Hey hey all. Our big, extended weekend basking in the MLB All-Star Game spotlight is over, and it seems like the city represented well. Our guy won the home run derby, we’ve got columnists expounding on the virtues of Cincinnati chili (and giving shoutouts to CityBeat) and even though the American League won the game, it was still a pretty fun time. Well done. But now it’s done.
The national media, hungover and chili-bloated, are packing up their gear. Snoop Dogg and the other A-listers have all gone home, or, more likely, to the super-exclusive ASG after party on a small island in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, a group of confused tourists is waking up after an all-night bender on a raft in the Ohio River composed entirely of a flotilla of thousands of discarded Red Bull cans and foam fingers. Someone get them out of there. All that means it’s back to the real world in Cincy. Here’s the news.
• Law enforcement and city officials say they’re pleased with how the ASG went down, with no violent incidents reported during the festivities. There was concern in the city after a July 4 incident on Fountain Square resulted in several arrests and an altercation left a man hospitalized, but city officials say the ASG, which drew an estimated 200,000 people to the city, went off without a hitch. The Cincinnati Police Department credits coordination among more than 25 organizations, including the Coast Guard, which helped patrol the Ohio River.
• Speaking of that July 4 incident, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters announced yesterday that his office would not be seeking hate crime charges against a group of men who allegedly beat 27-year-old Indiana man Christopher McKnight. McKnight is white, and his assailants were black. But Deters points out that there is no other evidence suggesting the crime was racially motivated. Deters has said he’ll be seeking felony charges against the four men suspected in the beating, calling them “a bunch of lawless thugs.” A video showing the altercation presents an ambiguous and incomplete record of the attack: It starts with one man fighting McKnight, followed by a few others jumping in as well while punching and kicking McKnight. At various times, McKnight is on the ground on the defensive, other times seemingly throwing punches, and at one point up moving around and raising his arms in a confrontational manner. Eventually, the action moves off-camera, where McKnight apparently sustained a broken nose, a concussion and wounds requiring stitches.
• The 19-year-old who turfed internationally recognized historic site and sacred Native American earthwork Serpent Mound will face a fine of about $4,000, community service, and a possible essay assignment about the site’s significance. Daniel Coleman Dargavelli hopped a curb and took a joyride over the site, leaving tire tracks along the ancient mound. Park officials say the damage is repairable but that the act showed serious disrespect for the sacred location.
• Did the Ohio Department of Education break the law by leaving out failing scores from online charter schools in an assessment of Ohio charter school performance? It seems so. The department’s charter school oversight director David Hansen admitted he omitted “F” grades for online charters from a report on charter school oversight. That report then showed charter schools and the organizations charged with overseeing them in a much more positive light. Hansen has said he did so because the failures of those schools “masked successes elsewhere” at more successful charters. But the omission is clearly against Ohio law, says State Sen. Peggy Lehner, who grilled Hansen yesterday on the missing data.
• Finally, President Barack Obama is set today to announce a test program designed to bring broadband Internet to more low-income households throughout the country. Obama will announce the initiative in the Choctaw Nation, a Native American community in Oklahoma, which will be one beneficiary of the pilot program. The initiative will also extend broadband access to about 275,000 households in 27 cities around the U.S. The eventual goal, according to the administration, is to extend high-speed internet access to every part of the country. Currently, a large gap exists in internet access for low-income communities. About 95 percent of households with adults with college degrees have access to internet, while only about 43 percent of households without high school diplomas have that access.