Morning News and Stuff

It’s Opening Day today, which means it’s time for a citywide celebration of the Cincinnati Reds and baseball. At the City Council meeting last week, Mayor Mark Mallory declared today a local holiday, so if you need an excuse to sneak in a few beers while watching the parade at work, say the mayor made you do it.

The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles will allow the children of illegal immigrants who qualify for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) to

obtain driver’s licenses

. DACA was signed by President Barack Obama to give recipients the opportunity to remain in the country legally without fear of prosecution, but until Friday, the BMV wasn’t sure that qualified recipients for driver’s licenses.

Democratic mayoral candidate John Cranley

proposed his budget plan

Thursday that he says will avoid layoffs and the city’s plan to lease its parking assets to the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, but critics say the plan is unworkable and some of its revenue sources are “fantasy.” Cranley’s proposal calls for $21 million in casino revenue that Horseshoe Casino General Manager Kevin Kline previously said will be available to City Council, but Jon Harmon, legislative director for Councilman Chris Seelbach, says the number is using an outdated model and the city’s estimate of $10 million is more in line with recent turn of events. The budget proposal also claims to make its cuts and raise revenue without layoffs, but even Cranley was uncertain about whether that’s possible.

Opponents of the city’s parking plan say they’ve

gathered more than 10,000 signatures

— more than the 8,500 required — but the signatures still need to be verified before the plan is placed on the ballot. Last week, the mayor

told Cincinnati residents

to not sign the petition because he says it will force the city to make budget cuts and layoffs. A ruling from Hamilton County Judge Robert Winkler opened the parking plan to referendum by essentially striking down the city’s use of emergency clauses.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is

backing a wider religious exemption

for contraceptive coverage in health plans. As part of Obamacare, health insurance plans are required to provide contraceptive coverage — a measure that may save insurance companies money by preventing expensive pregnancies, according to

some estimates

. But DeWine and 12 other Republican state attorney generals argue the mandate infringes on religious liberty.

It’s not just charter schools that do poorly under the state’s new report card system; most urban schools

would flunk too

. An analysis by StateImpact Ohio found urban schools actually perform worse in some areas, supporting arguments from charter school advocates that the report cards’ harsh grades show a demographic problem in urban areas, not a lack of quality in education. An analysis of old data by CityBeat in 2012 found Cincinnati Public Schools

would fall under the new system

.

A new study found bedbugs are

afflicting less Cincinnati residents

— suggesting the reversal of a trend that has haunted local homeowners for years. In the past few years, Cincinnati was marked as one of the worst cities for bedbugs around the country.

The last two generations are falling behind their parent’s wealth

. The trend shows a generational divide behind

rising income inequality in the United States

.

Ohio gas prices are

starting to go down

this week.

Scientists

still don’t know

what’s killing up to half of America’s bees.