Manrique, a 27-year-old adult club dancer from Silver Spring, Md., pleaded guilty to the crime Wednesday in Allegheny County District Court, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Originally, she was charged with making a false report to police. Chapman was with the team when guests of the William Penn Hotel found Manrique tied up with cloth napkins and crying in his room. She told police she’d been held up by a man impersonating a hotel maintenance worker there to fix a running toilet. That story didn’t hold up under lengthy interrogation, though. So she shifted to Story B, that a male stranger who had stolen her wallet outside a nearby CVS store forced her to let him in the hotel room — lest he hurt her girlfriend back in Maryland — and ransacked it. She failed a lie detector test. Chapman didn’t believe her either. He told police he thought she was in on the crime.

Because of the plea, the public will never know what really happened. Manrique was ordered to pay a $164 fine and was released. The case paperwork doesn’t say if the jewelry was actually stolen. Nor does it explain what Chapman was doing with $200,000 worth of jewelry on a road trip to Pittsburgh in the first place.

The Cincinnati Enquirer announced its endorsements over the weekend, and four incumbents were left thinking, “What the [expletive] did I do?!?” The current councilpersons who the paper decided not to endorse are Republican Wayne Lippert, who was appointed in March, and Republicans Leslie Ghiz and Charlie Winburn, along with Democrat Cecil Thomas.

Ghiz was described as having a penchant for starting arguments that have been “personal, petty and nasty,” while Winburn's “unpredictable behavior” was noted along with Thomas' problems fully grasping budget and finance issues.

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Former Bengal Chad Ochocinco will return to Cincinnati Oct. 7 as a member of the Miami Dolphins, if reports by his OchoCinco News Network are true: Ocho says he has signed with the Miami Dolphins.

Cincinnati Public Schools on Monday voted unanimously to put a levy renewal on the November ballot. The current levy is set to expire in 2013, and the renewal would be for $51.5 million for five years.

The second day of the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse trial continues today, with a second accuser expected to testify. In his opening statement, Sandusky's lawyer questioned the credibility of the eight young men accusing him of multiple crimes over several years, claiming that they have a financial motive to make false claims. He also acknowledged that Sandusky's behavior and his showering with young boys was “kind of strange” but said it was not sexual abuse.

Mitt Romney says Barack Obama's “Forward” slogan is absurd. And so is the notion that he wants to reduce the number of police, firefighters and teachers. Absurdity.

The LA Times says Obama's complicated message will pose a challenge to convey, especially against Romney's simple argument: Y'all mad and it's Obama's fault.

Obama's counter-argument is layered with nuance and complexity.

It starts with an attempt to undercut Romney. As a corporate buyout executive, Romney shipped jobs overseas and reaped millions of dollars in fees from takeover deals that destroyed U.S. factory jobs, the Obama campaign says. As Massachusetts governor, Romney built a poor record on job creation, the argument continues.

Turning to his own record, Obama tells voters that he inherited an economy on the brink of collapse and averted a depression. He takes credit for a resurgence in manufacturing, the rescue of the automobile industry and the creation of more than 4 million jobs since February 2010.

Obama also slams Republicans in Congress for blocking his plans to stimulate more jobs. To inoculate himself from potential setbacks over the summer and fall, he warns of economic trouble spilling over from Europe.

In the end, Obama says, he would keep the country moving forward while Romney would take it back to the George W. Bush policies that wrecked the economy in the first place.

Verizon is changing up its cell phone plans, moving toward monthly plans that allow users to connect up to 10 devices, including tablets and PCs, to their cell phone network.

There's a new Retina-display-bearing MacBook Pro. Whatever that means.

Sunday night's Mad Men season finale broke a ratings record with 2.7 million viewers.

The Los Angeles Kings won the NHL's Stanley Cup on Tuesday, the organization's first ever championship.

Happy Election Day! It looks like SB 5 is headed for a big defeat even though Gov. Kasich last night told a bunch of East Side Tea Partiers how cool it would be if Issue 2 passed, while a union representative told opponents of the bill that it was about to get “shoved down the throats of John Kasich and the Republicans.”

The Hamilton County Administrator yesterday said “sorry homeowners, but our stadium deficit will not allow us to offer the tax credit Republicans said would make up for your part of the stadium sales tax.” Commissioners Todd Portune and Chris Monzel today said they're going to include the credit even though they don't know how yet. Hopefully they can figure it out soon so they can work on adding public housing to the suburbs before the county gets sued by the Feds.

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If you're one of those people who enjoys relaxing in a public park, maybe eating a sandwich and enjoying the lush greenspace Cincinnati has grown proud of, that's all well and good. (Bring a blanket and some apples; enjoy yourself.) That is, until you get a little sleepy and want to lie down on the ground or a bench — that's illegal now.

The Cincinnati Park Board yesterday approved a no-lying down rule across all of its 5,000 acres of park land, likely in response to ongoing Occupy Cincinnati lawsuits over the legality of closing the park at night. People who lie down in parks are now subject to $150 fines for the misdemeanor offense.

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Gov. John Kasich has something to say to anyone waiting on federal funding to help fix their bridges (and while we're at it, any local governments who need funding for something other than food and water): Forget about it. During an interview with Enquirer editors and reporters yesterday,* Kasich said tolls are the best means for funding a new Brent Spence Bridge.

“I do not believe that a white charger is going to come galloping (from Washington) into Cincinnati with $2 billion in the saddlebags,” Kasich said. “So if that isn’t going to happen and all we do is delay, delay, delay and we push this thing out until 2036 ... holy cow!”

* CityBeat had a similar meeting scheduled but we forgot about it and weren't here at the time — sorry Kasich, we'll get ya next time!

Things are about to get weird in a Clermont County courtroom if David Krikorian and Chris Finney get their wish — to have Jean Schmidt on the witness stand on May 17. Finney, the attorney for Citizens Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST), has been representing Krikorian, a former Democratic and independent candidate who unsuccessfully ran against Schmidt for Ohio's 2nd congressional district seat, has served Schmidt with a subpoena as part of Krikorian's lawsuit claiming a Schmidt lawsuit against Krikorian was frivolous. COAST's ghost-written blog posted commentary in February in response to accusations from Brad Wenstrup that Schmidt was using campaign funds to pay off legal fund debt from earlier campaign nonsense against Krikorian. Eastsiders mad.

Some high-level Procter & Gamble executives are getting the Bearcat Bounce out of Cincinnati, heading to Singapore where the company believes growth opportunities for its beauty care products are the highest. About 20 positions will be moved to the Singapore office during the next two years.

Does it matter that Mitt Romney might have led a group of teenagers in a “pin that dude down and cut his hair” prank during the '60s? The Nation says Obama's gay-marriage announcement caught Romney off guard.

As expected, Obama's fundraiser at George Clooney's house raked in the dough, raising $15 million in one night.

British Prime Minister David Cameron only recently learned what LOL means in text-speak. The explanation occurred during witness testimony from Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Rupert Murdoch's the now-defunct News of the World. Brooks was forced to resign last year amid a phone-hacking scandal.

"He would sign them off 'DC' in the main," Brooks said, referring to Cameron's initials. "Occasionally he would sign them off 'LOL' — 'lots of love' — until I told him it meant 'laugh out loud,' and then he didn't sign them off [that way] anymore."

It was certainly an LOL moment during Brooks' testimony in a London courtroom Friday as part of a judicial inquiry into media ethics. But the disclosure also underscored the warm personal ties between the prime minister and Brooks, the former head of media baron Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers who was forced to resign in disgrace last summer.

Someone found a really old Mayan calendar, and it offers good news: It goes way beyond Dec, 12, 2012.

Major League Baseball phenom Bryce Harper is in town for a three-game series with his Washington Nationals. The 19-year-old was the No. 1 overall pick in 2010 and is the first superstar-caliber player to make it to the big leagues this quickly prompting comparisons to Ken Griffey, Jr. at that age. Here's the local spin about on freak outfielder coming to town for a weekend series against the Reds.

The game of Cornhole has apparently spread from its modest beginnings in some West Sider's backyard all the way to the Northeast, thanks largely to a Fox News anchor who in 2005 took a set from his hometown back to New York and started teaching other people how to throw the beanbags at a hole in a piece of wood. The New York Times checks in with this report on the unfortunately named game. Now a bunch of mopes in Brooklyn are playing it, and it will probably be featured in a Kings of Leon video soon.

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Bike to Work Week today kicked off its series of morning commuter stations offering free coffee and treats all week long in an effort to encourage residents to try cycling to work, meet fellow cyclists and learn about bike advocacy. The city was scheduled to announce an award for its Bike Program this morning at the Coffee Emporium bike commuter station on Central Parkway in Over-the-Rhine.

Find a schedule of Bike to Work Week morning and afternoon commuter stations here.

The Enquirer over the weekend checked in with another of its “in-depth” pieces, this one detailing the huge amounts of money energy companies will make once they're allowed to treat northeastern Ohio's land like they do Texas. The story accurately described the fracking process as “controversial,” though it took the liberty of describing Carroll County as an “early winner” because 75 to 95 percent of its land is under lease to an oil or gas company. Here's a link to the weird slideshow-style presentation. And here's a sidebar on the issues surrounding fracking, which includes the following regarding the industry's oversight:

Fracking was exempted from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act under the Bush Administration, so it now falls under state jurisdiction. In Ohio, the Department of Natural Resources issues permits for all oil and gas wells, including fracking wells. The department also inspects the drilling of all wells in the state.

The New York Times came to Ohio to see how the good, working class folks feel about the president who has spent three-and-a-half years trying to help people like them during a recession he didn't start. Turns out many still won't vote for him because he's still black.

Madiera is a really nice suburb, and some residents plan to keep it that way by blocking developers from building luxury condos so “renters” can't move in and “alter the landscape of their charming suburb.”

Ohio State University has released a plan to combat hate crimes in response to several incidents on its campus this spring. The "No Place to Hate" plan includes 24 recommendations including a public safety division “hate crime alert” line staffed by operators. The OSU campus reportedly had a mural of President Obama defaced and found spray-painted messages supporting the death of Trayvon Martin.

Good news from the AP's strangulation beat: “States cracking down on strangulation attempts.”

Newsweek's May 21 cover shows Barack Obama with a rainbow-colored halo over his head and the headline, “The First Gay President.”

National media are talking about HBO's Weight of the Nation, a four-part documentary detailing America's obesity epidemic. CityBeat's Jac Kern told y'all about it last week.

John Edwards' defense attorneys are reportedly basing a lot of their case on the definition of the word “The.” That should go well.

A Russian satellite has taken an awesome 121-megapixel photo of Earth.

The World Choir Games kicked off last night with an opening ceremony that CityBeat’s Anne Arenstein thoroughly enjoyed. Arenstein in a blog described choirs from West Chester, Loveland and Pleasant Ridge mingling with groups from Japan, Colombia, Canada and Australia, along with “spontaneous singing and dancing.” The event takes place at various venues through July 17. More info here.

Kentucky has a higher rate of women who smoke while pregnant than other parts of the country. The state health department has apparently felt the need to remind people that when you inhale cancerous chemicals with a baby inside your body, the baby gets some too. 

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is willing to offer the full strength of his office should any knuckleheads try to rip off the state’s new casinos. In a joint statement with Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, DeWine articulated his dedication to stopping cheaters  in casinos. The state charged seven people for increasing bet sizes or removing bets when you’re not allowed to anymore. 

President Obama has begun a two-day bus tour through northern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The tour is called ”Betting on America” and will include a defense of Obama’s economic policies while pointing out that the auto bailout worked and Mitt Romney outsourced mass jobs. 

Mitt Romney is reportedly considering choosing a woman as a running mate, and Romney’s wife says “I don’t have a problem with that.”

London built a new skyscraper called “The Shard.” It’s 95 [expletive] stories high.

Reuters says there are positive signs for the struggling job market. 

Veteran NBA point guard Steve Nash is joining the L.A. Lakers, and Pau Gasol says it will be a huge honor to play with the dude. Kobe says, "Meh."