A Hamilton County judge plans to hold an emergency hearing next week that will allow Alexxus Paige to challenge a rule that has kept the star guard from playing her senior year at Winton Woods High School.Last month, the Ohio High School Athletic Association declared her ineligible for the current basketball season. It says her family’s move into the suburban school district was not for “bona fide” reasons; it was solely to play basketball. A lawsuit filed by Paige’s mother, Vivian Watkins, contends Withrow High School opposed the transfer and filed an inaccurate complaint that led to the ban. OHSAA has not yet filed its formal response in the case. Court officials told CityBeat its lawyer has been in touch with the judge and indicated it will fight to keep Paige from playing high school hoops. The 18-year-old Paige is a 5-foot-7 guard who is one of Cincinnati’s top female athletes. A post-high school college scholarship might be hanging in the balance of the court case. She was all-conference for the past three seasons in the Cincinnati Metro Athletic Conference, the league which includes most of the city’s public urban high schools. (Clark Montessori and Walnut Hills are the two city schools that are in different leagues). Three years worth of Paige’s stats are available by clicking here. Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman has scheduled a Dec. 4 hearing on a request for a temporary injunction that would lift the OHSAA ban and allow Paige to play. The basketball player’s mom — who is acting as her own lawyer in the case — says legitimate family issues led to the move outside the city. The mom contends the OHSAA has refused to consider evidence showing her daughter transferred to Winton Woods because the mom’s marriage broke down and she moved into a suburban apartment with her two children. “Mrs. Watkins looked for apartments that would fit her budget and a decent community to reside in,” the mom wrote in the lawsuit against the OHSAA. “She looked all over and finally found a place in May of 2012. Since Alexxus was moving with her it would have been hard to transport Alexxus back and forth to Withrow High School, so it was decided that Alexxus would attend Winton Woods High School which is closer to Alexxus place of residence.”The state rule is designed to hamper schools from recruiting star athletes to pump up their sports programs. In the past, there have been allegations that players enrolled in schools where they did not actually reside, or had temporarily “moved” in order to improve a team.North College Hill was dogged for years over rumors it recruited O.J. Mayo and Bill Walker for its state championship hoops teams.  Both are now in the NBA: Walker plays for the New York Knicks and Mayo is with the Memphis Grizzlies.

When it comes to LGBT rights, Cincinnati received a score of 77 out of 100 from the Human Rights Campaign's first Municipal Equality Index (MEI). Cincinnati tied with Cleveland, but lost to Columbus, which scored an 83. The index looks at cities’ laws, policies and services to gauge how friendly they are to LGBT individuals. With 47 criteria in hand, 137 cities were scored. Cincinnati gained positive marks for its non-discrimination laws, which protect employment, housing and public accommodations for LGBT people. The city was also praised for its openly gay leadership, notably Councilman Chris Seelbach. Even the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD) got some LGBT love; it was marked positively for having an LGBT liaison and reporting 2010 hate crime statistics to the FBI. But Cincinnati had mixed results elsewhere. The city was praised for enacting some anti-bullying policies and an equal employment opportunity commission, but docked for not having a mayoral LGBT liaison or office of LGBT affairs. While the city did well in having domestic partner health benefits and legal dependant benefits, it was knocked for not having equivalent family leave for LGBT individuals. The city did particularly poorly in relationship recognition. The HRC analysis notes that gay marriage and civil unions are state policies, which Cincinnati’s government has no control over. But the city did lose points for not having a domestic partner registry, which both Cleveland and Columbus have.A few of Cincinnati's LGBT improvements came just within the last year: Seelbach was elected in 2011, domestic health benefits were passed in May and the LGBT liaison for the CPD was named in October. Overall, Cincinnati wasn’t among the top in LGBT rights. About 25 percent of cities scored an 80 or higher, including Columbus. Eleven cities scored 100: Long Beach, Calif.; Los Angeles; San Diego, Calif.; San Francisco; Boston; Cambridge, Mass.; St. Louis, Mo.; New York City; Portland, Ore.; Philadelphia; and Seattle. In this week’s cover story, CityBeat covered Ohio’s evolution on same-sex marriage.

The Ohio Senate will not take up the heartbeat bill and a bill to defund Planned Parenthood in the lame-duck session. The heartbeat bill was called the most radical anti-abortion legislation in the country when it was first proposed. It sought to ban abortion after a heartbeat is detected, which can happen as early as six weeks into pregnancy. However, there have been some rumblings of bringing a new version of the heartbeat bill to the Ohio legislature, and recent moves by Ohio Republicans show a clear anti-abortion agenda. In a statement, Kellie Copeland of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio cautioned the bills will come up again next year: “Make no mistake about it, the threat to women’s health may be delayed, but it remains. We fully expect anti-choice forces to reintroduce these dangerous attacks on women’s health when the legislature reconvenes in January.” In a 4-3 ruling, the Ohio Supreme court upheld the state’s redistricting map. Democrats claimed the Ohio House and Senate districts were unconstitutional, while Republicans insisted the map was fine. The Republican-controlled government redrew the districts in a way that favors Republican candidates for public office. The Ohio Supreme Court is skewed heavily in favor of Republicans; six justices are Republicans, while only one is a Democrat.Ohio high schools have a bit of work to do, according to federal data. Apparently, the state has worse graduation rates for blacks than all but five other states and the District of Columbia. Ohio did manage to improve its graduation rates by more than 2 percent over four years, as required by the federal program Race to the Top. To avoid an estimated $18 billion in fuel and congestion costs, a coalition wants to speed up the Brent Spence Bridge project. If the Build Our New Bridge Now Coalition is successful, the project will begin in 2014 — four years ahead of schedule. But the organization is pushing a public-private relationship that would likely involve tolls, and Kentucky lawmakers oppose that idea. Cincinnati and Hamilton County were picked to participate in a program that puts the long-term unemployed back to work. The program was originally started in southwest Connecticut in 2011 by WorkPlace with some success. It placed 70 percent of participants in jobs, with 90 percent moving to full-time employment. Tourism is boosting Greater Cincinnati’s economy. An impact study from the Cincinnati USA Regional Tourism Network found tourism is responsible for one in 10 local jobs. Visitors to Cincinnati spent $4.1 billion in the area last year. Another good sign for the economy: Personal income went up in Greater Cincinnati and nationwide. In Cincinnati, personal income went up by 4.6 percent in 2011, lower than the nationwide rise of 5.2 percent. Unfortunately, Greater Cincinnati still has a lot of vacant homes. On Numbers ranked the area No. 31 out of 109 in terms of vacant homes. The Cincinnati Police Department is encouraging fitness through intra-department competition. The University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning is one of the five best design schools in the world. Councilman Chris Smitherman was re-elected to the presidency of the local chapter of the NAACP. Seven AIDS activists protested nude in U.S. House Speaker John Boehner’s office yesterday. The protesters were part of ACT-UP, and they were protesting federal budget cuts to HIV programs that are set to kick in next year. The bill regulating puppy mills passed the Ohio Senate. Animal advocates claim lax regulations and oversight have made Ohio a breeding ground for poor practices. CityBeat previously covered puppy mills and how they lead to Ohio’s dog auctions. The Ohio inspector general released a report criticizing the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) for mismanaging stimulus funds going to southwest Ohio. The findings echoed a lot of what was found in previous reports for other regions of the state. The Earth’s core may have clues about our planet’s birth.