Kasich to make major Innerbelt announcement
Governor Kasich will be in Cleveland today for what his administration is billing as a major announcement about the I-90 Inner Belt Bridge project. The Ohio Department of Transportation announced earlier this year it would delay many projects due to a budget shortfall, including building a second Inner Belt Bridge. The $165 million project has been pushed back from 2014 to 2023. ODOT has since revised the expected completion date to 2019. But Kasich's has been looking for ways to get the project back on its original schedule.

Thistledown takes steps toward video slots expansion
The Thistledown horse track in North Randall is moving closer to becoming the state’s second racino. The Ohio Racing Comission on Wednesday gave Rock Ohio Caesars approval to obtain the permit. Now the company can apply for the 1-thousand video lottery terminals it wants to add at the track by this spring. Rock Ohio Caesers, which also owns Cleveland’s casino, also plans nearly 100-million dollars in renovations. The agreement announced in June also gives Rock Ohio the go-ahead to develop a permanent new racino in Summit or Stark County. Scioto Downs near Columbus, the first to be granted a racino license, opened last week.

Political parties continue clash over weekend voting
Democrats in the Ohio House say new early voting hours create disparity, not uniformity, among counties with different populations. Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted has ordered election boards in Ohio's 88 counties to have the same hours on weekdays and have no hours on weekends. House Minority Leader Armond Budish told reporters Wednesday that it's unfair to force counties with hundreds of thousands of voters to hold the same hours as those with tens of thousands. He and other Democrats want Husted to permit weekend voting and allow counties to choose to opt out of it. Husted says the rules are set and won't change. He said in a statement that with absentee ballots, Ohioans have more access this year than before.

Republicans set Kasich, Portman convention slots
Republican convention planners have set speaking slots for Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Rob Portman next week. Kasich is scheduled as the fifth speaker in the Tuesday night session, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Portman, who was among the candidates considered as running mate for presumptive nominee Mitt Romney, is one of the speakers for the Wednesday night session, in a group that includes U.S. Sen. John McCain, who was the Republican nominee in 2008. The convention runs Monday through Aug. 30 in Tampa, Fla.

Fight brewing over Lake Erie funding
The Great Lakes Maritime Task Force and other Great Lakes groups have written a letter to Congress asking that billions of dollars set aside for dredging and other clean ups actually go to those projects. The Plain Dealer reports the fund takes in about 1.6 billion dollars yearly in fees paid by shipper but only about half of that is spent on dredging.  The newspaper reports Ohio US Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman want the fund’s 8-billion dollar surplus to be spent on those efforts.

University of Cincinnati barred from enforcing restrictions on political speech
A federal judge who found the University of Cincinnati's restrictions on student political speech on campus to be unconstitutional has permanently blocked the school from enforcing those limits. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Black's order Wednesday also approved policy revisions he ordered the university to make in his June 12 ruling. He had found that the university violated the First Amendment by restricting student political speech to a certain area and requiring prior notification and permission.

Ohio Supreme Court to hear cases in Cleveland
The Ohio Supreme Court will hear eight cases in Cleveland next month, including one about police and crime labs preserving DNA samples. The court says half of the cases will be heard Sept. 25 at the Case Western Reserve University Law School. The justices convene the next day at a county courthouse for the remaining cases. High school students will observe both sessions. The first case was filed by an inmate who was sentenced to life in prison for a fatal stabbing 15 years ago but maintains his innocence. At issue is a 2010 law requiring authorities to preserve biological evidence in certain crimes and provide information about that evidence to defendants. The court will consider whether the requirements apply to evidence authorities already possessed when the law took effect.

Ohio students above average on ACT tests
New figures for the ACT exam show Ohio students have again tested above the national average. The scores released Wednesday show Ohio's high school class of 2012 had a composite score of 21.8 in the subjects of English, reading, math and science. The score, measured on a scale of 1 to 36, is unchanged from 2011. The ACT exam measures high school students' readiness for college-level work. This year's national average was 21.1.

Lordstown union set to announce “good news”
One of the auto workers unions at GM’s Lordstown plant is touting an announcement of "good news" today at the union hall in Warren. The Lordstown plant has been building Chevy's Cruze since 2009, restoring 3-thousand jobs at the plant. The car is the fourth best-selling compact in the U.S. this year. Newspaper reports from Detroit and Youngstown say the automaker could unveil a new version of the Cruze.