Ohio

Now that Aaron Bradshaw is back, how quickly can Ohio State get back to full capacity?

Published

1 year ago

December 9, 2024

Now that Aaron Bradshaw is back, how quickly can Ohio State get back to full capacity?

The sun was setting as Aaron Bradshaw made his way to the loading dock at Value City Arena. With a bounce in his step and an outwardly genial demeanor, the 7-1, 215-pound center was hardly inconspicuous as an arena security guard waved and smiled.

Ohio State was set to host Evansville in about two hours, and the employee had a half-request, half-demand for Bradshaw: 20 points against the Purple Aces that night.

“Say less,” Bradshaw said, smiling. “I got you.”

That night, the Buckeyes throttled Evansville, claiming an 80-30 win to improve to 3-1 and turn the page on their first loss of the season. It was November 19, and Bradshaw had started all four games while averaging 7.8 points and 4.8 rebounds in an average of 23.4 minutes per appearance.

It was also the last appearance for the sophomore for nearly a month. On Nov. 22, Bradshaw was listed as out on the official availability report as the Buckeyes hosted Campbell, with his absence explained in a three-sentence statement released by Ohio State.

“Aaron Bradshaw is not currently participating in team activities,” it read. “The university is following its established process. Due to federal privacy laws, we cannot share further information at this time.”

While he was away, Bradshaw’s biography remained unchanged on the team’s official website and game notes, describing him as “one of the best personalities on the team.” As the Buckeyes updated their in-arena pregame highlight hype videos, no clips were included that featured Bradshaw.

Monday, Ohio State coach Jake Diebler said on his weekly radio show that Bradshaw is back with the team after “the university concluded its process.” No further details have been released on what brought an end to the university suspension into an alleged domestic incident at his off-campus apartment, and Ohio State is not expected to release a statement about his return.

It’s all basketball again for Bradshaw and the Buckeyes, who now welcome back one of their primary offseason additions. Bradshaw’s expected growth from a freshman year at Kentucky where he averaged 4.9 points and 3.3 rebounds while playing 13.7 minutes in 26 games including 10 starts was expected to be a driving force behind Diebler’s first full season at the helm, and now the question is how quickly he can re-assimilate into the regular rotation.

“I don’t anticipate any major, wholesale changes,” Diebler said. “We’ve just got to keep getting better at our foundation and keep building that. At times even I forget all the newness that we have in our program. We’ve got to keep growing. Getting him reacclimated is a part of that growth that we need to do over these next couple of weeks.”

The first obvious attribute Bradshaw brings to the roster is size. Without him, Ohio State has had to lean heavily on small-ball lineups featuring 6-9, 220-pound sophomore Sean Stewart at center and 6-6, 220-pound sophomore Devin Royal at power forward.

With Bradshaw, Royal averaged 10.5 points and 7.5 rebounds in 22.9 minutes per game. Without him, Royal has averaged 17.0 points and 7.4 rebounds while playing 25:57 per game. Stewart has battled foul trouble and a concussion that cost him a game and a half, but after averaging 3.3 points and 6.0 rebounds in 14.7 minutes with Bradshaw he has averaged 7.3 points and 5.8 rebounds in 19:39 per appearance since.

“Some guys have to play a little bit lower at (their) position, guard the bigs, but that’s life,” Royal said after last Wednesday’s 83-59 loss at Maryland. “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”

The other primary benefactor from Bradshaw’s absence has been sophomore center Austin Parks. After playing a total of 20 minutes and scoring 3 points with five rebounds last season, the 6-10, 260-pound Parks has totaled 34 minutes in two Big Ten games, scoring 6 points and grabbing seven rebounds while also playing solid defense at times.

After Saturday’s 80-66 home win against Rutgers, junior Bruce Thornton mentioned Bradshaw after being asked about Parks’ performance.

“It was great, especially not having AB (Bradshaw),” Thornton said. “We still keep in contact and make sure he’s OK physically and mentally. It’s next man up and Austin did a great job today. I’m on him because we needed him and we know what he’s capable of doing. We’re going to keep pushing him and it showed up today.”

Teams routinely lose players for extended periods of time during seasons and are forced to adapt. In Bradshaw’s absence, that meant leaning into smaller lineups and trying to exploit mismatches while at times giving up significant size to Ohio State’s opponents. According to KenPom.com, which ranks teams based on their average height adjusted for minutes played, the Buckeyes are the 238th-biggest team nationally and smallest in the Big Ten.

Now they can get back to adding a little bit more size to the mix with some versatility as well. Bradshaw is expected to contribute not just in the paint but on the perimeter as well, where Diebler said throughout the offseason that they expect him to knock down some shots and be a shooting threat.

“Teams adjust,” Diebler said. “Schemes adjust. There’s not necessarily wholesale changes at this point of the season, but I do think there’s value in the experience some of our other guys have been able to get. It’s helped them grow, certainly. I think for us, there’s some things we missed from a rebounding and size (standpoint), certainly, but schematically we’ve made some adjustments. He’ll need to get caught up.”

That process is underway.

ajardy@dispatch.com

@AdamJardy

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Ohio

Ohio woman sentenced in $775,000 Medicaid scheme

Published

6 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

COLUMBUS — A Lake County woman was sentenced this morning to jail time and ordered to pay $775,000 in restitution for fraudulently billing Medicaid, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced. “She inflated her earnings through brazen fraud, but her scheme burst wide open when our investigators got the case,” Yost said. “Cheating taxpayers comes with […]

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‘Catastrophic’ Ohio farm fire kills 6,000 hogs and pigs, officials say

Published

18 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

‘Catastrophic’ Ohio farm fire kills 6,000 hogs and pigs, officials say

A wind-swept blaze at an Ohio hog farm complex caused “catastrophic” damage and left thousands of pigs dead, fire officials said, marking another devastating barn inferno contributing to the deaths of millions of animals in recent years.

The massive fire occurred on Wednesday, Feb. 25, at Fine Oak Farms in Union Township, Madison County, located west of Ohio’s capital of Columbus, according to the Central Townships Joint Fire District. Fire crews received a report of a barn fire shortly before 12 p.m. local time.

The incident was later upgraded to a commercial structure fire after Chief Brian Bennington observed a “large column of smoke visible from a distance” and requested additional resources. Multiple local fire departments, along with several other emergency agencies, were called to the scene.

“What our crews encountered upon arrival was a very difficult and heartbreaking incident,” Bennington said in a statement on Feb. 26.

The fire chief described the facility as a large farm complex used for hog production consisting of five large agricultural buildings, including four that housed about 7,500 hogs. When crews arrived at the scene, they found two of the barns engulfed in flames, Bennington said.

Crews were challenged by windy conditions that significantly impacted fire suppression efforts, according to Bennington. Three barns were destroyed in the fire, and about 6,000 hogs and pigs were killed.

Firefighters saved one barn and about 1,500 hogs, the fire chief added. No injuries were reported in the incident.

Bennington highlighted the assistance of the farming community throughout Madison and Clark counties, as multiple farmers responded with water trucks to help with water supply efforts. “Rural Ohio’s agricultural community is tight-knit, and they truly step up when one of their own is in need,” he said.

The incident remains under investigation, and the Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Office will determine the fire’s cause and origin. Bennington said there is no suspicion of arson and no ongoing threat to the public at this time.

‘Rapidly changing fire behavior conditions’

Heavy smoke from the fire could be seen for miles, and Bennington said first-arriving units were met with fire conditions coming from the opposite side of the hog farm complex.

The fire chief noted that the incident required extensive water-shuttle operations due to rural water-supply limitations in the area. Crews attempted to cut the fire off by deploying multiple handlines and using an aerial device, but “faced extremely challenging conditions throughout the incident,” according to Bennington.

Sustained winds of about 20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph accelerated the fire’s spread, Bennington said. The high winds made it “extremely difficult” to contain forward fire progression and created “rapidly changing fire behavior conditions” across the agricultural complex, he added.

After about four to five hours, the fire was contained by fire personnel from four different counties, according to the fire chief.

“Unfortunately, the fire resulted in catastrophic damage to the business,” Bennington said in an earlier statement on Feb. 25. “A significant portion of the agricultural structures were destroyed.”

Latest major fire to impact an Ohio hog farm

The incident at Fine Oak Farms is the latest major fire to cause significant damage to an Ohio hog farm in recent years.

In August 2024, about 1,100 pigs were killed in Versailles, a village about 50 miles northwest of Dayton, Ohio, according to data from the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute. In March 2022, about 2,000 hogs died in a barn fire at Kenneth Scholl Hog Farm in Brown Township, just west of Columbus.

Before the fire at Fine Oak Farms, the Animal Welfare Institute reported that other barn fires in Ohio this year killed 162 sheep, horses, cows, chickens, and other animals.

Hundreds of thousands of animals killed in barn fires each year

Data from the Animal Welfare Institute shows that hundreds of thousands of animals are killed in barn fires across the country each year. Since 2013, over 9 million farm animals have been killed in barn fires, according to the organization.

As of Feb. 26, the Animal Welfare Institute reported that 118,738 farm animals have died in U.S. barn fires this year, including the incident at Fine Oak Farms. The majority of farm animals killed were chickens in separate incidents in North Carolina and Georgia in January, and another incident in Missouri earlier this month.

“Most fatal barn fires occurred in colder states, particularly the Upper Midwest and the Northeast. New York, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois had the highest number of barn fires, respectively,” according to the organization. “The amount of cold weather a state experienced appeared to be a greater factor in the prevalence of barn fires than the intensity of a state’s animal agriculture production.”

In an updated report on farm animal deaths due to barn fires in 2025, the Animal Welfare Institute said more than 2.53 million farm animals were killed in barn fires from 2022 to 2024. The organization noted that the high death toll was “driven primarily” by fires at large operations that housed several thousand to over 1 million farm animals.

The majority of deaths in these incidents during that period, over 98%, were farmed birds, such as chickens and turkeys, according to the Animal Welfare Institute. But in 2023, a massive fire at a west Texas dairy farm became the single deadliest event involving livestock in the state’s history and the deadliest cattle fire in America in at least a decade.

18,000 head of cattle perished in the fire at the South Fork Dairy farm near Dimmitt, Texas. At the time, Roger Malone, who is the former mayor of Dimmitt, called the incident “mind-boggling.”

“I don’t think it’s ever happened before around here. It’s a real tragedy,” Malone said.

Contributing: Rick Jervis, USA TODAY; Shahid Meighan, Columbus Dispatch

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Ohio’s LaRose pushes back on voter fraud critics, Democrats

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Ohio’s LaRose pushes back on voter fraud critics, Democrats

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose discussed voter fraud and Ohio’s efforts to prevent it during a recent radio appearance.

LaRose appeared on “The Bill Cunningham” radio show, where he defended the state’s efforts to minimize voter fraud. A clip posted on X shows audio of LaRose arguing that policies aimed at preventing voter fraud are necessary even though cases are rare.

Here’s what to know.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose says voter fraud in Ohio is rare, compares prevention efforts to TSA security

In the clip, LaRose says that Democrats claim voter fraud is rare, and should be ignored.

“The left claims that voter fraud is rare, so we should just ignore it,” he said. “Well, airplane hijackings are also rare — we don’t abolish the TSA. The reason why we keep voter fraud rare in states like Ohio because we do these very things that they’re trying to take away from me.”

LaRose announced the inaugural meeting of the new Ohio Election Integrity Commission, which replaces what he called the flawed Ohio Elections Commission, in January 2026. The new committee, he says, will be used in “enforcing Ohio’s election laws, reviewing alleged violations, and ensuring accountability in matters relating to voting.”

In October 2025, LaRose said that he forwarded more than 1,000 cases of voter fraud to the U.S. Department of Justice. The cases involved 1,084 noncitizen individuals who appear to have registered to vote unlawfully in Ohio, and 167 noncitizens who appear to have also cast a ballot in a federal election since 2018.

In February 2026, President Donald Trump said Republicans should “nationalize” elections. He also accused Democrats of bringing migrants into the United States to illegally vote, a claim that is not backed by evidence, USA TODAY reports.

Voter fraud in the U.S. is considered rare nationwide, according to NPR, but there are still debates from both political sides on how frequently it occurs.

What is voter fraud?

Electoral fraud is defined as illegally interfering with the process of an election, according to Ballotpedia. This includes in-person voter fraud, absentee or mail ballots and illegal voter suppression.

Criminal penalties can include fines or imprisonment for up to five years, according to U.S. code. In Ohio, election interference can carry a felony of the fourth degree, according to Ohio Code.

Voter fraud is often a topic of debate among Democrats and Republicans, where organizations such as the conservative Heritage Foundation maintains a database claiming to show nearly 1,500 cases of election fraud since the year 2000.

Meanwhile, research by law professor Justin Leavitt published in 2014 found 31 cases of in-person voter fraud among billions of ballots cast from 2000–2014, according to Ballotpedia.

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