Viles Dorsainvil, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Haitian Support Center is asking people around the country to contact their Congressional representatives to urge them to sign the TPS Discharge Petition which, once enough signatures are collected would trigger a vote by Congress to extend TPS to Haitian immigrants by 3-years. Contact your representatives here. - Kumar

WYSO recently reported that a section of the riverfront along the Great Miami River in West Carrollton will receive over $100 million in investment. The investment is coming as a part of a project to transform a section of the river into The River District. The District will include the demolition of a defunct water treatment plant, installation of a whitewater park, building of mixed used developments and restaurants, and the creation of a first responder training facility.

The project is noteworthy in that it will include the remediation of a water treatment plant with a history of contamination. The Appvion Wastewater Treatment Plant was “Contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, from the 1960s through the early 2000s, the city [of West Carrollton] purchased the 28-acre property in 2012.” The remediation project will remove contaminated soil and demolish ailing structures. [WYSO]

Perhaps the most interesting part of this project is the development of a training facility for first responders. The facility will be designed to train first responders in a variety of areas, including swift-water rescue because of the dangerous stretch of water near the proposed training facility. West Carrollton officially cited rising waters and an increase in flooding as primary motivators for a first responder training facility that included water rescue specialities. It is always fascinating to see how the impacts of the climate crisis are oftentimes embedded in decisions without being made explicit. [Dayton Daily News]

It is remarkable that we are five years out from the FBI raids of officials’ homes tied to the scandal and the jury is just now beginning deliberations. Although I am growing tired of the coverage of this sprawling scandal, it remains important that we don’t take for granted the allegations made in the lawsuit and the significant implications for how our political systems functions.

You can find a recap of the case here provided by Signal Ohio. The defense, which is comprised of Former FirstEnergy executives Chuck Jones and Michael Dowling, are represented by 19 attorneys. Both waived their right to testify. The state case against Jones and Dowling is the first to move through the legal process. The federal case is awaiting resolution of the state case and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) case against Jones continues.

For those concerned about utility prices increasing, this case, both its state and federal counterparts, has already revealed how valuable it is for utilities to gain favorable rulings from regulatory and legislative bodies. If the payments made by FirstEnergy to Sam Randazzo are not deemed a bribe it would undercut much of the legal arguments challenging the rate increases and subsidies FirstEnergy was awarded while Randazzo was chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO).

The proposed bill, Ohio House Bill (HB 249), seeks to criminalize drag performances in addition to “targeting transgender Ohioans in daily life.” [The Buckeye Flame] Under the provisions targeting drag performances the bill aims to recast drag performances, by definition, as obscene, rather than relying on the existing anti-obscenity laws in Ohio. Critics of the bill argue it is unnecessary because there are already at least two anti-obscenity laws on the books in Ohio. The two laws, Disseminating Matter Harmful to Juveniles’ (2907.31) and Pandering Obscenity (2907.32), provide a pathway to deal with actions that may be deemed “obscene.”

The bill would ban, “performers or entertainers who exhibit a gender identity that is different from the performer’s or entertainer’s biological sex using clothing, makeup, prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts, or other physical markers…” As absurd as that sounds, it would go even further to criminalize the use of “gendered public facilities to change clothing during ordinary daily life.”

Opponent testimony came from numerous organizations and individuals, including a number of performers. One of the individuals, “Melody Wojno – who performs drag as Maelstrom West,” powerfully testified that, ‘“Those other things are performances. My life is not a performance.”’