Former Browns owner Modell dies
Former controversial Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell has died. A statement from Modell’s son David says he died at 4 a.m. this morning at a Baltimore hospital. Modell owned the Browns for 34 years but moved the team to Baltimore after the 1995 season. That made him incredibly unpopular in Northeast Ohio. He won a Super Bowl with the Ravens in 2000 before selling his majority stake in 2004. Art Modell was 87 years old.

Dominion wants to end regulated pricing for customers
A northeast Ohio gas utility wants to be the first in the state to end regulated pricing for customers. If state regulators approve Dominion East Ohio's proposal, it could mean that a key protection for gas customers would be removed. The move would end a system where gas marketers compete in an auction to offer the lowest price for customers who receive the regulated service. Opposition to Dominion’s plan comes from Ohio Partners for Affordable Energy, which argues the result will be higher profit margins for marketers because they will no longer have to compete with the default prices. 

Ohio declared disaster area after drought
Almost all of Ohio has been granted a natural disaster designation that will allow eligible farmers access to federal assistance to help with the effects of the drought. Gov. John Kasich's office says that the U.S. Department of Agriculture granted the governor's request for the designation for 85 of Ohio's 88 counties. The governor made the request after severe heat, rainfall shortages and other weather-related disasters affected large areas of Ohio over the spring and summer. The designation gives eligible farmers access to federal assistance such as emergency low-interest loans for crop losses, relief payments for non-insurable losses and permission to cut hay for livestock from acreage otherwise set aside for conservation.

Husted ordered to appear in court
A federal judge has ordered the Ohio’s elections chief to personally appear at a court hearing over the swing state's early voting rules. Attorneys for President Barack Obama's campaign urged the judge in court filings Wednesday to enforce his ruling that restores early voting for all voters during the three days before Election Day. The U.S. District Judge then ordered Secretary of State Jon Husted to show up to a scheduled hearing next Thursday. Husted ordered counties not to set any in-person voting hours during those final days because the state is appealing the judge's decision.

Plain Dealer publisher retirement casts doubt on future
The publisher of The Plain Dealer will retire early next year. Terry Egger announced on Wednesday that he's leaving Ohio's largest daily newspaper after more than six years in Cleveland. His successor has not been announced. The 54-year-old Egger was named publisher, president and chief executive officer of The Plain Dealer in 2006. He also oversees a chain of weeklies in northeast Ohio. The Plain Dealer says Egger hopes to return to teaching in college. The newspaper has a weekday circulation of about 286-thousand and is owned by New York-based Advance Publications Inc.

Holmes County Sheriff describes emotional Amish hair cutting
The sheriff in Holmes County described a crying scene where a community leader had his beard and hair cut by fellow Amish in a nighttime home invasion. Tim Zimmerly testified Wednesday in Cleveland federal court in the trial of 16 defendants in attacks on fellow Amish. Zimmerly said he went last October to the home of an Amish bishop whose beard was cut short and his hair chopped off to the scalp, leaving it bloody. He says people were upset and screaming, with hair scattered on the floor. The sheriff says a neighbor identified the attackers as members of a breakaway Amish community. The leader of the group says the beard-cutting was a matter of internal church discipline.

Three men plead guilty in Route 82 Bridge plot
Three men accused of plotting to bomb a Northeast Ohio highway bridge have admitted their roles in the scheme. Two 20-year olds, Connor Stevens of Berea and Brandon Baxter of Lakewood, along with 26-year-old Douglas Wright, of Indianapolis, pleaded guilty to all three counts against them Wednesday in Akron. The group of self-described anarchists planted remote-controlled explosives at the base of the Route 82 bridge over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The bomb turned out to be fake, supplied by a paid-FBI informant. They face 30 years to life in prison when they are sentenced in November.

Supreme Court on landfill ruling 
The Ohio Supreme Court says a Cincinnati landfill can't go forward with a 350-acre expansion without approval of a local zoning commission. The Wednesday ruling sets a statewide precedent that a private landfill that sets its own rates is not exempt from zoning rules like a public utility. The ruling comes in a case waged since 2006 between a Township and Rumpke Sanitary Landfill, one of Ohio's largest landfills and recycling complexes.