Friday, July 17th, 2026

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On this day in 1955, Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California — despite an infamously chaotic first day dubbed "Black Sunday" by insiders, thanks to counterfeit tickets and gridlocked freeways.

Ohio's about to catch a break from the heat, and a $9.3 million Medicaid fraud indictment is drawing statewide attention.

Plus, Martin Short's new documentary helps put life in perspective, and a maple syrup showdown between Vermont and Ohio rounds out today's Peach section.

COLUMBUS — After a stretch of sticky, sweltering days, Ohioans are getting a break this weekend as the heat dome finally eases, bringing lower humidity and more comfortable temperatures. 

A few showers could linger over southern Ohio early Saturday before skies clear, and Sunday stays mostly dry. Rain chances return Sunday night into Monday, with better odds of afternoon storms by Tuesday as the heat and humidity build back in.

COLUMBUS — The discovery of 16 children locked in a 12-by-12 room in Vinton County, allegedly by four family members now facing abuse and neglect charges, is renewing attention on domestic violence statewide. 

Ohio Domestic Violence Network policy director Maria York said the state logged a record 157 domestic violence deaths in its latest report, with more than a third of victims killed while trying to leave, even as shelters field roughly 333 crisis calls a day and are forced to turn away more than half of those seeking safety.

COLUMBUS— A married couple who ran a Franklin County mental health clinic face 12 felony charges after allegedly defrauding Ohio Medicaid of $9.3 million by billing for services never rendered, often using refugee patients' household accounts and stolen staff identities. 

The pair, now believed to be living in Kenya or Ghana, is accused of forging documents and repeatedly billing for unnecessary or nonexistent therapeutic services.

Netflix's "Marty, Life Is Short" is billed as a documentary about a comedy legend. It's really a quiet instruction manual for living well.

Martin Short has spent decades surrounded by A-list friends and a résumé most performers only dream of, from Second City and SCTV to "Only Murders in the Building." But the film's real subject isn't fame. It's how Short carries it. He lost his mother, father, and brother within a few years of each other as a young man, and later his wife, Nancy Dolman, to ovarian cancer in 2010. And yet the thing that stuck in his household wasn't grief. It was laughter.

Much of that laughter is captured on tape. Short spent years with a home video camera close at hand, and the documentary leans on that footage heavily, which is why so many of its moments feel unguarded rather than performed. Maybe that's the film's real thesis: humor is often a byproduct of tragedy, a way of looking at loss sideways instead of straight on. Or maybe it's simpler than that — joy doesn't just happen, it has to be caught, the way Short caught it on camera, again and again, for decades.

The late Catherine O'Hara, forever Kevin's mother in "Home Alone," appears in some of the film's warmest scenes, a reminder of how much Canadian sketch comedy, from Second City to "SNL," shaped a generation of performers.

There's no politics here, no commentary. Just a portrait of a man who decided, early and often, to be good company. It's harder than it looks.

The Pennant staff is on retreat in a small town in northern Vermont this week, and maple syrup is everywhere. Restaurants, general stores, ski shops, and gas stations, many of them with their own private label. In Newport, which sits on Lake Memphremagog, The Pick and Shovel General Store has a syrup display roughly the size of the bread aisle at most Krogers, rows of amber bottles stacked like it's a competitive sport.

Turns out that's not far off. This is Vermont's version of Ohio State football, minus the press conferences and 142 daily podcasts. Best we can tell, syrup producers don't talk to the media much. They're too busy tapping trees, and the loyalty runs just as deep as any fall Saturday in Columbus.

The process is simple, if unglamorous: tap a sugar maple in late winter when nights are still freezing and days start to thaw, collect the sap, then boil off the water until what's left is syrup, roughly 40 gallons of sap for one gallon of syrup.

Continue reading the editorial here.

Should local communities and the public have input into the planning and construction of corporate data centers?
- Yes - 35%
- No - 19%
- To an extent - 46%

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