08/20/10 HEADLINE NEWS…

State officials are touting a massive solar energy project on a farm about 100 miles southwest of Cleveland. The PSEG Wyandot Solar Farm has nearly 160-thousand solar panels in Upper Sandusky that generate enough electricity to power more than 9-thousand homes. It’s being called the Midwest’s largest solar energy project. The energy is being sold to American Electric Power.

There’s bad news for a Northeast Ohio native who’s always insisted he did not kill two women and a child 16 years ago. Kevin Keith is scheduled to be executed September 15^th and the state parole board is recommending that Governor Ted Strickland let the lethal injection move ahead. Statehouse correspondent Bill Cohen reports.

The ringleader of a group that illegally brought Ukrainians to the Cleveland area and set them up with IDs has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison. A federal judge sentenced Vitaly Fedorchuk Thursday. He’s the latest of 16 people convicted in the ring;  prosecutors are still looking for two others. According to the U.S. attorney’s office, corrupt Ukrainian employees at the U.S. embassy there charged 12-thousand dollars for visas. The 40-year-old Fedorchuk  then brought the illegal immigrants  to Cleveland and set them up with real drivers licenses.

Cuyahoga County’s prosecutor is rejecting a federal push for the board of elections to print Spanish language ballots for November’s election. But, WKSU’s Kevin Niedermier reports that a former federal prosecutor says delaying bi-lingual ballots could hurt the county’s election results.

Cleveland Cavalier’s owner Dan Gilbert is another step closer to breaking ground on a casino in downtown Cleveland. Developer Forest City Enterprises is selling 16 acres of land near Terminal Tower and Tower City to Gilbert’s Detroit-based Rock Gaming LLC. The deal includes a multiyear lease for the old Higbee department store building to house the casino on an interim basis.

A downtown Akron landmark has tapped a worldwide management company to attract bigger entertainment acts. The Akron Civic Theater now has a five-year operating agreement with Philadelphia-based SMG. SMG manages more than 220 public facilities, including Chicago’s  Soldier Field and Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh. It’s the company’s first theater in Ohio.

Gov. Ted Strickland's administration wants certain freight trucks to carry heavier loads on highways so Ohio farmers and manufacturers can increase exports. The plan is unpopular with critics who say the added weight would further damage roads. The new plan calls for the weight limit on trucks carrying international shipping containers loaded with grain or any other product to be raised by 14-thousand pounds.

Donations from Cleveland-based Minute Men Human Resources of 50-thousand dollars to help poor families buy school uniforms does not ease critics’ worries. The Cleveland Metropolitan School District requires students wear uniforms, but said earlier this year they were no longer able to help pay for them. The school district spent nearly 350-thousand dollars on uniforms last year. James Hardiman, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, commends the donation, but says the school district still has a legal obligation to those children. Hardiman says the ACLU is concerned that children whose families cannot afford uniforms will be punished under school uniform rules, and could disrupt their learning experience. The Cleveland Metropolitan School District had no further comment.

Another Maple Heights school administrator has been charged in the Cuyahoga County corruption investigation. And, as WKSU’s Kevin Niedermier reports, these allegations include auctions off school equipment and bribery.

A Cleveland man who spent 16 years in prison for the murder of a convenience store clerk is now free. Prosecutors dropped murder charges against Darrell Houston after testimony Thursday. Houston has been free since 2007 when a judge reversed his conviction. An Ohio Appeals Court ordered a new trial.  The only witness to the murder testified that Houston was not the shooter.

Cleveland’s public transportation system will pay nearly 1 million dollars to the family of a man who died after being hit by a bus. The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority settled the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Patrick Merrill who was hit by a bus in a crosswalk last year. The driver, Angela Williams was sentenced to six months in prison. She was talking on her cell phone at the time of the accident.

Cleveland-based Third Federal Savings and Loan has agreed to terms with federal regulators to clear up concerns over its loan portfolio.  The bank has 90 days to generate a plan showing how it will reduce its credit risk in home-equity credit lines and loans, and to share the findings of an internal assessment of its credit risk. Regulators forced Third Federal to halt new lines of credit and home equity loans after learning that it had a high rate of delinquent loans.

A fire on a Lake Erie island has destroyed a row of shops and sent thick, black smoke billowing through a resort town.  Kelleys Island Mayor Rob Quinn says firefighters saved a bed-and-breakfast by hosing it down Thursday afternoon while its vinyl siding was melting from the fire's heat. The island's fire department was helped by firefighters from several communities on the mainland, who had to take a ferry to get to the fire scene.