Thursday, May 28th, 2026

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On this day in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge opened to vehicle traffic in San Francisco after more than four years of construction

Ohio Memorial Day Weekend traffic deaths hit an 18-year low this year. Find out by how much in the Top of The Fold.

Also, find out the real reason why your energy bill has been so high recently in our Editorial section.

Ohio recorded six traffic fatalities over the four-day Memorial Day weekend, the state's lowest total in 18 years and less than half of last year's 14 deaths.

Troopers made 355 impaired driving arrests during the reporting period, though distracted driving incidents jumped 44.3% from 2025.

For more, go here.

Gahanna Public Safety Director Tim Becker and former Columbus firefighter Todd Schroeck publicly identified themselves as victims of former Ohio State team doctor Richard Strauss.

They join former Columbus Fire Chief Jeffrey Happ, who came forward earlier this month.

Read more about the accusations here.

After more than 30 years of sitting empty, the old Westinghouse factory on East Fifth Street in Mansfield has been cleared, and residents are celebrating.

The factory employed about 10,000 workers before shutting down in 1990, according to Richland Source. A $4 million cleanup paid for with state and local funds has prepared the 14-acre property for redevelopment.

The Richland County Land Bank will host "A WestingHOUSE Party" on June 13, a free, daylong event open to the public. Organizers plan to share early designs for the site, which could include housing, businesses, and green space, Richland Source reported.

The Ohio Department of Development is funding dozens of similar cleanups statewide through the Ohio Brownfield Remediation Program. The latest round includes $45.8 million for 84 cleanup and remediation projects and $15.3 million for 76 assessment projects.

In Greene County, a $1 million grant will address contamination at a 24-acre former industrial site in Cedarville. Decades of manufacturing at the former Reddy Electric Company property left damage to soil, groundwater, and site structures.

More information about the June 13 event is available at brandrichland.com.

If you live anywhere in Ohio served by AEP, AES, Duke, or FirstEnergy, your electric bill has gone up. Oftentimes, the reason for the increase comes down to one answer: data centers. That's convenient for the utilities and grid operators raising your rates, because it points the finger at someone else.

Yes, data centers use power. So does every new factory, warehouse, or hospital. PJM, the company that runs the regional power grid for 13 states, said in December 2025 that data centers will drive most of the new demand it expects through 2028.

That is accurate, but there's more to the story.

The reality is that coal plants are closing across the region. Natural gas and nuclear still carry most of the load on the PJM grid, around two-thirds of all the electricity that flows through it. As older plants come offline, the cheap baseline power they produced isn't being replaced fast enough.

At this point, it's basic economics — less supply, constant or more demand will result in a price increase.

Wind and solar were supposed to take up that slack. They haven't and won't anytime soon. Last spring, PJM ran what it called the Reliability Resource Initiative, a one-time fast-track for new power projects. PJM scored each application on a points system and picked 51 out of the pile, based mostly on how soon the project could be built and how much reliable capacity it would add.

Read the full editorial here.

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