Secret camera found in Miami County office: ‘Despicable display of corruption’
No criminal charges have been filed after a hidden surveillance camera was discovered in the wall of a Miami County safety building office, but the county prosecutor called the case a “despicable display of corruption and misuse of power.”
Miami County Sheriff’s detective Lt. Jason Moore launched an investigation Dec. 9 after he determined a covert camera likely was installed in 2015 by then-county IT Director Matt Watkins. Watkins told investigators he installed the camera at the direction of former Miami County Commissioner John “Bud” O’Brien, according to county documents and recorded sheriff’s interviews obtained by the Dayton Daily News.
The investigation has led to two resignations.
‘I’m not trying to buy a gun to kill someone over my little soup business’
The owner of Xuan Vietnamese-Thai Cuisine said he and wife fear for their lives after vandals damaged their restaurant, started a fire in their range hood and spray painted racial slurs on a building and truck.
Owners of the Riverside Thai restaurant at 4770 Airway Road and an international market next door came to work on Tuesday morning to find racist graffiti about the coronavirus on the property and the smell of gasoline.
The properties were damaged sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning, according to a Riverside Police report. The report also says a maintenance person discovered a fire in the range hood of the restaurant that damaged the hood.
Stimulus checks: Many Ohioans paying off debt, saving money
Credit: Eric Gay
Credit: Eric Gay
Many Ohioans are using their most recent stimulus checks to pay off debt or add to their savings, according to recent studies.
A Household Pulse Survey conducted between Jan. 6 and Jan. 18 found that more than half of Ohioans who recently received a stimulus check ― which would be part of the second round of payments ― would use the money to pay off debt (54%).
More than a quarter of Ohioans (28%) said they would mostly save the money, and one in six residents expected to mostly spend it.
What you need to know about 17-year cicadas emerging in Ohio in 2021
This is the year of the cicadas in southwest Ohio.
Brood X is scheduled to emerge to mate and lay eggs in southwest Ohio, impacting the Dayton area, beginning around mid-May. A brood is a large population of cicadas that emerges around the same time.
Other broods have emerged at other times around Ohio. The last time Brood X emerged was 2004. Brood X will also emerge in parts of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maryland and Indiana, according to the National Forest Service.
“They’re really a kind of a wild spectacle of nature,” said Don Cipollini, a professor of biological sciences at Wright State University.
Precipitation to taper off today, colder temperatures to remain
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
A wintry mix of snow and rain turned roads in southwest Ohio into a slushy mess Sunday and Monday’s additional precipitation and barely changing temperatures are expected to continue to make driving conditions tricky.
The Dayton area received slightly more than 3 inches of snowfall along and just north of I-70 and as much as 1.5 inches south of the highway, while the Springfield area saw approximately 4 inches of snow, according to John Franks, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington.
Temperatures that rose above freezing Sunday turned the snow to rain and prevented those areas from receiving the 6 inches that fell in some communities in West Central Ohio and the 9 inches or so that fell further north in the Lima area, Franks said.
Scarce national vaccine supply leads to frustration as local residents scramble to get shots
Credit: Jordan Laird
Getting a coronavirus vaccine in Ohio can feel like a frustrating free-for-all for Dayton-area residents and experts say the distribution system is not likely to change drastically any time soon.
Vaccine supply is likely to remain scarce for weeks or months at a national level, thus supply is scarce in Ohio. That means vaccine appointments go fast and not every eligible Ohioan can get the shot as soon as they’d like, though local providers are getting their limited allotments out within a week of receipt.
Every state is distributing the vaccine differently, which might be confusing people who watch the national news, said Amy Rohling McGee, president of the Health Policy Institute of Ohio.
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