Flip through cable TV networks like the History Channel or Biography on any given weekend and there's a good chance you'll come across a documentary about the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union's collapse, arguably the defining moment of the 20th Century.

The cost of an airline ticket isn't going down any time soon, and unless you're into cozying up with strangers for a long train ride at about the same price, the best way to get out of Cincinnati for the remainder of 2008 is a vehicle of the four-wheel variety.

A New Jersey appellate court decision allowed a libel suit against The Bergen Record to go ahead even though the defamatory statements were accurately and fairly taken from a bankruptcy court complaint. The ruling contradicts the long-standing protection courts have given to information taken from documents filed with a court.

A woman who created a group to protest what she calls the unprofessional conduct of Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters says a detective on his staff recently called her and tried to intimidate her into stopping the group's high-profile criticism. "I found the whole thing highly unusual and really weird," says Franki Butler-Kidd, who heads Citizens Against Joe Deters.

Within 48 hours of Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland signing House Bill 545 — characterized by many groups as the "country's strongest payday lending reform law" — the payday lending lobby mobilized to fight it. But Ohio voters embraced reform by a wide margin, passing Issue 5 63-37 percent. Payday lenders were singled out with this law, but the national mortgage financial crisis has also raised the question of how banks and other financial institutions earn their big bucks.