How is it only Tuesday yet feels like it should be Friday? This is the downside to extended holidays they don’t tell you about.
YOUNGSTOWN GETS A REPRIEVE, FOR NOW

The Youngstown Vindicator deserved to publish forever given it had the best newspaper name in America. But sadly the legacy of newspapers no longer means as much as it once did as we moved away from getting our news from professionally trained teams to random people talking to themselves on social media.
And while it’s startling a town the size of Youngstown won’t have a daily newspaper, it’s getting a reprieve from a national investigative outlet.
From ProPublica.com:
ProPublica announced Monday that it will immediately open up a spot in its Local Reporting Network for a local news organization to cover accountability issues in Youngstown, Ohio, after the region’s only daily newspaper, The Vindicator, announced it will close at the end of next month.
Under the program, which currently works with 20 local partners across the country, ProPublica pays the salary and a stipend for benefits so news organizations can devote a full-time reporter to work on an accountability journalism project for a year. ProPublica also offers editing support, as well as data, research, engagement, audience and production/design assistance.
“What’s going on in Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley cries out for solid investigative reporting,” said Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica’s editor in chief. “We created the Local Reporting Network to fill that critically important need.”
News organizations and reporters interested in applying for the Youngstown reporting spot should fill out this form and describe what they plan to investigate. Applications are due by July 22. The news organization we select will receive funding for the salary and benefits of a full-time reporter through June 2020. (Freelance reporters can apply, but they need to secure the backing of an Ohio-based news organization willing to run their work.)
Yes, this is good news for someone willing to potentially relocate to Youngstown for a year. But it pales in comparison to having an actual newsroom with reporters and copy editors.
I think about the death of newspapers a lot. (I have a normal brain that thinks normal things.) I subscribed to the Piqua Daily Call for two months before canceling after I never got a single paper delivered to me. That paper recently merged with Tipp City and Troy’s papers to form a single county entity that publishes like three times a week. It rarely, if ever, covers state or national politics.
It’s a great time to be a corrupt politician in Ohio… which is saying something considering we just promoted all the central figures of the largest charter schools scandal in state history.
THANKS, JOHN KASICH
John Kasich has spent the last two years trying to reinvent himself as The Last Sensible Republican. But he came to power with the Tea Party wave, the anti-tax movement of White resentment that laid the electoral groundwork for the diseased gameshow host that would eventually win the presidency.
One of Kasich’s first acts was to spit on $400 million on a train that connected Columbus’ biggest cities. The move helped cement Columbus as the largest city in the world without a dedicated rail line.
From Michael De Bonis of wosu.org:
A decade ago, there was a big push to bring passenger rail back to Columbus with the so-called "3-C" corridor. The plan would have connected Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland.
Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland pushed for the new line, with $400 million from the federal government allocated for the project. But in the 2010 election, Ohioans voted out Strickland in favor of Republican John Kasich.
Kasich killed the plan over concerns that the line would be too expensive and wouldn’t draw enough riders. Those $400 million were sent to other states for their transportation projects.
Though that plan failed, officials are considering two new plans to bring high-speed travel to town. One is an Amtrak high-speed passenger train line between Chicago and Columbus, with stops in Indiana and Ohio.
I-71 never lacks drivers whenever I travel either way out of Columbus. People would absolutely use the train as long as it was clean, affordable, and ran on time.
I will admit my interests in wanting one are selfish. Yet I dream of a day where I can take a train to Cleveland and not have to worry about Browns fans lighting my car on fire to celebrate an AFC championship victory over the vile New England Patriots.
I’d settle for reliable light rail service in Columbus, but our city council only currently seems interested in driverless shuttles that nobody uses.
GOING TO SCHOOL TO LEARN ABOUT MARIJUANA

If you’re looking for a career change and have more than $6,500 in your bank account, do I have an opportunity for you! It just happens to involve the Ohio medical marijuana industry that our politicians have hampered every step of the way.
From Debbie Holmes of wosu.org:
“If they want to add credentials and credibility to their prior knowledge they have in the cannabis realm, they could come attend classes here at Cleveland School of Cannabis,” says admissions officer Nate Bauman.
The classes teach students about growing marijuana, running a dispensary and learning how to use medical marijuana to help patients.
“Our first most popular program is horticulture program,” Bauman says. “And that teaches students if they’re looking to get into the cultivation facilities side of things. If a student has a green thumb, that’s right up their alley.”
Classes for each major take place at 3700 Corporate Drive on Columbus’ Northeast Side. They cost $6,500 per subject or $12,500 for an executive program that offers all three majors. Bauman says his company also offers grants and interest-free payment plans to help students pay for classes.
See, this is why I’m a terrible capitalist. Just the absolute worst. I look at weed and say it’s a weed, any idiot with some dirt and water and sunlight can grow it. Others look at is a business opportunity to charge people $12,500 for information that can be obtained through 30 minutes of Google research. It’s not even an accredited college, and you get a gift certificate at the end! Just an amazing hustle for anybody who can do it and sleep at night.
14-YEAR-OLD MURDERED WITH FENTANYL

You don’t have to look hard to find stories of overdose deaths in Ohio. Yet this one sadly includes a 14-year-old boy who was given the drug and then buried in a shallow grave.
From Edd Pritchard of ohio.com:
CARROLLTON A 14-year-old boy whose body was found in a shallow grave in April died from acute fentanyl intoxication, the Carroll County coroner announced Monday in a joint statement with the sheriff and prosecutor.
The ruling comes as Carroll County officials continue investigating the death of Jonathan E. Minard, who lived in Dellroy. His body was found April 19 — less than a week after he was reported missing — on a Washington Township farm buried in a shallow grave.
Carroll County Coroner Mandal B. Haas ruled Minard’s death a homicide after reviewing results of an autopsy and tests performed by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s office.
Sheriff Dale R. Williams said in a telephone interview that his office’s portion of the investigation could wrap up soon. “The case, as far as our caseload, is near the end.”
Not going to lie: It’s not heart-warming to know that the psychopath who committed this crime is still out there! I’m never one to advocate for harsh criminal justice penalties, but I’m going to go ahead and make an exception on this one. I don’t need to see the perpetrator outside prison ever again in my lifetime.
MAN STEALS FORKLIFT, UPENDS WOMAN’S CAR IN BROAD DAYLIGHT BEFORE GETTING ARRESTED

I don’t like drinking anymore. I got too good at it and it always become a thing where two beers at dinner turned into me not remembering chunks of my life. That used to be funny and cool in college but is terrifying as a 32-year-old man who should have learned this elementary lesson a long time ago.
But in all my days of drinking and trying to implode my life, I can at least take pride in that I never stole my employer’s forklift and flipped over a woman’s car in the middle of town during broad daylight.
And no, I haven’t read anything about the bandit being drunk. But I’m going to assume he was drunk (or high) off his ass when he decided this was a reasonable course of action.
From Falycia Campbell of abc6newsonyourside.com:
MURRAY CITY, Ohio — The Hocking County Sheriff's Office arrested a man who is accused of stealing a forklift and flipping over a woman's car on Saturday.
According to a post on the sheriff's office Facebook page, their office received several calls stating that a large John Deere forklift front end loader was utilized to flip a vehicle over on Main Street in Murray City.
Witnesses at the scene stated while the driver of the forklift was leaving the area, it also struck another vehicle as it sped away.
Deputies identified the suspect as 26-year-old Carl Williams, of Glouster.
Williams admitted to stealing the front-end loader from Murray Timber and Log Company, where he was an employee at. He also confessed to purposely damaging the car he flipped, which belonged to a female acquaintance of his, the sheriff's office said.
At least only some cars were injured as this man decided to torch his entire life on a Saturday afternoon. He should be thankful he didn’t wake up out of blackout having killed somebody. But he’s going to be paying those insurance bills off for a decade.

THOSE WMDs. The history of search engines… The rise of militant Buddhism… Nancy Pelosi doesn’t know who the Democratic Party is anymore… The “Texas miracle” missed most of Texas… The worst lede of all time.