Engineering students at the University of Akron spent the weekend making a canoe – out of concrete.

Two-dozen civil engineering majors got up early Saturday morning to pack specially formulated concrete into a 19-foot mold for the canoe, which took 2,000 hours to create.  It’s part of the school’s decades-long participation in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Concrete Canoe competition.

State lawmakers are now considering an 18 cent per gallon increase in the gas tax proposed by the administation of Gov. Mike DeWine. It would plug a hole of more than a billion dollars in the Department of Transportation’s budget. But one legislative leader said they’re also looking for ways to cut taxes – again.

Citizens of Arcata, California voted last year to remove a statue of former President William McKinley from the city’s town square. When Canton’s mayor learned about this, he offered to take the statue. 

The statue had been in Arcata since 1906 but had been the subject of controversy. Some voters saw it as a symbol of imperialism; others said the former president had no connection to their city.

Starting on July 1, the Ohio Bureau of Worker’s Compensation will no longer pay for a powerful painkiller that’s at the center of the opioid crisis in the Buckeye State. 

The public art project called @Play brought something special to each one of Akron's neighborhoods. Now photos, maps and resident interviews are archived in a single museum-style exhibit.

On this week's State of the Arts, WKSU's Mark Arehart talks with @Play's creator about capturing each one of the Rubber City's distinct communities.

Advocates against capital punishment say they’re pleased with comments from Gov. Mike DeWine, who says executions won’t proceed until the prisons department comes up with a new lethal injection process. 

Gov. Mike DeWine is proposing an 18-cent hike to the gas tax in order to avoid what he’s calling an impending crisis with Ohio’s roads and bridges. There’s a provision in DeWine’s plan that is drawing concerns from lawmakers.

DeWine’s plan would take Ohio’s gas tax from 28 cents a gallon to 46 cents a gallon. The Ohio Department of Transportation says that would generate $1.2 billion next year.

But the plan also calls for increasing the gas tax every year based on inflation.