Susan Tebben, Ohio Capital Journal

As the federal government looks at ways to cut costs and fund Trump-administration measures, a congressional committee is considering a cut that could take billions from school breakfast and lunch programs.

That cut could impact more than 280,000 students in Ohio alone, and 728 schools in the state, according to data from the Food Research & Action Center.

FRAC identified this loss from a proposal being discussed by the Republican-led U.S. House Ways and Means Committee — membership of which includes Ohio Reps. Mike Carey and Max Miller — as part of upcoming budget reconciliation in the Capitol. The proposal would chop $3 billion from school breakfast and lunch programs. ...

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has joined Ohio with three other states in a federal lawsuit seeking to keep certain immigrants from being counted in the U.S. Census including those in the country illegally and those with temporary visas.

The case was filed in U.S. District Court on Jan. 17 and also includes the attorneys general from Louisiana, West Virginia and Kansas.

Yost and the other state legal chiefs – filing the action against the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Census Bureau (an agency within the Commerce department) – say a residence rule that allows foreign nationals living in the U.S. to be counted in the decennial census resulted in 2020 Census figures that “included illegal aliens and aliens holding temporary visas” to determine apportionment for U.S. House districts and Electoral College representatives. ...

An Ohio woman who was criminally charged after having a miscarriage in her home has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Warren, city police officers, a local hospital and its owners.

Brittany Watts filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio Eastern Division claiming violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment, along with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a law that establishes the right for anyone to be admitted to a hospital in an emergency situation regardless of their ability to pay or insurance status, and for them to receive “necessary stabilizing treatment,” according to Watts’ attorneys from the firm Loevy & Loevy.

Watts also accused law enforcement of malicious prosecution and false arrest, and health care professionals with medical negligence, unauthorized disclosure of confidential medical information, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, according to the lawsuit filed Jan. 10. ...

Hundreds of thousands of Ohio children are enrolled in public health insurance such as Medicaid, which could be in for major changes and cuts as the new presidential administration takes hold with authors and proponents of Project 2025 nominated for key roles.

Meanwhile, the state of Ohio faces a new two-year budget cycle in 2025, where lawmakers and the governor will, among many other things, deal with Medicaid, any potential federal-level cuts, and financing for new child well-being laws passed just before the new year.

The federal Medicaid program includes the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and nationally covers 79.4 million Americans, targeting largely those in low income brackets or with disabilities. Data from the Health Policy Institute of Ohio showed more than 700,000 Ohio children between ages 6 and 18 had Medicaid as of the 2022-2023 school year. ...

Ohio women 50 and older are headed to the polls having lived through the days before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, during the time when abortion was legal, and now, after the decision was overturned in 2022 and power given to each state to decide.

That has played a factor in many women’s decisions at the ballot box, though it’s only one factor of many, voters told the Capital Journal in interviews last week.

“I am not a single issue voter, by any means,” said Mansfield resident and registered Republican Linda Smith. ...