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Faced with the permanent closure of Kent’s emergency room, City Manager Dave Ruller and Fire Chief John Tosko are lobbying University Hospitals to reopen the facility.

Motorists who drive Silica Sand Road in northern Portage County will have to find alternative routes as the bridge over Eagle Creek will be closed for three months starting Aug. 2.

Residents who wish to honor a veteran have until Aug. 13 to purchase a memorial brick to be placed at the Portage County memorial site, located at the county courthouse.

Brush and yard waste pickup in the Village of Hiram is suspended indefinitely, leaving residents to find other ways to dispose of unwanted organic material.

The Raven Awards for 2019 and 2020 will be celebrated at a ceremony on Sept. 1 at the Ravenna Football Stadium from 6-8 p.m. The awards honor local businesses, business owners and residents, giving special recognition for new businesses.

So where are we with high school athletics and Covid-19? To answer that question, I turned to Rootstown High School athletic director, golf and baseball coach Keith Waesch to take a look at where we’ve been in the last year-plus and where we’re going with respect to the upcoming 2021-22 school year, particularly the rapidly approaching fall sports season, as we grind through a two steps forward, one step back post-pandemic America.

Sunday saw an unusually high number of accidents on Portage County’s waterways. We spoke with Shawn Baynes, the assistant dive team commander at the Kent Fire Department, and Adam George, senior firefighter at the city of Ravenna, about at least five calls the Portage County Water Rescue Team responded to on Sunday.

Through a Community Projects Funding application, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan obtained nearly $18 million for projects in the 13th congressional district, including $1 million for UH Portage.

In Downtown Kent on Saturday, Portage County turned out to hear live music during the largest local festival since the pandemic began. Although the day was rainy and cloudy, hundreds of people attended the Kent Blues Fest.

Freedom Township trustees and community members discussed the future of resident Michelle Filler’s dog training business, Duke’s K9 Dash ‘N Splash, and the high turnover rate of township zoning inspectors on Thursday.

In his report to Kent’s Finance Committee last week, Police Chief Nicholas Shearer proposed replacing 23 ballistic vests for city officers, noting that a grant from the Ohio Attorney General’s office will pick up 75% of the cost.

Building trust and accountability between police officers and citizens is more important than ever, and providing our local police with body cameras can help on both accounts.

Ohio is one of the most gerrymandered states in the United States. Our legislature is under a mandate to end the practice and replace it with fair districts— now. But, so far, not even the Ohio Redistricting Commission has been convened in advance of receiving census data on August 16.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Portage County commissioners made an “impermissible end run around the Open Meetings Act” during Solid Waste Management District board meetings in 2019.

Streetsboro City Council approved a contract with Kimble Companies for both trash and recycling pickup services in a pair of votes on Monday night.

Matthew Morse’s spouse told a 911 dispatcher her husband was acting violently and was likely intoxicated on the evening of July 4, when deputies shot and killed Morse after he allegedly refused to drop the weapon he was carrying.

Dialing back legislation that would have severely restricted who could keep chickens in Streetsboro, city council on Monday instead simply halved the property setbacks required for keeping chickens in rural areas.

Let’s hit the road for a fun fictional adventure. “West with Giraffes” by Lynda Rutledge was inspired by the true story of two giraffes in 1938 that “survived a hurricane at sea, then were driven cross-country for twelve days in little more than a tricked-out pickup truck to become the first giraffes in Southern California.”

Rough Rider girls golf became a varsity sport in 2011. In 2013, they qualified as a team for the state tournament, finishing sixth in Division II. And they have been a force at the state level ever since. So much for growing pains.

The Portage County Land Bank sold more than $330,000 in open market sales in 2020, according to the nonprofit’s latest annual report.