CLEVELAND, Ohio — Two men who cheated at a September walleye tournament in Cleveland by stuffing their fish with lead weights are headed to jail.

We’re talking about the punishment on Today in Ohio.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with impact editor Leila Atassi, editorial board member Lisa Garvin and content director Laura Johnston.

You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.

Here’s what we’re asking about today:

It was a scandal that put Cleveland into the news across the globe. So what is the penalty for taking extraordinary measures to cheat in a fishing contest?

Score one for the First Amendment, public records and transparency. What unanimous ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court am I talking about here?

Do we already have evidence that Ohio’s new distracted driving law is making the roads safer? How many lives might have been saved so far?

Why is the Greater Cleveland Partnership trying to water down Cleveland City Council’s proposal to get more business into the hands of businesses owned by minorities?

Congresswoman Shontel Brown is going at the FDA about a health issue that could be critical to Black women. What is it?

Is this a result of being corrupt beyond words and funding the biggest bribery machine in the history of Ohio, or is it what FirstEnergy says, a change in how people work. Why is FirstEnergy abandoning its headquarters in downtown Akron?

We talked yesterday about how loneliness has increased as a result of the pandemic. Here’s a better news story to mark the end Thursday of the national pandemic emergency. How has our approach to dressing changed, especially for work?

What did Sherrod Brown do this week that could make things easier for all of the companies making big bucks on legal marijuana sales?

The latest ranking of medical schools and law schools in America is out. How did Ohio schools do?

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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.

[00:00:00] Chris: Hey. Hey. I just want to be clear. I did not force Laura to participate in the podcast yesterday with no voice. We didn’t know she didn’t have a voice when she started, and she very much wanted to participate. Please don’t send me mean messages. She feels better today, says she’s up to it. Again, her choice.

It’s today in Ohio. Thanks for caring though,

[00:00:21] Laura: guys. I love that, that people care.

[00:00:24] Chris: They yelled at me. It’s today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Laura, as well as Lisa Garvin. And Layla Tassi wrapping up a of news. Let’s go to it. It was a scandal that put Cleveland into the news or crossed the globe.

So what is the penalty for taking extraordinary measures? To cheat in a fishing contest, Leila. So

[00:00:51] Leila: 43 year old Jacob Runion of Ashtabula Ashtabula and uh, 36 year old Chase Kaminsky of Hermitage, Pennsylvania. They’re gonna be [00:01:00] spending 10 days in jail eating jail food for their. Fishing scheme. After that, they’ll be on probation for a year and they have to pay a $2,500 fine.

If they violate probation, they’ll head back to jail for another 30 days. They can get out of half of their fine if they make a, uh, $1,250 donation to a nonprofit that promotes fishing with children. In their court hearing, they apologized to their families in the fishing community and their lawyer said that the World R world ride, no notoriety is gonna prevent them from ever fishing competitively again.

Each of these guys pleaded guilty to one count of cheating, a fifth degree felony, and the fourth degree misdemeanor of unlawful ownership of wild animals. And the fishermen agreed to have their fishing licenses suspended for up to three years as part of their plea, and they also forfeited Kaminsky’s Ranger bass boat van.

Valued at a hundred thousand dollars to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Oof. [00:02:00]

[00:02:00] Lisa: Well,

[00:02:00] Chris: 10 some. Some people think, okay, it’s cheating an efficient contest. Why should you go to jail? On the other hand, a whole lot of people participate in this. In good faith, it’s become a big money thing. And these guys, this was as sinister and deliberate as it gets.

This wasn’t some lapse of judgment. They put a lot of thought into cheating. Everybody who participates and you gotta think if they did it here, cuz they’ve won a lot of previous contests. They’ve been doing it all along. I don’t think 10 days. Yeah. Is outta raw, outta whack here. What about

[00:02:34] Leila: you? They were, no, not at all.

No. I don’t think it’s outta whack at all. And I think that, uh, co county prosecutor Mike O’Malley had the same point that you did that take a look at their unprecedented streak of victories in these fishing tournaments. Chances are a lot of them were. We’re Ill-gotten. So, uh, you know, it’s, it’s, um, this, this was just crazy.

I actually have not [00:03:00] seen that viral video that they described. Have you guys seen it before? Did we publish that?

[00:03:05] Laura: Yeah, we, I don’t remember if we published it, but yeah, it’s pretty. Pretty violent. Like they’re people just up in arms yelling like

[00:03:12] Lisa: immediately. Mm-hmm. That’s really,

[00:03:15] Leila: I I, I gotta go seek it out this morning cuz it’s, they, the way that Corey described it, that they, you know, they had to, for listeners who were unfamiliar with this case, they had five fish that needed to weigh a combined 16 pounds to win this prize.

And their fish weighed more than 33 pounds. And so when the judge suspected something was up, he inspected the fish to find. These lead sinkers stuffed inside them and big, and they weren’t out in front of everyone big

[00:03:40] Laura: like they, they were little like, so first, you know, when you pick up something that you, it doesn’t seem right.

So yeah. I wonder if they can revisit any of the previous winds. I mean, it’s not like they still have the fish anymore, but you think that they would, I wonder if they could claw back some of those prizes.

[00:03:57] Chris: You know, you learn as a child and [00:04:00] all through your life, unless you’re a Houston Astro, that you don’t cheat and eventually you get caught and you’re humiliated.

It’s just you don’t cheat. The only people that cheat and actually got away with it were the Houston Astros who won the World Series, but this is a great message to anybody paying attention, cheat, and, and you go to jail. And I think Layla the worst part of that punishment. You nailed it. They have to eat the jail food.

It’s right. Jail food you’re listening to today in Ohio. Lisa, score one for the first amendment for public records for transparency. What? Unanimous ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court am I talking about here? And I was shocked that it was unanimous.

[00:04:40] Lisa: Yeah, the Supreme Court, uh, ordered that the one Ohio Recovery Fund, which is a nonprofit that distributes about 40 440 million in opioid settlement money.

They were ordered to turn over documents about their board meetings to harm reduction Ohio in compliance with public records law. As [00:05:00] you said, Chris, it was unanimous. Uh, they say that this board is the functional equivalent. Equivalent of a public office since it’s dispersing public money. And the one Ohio Recovery Foundation, it’s a 29 member board, includes lawmakers, local government officials, addition addiction, treatment experts, and more.

Um, Ohio Harm reduction, Ohio. President Dennis Kasan says he’s overjoyed with the ruling. He says he doesn’t have any problems with how the money’s been distributed so far, but he said the board is operating in secret and he claims violations of the Open Meetings Act. He says they, they’re not allowing the public to attend their board meetings.

He says he was turned away from a May, uh, 2022 board meeting. Um, and on Franklin County, judge ruled that the, uh, one Ohio Recovery Fund must follow open meetings law, but they haven’t ruled yet on whether they violated that law.

[00:05:53] Chris: Uh, look, I, I’m, this is the right ruling. I just didn’t think that it would be this much of a slam [00:06:00] dunk.

They are spending the public’s money. This was an award that the public got. Mm-hmm. Because the state sued and just because they put it into the hands of the nonprofit doesn’t mean the public shouldn’t find out. Everything about the decisions they’re making. And look, let’s face it, mm-hmm. When a board tries to work in secret, bad things are afoot.

There. There’s no reason to work in secret for this kind of thing unless you’re trying to be sleazy. So this is a huge win. And look, I, I complained bitterly about some of the things the Supreme Court has done, but they took a stand for the public here. They took a stand for doing the public’s business in public way to go all.

[00:06:38] Lisa: Right. And when you’re dealing with huge chunks of money like this, there’s always, always the chance that it will be siphoned off into somebody’s pocket or some other cause. So yeah, we need to have complete transparency here.

[00:06:51] Chris: I. All right. You’re listening to today in Ohio. Do we already have evidence that Ohio’s new distracted driving law is making the road safer?[00:07:00]

How many lives might have been saved so far, Laura, I’m surprised at how fast we were able to determine this. Yeah,

[00:07:06] Laura: especially when we’re just giving warnings for right now. So apparently we are using our phones 9% less. So good job, Ohio. This has been the, uh, work of Cambridge Mobile Telematics or C M T.

They found by looking at cell phones that are using those good driving apps that insurance companies use, that they could see how much we were using our phones. So, What we were normally doing was in one minute and 39 seconds, interacting with our phones for every hour of driving. That fell by nine seconds to one hour, uh, per hour to one minute and 30 seconds.

And that was just in a month between April 4th and May 3rd. So that does have real effects. Um, you think it’s just nine seconds, but it ends up saving 540 crashes, one fatality, and 13 million in damages.

[00:07:56] Chris: Yeah, the only, my only problem with this is that it’s based on [00:08:00] insurance companies and people who have agreed to the monitoring in their car, right?

And maybe that group of people, because they’ve agreed to that are more likely to behave themselves and. I’m not sure you can extrapolate this to the whole population. People that are not willing to do that are probably more reckless in the way they drive and less likely to put their phones down. I was a little bothered by the extrapolation.

[00:08:26] Laura: Yeah. I mean, I don’t think you can prove it at all. The, I mean, this is just a, an estimate. It’s the way that they’re looking at it and I, I don’t know how else you would try to even begin to calculate who’s using their phone in a car and, um, So it’s something they are, I mean, now you’re, this is a six month grace period.

Begin issuing $150 tickets to drivers in early October. You can get pulled over for using your phone in your car. There’s all sorts of caveats. Like you can use it at a, at a stoplight and you can swipe to the next song or use it for G p s or whatever, but, [00:09:00] Overall phone down. It’s the law. That’s the public awareness campaign.

There’s tv, radio, and social media ads, billboards, and a website. I haven’t seen any of them yet.

[00:09:09] Chris: I well at, at the very least, the people who insurance companies track are doing a better job and that is saving some lives. So you could say this is a win even if you don’t extrapolate. So it’s an interesting story.

I’m just surprised. You’re right. I haven’t seen any publicity about it, but. You can’t really argue with the statistics you’re listening to today in Ohio. All right, Layla, why is the Greater Cleveland partnership trying to water down Cleveland City Council’s proposal to get more business into the hands of companies owned by minorities?

Seems like it is counter to what G C P says it stands for.

[00:09:46] Leila: Mm-hmm. So the proposal that’s before City Council is one that Council President Blaine Griffin has been working on and championing. The goal is to increase participation of minority and female owned businesses and contracts that [00:10:00] benefit from city subsidies.

So, The proposal requires any developer who gets financial help from the city in excess of $250,000. They have to lay out their plan for how they’re going to meet certain benchmarks for equity on their project, and larger projects. Over 20 million would have to meet additional benchmarks that would be negotiated on a case by case basis, but the Greater Cleveland partnership says this is gonna be bad.

For, for development downtown, they’ve, they’ve been angling to have tax increment financing and tax abatements excluded from the kinds of city financial assistance that would trigger these community benefits. Requirements. G Ccp, c e o, Bejo Shaw says, That imposing those requirements are going to, that’s just going to chill development downtown.

It’ll also slow the negotiations, which would make it harder to get bank financing and on and on. So the problem with that position though, is that tax increment financing and tax abatements are. [00:11:00] Pretty much the most commonly used and lucrative financial incentives for developers. If you let those developers out of these requirements, the community benefits law is pretty pointless.

And another point of contention that they have is that the legislation would allow the city to claw back those incentives if a developer isn’t living up to their end of the bargain. And G C P wants those penalties stripped out of this legislation too. And Blaine Griffin is kind of like, Well, if there’s no accountability, what’s the point?

So it’s, uh, yeah, they, they, they, they seem like they’re politely trying to gut this, this ordinance,

[00:11:38] Chris: this is a classic debate. It’s, it’s, the GCP is saying we want downtown to flourish. And so the ends justify the means. City council is standing on the principle we need. People to share in the wealth who’ve largely been excluded from these projects, and were willing to miss some development opportunities [00:12:00] if it means that we changed a trajectory of people, minorities, who own businesses.

I’m just surprised that the GCP is going so hard at this because it looks kind of heartless. It’s like, yeah, yeah, we get what you’re saying, but that doesn’t matter. We want development downtown to hell with

[00:12:16] Leila: them. Right. I completely agree and I think that, I mean, the optics are terrible for G C P here if they keep pushing this argument because they should be taking the position too, that minority and female owned business participation is important in major projects like this.

That is, I mean that we, that, that, this is the era we’re in now. We, we, we value that as a society. And so I, I’m very confused by how this is playing out.

[00:12:48] Chris: I, well, look, JCPS worried about downtown. They’re worried about development, and so they’re saying, Hey, we gotta keep the economic generator going. But I kind of hope, I really hope that City Council [00:13:00] stands on principle and does the right thing.

This is they, they’ve tried so many times over the years to put in programs that do this. And in an early version you had shell companies pretending to be MBAs that hooked up with, with other companies to do it. And then the Fannie Lewis law had real teeth. Real teeth and was having an effect. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. And then that got abolished by the legislature. And here’s another effort trying to do the same thing they’ve been doing for 20 years. And G C P comes in to try and stand in the way. It’s an ugly look. You’re listening to today in Ohio. I. Congresswoman Chantel Brown is going at the f d A about a health issue that could be critical to black women.

Lisa, what is

[00:13:40] Lisa: it? Yeah. Chantel Brown, along with her fellow Congresswoman Ayana Presley, uh, the Democrat from Massachusetts, they’re in a letter asking for an investigation into whether hair relaxing products are safe. These are primarily marketed to black women who are. Uh, according to the letter, forced to navigate extreme [00:14:00] politicization of their hair, and they adapted by straightening their hair.

And they pointed to, uh, a National Institutes of Health study from last fall called the Sister Study where they studied three 33,500 women, aged 35 to 74. Four. The study found that they were more than two times likely to develop uterine cancer if they used hair straightening products more than four times the previous year.

A study from the Journal of the National Cancer Institute says that 60% who use these products are black. They also tend to be younger. With a higher body mass index and lower physical activity levels, and they say that there is really no racial differences they see in the study, but there’s a higher use of these products in black women.

So the letter says the, you know, the Food and Drug Administration has a mandate to reevaluate the safety of these products and probe potential health threats. The F D A says they did receive the letter and they will respond.

[00:14:59] Chris: Look for [00:15:00] Chantel Brown. This is something that many of her constituents could be affected by.

And we’ve talked often about health disparities. Mm-hmm. And the way the, the attention is not paid. So I salute her for going at it. Can you imagine if this is true, if these products are actually. Causing cancers and things like that, how long that might have been going on?

[00:15:21] Lisa: Well, you know, and they’re harsh.

I used to get my hair relaxed when I was a kid, and it was like lie based. I mean, they had to put Vaseline on my scalp to protect my scalp from the chemicals I, that obviously they’ve improved over the years. But you know, if you have really coarse hair, you’re straightening your hair at least four times a year, maybe more.

[00:15:39] Chris: Wow. All right. Good story. It’s on cleveland.com and you are listening to today in Ohio. Is this a result of being corrupt beyond words and funding the biggest bribery machine in the history of Ohio? Or is it what First Energy says a change in the habits of people working? Why is First Energy abandoning its headquarters in [00:16:00] downtown Akron?

[00:16:01] Laura: Laura? Well, it’s certainly not saying it’s because of House Bill six and Larry Householder. It’s saying it’s because it doesn’t need the speed, the space. It’s also laying people off. They’ve gotta lay off 90 employees and offer early retirement for 670 workers. That’s a lot of people. They operate across five states.

They employ about 12,330 people, and there are. Their headquarters for a long time has been in downtown Akron, but they’re gonna close their Brecksville office and move out of downtown Akron. Consolidate everybody at White Pond Drive just off of 77 in West Akron. It’s not super simple for the downtown headquarters where there’s about 925 employees and 90% of those don’t come to the office every day.

They actually own the building. They have the option to buy the tower. It occupies, so they plan to buy it and the lease, and then work with the city of Akron on the future use. So it’s not just like they can just. You know, abandon it. Yeah. But

[00:16:58] Chris: it’s been one of the [00:17:00] proud things for Akron for years, well, maybe not since HB six, but for a long time that it was headquartered in Akron.

Remember when? When they were talking about. Say the bailouts, they were saying, Hey, there’s a lot of jobs at stake in Akron. Um, so it’s a, it’s a fairly big moment to have the headquarters. It’s staying in Akron, but it’s going to be in a much reduced fashion.

[00:17:22] Laura: It is staying in Akron. It’s just not downtown.

I. Right. Okay. Uh, and I mean to say though that 90% of their employees are working remotely, it doesn’t seem like they’re using the office space at, you know, much at all. And this is something obviously since the pandemic, every company has been grappling with. We, we have a story up today. The end of the pandemic emergency was Thursday, and so we looked it up.

A whole bunch of ways that life has changed and one of it obviously is the way that we work. So, you know, this is happening now. I don’t think it’s the only business that’s doing this. I, I saw the New York Times of a story about like how many Empire State buildings [00:18:00] would fit inside all the empty office space in Manhattan.

So I, I’m sure no downtown wants this, but it’s gonna, it’s a reckoning and it’s, it’s not

[00:18:08] Chris: over. No, it’s not. And we, we, we talked about our move. Our building was for sale long before Covid hit. So our move into the Teman building wasn’t really a result of Covid, but we’re there much less frequently than we were in the newsroom.

Pre pandemic, you’re listening to today in Ohio. We talked yesterday about how loneliness has re increased as a result of the pandemic, but as Lar said, we’re doing a bunch of stories to Mark the end Thursday of the National Pandemic Emergency. Here’s a better news story. Kind of a fun one. How has our approach to dressing changed, especially for work?

Leila, Julie Washington had a hilarious line in this story.

[00:18:49] Leila: Yeah. I was smiling and laughing out loud throughout this Julie Washington piece about how our fashion sensibilities have shifted an account of the long [00:19:00] stint that we all spent working from home. The upshot here is that we’re all slobs now, and it’s.

It’s fine you guys. All right. So we’re not total, we’re not all total slobs, but we definitely are less structured in the way we dress for work, you know, gone our, our suits and ties and heels and other uncomfortable footwear. And here to stay is work attire that incorporates more comfortable styles like leggings and flowy shirts and flats, and of course, minimalistic make.

Up. These are are trends that fashion designers have to consider now as they design for the workforce. They have to be thinking about ways to take athleisure wear as it’s commonly known and adapt it for the workplace. But my favorite line from Julie’s story, and Chris, I’m wondering what yours is, but she writes, the most amazing thing, is that contrary to all the memo society has ever sent me, the sky did not collapse because I left the house without eyeshadow.

I [00:20:00] can command respect in the workplace while wearing buttery soft leggings. Yes, that is a thing. The ATM still gives me my twenties, even though I’m in a comfort bra, and I felt like that really nails it. But the pandemic showed us that we don’t really have to live up to society’s dress code. We set the dress code right.

[00:20:22] Chris: Yeah, and the line I like was one, she said, okay, we’re slobs something. Like we’re proud of it. We’re not going back. It was just a, a great punchline. Laura sent me the baby. We’re not going back

[00:20:31] Laura: baby. Yeah, we’re not

[00:20:32] Chris: going back, baby. That’s right. Yeah. This is a great line. Laura had sent me this before it published and said, this is a great story.

I had no idea about the bras. Really, there’s three women on this podcast, so it’s. Probably more appropriate for one of you to discuss what she was talking about. I,

[00:20:48] Laura: I didn’t like, she talks about comfort bras and how underwire can be just like, throw those out. You don’t need to live with those anymore. Oh, dear

[00:20:56] Lisa: Lord.

No. My Uhuh, I’m keeping my underwires baby [00:21:00] and I wear my bra until I take it off at night. So there you go.

[00:21:06] Leila: You know, it’s funny on the, uh, on the other hand of this, this, uh, this story, this really made me think, I have found that I have invested more in my professional wardrobe and put more effort into accessorizing and looking workplace appropriate than I ever did before the pandemic.

Oh, really? And I was thinking about it because I think that it’s because I, I really. Took being seen in public for granted before. Mm. Yeah. And I don’t do that anymore. Yeah. I have accumulated, you know, during the pandemic I accumulated an entire drawer of black leggings and I have three kinds for various degrees of formality.

I’ve super soft cotton for hanging around the house and. Stretch your high performance leggings for like the grocery store, and then there’s leggings that almost look like work pants. But honestly, I feel like after working at home in sweatpants for two years, going to the workplace [00:22:00] still feels like a special occasion to me.

And so I’ve been putting more effort

[00:22:04] Lisa: into it. Good. Good. I

[00:22:06] Laura: that’s, that’s Layla. I invested in. Uh, fleece leggings during the pandemic because my house was so cold. Um, yeah. And then sweatshirts, I used to wear sweaters all the time, but like, you know, they pill and, and they’re not as easy to wash. So I was like, right.

I’m like a sweatshirt revolution. Right. But I agree that, um, the fact that I can get my sundresses back out and I have a reason to wear them. I like that.

[00:22:31] Leila: Right. And I’m, you know, I wanna tell this story. During the pandemic, there was one day when my. My daughter, who’s now eight, she had a pajama day at school and she was super excited to wear her pajamas.

And when she came home that afternoon, I asked her, Hey, how was pajama Day? And she was like, it was great. I see you had one too.

[00:22:52] Chris: All right. I, the one thing I, I don’t quite agree with this, that the Pan pandemic changed the wearing of, Ties for men that that was going [00:23:00] away long before the pandemic. That was something that was good to see. But you

[00:23:03] Laura: used to wear a tie and I haven’t seen a tie on you since. That’s right. The pandemic I had, I had You used to wear a tie every day?

[00:23:09] Chris: Yeah, I had largely stopped around 2018, um, which was well

[00:23:13] Leila: before

[00:23:14] Laura: the pandemic. But I think Mark Bosberg would beg to differ.

[00:23:16] Lisa: But I will say this, panty lines are never cool. Never cool. So you ladies here wearing licking leggings, look in the rear view mirror. I, um, it’s so funny,

[00:23:29] Chris: Lisa, I, I, I’m surprised Leila not touching, touching that this, I, I’m not touching a lot of this conversation.

Uh, I’m surprisingly, look. But you said that this has required a greater investment cuz we’re in the office three days a week. We used to be in the office five days a week. Yeah, yeah. You used to cover quartz and you used to cover city hall and all sorts of things, whereas you’re an editor now and I So is it just, it’s a different style of dress that required a big resupply of your [00:24:00] closets.

[00:24:00] Leila: Yes. Well, and I think also that, uh, Julie kind of nails this in her story too, that after, you know, years of the pandemic, you look at your wardrobe and it’s really outdated. So like I had, you know, like the cold shoulder tops they call it that have like, you know where the shho Yeah, those are out. And I had to like toss a bunch of stuff that I was like, these are not cool anymore.

And you know, and I bought a couple blazers cuz I thought, you know, Yeah, I’d become an editor during the pandemic editor. I’m, I need a blazer. So, so, yeah, stuff like that. All

[00:24:34] Chris: right. Plus our, our newsroom, I should say Isly cold. And so people are wearing, it’s very cold, lots of layers. Uh, no matter what we do, we can’t warm it up.

It’s today in Ohio. Lisa, I, it, it’s not intentional that you get all the marijuana questions, but you got another marijuana question. What, what did Shared Brown do this week that could make things easier for all of the companies that are making huge amounts of cash on [00:25:00] legal marijuana sales.

[00:25:01] Lisa: Yeah, I’ve had, uh, the she brown beat too.

I think this is my third shared brown question this week. So, um, there’s proposed legislation called the Safe Banking Act of 2023 that would allow cannabis companies to access the banking system. It had its first hearing in the Senate Banking, housing, and Urban Development Committee, which is chaired by She Brown.

It has passed the house. Seven times, but it’s never moved ahead in the Senate. But Brown says the time is ready to move forward. Now he says, really, he sees the delay in this legislation. It’s because bankers are trying to use this bill as kind of a foot in the door to weaken wider banking rules and regulations.

So a sponsor of the Bill Senator Jeff Merkley, the Democrat from Oregon, says, this is. A industry that employs 428,000 people, 25 billion in retail sales and the taxes, fund schools, law enforcement, so on and so forth. But they’re largely [00:26:00] cash businesses because they can’t bank, so that becomes a security issue.

And Congressional Cannabis Caucus Chair are representative from South Russell, Dave Joyce, who is the main sponsor in the house, he says, That, uh, state legal cannabis companies are denied the same access as other legal businesses, forces them into a cash only business, and that’s a serious public safety problem.

[00:26:22] Chris: Well, another way to go about fixing this would just to do the national decriminalization of marijuana, and then it would come off the schedule that precludes it. So many states have either legalized it completely or legalized medical marijuana, you would think. That by this point the federal government would say, okay, the people who’ve spoken, they want it to be legal and then they wouldn’t need to to do things with the banks cuz there is a danger if you weaken the regulations on the banks.

Look what’s happened this year with bank failures. Mm-hmm.

[00:26:52] Lisa: Mm-hmm. And Senator Tim Scott, the firebrand from, uh, South Carolina, he says that national law enforcement groups think that this will [00:27:00] create loopholes in the MUN laundering laws that would make it harder to catch Fentanyl weapons and other trafficking.

And, uh, there’s a group called Smart Approaches to Marijuana, and it’s C e O. Kevin Sbat said that the act would open the banking system to transnational criminal organizations and facilitate the development of hazardously strong cannabis products.

[00:27:22] Chris: It’s, it’s nice that our members of Congress have learned to reduce their rhetoric and have thoughtful debate, isn’t it?

You’re listening to today in Ohio, the latest ranking of medical schools and law schools in America is out. Laura, how did the Ohio schools do?

[00:27:40] Laura: Well, I bet you’d guess who ranked at the top of these Ohio State University and Case Western Reserve, they came out on top. This is actually usually part of the grad school rankings that we talked about recently, but due to verification process, delays, the med schools and the law schools.

Were separated this year. So the Moritz College of of Law at [00:28:00] Ohio State claimed the highest spot for best law school ranked 22nd in the country. Overall, 94.9% of students passed the bar and got full-time jobs within 10 months of graduation. So if you’re gonna shell out for law school, you wanna know you can get a job in case.

Um, Is 10th in international law, 11th in healthcare, 44th in environmental, 46th in legal writing, and 40 and seventh in trial advocacy. Honestly, I had no idea that you could rank all of those different specialties during, through all the law schools or I, I mean, I guess if, you know, if you go to law school, you’ve.

You figure out pretty quickly what kind of law you wanna be in. Uh, the University’s University of Akron ranked well, 24th, Ohio Northern University, 47th for part-time. University of Dayton ranked 36. And uh, university of Akron is 49th on the same list for med programs. Case Beat Ohio State. Um, it was 25th in the country.

OSU is 28th. University of Cincinnati, 35th.

[00:28:58] Chris: Okay, you’re [00:29:00] listening to today in Ohio. I kind of wish I’d put that clothing question at the top of the podcast. I think people are gonna love that one. You guys had all sorts of good perspective. Hope they stick with it to the end. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Lela.

Thank you, Laura. Thanks everybody who listens. That’s it for this week. We’ll be back Monday talking about the news.