Latest news with #WEWS
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cleveland Browns documentary celebrates 40-year anniversary of the Dawg Pound
The Cleveland Browns are celebrating their history and taking their case regarding the proposed Brook Park dome with two video projects. First up: 'Dawg Pound XL' airs tonight [July 22] on WEWS (Channel 5) at 8 p.m, hosted by sports director Jon Doss along with legendary Browns cornerback Hanford Dixon. Advertisement The documentary looks at the creation of the fan favorite spot from the barking during practices of the team's lock-down cornerbacks of the time: Dixon ('Top Dawg') and Frank Minnifield ('Mighty Minni') during some of the team's best days during the '80s when they appeared in three AFC Championship Games in four years, courtesy of a stingy defense led by the defensive backfield and the offensive stewardship of quarterback Bernie Kosar. Cleveland Browns offensive lineman Dawand Jones, left, and Hanford Dixon, right, present St. Ignatius basketball player Quinn Woidke with the male athlete of the year award during the 25th Greater Cleveland Sports Awards at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in Cleveland, Ohio. What started as a practice ritual bled onto the field and became ingrained in local sports culture ever since. The special will stream simultaneously on YouTube. The other effort from the team: 'Building Brownstown,' a 10-part video podcast hosted by Nathan Zegura that takes the case for the Browns domed stadium project to the fans. It will feature interviews with team leaders, the architects behind the designs, along with NFL insiders. Advertisement George M. Thomas covers a myriad of things including sports and pop culture, but mostly sports, he thinks, for the Beacon Journal. This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Cleveland Browns celebrate the birth of Dawg Pound in new documentary
USA Today
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Browns QB Shedeur Sanders continues to give back to Cleveland community
In the less-than-three months since rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders arrived in Cleveland, he has already made himself a prominent figure in the local community. After a tragic explosion and fire at the Rainbow Terrance Apartments in Cleveland's Garden Valley last month that displaced 40 families, Sanders stepped up to help bring a sense of normalcy back to the community. As first reported by WEWS' Camryn Justice, Sanders hosted the Garden Valley Fun Fest on Wednesday, providing free refreshments and entertainment. Here is what Sanders shared about why he decided to get involved: Since being selected by the Browns in the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft, Sanders has made a habit of giving back to the Cleveland area; this week's event comes after Sanders made an appearance at a local youth football camp last month and spoke to students at a Cleveland-area high school in April. While Sanders' character was under the microscope before and after April's draft, his penchant for supporting and engaging with the city of Cleveland has painted him in an endearing light, and is a positive reflection on the Browns' signal-caller.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ohio retired teachers' pension fund hires new executive director
STRS Ohio meeting room. (Photo by Morgan Trau, WEWS.) The Ohio retired teachers' pension fund has hired a former pensions expert from North Carolina as its new executive director. Steven Toole, the previous head of the North Carolina Retirement Systems, will take over starting in mid-July. He grew up outside Columbus and went to Ohio State University, according to his candidate material records. 'My experience extends to working closely with boards and stakeholders to ensure transparency, accountability, and integrity — values central to State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) Ohio's guiding principles,' Toole wrote in a letter to a recruiter. Currently, he works as a senior product manager at Principal, a retirement and investment company. He also gets some income from Home Depot, according to an ethics filing. While working at the North Carolina retirement system, he managed a $100 billion pension system and $11.8 billion in defined contribution assets, serving approximately 1 million public employees, according to his candidate documents. He worked as the executive director of the North Carolina system from 2011 to 2019, when he was fired, the records request shows. According to Toole, in an email he sent to recruiter Dan Cummings, he stated that there were 'no performance issues at all,' and he didn't receive an explanation from the state treasurer as to why he was being removed. Cummings told a board member that the former North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell replaced Toole when he came into office, emails show. The candidate document shows that he was replaced with Folwell's 'hand-chosen successor.' However, Toole was replaced two years into the treasurer's term. Once this was brought up by a board member, according to emails, the new STRS head suggested that the reason may be related to the treasurer's 'cost-cutting platform.' More records are pending from the North Carolina Treasurer's Office. Following being let go from the North Carolina system, Toole then worked for Prudential Retirement. This was later bought out by another company, and his job was 'eliminated,' according to the documents. He worked in retirement benefits for nearly three decades at Nationwide Insurance before joining the North Carolina team, the documents show. His hiring comes after a year of controversy, during which the STRS board chair and one of the former board members were accused of participating in a $65 billion corruption scheme. The chair, Rudy Fichtenbaum, denies all allegations, and some retired educators are accusing Ohio Statehouse Republicans of trying to stop transparency. 'The high scrutiny and media attention surrounding STRS Ohio over the past eighteen months do not give me pause — rather, I see it as an opportunity to step into a leadership role, bring clarity, and strengthen trust among members, legislators, and stakeholders,' Toole wrote in his candidate document. There are mainly two defined factions of the STRS population: 'reformers' and those who want to keep the 'status quo.' In short, reformers want to switch to index funding, while 'status quo' individuals want to keep actively managing the funds. Recent elections have allowed the reform-minded members to have a majority of the board. Fichtenbaum and all of the reformers on the board voted in support of Toole, while each of the status quo members, including appointees, voted against him. The vote ended up being 6-5. The current acting executive director, Aaron Hood, was also given his notice at the meeting. Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on X and Facebook. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ohio lawmakers once again ambush the citizen ballot initiative process
Ballot petition signature collection. (Photo by WEWS.) In August 2023, Ohio voters sent a clear message when they overwhelmingly rejected the legislature's blatant attempt to undermine our citizen-initiative process. But instead of listening, politicians in Columbus doubled down. Their new targets? Everyday Ohioans who dare to collect signatures, knock on doors, and exercise their constitutional right to direct democracy. Ohio Senate Bill 153 and Ohio House Bill 233 are the latest attempts to dismantle the people's power. While headlines may focus on disingenuous provisions about voter registration and drop boxes, buried deep in these 204-page monstrosities are provisions specifically designed to intimidate, harass, and shut down grassroots campaigns before they ever reach the ballot. Let's be clear: these bills are an attack on the People's Process — on your voice, your rights, your power. Imagine a system where simply collecting signatures for a cause you believe in could land you under investigation, compelled to testify before hostile politicians without any evidence of wrongdoing. No formal charges, no protections — just suspicion, interrogation, and intimidation. Organizers could be forced to reveal private donor lists, volunteer contacts, and internal communications. This isn't democracy. It's surveillance. It's coercion. It's guilty until proven innocent. And it gets worse. These bills are packed with petty, punitive rules designed to trip up campaigns on technicalities. Didn't write the number of signatures in a petition book personally? All signatures in that book: void. A minor correction to a signature count? Void. Wearing a 'compensation badge' while volunteering—because you accepted a slice of pizza before canvassing? If not, void. This is death by a thousand cuts — and it's exactly what the General Assembly wants. Why? Because when citizens write the laws, it threatens the political status quo. A status quo built and reinforced by rampant gerrymandering that leaves most Ohioans without a voice in the Statehouse. Two constitutional amendment campaigns — one to end qualified immunity and another to eliminate property taxes — are preparing for signature collection. If these bills pass, both will face outrageous, politically motivated barriers. That's not a bug in the legislation. It's the design. And what about the so-called 'solutions' these bills claim to offer? Requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is a dangerous fix to a nonexistent problem. Just ask Kansas, where a similar law blocked over 30,000 eligible voters from registering — until a federal judge struck it down as unconstitutional. Claims of widespread non-citizen voting have been repeatedly debunked. Meanwhile, real people — like a longtime East Cleveland resident wrongly flagged as a non-citizen — pay the price. As for drop boxes: these secure, monitored ballot return options helped over 180,000 Ohioans cast their vote in November 2024. We need more of them, not fewer. Restricting access only makes voting harder, not safer. SB 153 and HB 233 would have chilling real-world consequences and set a dangerous precedent. Any lawmaker who says, 'If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear,' should take a long look in the mirror. That logic has no place in a democracy. This isn't about partisan politics. This is about power — and who gets to wield it. The answer must remain: the people. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ohio educators rally for school funding at Statehouse ahead of budget announcement
Attendees of a rally to support public education hold up signs at the Ohio Statehouse. Photo by Morgan Trau/WEWS Ohio educators held one last rally to urge the state Senate to fully fund public schools ahead of the chamber's budget proposal. Teaching at Jefferson Area High School in Ashtabula County was only supposed to be a temporary job while John Patterson finished graduate school. 'I discovered that teaching was my calling, and it was my mission,' said Patterson, a retired teacher of 29 years. Like him, education is a passion for many teachers. Dozens made their way to the Ohio Statehouse to show their support for public school funding. 'It's important for Ohio's kids, it's important for Ohio's future, to get the school funding formula totally in place so there's predictability and sustainability for all of our schools in every corner of the state,' Patterson told me. The educators protested against the House's passed budget, one that slashes hundreds of millions of dollars from the expected school spending. The program currently in place, the Cupp-Patterson Fair School Funding Plan (FSFP), was a bipartisan formula that Patterson helped create when he was a state representative. 'I spent a great deal of time with my dear friend (former Republican House Speaker) Robert Cupp to come together to put something out there for the legislature that is sustainable, that is transparent, and that is good for the future,' Patterson said. But Speaker Matt Huffman says that funding level is 'unsustainable.' Now the future of the education budget is in Senate Finance Chair Jerry Cirino's (R-Kirtland) hands. 'When we make a move in the budget for school systems, it impacts different systems in different ways,' Cirino said during the start of the budget process. 'That's what makes it complicated.' Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) warned that the funding formula could actually decrease the amount of money for schools this year. 'There's a chance that schools would see negative numbers as a result of that formula going into place,' he said. According to lawmakers who work closely with schools, including state Rep. Jamie Callender, R-Concord, about 5% of districts would have less money this year than they did last year because they have fewer students enrolled. 'Are you fine potentially seeing negative numbers for some of these school districts?' McColley asked. Patterson said that this makes the funding breakdown more equitable for public schools across the state. With the House's budget, every school would receive significantly less money than they planned for, which districts have already said could lead to staff and program cuts. 'Shop classes or (Future Farmers of America) classes or art, music and gym that aren't necessarily required, those sorts of programs could get put on the chopping block,' Patterson continued. The retired teacher is hoping that the Senators hear him before the budget amendments are announced this week. 'To help kids, that's who I am,' Patterson said. Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
