Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today in Ohio
Today in Ohio - Aug. 3, 2024 We track JD Vance's ever-changing position on abortion. With all the flip-flopping, can we trust was he says now?
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, so Lifelock wants to remind you to update your passwords. Using the same password across multiple accounts makes you vulnerable to cyber criminals. For comprehensive identity theft protection, let Lifelock alert you to anything suspicious and fix any issues. Start protecting your identity today with a 30-day free trial at lifelock.com/podcast. Terms apply. With an hour before boarding, there's only one place to go, the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. There, you can recharge before the big adventure. Or enjoy a locally-inspired dish. You can recline in a comfy chair to catch up on your favorite show. Or order a craft cocktail at the bar. Whatever you're in the mood for, find the detail that moves you with curated touches at the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. Chase, make more of what's yours. Learn more at Chase.com/SafireReserve. Cards issued by J.P. Morgan Chase Bank and A member, FTSC. Subject to credit approval. I drew both the Ohio and Pennsylvania termpikes over the weekend. Pennsylvania got rid of cash tools altogether. Very simple. Easy pass and photos of your license plate. Ohio is confusing as I'll get out. Why did two neighboring states study the same issue and come to such separate conclusions? It's today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. I'm Chris Quinn, here with Lisa Garvin. Leila Tasi and Laura Johnston for our first episode in September. We're in the rush now to the November presidential election. We're starting there. We've talked in general about J.D. Vance's shift on abortion, but reporter Sabrina Eaton did some work to track it. Where did Vance start and where has he ended up on the most polarizing of issues in America, Lisa? If you can imagine he's all over the place and Sabrina's timeline goes back to when he announced his Senate run back in 2021. So I took a look at the timeline and found things that were kind of in opposition to each other. So really, just since becoming Trump's vice presidential pick, he's gone from all abortions should be illegal everywhere to absolutely committing to not imposing a federal abortion ban, which he said just a few days ago on August 25th and NBC News. He said let the states figure it out. So starting out, let's start in 2022. In May, there was a screen cap from his website that said end abortion 100% pro life. We see children as inconveniences to be thrown away. And then later in August, he reacted to the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Said it's a new era of society, time to expend child tax credits and help young parents coming home to budget busting bills. But then let's fast forward to September of 2022. Spectrum News asked Vance about rape incest exemptions. He said two wrongs don't make a right. It's whether a child should live, even though circumstances of birth are inconvenient. But then if you go to October of that same year in a debate with Tim Ryan, his Senate challenger, he supported the abortion of a 10 year old girl who had to go to Indiana to get an abortion. She was, you know, it was a product of rape. He also supported a federal 15 week ban bill. He said minimum national standards are fine for me. And then let's go to January of 2023. He's now in the Senate. He signed a letter with others to Attorney General Merrick Garland banning mail order mythopristone abortion drugs using the 150-year-old Comstock Act. He also opposed an FDA decision to eliminate in-person dispensing of these drugs. Then on July of this year, in an NBC interview, he supported keeping mythopristone legally accessible after a Supreme Court ruling on a lawsuit that tried to restrict mythopristone. Another example, a third example, let's go to October of 2023. He was at the Ohio March for life. He campaigned vigorously against Ohio's issue one that enshrined reproductive rights in the Constitution. He said it's not about freedom, it's about taking control from parents and giving it to bureaucrats and judges. But then in December of 2023 on CNN, he said we have to accept that people don't want blanket abortion bans. There must be exceptions for rape and the life of the mother. So he's come full circle on that. We're done a 180, actually. Well, people don't want blanket abortion bans. They don't want abortion bans, period. People in America have made clear repeatedly that they don't agree with this, that they were very upset when Dobbs came down. He seems like he's changing by the minute for experience. Where did he end up now that he's a vice presidential candidate with Donald Trump? Well, I mean, like I said, Donald Trump said he wasn't for a federal abortion ban. So now, Vance is pretty much saying the same thing. The scary thing here is when somebody stands for nothing like he does, you can't trust him. You can't trust that what he's saying now will be what he's saying in three months because he has repeatedly changed it. Just two years ago, he wanted a blanket ban with no exceptions for incest or rape. And today he favors the abortion drug. But really, what does he stand for? If you continuously change, what do you stand for? Nothing. You stand for saying whatever you can to get a vote and then what happens if you get elected? It's frightening to have somebody that is so wishy-washy on something of this importance. I don't understand why any woman hearing this would vote for this guy. We're listening to today in Ohio. No longer considered a swing state, Ohio is not a target for big advertising spans in the race for president. But that doesn't mean television airwaves in the state won't be filled with over-the-top political advertising. Layla, how much is headed our way and who's it for? Yeah, it seems we are about to be flooded by political ads and it's not even for the presidential race. The real action is in the US Senate race between Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and Republican challenger Bernie Moreno. This race is shaping up to be the most expensive congressional election in the country thanks to Ohio's large population and the really high stakes involved here. That's because Brown is one of only two Democratic senators in states that former President Trump won twice. With the Senate currently holding a razor-thin Democratic majority, Republicans see taking down Brown as their easiest path to control the chamber. After Labor Day, the unofficial kickoff to the campaign season, you can expect our airwaves are going to be filled with ads. We're talking about $230 million worth of Senate-related TV ads reserved for Ohio alone. And it's not just TV. We're going to have mailers and doorknockers and every other kind of campaign outrage you can think of. Both candidates are spending big with a fairly even split in the overall spend, but Brown's campaign is getting more bang for its buck since a larger portion of his ad spending is funded directly by his campaign and that gets better rates than if it's being funded by outside groups. On the other hand, Moreno is getting a lot of help from those outside groups, especially one's connected to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. So buckle up because this race is going to be intense all the way to election day and it seems we won't be able to escape this political blitz that's heading our way. And they're so ugly. I do everything possible to avoid commercial TV. But what I've been getting pounded by is text messages. I've never had a season like this. We've had it before where they send you messages, will you vote for me, will you give me money? But this year, it's just a nonstop torrent of it. I sent a note out by text to the people that subscribe today to find out if they're seeing the same thing. I guess that's cheaper and it is the presidential, but it's just, does anybody make a decision on who to vote for based on the television advertising and all these text messages? I don't know. I mean, I guess I'm really interested to find out what kind of messaging is going to play well with people. I mean, what it'll be interesting to see whether voters are swayed more by local personal connections or by national party priorities. I mean, Brown's strategy of emphasizing his local connections is record on issues like fentanyl smuggling that shows that he's attuned to Ohio-specific needs. That's an approach that can really mitigate the impact of national GOP attacks and strengthen his appeal to moderate and independent voters who value local representation over the national party politics and in a state that's been trending Republican, Brown's ability to frame himself as a pragmatic Ohio-first candidate could be really crucial in swaying undecided voters. Like in the past, that's been his strong card, so I'm wondering, you know, Moreno's advertising is probably going to focus on the national issues. Things like immigration, right? Oh, no. It's all immigration. He has dark colored people and talking about criminal illegals nonstop in his head. On an issue that has very little to do with Ohio. Right. Right. You go anywhere in Ohio and you ask people what's important to you unless they're watching Fox News. They're not talking about immigration. That is just not the issue in Ohio, but he's trying to play to that Fox viewer mentality. I don't know that that works, especially if your opponent is talking about the issues that do matter, which are largely pocketbook. It's just where evidence. Moreno's a clown, right? He just goes for the clown topics that are fake. He did it last time. He's doing it this time. I think Brown has won the trust of Ohio and I think he has a good chance of winning this based on that, especially if Moreno keeps up with the cartoonish stuff. Those ads are ridiculous. I've seen a couple of them, Lisa, and I know what you're talking about. You listening to today in Ohio, let's break for politics for a moment and talk about groundbreaking celestial science, which is about to get recognized. What unexpected finding in an Ohio salt mine, some decades back, has to do with a supernova 170,000 years ago, Laura. Well, I hope you're more scientific than me on this because this is very cool, but I am not going to be going into detail on it. 1987 in February, deep within this more salt mine, near Fairport Harbor, there was a science project by a team of physicists that were looking into proton decay, but what they actually found was a burst of neutrinos. These are these elusive subatomic particles that were released by an exploding star. That's the supernova, and that was 170,000 years ago. This moment, this 1987 moment led to an entirely different way of viewing the universe. Scientists search for neutrinos to help explain black holes and to analyze the core of the sun. They might be eventually helpful in detecting nuclear reactors around the world. This was just recognized. One of those Ohio historical plaques that was just put up near the beach there. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources did that at the behest of the American Physical Society, and they have this plaque that says the birth of neutrino astronomy. This is a big, heady subject. Peter Krauss did a great job with the story. The fact that it's being recognized all these years later is a key moment in the history of science right here in our backyard in a salt mine is pretty special. It's a fun story. It's kind of cool that history happened here. I had never heard of this happening here before. No, I was unaware of it. I didn't live here back then, but no, I wasn't aware. I mean, I guess I was seven, but I would have thought that in some point in time I would have heard this story, especially covering Rock the Lake. I knew there was a salt mine there, but these weren't even local physicists that were working on it. It was University of California, Irvine, the University of Michigan, and Brookhaven National Laboratory. They created this big set up underground that acted like a very fast camera. I was able to capture these flashes light. It lasts a few billions of a second, and that occurs when the neutrinos interacts with the atoms. The neutrinos are so hard to find because they have no electrical charge, so they can pass through matter without leaving a mark. It was a few days after this camera detected it that they realized what they had. So yeah, it seems mind-blowing to me who deals in the very physical world what these things are, but very important in the big science picture. All right, you're listening to today in Ohio. We first heard of spotted lantern flies just a few years ago with advice to kill them on the spot if we see them. Few of us ever saw them until this year. He says, "2024, the breakout year for this infestation." Well, as the little girl and polter guy said, they're here and they are all over Northeast Ohio. We actually sent out a query to our readers through Cleveland.com to see whether they're seeing spotted lantern flies, and they are all over Northeast Ohio. Someone from Slavic Village says they're everywhere sucking on trees, flowers, and weeds, shake her house. And shake her heights. Women said they're on my house eating my Boston ivy. They're someone who walks downtown during lunch. She said he was killing maybe one or two a day, and now he's killing more every day on his lunch walks. They've been spotted in at least 10 Cleveland Metro Park's reservations and all over. I mean, we've had sightings midtown, Little Italy, Cleveland State University, Cleveland Heights. They're here. So the spotted lantern fly was first seen in Pennsylvania back in 2014, and it's believed they arrived in the U.S. either hitching a ride on imported woody plants or wood products. What they do is they feed on tree sap, and they're really fond of the tree of heaven, which is also an invasive species. But one person saw a tree of heaven just covered with these little nymphs, I guess they are. They're in at least two Ohio vineyards. They do like grapefines, so that could be a danger to the wine industry. So they've been spreading from Pennsylvania. They think they're hitching rides on trains and vehicles, and that's why they're saying the greatest numbers of these lantern flies are currently being seen in urban areas because of the train and transportation networks. Yeah, I didn't know that until I read the story that the reason they're being seen closer to downtown is because of that. We heard from people that said they're seeing them at guardians games. It did seem like from the responses we got, and thanks to everybody who responded that there are far more east side neighborhoods than west side. They're on the west side of Cleveland, but we're not really hearing yet from people on in Lars and Layla's neck of the woods. I guess next year it'd take a little while to get over there. But I didn't really get an answer to the idea of what's the point of killing them at this point. I mean, they're everywhere. There's throngs of them. I've seen pictures with hundreds of them on the base of a tree, which the story said there's some ways of spraying them, but we're not stopping them. They're here. That's the point of going around squishing these very large disgusting bugs. Well, I mean, I guess you feel like you're doing your little small part, but you could help a little bit more because right now is when the females are laying their egg masses. So they typically lay them on trees, but sometimes on wood or concrete services, and they look like white or gray silly putty. So they lay the eggs and they cover it with this silly putty like substance. They will hatch in the late spring and become adults in early August. If you see these egg masses scrape them off and burn them, and that heaven tree is showing up everywhere. And man, that thing grows fast and they say you should get rid of your tree of heaven if at all possible. Yeah. I take them out whenever I see them when they're little, but they just you're seeing them in every garden. It seems I wish the deer would eat them and eat everything else. Why aren't they eating those? You're listening to today in Ohio. This episode is brought to you by Life Lock October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month. So Life Lock wants to remind you to update your passwords. Using the same password across multiple accounts makes you vulnerable to cyber criminals. For comprehensive identity theft protection, let Life Lock alert you to anything suspicious and fix any issues. Start protecting your identity today with a 30 day free trial at lifelock.com/podcast. Terms apply. With an hour before boarding, there's only one place to go, the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. There you can recharge before the big adventure or enjoy a locally inspired dish. You can recline in a comfy chair to catch up on your favorite show or order a craft cocktail at the bar. Whatever you're in the mood for, find the detail that moves you with curated touches at the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. Chase, make more of what's yours. Learn more at chase.com/safirereserve. Cards issued by J.P. Morgan Chase Bank and a member FTSC, subject to credit approval. We have been talking all year about where to go and the future with the home for the Cleveland Browns, but over the weekend we published a detailed report on the state of the existing stadium. Layla, is it in bad shape after a quarter century exposed to all that lakefront weather? Well, we took a look at this recent audit by Osborne Engineering of the stadium and it appears that the facility has really held up surprisingly well over its 25 years in the lakefront. But to keep it in decent shape, the city would need to invest around $117 million for repairs and upgrades. And here's how that figure breaks down. The biggest chunk, about $31 million, would be earmarked for structural fixes, particularly the concrete and steel that make up the stadiums, decks and ramps. Out of the 46 concrete and steel pedestrian ramps in the stadium, 40 have already been replaced in recent years and that leaves six more to go at a cost of about $400,000 each. So this is ongoing maintenance. That's pretty typical for a structure of this age, especially one that's exposed to the harsh outdoor conditions like like Brown Stadium. And then there are seat replacements. That would be another major expense, which would cost about $38 million. That includes $22 million for the lower bowl seats alone. And this facility's audit found that these 25 year old seats are in fair to poor condition. Some springs have failed, bases are rusty, that iconic orange plastic has faded and refurbishment is an option, but the audit recommended full replacement because of the overall wear and tear. And another $16 million would be used to replace seats in the suites, even though some of these seats were partially replaced not too long ago. There's also the scoreboards and audio system, those were installed in 2014, but at that last big renovation and they're nearing the end of their life expectancy now, which is about eight to 10 years. That would cost about 14 million to replace those. Their in-house video system needs to be replaced. That feeds the TVs on the concourse and in the suites, it would cost about 10 million. And then there was a handful of miscellaneous needs, 24 million worth in fact. They would cover a variety of essential repairs and upgrades, including air conditioning and heating units and updating the doors to meet current codes, swapping out corroded plumbing pipes and installing new grease traps in the concession areas. Things like that. So while the stadium isn't falling apart, maintaining it and keeping it functional would require substantial financial commitment. And that's just to kind of keep it as it is, upgrading to meet modern standards or building a new facility, would push the cost into the billions. So as discussions continue about the future home of the Browns, the audit gives us this clear picture of what we need to keep the current stadium in the game. I actually think it feeds what I've been speculating that the Hasoms don't want to sign a 30 year lease for that stadium. They don't want to spend gigantic sum of money that would lock them in there for the next 30 years. But with a modest amount of spending, you could sign a five or seven year lease extension. Keep that as the home for now. And then they could invest their time in finding the funding they need to build the dome stadium somewhere else or do whatever they want to do. I think they're kind of in an impasse right now. The city wants them to sign a long term lease and do a big upgrade. They really don't want to do that. They want the nice beautiful dome where they can do all sorts of things in their minds and control the parking. So there's a middle ground, right? You could spend 120 million, maybe a little more, and you could do that without a long term bonding from the city so that a shorter term lease would make sense. So it's important story. The audit is really, really detailed. I couldn't believe all the specifics in there and it was kind of good news. It wouldn't take that much. The weirdest thing in that audit, though, almost all of the plants that they put around the stadium when they put it in have died. The landscaping is pretty much nonexistent. And one of the things they say is, you know, I really ought to put some more plants back in and do it in such a ways to be secure. I wonder if they just didn't have a gardener to take care of them. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, they're surrounded by concrete. That is not an easy thing to grow a lot of landscaping in. And then we have these really harsh winters where you spread salt all over the place. It doesn't surprise me, but it does feel like it hasn't been a priority, maybe, in upkeep. I hear a tree of heaven is a part of the thing is, though, as you're going into that stadium, especially if you're waiting in a line to get through security, it's nice to have some landscaping and plants around you, and it's pretty much all died. Seeing the stuff in the planners, the report basically says, get rid of the planners. They're never going to work. Do something different. Lots of lots of good advice. Check out the story. It's on Cleveland.com. It has loads of detail in it about what's ahead and you're listening to today in Ohio. The pandemic began more than four years ago, and the first year of it saw a nearly unprecedented need for unemployment benefits, which led, of course, to unprecedented fraud. Two of the accused fraudsters are finally facing the justice system, Laura. How much are they accused of stealing? 1.9 million dollars. What I think most interesting about this story is that this is a daughter, a mother, and a daughter's boyfriend. I think that's why when I saw it, you just don't see a lot of criminal rings that are that make up. This is according to the Ohio Inspector General, and Rashana Burley is 24. Her mother, Val McCain, is 48. They are each accused of improperly approving numerous claims for benefits filed in 2020 and beyond, and removing flags for fraud that were placed on a claim by others who are actually employees who want to help the system, also backdating claims so that more money would be paid out. A lot of these claims are filed in the names of relatives of these two, according to the IG, or imprisoned Ohioans, or fictitious people who didn't exist, and then sent to bank accounts and controlled by them, or addresses connected by them. And then some of these claims, the investigators say were submitted by Burley's boyfriend. It's 25. His name is Kyson Murphy, and he's from suburban Columbus. Was sentenced earlier this month, I guess that was August, to 16 and a half years in prison for his role in a robbery and failure shooting of a Columbus rapper named Boog the Bandit. So also has a criminal history that way too. What's really interesting is that Burley had the first job, worked there between 2020, December of 2020, and January 2021, fired by the state when she had accessed 20 fraudulent claims. And then a week later, her mom was hired for the same position. I don't understand how the fraud could be this big. I get that there was fraud of a lesser nature and that the state has a hard time going after people that got $20,000, $30,000, but you would think there would be some computer programs that are built in that spot patterns where people can take out nearly $2 million through the hands of specific workers. I just don't know how that went on. I get that we were in a rush to help people, but you would have thought that there'd be some patterns that developed that might have been spotted to head this off. Glad they're going after them. There's so much more money that was stolen that I don't know that we'll ever get back. It's really, in some ways, the biggest crime ever perpetrated in Ohio. Right. Between March of 2020 and March of 2022, we're talking about $527 million in benefits paid to scammers. And that's what we know about, I mean, really, this could be way bigger than that. It was, it was happening so fast and so many people needed help. And remember the customer service delays when people tried to call like they were on hold or they just couldn't even get on hold. They were just like shunted away. And so I think they were just moving as fast as they can. They hired some unscrupulous people. They didn't have, it was an old system that didn't have a lot of safeguards in place and we're paying for it as taxpayers. All right. You're listening to today in Ohio. We're into September and let's hope the weather is more even than what we saw in August, which was wild. Lisa, you love to talk about weather. We published a recap on August. How about it? I mean, we had just about everything except an earthquake and we might have had one of those over there on the east side. So, you know, August 6 was the big one. We had that big storm system that rolled through. It spawned five EF1 tornadoes that tore through places like Avon, Parma, Rocky River, Bay Village, Brook Park, Bedford, Richfield and Boston Township. And there was one on the east side. And they basically touched down in a really short timeframe, less than an hour. The first one was spotted in Avon, and that was at 3.41 PM. And then the last one was in Kirtland and Chester, and that was 4.38 PM. So we had those five tornadoes, 434,000 people lost power in the storm system. Then we had floods. We had two. The first one was on August 8, 5 to 7 inches of rain from Tropical Storm Debbie, fell in Geauga, Portage and Summit counties. The second one was a week later. We got one and a half inches on the east side of Kayoga County, flooding the university circle area. Then we had the heat. We had a high of 95 last Tuesday, the 27th. That was the highest since June 17th, when we had a heat wave. Several schools had to close right after they opened for the year. And they say that 90 degree temperatures are not unusual for Cleveland, but they're becoming much more frequent. In the 1970s, we had 16 days in the 90s, in the 2010s, we had 35 days in the 90s. Last week did seem unduly steamy. It was a week that by the end of it, you're thinking, okay, come on, come on, bring in fall. This is getting too much. But it was a wild month. And we had a lot of damage. People keep howling about their home insurance rates going up. But this weather makes it much more expensive for the insurance companies. And so we are paying a lot more in insurance because we're using it more. Oh, and I forgot drought. We have two counties in Ohio, an extreme drought, and then greater Cleveland is in moderate drought. And we've been that way since the end of June. And those August storms only helped a little bit. We're about an inch behind on rain this year. All right, you're listening to today in Ohio. Can big clumps of trees reduce the viciousness of those storms? Laura, Pete Kras answered that question in on story. Yes or no? Yes, yes, but there's a big butt with it. You need to select the right tree and properly prune it and plant it in the right place, especially these decisions you have to be made early on because a bunch of the limbs that snapped in those storms that Lisa just talked about were probably quote bad attachments that they should have been removed when the trees were younger. The benefits are huge though. Trees provide cooling, shade to communities, including in low income neighborhoods. They have a calming effect on residents. They absorb carbon that would otherwise contribute to global warming. They're good at stopping stormwater. And they're the only piece of city infrastructure that appreciates in value over time. And if you group them in large clusters, they can break up that wind that really pummels and wreak havoc in places and reduce that storm runoff. So you've got to have the right tree in the right place and you've got to prune it properly. And then they are huge assets. They're huge assets, except when they fall over and take all the power out and create nightmares for people and tear apart their houses. Maybe they're not in the right place then. I mean, I have planted probably eight trees in my yard since we moved in eight years ago. And they're finally getting to the point where they provide shade and they're as tall as the house and I am just thrilled. So have I been pruning them properly? Probably not. I definitely could have done a better job with that. You're listening to today in Ohio. We've heard of people buying and restoring lighthouses in Ohio. But a windmill? I didn't even know they were an Ohio thing, Layla. Where is this one and who's restoring it? This is a really lovely and unexpected story out of Lorraine County, where a couple decided to take on this pretty unique project, Paul and Ashley Branditch, who seem like your typical parents raising three kids, they spent the last three years restoring a 67 foot windmill that they own. Yes, a windmill here in Ohio. It's over on Colby Road in Lorraine. It's about a mile south of Lake Erie. This windmill isn't just some random structure, it turns out. It has quite a history. It was built over a decade by Joe Eulie, an Austrian-born bricklayer. And the windmill was originally meant to be a grain mill and a power source. But it also served as a personal creative outlet for Eulie. Over the years, it fell into disrepair and even became a hangout for teens in the 1980s. But its story didn't end there. In the 90s, Tony Gomez, a local machinist, bought the property and started restoring it. And then he sold it in 2006. And then the next owner, Tom Phillips, took on the project and even had it featured on HGTV's show You Live in What in 2013. But the windmill was too much for him to handle and so went back on the market. And that's where Paul and Ashley come in. They bought the windmill in 2021 for $260,000 after mulling over the decision for a few months. And since then, Paul, who quit his real estate job, has been working pretty much full-time on this restoration. And the project has involved everything from re-leveling the floors to sanding mortar off the exterior bricks with Paul taking on most of the work himself. So while the windmill won't have functioning blades because the logistics made that kind of unfeasible, it will have smaller, likely stationary blades. And the brandishes aren't quite ready to reveal what their final plans are for the windmill. But they told reporter Corey Shafer that they hope to keep the windmill in their family for generations and preserve not just the structure, but the legacy of their hard work and the creativity that goes into it. You're right. It is a delightful story. A rare, fine, Corey did a very nice job putting this together. Again, we mention lighthouses all the time because we're on the Great Lakes. But the windmill is a unique kind of thing to look at. You're listening to Today Know How. That's it for Tuesday. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Laura. Thank you for listening. Today, talking about the news. [ Music ] (upbeat music)