A Tallmadge mother is warning parents of the dangers of button batteries and advocating for a ban on their use in toys after one killed her daughter. (April 14, 2023)
A viral video showing an oily sheen on a creek near the site of the toxic train derailment appears to show vinyl chloride, one of the chemicals released from a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, according to a geosciences and biology professor. (Feb. 18, 2023)
The relationship between the village of Peninsula and the Cuyahoga Valley National Park has been rocky essentially since the national park's inception nearly half a century ago. But the village is deciding to leave the past in the past and has approved a resolution recognizing itself as a Cuyahoga Valley National Park Gateway Community. (Oct. 20, 2022)
Summit County’s medical examiner is concerned about a shortage of forensic pathologists to work as medical examiners, with a job posting for a deputy medical examiner that's been up for nearly a year and no interest in the position. (Sept. 19, 2022)
The mother of a Stow man who died by suicide in the Summit County Jail and his former wife are suing the county and the jail's mental health provider, saying the man’s death was preventable after he begged for mental health treatment for months but was ignored. (Sept. 17, 2022)
What is now the Valley View Area of Cascade Valley Metro Park was always supposed to be a park. Decades and millions of dollars later, the property — the “missing piece” that was previously a dairy farm and then a golf course — now connects 1,800 acres of protected green space across three metro parks: Cascade Valley, Gorge and Sand Run. (Sept. 13, 2022)
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has ruled that Jill Flagg Lanzinger, a current Barberton Municipal Court judge, can appear on the November ballot as a candidate for an Ohio 9th District Court of Appeals judge seat. (Sept. 7, 2022)
The Akron-Summit County Public Library has free period products in half of its branches’ restrooms to help address menstrual equity for its visitors, with plans to expand them to all branch restrooms next year. (Aug 1, 2022)
When Akron police officers first fired their guns at 25-year-old Jayland Walker early in the morning of June 27, he dropped to the ground within the first second. (July 4, 2022)
The Yellow Creek Foundation has halted its bid to carve out a watershed conservancy district in western Summit and eastern Medina counties. The creation of the district had been in limbo for years and lacked support from most municipalities in the roughly 30-square-mile imprint of Yellow Creek, a tributary of the Cuyahoga River. (Dec 8, 2021)
The village of Peninsula doesn’t want to see the former Brandywine Country Club golf course become part of Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Village officials say it’s some of the last developable land in the tiny village, and if plans proceed for the Conservancy for CVNP to donate the land to the park, it would be “a worst case financial scenario” and “a death [knell] to the village’s prospects.” (Sept. 27, 2021)
About 50 people pleaded for fairer legislative districts over nearly four hours during a public hearing of the Ohio Redistricting Commission at the University of Akron. (Aug. 27, 2021)
Why hasn't Chippewa Lake had any major harmful algae blooms in the last few years? (July 21, 2021)
When Summit Metro Parks staff embarked on creating a permanent nature center in the former pump house at Summit Lake, they knew the residents were weary of outsiders trying to force things on their economically distressed community. They were used to people coming in and doing things to them, not with them, and without talking to the community. But Summit Metro Parks didn't want that to happen again. (May 27, 2021)
Summit County Council chose not to use Wells Fargo Financial Leasing Inc. to finance leases for copiers after some officials raised concerns about the company's "history of discriminatory lending." (April 23, 2021)
Evan Perry was the first hospital employee in Summit County to get the COVID-19 vaccine. (Dec. 23, 2020)
The leaders of Summit County's hospital systems are warning that their hospitals are packed with COVID-19 patients and faced with staffing issues, with employees who are exhausted and sometimes sick themselves. (Dec. 9, 2020)
Akron's hospitals are starting to near capacity during the current surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, and their leaders are pleading with people to stay home to try to curb the spread and prevent more hospital workers from getting sick. (Nov. 18, 2020)
Nearly 25% of all of the COVID-19 cases in Summit County during the eight-month-long pandemic have been reported in the first 13 days of November, according to preliminary data from Summit County Public Health. (Nov. 14, 2020)
Summit County is considering a settlement of up to $2.4 million in a federal lawsuit filed by the estate of an Akron man who died a day after an altercation with deputies in the county jail. (Sept. 17, 2020)
A Stow elementary school teacher has resigned after sending racist messages through social media and then filing a fake police report claiming she’d been hacked, according to police and school district officials. (Sept. 4, 2020)
A group of Copley-Fairlawn students, alumni and community members has made several demands of the school district, from changing its mascot to improving the way Black history is taught in classrooms. (July 25, 2020)
Asian residents make up just under 4% of the Summit County population but account for nearly 20% of coronavirus cases in the county, according to Summit County Public Health data. (June 23, 2020)
Sean Wade, who is Black, wants police officers to be more aware of the people they’re interacting with, the past experiences they’ve had with law enforcement, the “microtraumas” they cause and the mental scars they leave. (June 10, 2020)
Summit County has received nearly $100 million in funding from the federal government during the coronavirus pandemic but can’t spend most of it. (May 6, 2020)
Biologists with Summit Metro Parks are testing for a fungus that causes a deadly disease in hibernating bats that’s decimating bat populations across the country. (Feb. 27, 2020)
As customers have shifted from shopping in person to shopping online, malls have suffered.
But Summit Mall has withstood the fallout and is, in fact, thriving, with nearly every space in the mall occupied and a steady stream of visitors. Why? (Jan. 19, 2020)
Skyler Gordon and his mom found out that the Akron 11-year-old’s kidneys were only functioning at 20%. He’s now waiting on a kidney transplant. Until he gets his new kidney, he’s on dialysis each night, tethered to a humming machine next to his bed by tubes from his abdomen. (Jan. 18, 2020)
Update: Akron boy gets kidney transplant (March 11, 2020)
Third-place award, The Press Club of Cleveland’s All Ohio Excellence in Journalism Awards for General news: Multiple stories, same topic (June 2021)
Summit and Cuyahoga counties reached a tentative settlement with most of the defendants in the landmark opioid trial an hour before opening statements in the case were set to start in federal court. (Oct. 21, 2019)
Here’s everything you need to know about the landmark opioid trial involving Summit County that’s scheduled to begin in federal court in Cleveland. (Oct. 19, 2019)
Third-place award, The Press Club of Cleveland’s All Ohio Excellence in Journalism Awards for General news: single story (August 2020)
Tanzania Johnson joined the U.S. Air Force to get out of Akron and start a new beginning. While in the service, she gave birth to her daughter, Nakiyah. Since then, mother and daughter, now 6, have been staying with family members. Johnson is set to be one of four women to live in Summit County’s first housing facility for homeless female veterans and their children, Summit Liberty House. (Sept. 26, 2019)
A former Summit County official who left to take a job in the private sector is expected to continue his work with the county. (Sept. 18, 2019)
The estate of a 35-year-old woman who died of dehydration while detoxifying at the Summit County Jail will sue the county and the jail’s former medical provider if a settlement can’t be reached. (Aug. 27, 2019)
Mary Campbell was definitely a young girl who lived in Pennsylvania in the mid-1700s. And she was definitely captured by Native Americans and returned to her family years later. But her presence at a rock formation named after her in Gorge Metro Park along the boundary between Akron and Cuyahoga Falls isn’t so definite. (July 29, 2019)
Update: No evidence found to support Mary Campbell story in Gorge Metro Park (Feb. 2, 2020)
A quaint village nestled in the heart of Cuyahoga Valley National Park is going broke. (July 24, 2019)
Joe Hepler was cleaning out the gutters of his two-story Tallmadge home when he fell off the roof. Nearly two years later, Hepler has undergone 13 surgeries, including a below-the-knee amputation of his left leg. He recently returned to work as a patrol officer with the Stow Police Department. (July 17, 2019)
After 15 years of work, Pond Brook will soon no longer be a straight, stagnant, unshaded ditch but a meandering stream supporting a variety of fish, birds and otters. (July 10, 2019)
The nine coaches — two of whom are staff members — admitted to drinking alcohol at an offseason football camp — a violation of school and state codes of conduct, officials said. (June 25, 2019)
Series: 50th anniversary of last fire on the Cuyahoga River
Part 1: Fifty years after fire, Cuyahoga River revival celebrated (June 19, 2019)
Part 2: How Akron is cleaning up the Cuyahoga River (June 20, 2019)
Part 3: Cuyahoga Falls embraces river through downtown (June 21, 2019)
An Akron mother says a Christian school in Cuyahoga Falls kicked out her two children because she’s not married and her kids have different fathers. (April 18, 2019)
It will be years before the Gorge Dam in the Gorge Metro Park is removed. (April 9, 2019)
Michelle Obama is still becoming, and she thinks the country is still becoming, too. (March 17, 2019)
When United Methodist Church in Stow Pastor Karen Drotar first heard the church’s General Conference was strengthening its bans on same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBTQ clergy, her first thought was to retire and leave the church. (March 8, 2019)
Second-place award, The Press Club of Cleveland’s All Ohio Excellence in Journalism Awards for General news: single story (August 2020)
After two weeks in a homeless tent city, Krystal Emch and her boyfriend, Michael Smith, are moving on to a new campground. But they’re not leaving because they want to. They're leaving because the city shut down the tent village. (Jan. 3, 2019)
Callista and Jason Puchmeyer received one of the best Christmas gifts possible: finally bringing home their newborn daughter, Vincenza, a month after she was born with a rare blood disease following her mom’s high-risk pregnancy. (Dec. 24, 2018)
Katina Scalia had no idea when she woke up that everything she and her family owned would be reduced to ashes within hours. (Nov. 13, 2018)
Could there be a 19th-century boatyard used to build ships for the War of 1812 hidden in a former Akron golf course-turned-park? A crew of archaeologists is working to find out. (Nov. 9, 2018)