Fracking industry pays $11 million for first leases in Ohio’s only national forest
Five out-of-state gas companies win rights to drill under 2,800 acres of the Wayne National Forest, achieving a long-sought goal for the industry.
LATEST NEWS FROM SIGNAL STATEWIDE
Election 2026
Ohio’s Amy Acton vs. herself: Tale of two Cleveland Labor Day parades
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton campaigned in Cleveland’s 2025 Labor Day parade – when the party had yet to fully coalesce around her bid. She returned to the 2026 parade, where her participation and reception was very different.
Ohio absentee ballot applications are in the mail: What you need to know
Ohio sends all voters absentee ballot request forms during presidential and midterm election years. But this cycle, the state’s forms are hitting mailboxes amid President Trump’s push to overhaul mail-in voting.
How did Amy Acton handle Ohio’s early days of COVID? Just like Texas
A Signal Statewide review of health orders from the spring of 2020 show that despite claims from Vivek Ramaswamy and the Ohio Republican Party, Ohio’s COVID-19 response under Amy Acton roughly aligned with Texas, Florida and most other states navigating the same crisis.
GOVERNMENT
An Ohio judge was kicked off the bench and suspended. He’s still on the November ballot
The Ohio Supreme Court kicked Jon Ickes off the bench and suspended his law license. But the board of elections kept him on the ballot, and his opponent has asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
EDUCATION
‘Ghost students:’ Ohio’s community colleges are targets of financial aid fraud
Campus leaders asked the state for more help in their work to beat the bad actors, including money for fraud prevention software and a database to help identify repeat offenders.
HEALTH
Ohio delays SNAP ban on sugary drinks
Ohio was one of nearly two dozen states working to implement bans on SNAP sales for non-nutritious items such as soda or candy that were encouraged by the Trump administration.
STATE SIGNALS NEWSLETTER
Amy Acton refuses to debate Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio governor’s race
Ohio politics news and insights from the State Signals newsletter. Plus, new regulatory filings reveal just how massive the Piketon AI data center project will be.
PUBLIC SAFETY
Ohio dispensary closes after reports of ‘serious adverse health effects’ from vape
Neither the state nor the dispensary offered details about the health events, but regulators say an investigation is ongoing. Vapen brand products are on what their manufacturer calls a “precautionary hold.”
NEWS FROM NOTUS
DOGE Cut Off Small Town America’s 250th Birthday Money
Ohio Humanities was planning history projects for the 250th when DOGE axed its funding last year. Then Trump redirected federal money for his own beautification projects.
Local Newsrooms
Signal Ohio is a nonprofit statewide network of local newsrooms.
Why Local News
Local news is in crisis. Across the country, including here in Ohio, the commercial news industry has been on the decline, leading to the loss of nearly three-quarters of journalism jobs since 2005, leading to less accountability, more polarization, and more government waste. With the volume of original reporting in Ohio communities reduced to a small fraction of what it once was, nonprofit news offers a path forward