09/08/10 HEADLINE NEWS…

Cuyahoga County voters have picked their candidates to face off for county executive in November. Lakewood mayor and former FBI agent Ed FitzGerald won Tuesday’s Democratic primary, defeating three other candidates. FitzGerald faces Republican primary winner Matt Dolan and a handful of third-party and independent candidates in the general election. Last year, Cuyahoga County voters approved a charter that replaces the commissioners and other elected officials with an executive and county council.

Akron’s police union will begin voting today on a tentative contract agreement with the city. The deal was struck late Tuesday after a ten hour negotiating session and months of heated talks. If approved, the union will avoid the layoffs of 40 officers this weekend. The new contract also would allow Akron voters to consider a charter amendment to divert about $13 million in school construction revenue over the next three years to city safety forces.

The former head of Cleveland’s indoor pro soccer franchise is expected to plead guilty to tax fraud charges. From 1999 and into 2005, Paul Garofolo was general manager and president of NorthCoast Professional Sports. That organization launched the Cleveland Crunch then renamed it the Cleveland Force. According to the charges, Garofalo filed false income tax returns for 2003 through 2005 by understating his income by nearly 220-thousand dollars. The charges say Garofolo was paid off the books by the team’s owner. Garofalo also was co-owner of Signature Sports & Marketing, and the charges say he inflated his business expenses by listing private school tuition as business trip airfare.

Democrat Lee Fisher says it will be a week-to-week decision on how much time he can buy on TV in the race of Ohio’s open US Senate seat.  Campaign finance numbers have shown Fisher trailing Republican Rob Portman 9-to-1 in fundraising. His first television ad begins this week, while Portman has been running ads all summer.

Ohio will get about $2 million through the federal government's Great Lakes Restoration Initiative that seeks to target the region's worst problems. U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson made the announcement Tuesday in Toledo. In Ohio, $1 million goes to surface water improvement in Cuyahoga County. Other funds will go to a sediment project in the Toledo Harbor.

Nine people were injured by an explosion at a factory outside Toledo that makes doors for Chrysler vehicles. Authorities say the injuries appeared to be minor from this morning's blast at Faurecia Interior Systems in Northwood.

A third defendant has been sentenced in a fatal beating death of a Kent State University student last fall. Glenn Jefferson Junior will serve one year in prison for lying to investigators about the incident. Two others are serving 15-years to life in prison. Kent State senior Christopher Kernich died six days after he was attacked by the group last November.

The mother of a Lorain County man who was fatally mauled by a bear has thrown her support behind an exotic pet ban being written in the state.

Deirdre Herbert says in a letter to Gov. Ted Strickland that keeping wild animals as pets is a "prescription for more tragedies." The Humane Society of the United States, which is pushing for the ban, posted her letter on its website.

Twenty-four-year-old Brent Kandra died after an Aug. 19 attack as he fed the bear owned by another man at a suburban Cleveland animal facility.

General Motor’s Lordstown plant is ready to roll out its long-anticipated Chevrolet Cruze. A ceremony at the Youngstown area facility today celebrates the first cars being delivered across the U.S. GM North America president Mark Reuss says the entire state has helped produce the new fuel-efficient compact.

GM delayed the Cruze launch by about four months. Ruess says he doesn’t think that will impact competition with similar new compacts, including the Ford Focus.

The Cleveland School District is getting a 25-thousand dollar grant from the Cleveland NAACP to help outfit needy students with uniforms. That will be combined with 50-thousand dollars from MinuteMen Human Resources. The Ohio ACLU had threatened legal action after Cleveland schools dropped funding for uniforms from this year’s budget. ACLU legal director James Hardiman says he’s satisfied with the new policy.

Ohio law says schools that require uniforms must help low-income families pay for them.

Early voters in Summit County will be videotaped. The Summit County Board of Elections voted to install video-surveillance equipment at an early-voting location to address security concerns that were raised by Republican board members. The board will spend nearly 4-thousand dollars on the equipment.

The Highway Patrol says seven people were killed in seven separate crashes on Ohio roadways over Labor Day weekend, a drop from the 17 who died last year.