Midwest
Fmr American Idol contestant, husband of Ohio teacher charged with wife’s murder after she was found in home
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The husband of an Ohio teacher who was shot and killed inside her home has been charged with murder, according to court records.
Caleb Flynn, 39, has been charged with murder in relation to the death of Ashley Flynn, his wife. Ashley, who was a mother, teacher and volleyball coach, was shot and killed in her Tipp City, Ohio, home early on Monday morning. According to WHIO, dispatch logs indicated someone inside the house called 911 and reported that Ashley was shot in the head.
Caleb Flynn has been charged with murder, two counts of felonious assault with a deadly weapon and two counts of tampering with evidence. He was booked into the Miami County Jail at 5:07 p.m. on Thursday, according to inmate records. He was arraigned on Friday morning and pleaded not guilty. His bond was set at $2 million. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for February 26 at 1:00 p.m.
Caleb Flynn, 49, was arraigned in court on Friday, Feb. 20. (Dayton Daily News)
Officials alleged in court documents filed early Friday morning that “Caleb Flynn murdered his wife [redacted] in the morning hours of February 16, 2026.” Caleb Flynn allegedly shot his wife with a 9mm handgun and staged the crime scene, causing officers to be “lead estray,” the documents state.
Caleb Flynn told a 911 dispatcher that someone broke into his house and killed his wife, according to audio obtained by Fox News Digital.
“Oh my god, somebody broke into my home, somebody broke into my home and shot my wife,” Caleb Flynn said. “My wife, she’s got two shots to her head, there’s blood everywhere. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my God.”
When asked if Ashley Flynn was breathing, Caleb responded, “No, I don’t think so.”
“Ashley, Ashley, baby, baby please, oh my god, there’s no – she’s not!” Caleb said.
Caleb Flynn claimed that the door “leading to the garage door” was “wide open” at the time.
Tipp City mother of two found dead after reported home invasion; police use drones and K-9 units in search for suspect as community mourns tragic loss. (Ashley Flynn/Facebook)
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Caleb Flynn’s attorney, L. Patrick Mulligan, said prosecutors rushed to accuse his client of murder.
“Caleb Flynn entered a plea of Not Guilty this morning and looks forward to defending this case. We are both disappointed and concerned about the short timeline and seeming rush to judgment in this case,” Mulligan said. “When the government runs out of leads or can’t develop leads and looks at a surviving spouse in cases such as these, the chance of a wrongful conviction increases.”
The individual who called 911 told dispatchers that the kids were asleep in their rooms at the home, according to News Center 7.
LISTEN – 911 CALL:
“Someone broke into the RP [reporting person’s] house, unknown if they are still there. Garage door is open,” the dispatcher said. “There was apparently a female shot in the head. Is not responding currently.”
“Squad is en route; they aren’t staged yet. Are they good to respond in?” the dispatcher asked.
FBI JOINS PROBE IN MURDER OF CHRISTIAN TEACHER SHOT IN OHIO HOME AS ‘AMERICAN IDOL’ HUSBAND, CHILDREN SLEPT
Ashley Flynn, a Tipp City Schools substitute teacher and volleyball coach, was found dead in her Ohio home during reported burglary. Police launch homicide investigation into her death. (Tipp City Schools)
“Yes, one person only,” a first responder replied.
According to the outlet, only Ashley and Caleb Flynn as well as their two children were inside the home during the incident.
“RP and juvenile daughter are locked in a bedroom,” the dispatcher told police, according to the outlet. “Just a correction — the juveniles are going to be in their own rooms asleep currently.”
In an earlier statement to Fox News Digital, Tipp City Chief Greg Adkins said he believes the incident is isolated.
“We believe that this was an isolated incident targeting this specific residence,” Adkins told Fox News Digital Wednesday. “No information at this time to believe the public is in any danger. The investigation will continue until we can provide all the answers to the family and community.”
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Ashley and Caleb Flynn in an undated photo with their two children. (GoFundMe)
Caleb Flynn was a contestant on “American Idol” and talked about his love for his wife during an interview to be on the show in 2013 during a Hometown Interview segment.
“I absolutely love the Lord. I love my wife more than anything. She is very, very pretty. … I love her,” Caleb Flynn said. “But, you know, I’m just a normal person who absolutely loves to sing more than anything in the world.”
Fox News Digital’s Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.
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Illinois
Illinois fines multiple Springfield-area nursing homes
Springfield-area nursing homes fined thousands of dollars to end 2025
Multiple Springfield-area nursing homes were fined during the fourth quarter of 2025.
The State Journal-Register
SPRINGFIELD – Four times a year, an Illinois agency releases a report showing violations against nursing homes, and how much the facilities were fined.
The Illinois Department of Public Health recently released its fourth quarter report that spans from October to December of 2025.
Here are facilities within about 45 minutes of Springfield that were fined for violations.
Arcadia Care on the Hill, Springfield
Address: 555 W. Carpenter Road
Fined: $25,000
Survey date: Sept. 17, 2025
What: The facility failed to ensure competency of the Professional Nursing staff when that staff failed to provide one resident in a crisis condition the correct medication. The resident did not receive his glucagon when needed, resulting to his blood sugar dropping to a critical low. The resident was taken to the hospital and subsequently admitted to the Intensive Care Unit.
Arcadia Care on the Hill, Springfield
Address: 555 W. Carpenter Road
Fined: $2,200
Survey date: Oct. 17, 2025
What: The facility failed to send the results of a urinalysis and urine culture in a timely manner to one resident’s urologist. This failure resulted in a nonverbal resident being taken to the emergency room where he was diagnosed with a UTI. IDPH said the failure caused pain, discomfort and invasive interventions during a hospital visit.
After readmission, the facility failed to reassess the resident for warning signs of sepsis for multiple days prior to having a change in condition on Feb. 20, 2024. The resident was again taken to the emergency room and diagnosed with a UTI and sepsis.
Additionally, facility staff failed to complete change in condition documentation which included current vital signs and assessment of two residents reviewed for change in condition. These residents were also taken to the emergency room.
Curtiss Court, Springfield
Address: 2883 S. Taylor St.
Fined: $1,100
Survey date: Aug. 7, 2025
What: IDPH found the facility failed to identify two occurrences of abuse for a resident, failed to verbally notify administrator of abuse allegations per policy, failed to investigate abuse allegations and failed to protect individuals from alleged perpetrator. This failure resulted in the resident feeling targeted and anxious.
The facility also failed to prevent elopement for one resident with a known history of elopement and allergy to bee venom without an EpiPen. This failure resulted in the person walking out of the door unsupervised. Local first responders then found the resident on the asphalt in a parking lot, playing in a puddle of water, around 0.4 miles from the facility and without their EpiPen.
Arcadia Care, Auburn
Address: 304 Maple Ave.
Fined: $2,200
Survey date: Aug. 27, 2025
What: The facility failed to ensure room temperatures were within the heat index/apparent temperature guidelines inside the facility and did not exceed 81 degrees Fahrenheit. The facility also failed to follow their Heat Emergency Policy as residents were not moved out of their rooms when temperatures were reached over 81 degrees for four residents. This failure resulted in residents being left in rooms with the heat index, indicating extreme caution to the residents.
Sunny Acres Nursing Home, Petersburg
Address: 19130 Sunny Acres Road
Fined: $2,200
Survey date: July 26, 2025
What: The facility failed to protect a resident from staff-to-resident mental and verbal abuse for two residents. These findings resulted in a Certified Nursing Assistant yelling at a resident and causing them to feel belittled, to feel like a child, and feel verbally abused, according to IDPH.
Taylorville Care Center, Taylorville
Address: 600 S. Houston St.
Fined: $1,000
Survey date: Aug. 15, 2025
What: The facility failed to conduct pre-employment screening and obtain results of fingerprint checks to determine if employees had a prior criminal history that would disqualify them for employment.
Sunrise Skilled Nursing & Rehab, Virden
Address: 333 S. Wrightsman St.
Fined: $2,200
Survey date: Sept. 4, 2025
Based on interview, observation, and record review, the facility failed to provide supervision to prevent falls for one of three residents reviewed for falls.
Sunrise Skilled Nursing & Rehab, Virden
Address: 333 S. Wrightsman St.
Fined: $25,000
Survey date: Oct. 14, 2025
What: IDPH said the facility failed to properly transfer a resident for appropriate safe transfers. This failure resulted in the resident having a fall, sustaining a right hip fracture and ultimately passing away.
Lincoln Village Healthcare, Lincoln
Address: 2202 N. Kickapoo St.
Fined: $4,400
Survey date: July 20, 2025
What: IDPH found three residents experienced symptoms after not receiving prescribed opioid medication, indicating the health facility failed to perform proper pain assessments and implement pain relieving interventions when residents were not receiving their prescribed medicine.
Lincoln Village Healthcare, Lincoln
Address: 2202 N. Kickapoo St.
Fined: $25,000
Survey date: Sept. 10, 2025
What: IDPH said a resident was taken to the hospital after the facility failed to protect a wound from insect contamination.
Fair Havens Senior Living, Decatur
Address: 1790 S. Fairview Ave.
Fined: $25,000
Survey date: Aug. 13, 2025
What: The facility failed to ensure physician orders were accurately transcribed and implemented for one resident reviewed for blood glucose monitoring. These failures resulted in the resident being hospitalized.
Arc at Hickory Point, Forsyth
Address: 565 W. Marion Ave.
Fined: $25,000
Survey date: Sept. 3, 2025
What: A resident fell and suffered multiple fractured ribs and a collapsed lung. IDPH said the facility failed to ensure fall interventions were in place to prevent the resident from falling.
Tom Ackerman covers breaking news and trending news along with general news for the Springfield State Journal-Register. He can be reached at tackerman@usatodayco.com.
Indiana
Republican primary voters sent dangerous message to America | Opinion
A handful of Indiana Republican state senators saw this abuse of power unfolding and said, ‘Not on our watch.’ And now they’ve been voted out by those who placed loyalty to Trump ahead of democracy.
Indiana state senate candidates endorsed by Trump prevail in primaries
In Indiana’s GOP primary, President Donald Trump demonstrated continued clout. Of seven GOP senators he opposed, at least 5 lost their nominations.
Donald Trump, even more so than other presidents, needs guardrails to keep his worst impulses in check.
But on May 5, Republican primary voters in Indiana further weakened the political and legislative guardrails around the president when they threw out of office at least five GOP state senators because they put the Constitution ahead of Trump’s partisan demands.
It wasn’t just those relatively obscure legislators in Indiana who lost. We all did.
That’s because the message delivered to GOP members of Congress, as well as to Republican lawmakers in other states, is that defying even Trump’s most outrageous demands is still the path to defeat within their own party.
The vote also helps accelerate both political parties’ obscene rush to gerrymander congressional maps beyond any reasonable facsimile of fairness.
Indiana primary sent message to Republicans who stood up to Trump
In 2025, the Indiana Senate, thoroughly dominated by conservative Republicans, said no to Trump’s partisan order to redraw the state’s congressional maps to favor GOP candidates even more heavily than the current districts already do. The senators’ thoughtful independence not only drew Trump’s wrath but also triggered his vow to punish the legislators in the next election cycle.
Now, five senators whom Trump targeted have lost their reelection bids, and one other race is too close to call. Only one Republican incumbent targeted by Trump managed to withstand the president’s onslaught.
Message sent and received.
Our constitutional system is, of course, designed to provide checks and balances, but the system works only if we follow it.
Trump helped kickstart the rush to prematurely redraw congressional boundaries ahead of November’s midterms elections in a desperate bid to salvage Republicans’ tenuous control of the U.S. House.
Congressional redistricting normally takes place every 10 years, following the national census, as prescribed in the Constitution. Trump, as is his wont, ignored historical standards to advance his own interests.
Redistricting push in Tennessee, South Carolina and others won’t help voters
So far, GOP lawmakers in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas have redrawn districts in ways that could enable Republican candidates to flip 13 Democratic-held seats in November.
Other Republican-dominated states, such as South Carolina and Tennessee, may push forward their own reconfigured maps.
In response, Democrats in California and Virginia adopted heavily gerrymandered maps that favor their party. Democrats could pick up nine seats in those two states, as well as one in Utah, from court-ordered redistricting.
None of this partisan manipulation helps ordinary Americans, and it certainly doesn’t strengthen the public’s trust in our democracy.
A handful of Republican state senators in Indiana saw this abuse of power unfolding and said, “Not on our watch.” They should have been rewarded for their political courage. Instead, they were bullied for months by our nation’s commander in chief and the mercurial leader of their own political party.
And now they’ve been turned out of office by voters who placed loyalty to Trump over allegiance to democratic values.
I scoffed at liberals who claimed before and after the 2024 election that Trump’s win would destroy our democracy. Their self-serving hysteria was over the top then and remains so now, even in light of the president’s heavy-handed redistricting push.
American democracy will be just fine, long after Trump has shuffled out of the Oval Office for the last time. But just as fences make good neighbors, guardrails make better presidents.
It’s our nation’s loss that the guardrails built by brave Republican leaders in Indiana didn’t hold.
Tim Swarens is a former deputy opinion editor of USA TODAY and opinion editor of The Indianapolis Star.
Iowa
Harkin backs Turek for Iowa Senate
Scoop: Iowa Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek snagged a major endorsement for his Senate bid from former Sen. Tom Harkin.
Harkin, who retired in 2015, was the last Democrat to represent Iowa in the Senate. Turek is locked in a competitive primary with state Sen. Zach Wahls in a race that has divided major factions of the Democratic Party.
“I have a pretty good idea of what it takes to win an election, and then to faithfully represent all Iowans, not just those who voted for you,” Harkin said in his endorsement. “That’s why I’m supporting Josh Turek.”
Harkin served in the Senate for 30 years and is the author of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Turek, who was born with spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, was 11 when the ADA was enacted.
Harkin is a widely sought after endorsement in the Hawkeye State. His decision to wade into the race is notable because Harkin also has a relationship with Wahls.
Wahls called Harkin “one of my closest political mentors,” and said the former senator officiated his wedding in 2021.
Iowa’s Senate primaries are June 2.
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