In-person early voting is underway in Ohio. Find your nearest polling booth here.
Ohio’s unemployment rate dropped to 7.0 percent in September despite employers cutting 12,800 jobs. The rate is much lower than September's national unemployment rate of 7.8 percent. Ohio actually lost jobs in manufacturing, construction, education, health services, government and other sectors, with some gains in professional and business services, information services and trade, transportation and utilities. The new rate is a big improvement from the 8.6 percent unemployment rate in September 2011. This is the last state unemployment rate Ohioans will see before the Nov. 6 election.
The second debate for Ohio's U.S. Senate seat took place last night. As usual, Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown and Republican challenger Josh Mandel held back no punches. Each candidate mostly focused on attacking his opponent’s integrity and record, but the men also discussed a multitude of issues — the economy, China, Obamacare, foreign policy, gay rights and more. Check out CityBeat’s in-depth coverage of the debate and the policy proposals espoused by the candidates here.
The final presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will take place next Monday. The debate will cover foreign policy. Presumably, the debate will focus a lot on Iran, but Foreign Policy has an article focusing on five bigger threats to U.S. national security. Although the debate could be important for substance, political scientists say debates typically have little-to-no electoral impact. In aggregate polling, Obama is up 2.4 points in Ohio and Romney is up one point nationally. Ohio is considered a must-win for Romney, and it could play the role of 2000's Florida.
To make the debate more fun, CityBeat will host a party at MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine Monday. Come join the CityBeat team to watch the debate and live tweet. Councilman Chris Seelbach will also show up and talk for a bit. If you can’t show up, feel free to tweet about the debate at home with the hashtag #cbdebate. For more information, check out the event’s Facebook page .
Ohio Senate Democrats are demanding an investigation into a voter fraud group. The Democrats say True the Vote (TTV), a conservative group, is unnecessarily intimidating voters. TTV claims it’s just fighting voter impersonation fraud, but the reality is that kind of voter fraud doesn’t seem to exist. A study from the Government Accountability Office found zero cases of voter impersonation fraud in the past 10 years. Another study from News21 found 10 cases since 2000, or less than one case a year.
Meanwhile, a local group is trying to encourage Muslim voters to get educated and vote.
The Cincinnati Police Department is trying to improve relations with the LGBT community. As part of that effort, the city hosted a LGBT public safety forum and named the first LGBT liaison yesterday.
A federal appeals court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which forbids the recognition of same-sex marriage at a federal level. The ruling was praised by Ian James, spokesperson for FreedomOhio, in a statement: “The federal DOMA forbids allowing governmental recognition of civil marriage. The demise of the federal DOMA will not resolve Ohio’s ban on marriage equality. For this reason, we will soldier on, collect our petition signatures and win the right for committed and loving couples to be married so they can better care for and protect their families. That is ultimately why marriage matters and we look to have this issue on the ballot as soon as November 2013.”
With a week left, the United Way of Greater Cincinnati fundraising campaign has only met 70 percent of its goal. The campaign acknowledges it’s been a tough year, but campaign chairman David Joyce says he has been “heartened” by support.
The University of Cincinnati is committing to giving Cintrifuse $5 million initially and $5 million at a later point. Cintrifuse is a “startup accelerator,” meaning a company devoted to helping startup businesses get started.
Ohio health officials urge caution as they monitor a meningitis outbreak.
Ohio’s heating assistance program for low-income households is starting on Nov. 1. Qualifying for the program is dependent on income and the size of the household. For example, one-person households making $5,585 or less in the past three months or $22,340 or less in the past 12 months are eligible, while four-person households must be making $11,525 or less in the past three months or $46,100 or less in the past 12 months. For more information, check out the press release.
Kentucky is pitching into development at the Purple People Bridge. The state is boosting a $100 million hotel and entertainment project on the bridge with a $650,000 grant.
The Boy Scouts’ “perversion files” were released, and some of the sexual molestation cases involve Cincinnati.
Science finally has a breakthrough to care about. Scientists invented a strip that ensures pizza and coffee won't burn a person's mouth.
