Ohio
Letter carrier attacks spark Ohio lawmaker to co-sponsor bill improving technology, impose stiffer punishments
CINCINNATI — It was 57 degrees outside in January 2019 when letter carrier Ryan Pierani had a gun pointed at his head.
“I was just having lunch and I heard somebody jiggle my side door of my ProMaster,” he said.
That’s when he saw a kid wearing a mask in his mirror.
“He seen I was there with my window down, he hopped up on the side of my ProMaster and put the pistol to my head and demanded my arrow key,” he said.
Across the country, mail carriers have been targets for their arrow keys. WCPO 9 has reported on the attacks and robberies here in Cincinnati.
Data analyzed by WCPO partner Journal-News showed mail collection box thefts have dropped by 47% year over year in Ohio and robberies of the keys to open the boxes off of postal carriers had dropped by roughly a third from 34 to 23 over the same time period in the state of Ohio.
“Since January of 2022, Branch 43 has had 17 of its members robbed at gunpoint,” said Ted Thompson, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers in Cincinnati.
“We need to keep our letter carriers and postal workers safe,” said Congressman Greg Landsman.
A possible solution to this problem is a new bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Landsman. It aims to make letter carriers and your personal information safer.
It would allocate $1.4 billion to the U.S. Postal Service to install high-security collection boxes and replace older universal keys, known as arrow keys, with electronic versions.
Landsman should the new technology should deter thieves and isn’t too worried someone will figure out a work-a-round.
“The technology is pretty good. The electric key is one of the requires a whole host of things that you can’t just get by stealing the actual key,” he said.
Thompson said this will help keep his members safer.
“It helps devalue the reason that we’re being robbed of, right, so that our equipment and what we carry with us no longer has value to criminals in an attempt to gain access to the public’s mail,” Thompson said.
The second component of this bill has to do with the law.
“It provides additional support for the investigation and prosecution of those who commit these crimes against our letter carriers,” Landsman said.
The bill would direct the U.S. Attorney General to appoint assistant U.S. attorneys in all 94 U.S. judicial districts to lead investigations and prosecutions of crimes against USPS employees, assets and facilities.
It would “also establish new guidelines for the punishment as though a letter carrier being assaulted is the same as a law enforcement officer being assaulted,” Thompson said.
Thompson said of the 17 people who were robbed at gunpoint, four have resigned and one retired.
Pierani was one of the people who came back.
“My coworkers and my customers, getting back to serving them that’s really what drove me to go back,” he said.
“Some of the members I represent they’ve also said because it is a traumatic experience to go through that going back to work was actually helping them in the healing process because sitting at home they were just dwelling on it over, and over, and over again,” Thompson said.
Thompson said they have some electronic keys installed, but the rollout is moving “at a snail’s pace.”
Landsman said if this bill passes it should speed up that process.
Landsman believes this bill will get widespread support. He said conversations with other lawmakers have been serious but optimistic.
CINCINNATI (WKRC) — Sixty percent of children in Ohio are not ready for kindergarten when they start school.
Now, a national nonprofit is working to change that by expanding access to books and promoting early literacy across the state.
Sixty percent of children in Ohio are not ready for kindergarten when they start school. (WKRC file)
Nedra Smith has seen the difference firsthand. Her two young daughters receive books through the program at their pediatrician visits at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
“They love to read now,” Smith said. “We’ll randomly be out and they’ll see a book and want to read a book.”
Reach Out and Read partners with pediatricians to give children books during regular checkups and encourage parents to read aloud with them. The program has been part of Cincinnati Children’s for more than a decade.
“They typically come in and tell us they got new books,” Smith said. “They typically ask me to read the book right then and there.”
Program leaders say early literacy is increasingly being recognized as an important part of a child’s overall health and development.
“Initially, literacy may not have been in the forefront or seen as a health benefit,” said Kristy High, program manager for Reach Out and Read. “Well-child checks focus on shots, nutrition, and those things; but now we want to focus on those main benefits for the development and milestones when it comes to learning.”
The organization is now working to expand its reach statewide, with a goal of serving children in all 88 Ohio counties.
“We know that those first five years of life are the most critical for brain development,” said Steven Lake, executive director of Reach Out and Read Ohio. “If we can intervene as early as possible, essentially, we reach out at birth; we know we can have the greatest impact.”
Smith encourages other parents to participate in the program and read to their children.
“It’s fun,” Smith said. “It’s actually fun to see them light up, and I think they’ll pass that on to their own kids as well.”
Reach Out and Read also partners with providers in Kentucky and Indiana. You can find a participating provider near you on the organization’s website.
If you are a doctor looking to participate in the program, click here.
The Ohio Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at May 10, 2026, results for each game:
Pick 3
Drawings are held daily, seven days a week, at 12:29 p.m. and 7:29 p.m., except Saturday evening.
Midday: 8-6-2
Evening: 7-0-5
Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.
Pick 4
Drawings are held daily, seven days a week, at 12:29 p.m. and 7:29 p.m., except Saturday evening.
Midday: 9-4-7-0
Evening: 0-6-1-8
Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.
Pick 5
Drawings are held daily, seven days a week, at 12:29 p.m. and 7:29 p.m., except Saturday evening.
Midday: 1-7-3-7-4
Evening: 9-0-8-8-0
Check Pick 5 payouts and previous drawings here.
Rolling Cash 5
Drawings are held daily, seven days a week, at approximately 7:05 p.m.
16-19-33-36-38
Check Rolling Cash 5 payouts and previous drawings here.
Millionaire for Life
Drawings are held daily, seven days a week, at approximately 11:15 p.m.
01-03-20-35-46, Bonus: 05
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by an Enquirer digital news director. You can send feedback using this form.
Ryan Day will have some very familiar competition in the Big 10 soon.
The son of the Ohio State football coach, R.J. Day, announced his commitment to Northwestern for the Class of 2027 on Sunday.
Northwestern plays in the same conference as Ohio State and the schools will face each other.
R.J. Day, a 6-foot-1, 205-pound quarterback from — not surprisingly — Columbus, Ohio, has started for three years at St. Francis DeSales HS as he heads towards his senior season.
According to reports, the younger Day had other offers from Purdue, Syracuse, Cincinnati and South Florida, as well as others.
Northwestern has eight quarterbacks on head coach David Braun’s roster.
And the offensive coordinator for the Wildcats is Chip Kelly, who served in the same role for Ryan Day at Ohio State when the Buckeyes won the title in 2024.
Kelly, the former head coach at UCLA and Oregon, was also the offensive coordinator at New Hampshire when Ryan Day was the team captain from 1998-2001.
Most recently, Kelly was the OC with the Las Vegas Raiders before he took the job with Northwestern.
“It’s really surreal when you think about the relationships that we’ve had with those two as a family over the years,” R.J. Day told ESPN earlier this month. “Coach Kelly coached my dad in college, so that adds another layer to it.”
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