For Michele Hobbs, the situation is tragically simple: Somewhere in Cincinnati is a 4-year-old girl named Lucy, whom she helped raise for two years and loves as her daughter. Because she isn't biologically related to Lucy, the courts have ruled that Hobbs has no legal right to see her. But love isn't so easily thwarted.

Once completed between Cincinnati and Cleveland via Columbus, the 250-mile corridor will travel through 12 economically distressed counties and help create thousands of direct and indirect jobs, supporters say. The rail line will serve more than 6.8 million people, or nearly 60 percent of Ohio's population.

Some politicians and activists hate the media. Although they might say it's because of a perceived bias in coverage, the truth is it usually has more to do with holding them accountable for past words and deeds that otherwise might be long forgotten. For example, consider the current ranting and raving by the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST) and one of its leaders, attorney Chris Finney, about the deficit in Hamilton County's stadium account.

General Electric boss Jeffrey Immelt wants major businesses to create a regional cooperative to deal with major shortcomings (limited access, rising costs) of our health system. Something similar was tried in 1992, when the big four employers (P&G, Kroger, GE Aviation and Cincinnati Bell) basically sought to control costs by demanding that hospitals demonstrate cost effectiveness. Facing threats to their fees, unhappy physicians used scare tactics to predict a health care crisis as specialists left for more lucrative cities.

KOCH FOODS: The company that operates a chicken packaging factory in Fairfield recently paid $536,046 in fines for violating U.S. immigration laws. In August 2007, federal agents and Butler County sheriff’s deputies raided Koch’s factory on a tip from a citizen and arrested 161 undocumented immigrants.