Wednesday, July 22nd, 2026

Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of The Pennant. To listen to this newsletter, click the “Listen Online” link in the top right corner of this email.

On this day in 1796, Cleveland, Ohio, was founded by General Moses Cleaveland — the surveyor whose name the city later trimmed a letter from.

Five people drowned in the Scioto River after several of them entered the water Sunday to help someone who was struggling to swim. Read how this tragedy unfolded in the Top of the Fold.

Also, Senate candidate Sherrod Brown is in a tough position. Find out what it is in our editorial.

POWELL — Five people died along the Scioto River after several of them entered the water Sunday to help someone who was struggling to swim, and a frightened child from the group was spotted running on a nearby road before a motorist called 911, authorities said. 

Rescue crews recovered two women, who were pronounced dead at a hospital, and the bodies of three men were found Monday, while two children under age 10 have been placed in the care of family services. 

This story continues here.

COLUMBUS — Ohio lawmakers have introduced bills at the state and federal levels this month aimed at curbing rising energy costs, both of which are routing through the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

State Rep. Desiree Tims (D-Dayton) filed House Bill 970 to freeze new PUCO rate increases for a year.

At the same time, U.S. Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) introduced the Ratepayer Protection Act, which would require states to set standards for connecting large projects, such as data centers, to the grid.

COLUMBUS — Ohio's major gubernatorial candidates both promise property tax relief but have offered few specifics on funding, with Republican Vivek Ramaswamy now pitching a rollback to pre-pandemic levels and a growth cap rather than full elimination, and Democrat Amy Acton pushing to boost state education funding and expand the homestead exemption.

Neither has named which programs would be cut, while Libertarian Don Kissick backs fully repealing property taxes in favor of local consumption-based taxes.

To continue this story, go here.

COLUMBUS — A predictive algorithm is a computer program that looks at a lot of information to guess what might happen next. It gives each person a "risk score." A high score warns doctors or workers to step in early, before a small problem turns into a big one.

Ohio is a leader in using these tools. Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus built a program that reads patients' health records and warns staff when a child is getting sicker. Researchers claim it cut serious health emergencies by more than two-thirds. Akron Children's uses a similar tool that they say lowered emergency calls by almost 40%. Nationwide has also tested a program that they say can guess which children might be taken from their homes.

That last use is where many people feel a line must be drawn. Supporters say the programs are fairer than humans because they treat everyone the same way. But critics say the programs learn from old information that was already unfair, so they repeat those mistakes. Some call it a "Minority Report" system. In that movie, police arrest people for crimes a computer says they will commit in the future — before they have done anything wrong.

Yesterday we wrote that Vice President JD Vance, R-Ohio, doesn't understand organized labor. After watching Ohio's Senate race this week, we'll add a line: maybe nobody does.

Here's the mess. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, has been labor's guy for 30 years. Now he wants back in the Senate, and he's going after data centers, those giant computer warehouses he says are eating up power across the state. He blames them for your rising electric bill. There's more to your electric bill than data centers, but that's another editorial. It fits a 30-second campaign ad, though, so why let facts get in the way?

But building a data center takes workers. Union workers. So, the trade unions want them built. Ask around the trades. They'll tell you: data centers are good for Ohio. That puts Brown, the union champion, in a fight with the very unions he built his career on. And some of those unions are lining up behind his opponent, Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio — maybe.

Read that again. The Democrat is fighting labor, and the Republican is looking to collect that support. If your head is spinning, good. So is ours.

So, picture Brown in a union hall. Does he lean in and say, "Between us, I'm really fine with data centers. I just have to run against them to win"? God forbid. But you have to wonder.

You deserve a straight and factually honest answer on your power bill and your paycheck.

If you want to watch a live game of political Twister, ask any candidate about data centers and labor unions. (Too young to know what Twister is? It's a game where everyone ends up with their bodies tangled on a series of colored dots, wondering how they got there.)

Questions, comments, and letters to the editor are welcome at [email protected]

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