A state commission in Ohio has voted to approve fracking for oil and gas drilling in state parks and designated wildlife areas. The vote Wednesday comes amid an ongoing investigation into possibly fraudulent support for the measure in the form of identical letters urging support of fracking that over a hundred people say they did not give permission to use their names. The form letters have been traced back to multiple entities, one of whom says they are “fully cooperating” with the attorney general's office. Environmental advocates have accused the commission of a lack of transparency and poisoning future generations.

A National Transportation Safety Board team was planning to start work at the scene of a deadly highway crash in Ohio involving a charter bus filled with high school students that left six people dead and 18 injured. NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy says the team would be looking Wednesday for cameras and other evidence from the five vehicles involved in Tuesday’s crash on westbound Interstate 70 in Licking County, about 26 miles east of Columbus. Homendy said there was “conflicting information” about the sequence of events that lead to the chain-reaction crash, which also involved an SUV and a semitruck. The Pioneer Trails charter bus was carrying students and chaperones from the Tuscarawas Valley Local School District in eastern Ohio.

An emergency official says a charter bus carrying students from a high school was rear-ended by a semi-truck on an Ohio highway, leaving three people dead and 15 others injured. Licking County Emergency Management Agency Director Sean Grady says the charter bus was transporting students from a school in eastern Ohio. There were a total of 57 people onboard. The accident occurred shortly before 9 a.m. Tuesday on Interstate 70 West in Licking County, near the Smoke Road underpass. The cause wasn't immediately known. The injured were being treated at five hospitals.

U.S. health officials are warning doctors to be on the lookout for possible cases of lead poisoning in children. At least 22 toddlers in 14 states have sickened by lead that's linked to tainted pouches of cinnamon apple puree and applesauce. Cases were reported in children ages 1 to 3 years old. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says at least one child showed a blood lead level eight times higher than the level that raises concern. The illnesses are linked to recalled WanaBana, Schnucks and Weis brand cinnamon applesauce pouches.

Four Ohio Republican state lawmakers are seeking to strip judges of their power to interpret an abortion rights amendment after voters opted to enshrine those rights in the state’s constitution this week. Republican state Reps. Jennifer Gross, Bill Dean, Melanie Miller and Beth Lear said in a news release Thursday that they’ll push to have the Legislature, not the courts, make any decisions about the amendment passed Tuesday. It’s the latest development in the struggle over abortion rights between the Republican-dominated Legislature and the majority of the voters, who passed the amendment by a margin of 57% to 43%.

A top jurist and former elections chief in Ohio has sued two state officials over a recently passed law that requires certain judicial candidates to declare their party affiliation on ballots. Ohio Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Brunner filed her lawsuit Tuesday. It argues that the 2021 law is unconstitutional because it subjects candidates like her who are covered under Ohio's judicial code of conduct to different fundraising and campaigning rules than their potential nonjudicial rivals. The Democrat is asking the U.S. District Court in Youngstown to block enforcement on future ballots.

Ohio voters have approved a constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care. The outcome of Tuesday’s intense, off-year election was the latest blow for abortion opponents. It follows a string of defeats in statewide votes since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Approval of Ohio’s Issue 1 highlighted the divide between Ohio voters and the Republicans who control every lever of statewide political power. Republicans had passed some of the nation’s toughest abortion restrictions, including a 2019 law banning the procedure once fetal cardiac activity is detected with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Stellantis plans to build a new midsize pickup truck, along with battery-run versions of six Jeep, Ram and Dodge vehicles. Ford envisions at least three new electric vehicles that will preserve jobs at several factories. General Motors plans to build at least six new electric vehicles, including a full-size SUV. Those and other plans by Detroit’s automakers have emerged in details of the tentative contract agreements that ended the six-week strikes by the United Auto Workers union. Under the new agreements, the three companies will significantly boost pay and benefits and improve job security. But the agreements also provide a blueprint for which vehicles they intend to build in the coming years and where they will do so.

Voters in Ohio will decide next week whether to legalize recreational marijuana. Both supporters and opponents say much more hangs in the balance than simply decriminalizing the drug. Issue 2 would allow adults age 21 and over to buy and possess up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis and 15 grams of extract. They could grow up to six plants per individual through a government program. Supporters of legalization say it’s about returning revenue that Ohio has lost to states where marijuana is legal, and taking power away from illegal drug markets. But opponents argue it endangers Ohioans and may lead to more work and traffic accidents.

Legal settlements could provide local and state governments $50 billion to fight the deadly U.S. opioid overdose crisis. What could that look like? One Ohio community is already doing many of the things advocates say should be considered. Hancock County funds harm reduction efforts such as a needle exchange and naloxone distribution. It also has a recovery community center, a drug court intended to get people into treatment rather than jail, housing for some people in recovery and aggressive outreach to help people with substance use disorder navigate their options for help.

Legal settlements could provide local and state governments $50 billion to fight the deadly U.S. opioid overdose crisis. What could that look like? One Ohio community is already doing many of the things advocates say should be considered. Hancock County funds harm reduction efforts such as a needle exchange and naloxone distribution. It also has a recovery community center, a drug court intended to get people into treatment rather than jail, housing for some people in recovery and aggressive outreach to help people with substance use disorder navigate their options for help.

The Indiana Supreme Court has determined the state's attorney general engaged in attorney misconduct in statements he made about a doctor who provided an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim. The case sparked national attention in the weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In the filing, the court reprimands Attorney General Todd Rokita and fines him $250 in connection with the remarks he made about Dr. Caitlin Bernard during a Fox News show in July 2022. The opinion specifically faulted Rokita for describing Bernard on the show as an “abortion activist acting as a doctor — with a history of failing to report” instances of abuse.

Cover crops top the list of tasks U.S. farmers are told will build healthy soil, help the environment and fight climate change. Yet after years of incentives and encouragement, Midwest farmers planted cover crops on only about 7% of their land in 2021. Many worry the practice will hurt their bottom line. A study last year indicates they could be right. Researchers who used satellite data to examine over 90,000 fields in six Corn Belt states found cover crops can reduce yields of cash crops. The smaller the yield, the less money farmers make. Cover crops are plants grown on farmland that otherwise would be bare. They stabilize soil, reduce fertilizer runoff, store carbon in plant roots and potentially add nutrients to the dirt.

A constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights in Ohio will be decided in what is expected to be a preview of abortion battles across the country in 2024. Abortion rights groups hope to continue a winning streak in statewide votes on the issue since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to the procedure last year. Opponents have been working to persuade Ohio voters that the amendment goes too far. It is the only abortion question on any state’s ballot this year. For both sides, Tuesday's contest is serving as a vital testing ground for campaigns in the coming year.

Federal safety investigators say the automatic braking system railroads were required to install several years ago needs improvement to prevent more derailments. The National Transportation Safety Board issued a report Wednesday urging the Federal Railroad Administration and the industry to keep developing new technology that can be used to improve Positive Train Control systems. Railroads spent 12 years and roughly $15 billion to develop and install the automatic braking systems. Congress required it in the wake of a deadly collision between a commuter and freight train in California. Safety board Chair Jennifer Homendy says the systems are clearly helping but that there is more work to be done.

Across the country, family members of children, parents and other relatives struggling with the disease of addiction are facing new financial burdens whether it’s missing work, blowing through their savings or becoming parents again in their 60s and 70s. Costs can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment, but also other unforeseen expenses like childcare, legal fees and wrecked cars or homes. In Ohio, an epicenter of the opioid crisis, the state’s Department of Commerce is taking a one-of-its-kind approach to aiding families financially impacted by addiction by educating financial advisers about substance use, how to spot it in their clients' finances and what help is available.

The United Auto Workers union is providing more details about tentative contract agreements with Detroit automakers that include pay raises of 25% over four years and eight months. UAW leaders spoke about the tentative agreement with Ford Sunday night, and posted it online. Now rank-and-file union members will vote whether to ratify the agreement. The UAW didn't get the 40% pay raises it asked for at the start of negotiations, but it got a lot more than the 9% that Ford offered at the beginning, before the strike that started in mid-September. The UAW is dropping a request for 40 hours of pay for a 32-hour work week, and traditional pensions for more workers.

From auto production lines to Hollywood, the power of labor unions is back in the national spotlight. But despite historic strikes and record contract negotiations seen this year, there’s still a lot stacked against organizing today. Rates of union membership have been falling for decades. More than 35% of private-sector workers were unionized 1953. Today, it's about 6%. Labor experts point to changes in the U.S. economy, ample employer opposition and growing political partisanship in recent decades. And, under current federal and state labor laws, desires to organize can only go so far without policy change.

Shootings across the U.S. over the weekend before Halloween have left at least 11 people dead and more than 70 injured. Authorities say the deaths between Friday and Sunday included two in Tampa, Florida, three in Texarkana, Texas, and two each in Dodge City, Kansas; San Antonio, Texas; and Mansfield, Ohio. Many involved altercations arising from Halloween celebrations, including a Florida mass shooting early Sunday as bars were closing and scores of people in costumes spilled out on the streets. The violence unfolded after 18 people were killed last week by a gunman in Lewiston, Maine. More than 1,000 people turned out Sunday for a vigil.

An Ohio woman who prosecutors say killed four men with lethal doses of fentanyl in order to rob them has pleaded not guilty. Authorities say 33-year-old Rebecca Auborn of Columbus killed the four men and nearly killed a fifth after meeting them for sex between December 2022 and June 2023. The men's identities have not been released. Auborn entered her plea in court on Monday. She will continue to be held without bond. She had already pleaded not guilty last month to murder and drug-related charges in connection with one of the men’s deaths.

The United Auto Workers union has widened its strike against General Motors, the lone holdout among the three Detroit automakers, after reaching a tentative contract agreement with Jeep maker Stellantis. The escalated walkout began Saturday at a Spring Hill, Tennessee plant - GM’s largest in North America, just hours after the Stellantic deal was reached.  The added pressure on GM is substantial as Spring Hill makes engines for other plants in addition to big-ticket vehicles including the electric Cadillac Lyriq, GMC Acadia and Cadillac crossover SUVs. The Stellantis deal mirrors one reached last week with Ford, and saves jobs at an Illinois factory that Stellantis had planned to close, the UAW said.