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley took aim at the nation’s financially troubled safety nets for seniors, telling Council Bluff Republicans it’s time to change the retirement age and check Social Security and Medicare benefits for wealthier Americans.
If the former South Carolina governor was sending out a trial balloon to see how reform ideas would fly in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, it seems said balloon may have hit the third rail.
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City officials in Cincinnati are attempting to sell a city-owned rail line to Norfolk Southern, the same company that caused the toxic disaster in East Palestine last month.
City leaders announced a plan to sell the line, the Cincinnati Southern Railway that runs to Chattanooga Tennesee, at the end of last year to Norfolk Southern for $1.6 billion.
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On Wednesday, health was a major topic of conversation during the second Ohio Senate Select Committee Hearing on Rail Safety, especially the health of the East Palestine community and the emergency personnel that responded to the wreck there.
The East Palestine incident in early February served as the catalyst for the hearing, which featured testimony and questions from the departments of transportation, health, and mental health and addiction services in Ohio.
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A federal jury found former Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householder and former state Republican Party leader Matt Borges guilty of racketeering conspiracy in what federal prosecutors have called the largest public corruption case in state history.
The two each face up to 20 years in prison and will be sentenced in the coming months. Appeals could also be filed.
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A middle school in Copley, Ohio, has eliminated a fifth-grade gender identity lesson from its health curriculum following exposure of the lesson at Libs of TikTok, a report Tuesday revealed.
At the outset of a letter sent to parents that was printed on the letterhead of Akron Children’s Hospital, Rachel O’Donnell, fifth-grade health teacher at Copley-Fairlawn Middle School, wrote the program would “cover the physical and emotional changes that can be expected during puberty” and would be taught in a way that was “age-appropriate, scientifically accurate, and non-judgmental.”
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U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA-03) served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, amassing some 1,000-combat flight hours. The freshman congressman said Wednesday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the debacle that was the Biden administration-led U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was long overdue.
“It’s unfortunate it’s taken us almost two years to get to this point,” Nunn told The Iowa Star Wednesday morning on NewsTalk 1040 WHO.
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Ohio Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose told The Ohio Star that he is actively considering running for U.S. Senate against Ohio Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in 2024.
“I’m giving it a lot of thought. No announcements yet,” LaRose told The Star.
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After a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed last month in East Palestine, Ohio, and a number of other “significant accidents,” the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced Tuesday that it will begin an investigation into Norfolk Southern.
The organization declared that it would investigate the railroad’s safety procedures and culture.
Only a few hours earlier, the railroad had reported that a conductor had been fatally injured at a steel mill in Ohio.
A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern told The Ohio Star that the rail company will create a new training center in Ohio for first responders.
This follows Governor Mike DeWine’s announcement on Monday, that the state of Ohio needs more extensive train derailment response training for first responders and intends to invest almost $1 million on training programs.
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Local activists in East Palestine, Ohio claimed on Monday that their activism has persuaded Norfolk Southern to accept a restricted relocation plan for some residents impacted by the train derailment last month. However, they added that they have no intention of abandoning their demand for justice for the thousands of residents in the area who are struggling as a result of the accident.
The company’s proposal to offer financial help to residents who live within a one-mile radius of the accident site “is not enough,” said River Valley Organizing (RVO), which last week produced a list of five requests for the people of East Palestine and the surrounding area.
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Norfolk Southern released a statement Tuesday after one of its employees was killed aboard one of the company’s trains that collided with a dump truck at a flat-rolled steel producing facility in Cleveland, Ohio.
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Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has alerted the chairman and board of a national bipartisan voter registration initiative that the state may withdraw, as three Republican-led states announced Monday.
Florida, Missouri, and West Virginia announced on Monday that they will no longer participate in the multi-state Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which election officials created to enable states to share voter registration information.
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State. Senator Brad Zaun’s bill that would reinstate the death penalty in Iowa for those who sexually assault and then murder children survived the Legislature’s famous Funnel Week.
Zaun, R-Urbandale, joined The Iowa Star Monday on NewsTalk 1040 WHO to talk about the legislation and other bills moving forward in the Legislature.
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After its second train derailment in Ohio within a matter of weeks, Norfolk Southern on Monday unveiled a “six-point strategy” to increase safety.
Although Norfolk Southern claimed there were no dangerous commodities on the train, around 20 of a 212-car train derailed on Saturday in Springfield, Ohio. The incident happened about a month after a derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, which contained hazardous materials and required hundreds of nearby residents to evacuate for several days.
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