Hello, all. Hope that if you ran the Flying Pig this weekend, you can still bend in all the places you normally bend. If not, slowly sit down somewhere comfortable and stretch while we run through the news (no actual running involved).
The University of Cincinnati’s Board of Trustees will meet at 8 a.m. May 8 in a special session to consider stripping convicted sexual abuser Bill Cosby of an honorary doctorate degree conferred by the school in 2001. Cosby was convicted of three counts of aggravated sexual assault late last month for drugging and molesting a woman. That conviction comes after years of allegations from dozens of women against the comedian and one-time cultural icon. Cosby blazed a trail, playing a black doctor on the TV smash hit The Cosby Show, which catapulted him into superstardom. During the trial, it was revealed that Cosby lured Andrea Constand, a women’s basketball coach at Temple University, into his home under the pretense that he wanted to be her mentor before drugging and sexually assaulting her. UC officials say that, should the board of trustees decide to strip Cosby’s doctorate, this is likely the first time the school has revoked an honorary degree.
• Details about emergency response failures that led to the death of 16-year-old Kyle Plush last month won’t be released this week, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters told the Hamilton County Commission today. Deters said that he’s waiting on more forensic evidence in Plush’s death, which happened April 10 after he was trapped by the third-row bench seat of his Honda Odyssey. Plush called 911 twice, but officers arriving on the scene could not locate him during a brief search in a different parking lot in which they did not leave their cruiser. Deters says he won’t comment on the case until next week at the earliest. The prosecutor has already completed his review of a city investigation into the incident, which he subpoenaed shortly before it was supposed to be released last week.
• The City of Cincinnati could step in to help prevent the elimination of full-time positions at the Amtrak station in Union Terminal. The company recently revealed that it would like to eliminate the four employee positions that help train passengers with boarding, ticket purchases, baggage and other issues by early June and replace them with one “caretaker” position. Amtrak’s Cardinal line to Chicago runs through Cincinnati, which is designated as a major stop. Currently, transit activist groups like All Aboard Ohio and Friends of the Cardinal are pushing back against the staff eliminations. Acting City Manager Patrick Duhaney wrote in a May 3 memo to the mayor and Cincinnati City Council that city administration could assist in those efforts, highlighting in the importance of staff positions to help elderly and disabled passengers navigate the multi-level train station.
• Ohio’s primary election is tomorrow. Are you ready? Find your polling location here. Read about the state’s wacky governor’s race here. Check out the local issues you should know about here. And think hard about Ohio’s bipartisan effort to reform the way it draws congressional districts, presented for approval as Issue 1.
Currently, lawmakers at the state house draw up districts directly and the governor either signs them or vetoes them. That’s not great if you’re like Ohio, which is currently GOP-dominated on the state level, in part thanks to state legislative district gerrymandering. If voters say yes to Issue 1, however, redistricting will take a more complicated process that, in its early rounds, draws in more input from the party not in power (the Democrats, at least right now). However, if the majority and minority parties don’t agree on a map, eventually the majority party will still get to draw up the congressional map, though it will be valid for four years instead of the current 10. The process could use some adjustments — after statewide landslide victories put huge numbers of GOP lawmakers in the state house, they drew up secret redistricting plans at a Columbus Hotel that led to incredibly lopsided congressional districts. The result: while the GOP won only 52 percent of the state’s congressional vote in 2012, it grabbed all but four of the state’s 16 congressional districts. Critics of Issue 1, however, say that the plan preserves too much power for the majority party and was drawn up to keep a more equitable solution from getting passed. That’s something Republicans admit.
“I think it largely enshrines the process that we have,” Republican state Sen. Matt Huffman told Vox. “It still leaves it in the hands of the majority party in the legislature, because people elected the majority party to make these decisions. But it also enshrines the concept of minority rights.”
• Former Campbell County Judge and prominent Trump campaigner Tim Nolan will spend the next 20 years in prison on human trafficking charges and must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, a judge ruled Friday. Nolan was accused of enticing as many as 19 young women, seven of whom were underage, with drugs in exchange for sex. He would find his victims by volunteering for a Northern Kentucky drug court, according to court testimony. During his time as a judge in the 1970s and 1980s, Nolan would use his perch to intimidate his victims, some of whom he held at his house. Now 72, Nolan entered a plea bargain in February, but tried to rescind it the next month. He asked to be placed on probation, saying he was a “first time offender.” Judge Kathleen Lape refused that request.
This article appears in May 2-9, 2018.