Republican Rob Portman says he and Senator Orrin hatch wrote the tax agency after hearing complaints from some conservative groups that they were being unfairly targeted.

“We unfortunately have now learned a year later that our suspicions that we had were correct, and that is that the IRS employees were using inappropriate political screenings,” Portman says. “They used key words like we the people, patriots, limited government.”

Three congressional committees are investigating and Attorney General Eric Holder says the FBI is looking into potential civil rights violations at the IRS.

President Barack Obama says Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew asked for and accepted Acting Commissioner Steven T. Miller’s resignation.

Miller’s departure came five days after the IRS revealed that agents had improperly targeted groups with “tea party” or “patriots” in their in their applications for tax-exempt status. It came a day after an inspector general’s report blamed ineffective management in Washington for allowing it to happen for more than 18 months.

Gunfire erupted shortly after 5 a.m. just north of the intersection of East North Broadway and North High Street in Clintonville.

Police say patrol officers received a tip in an April 5th homicide investigation tried to stop a suspect vehicle. Sergeant Rich Weiner says gunfire shattered the police cruiser’s windows. Two officers were injured by flying glass. A pursuit of the subjects along North High Street ended in an exchange of gunfire between police and the two suspects, a man and a woman.

Traffic along a six block section of North High Street and on North Broadway at High was detoured. North High is expected to be blocked in the area for much of the remainder of the day.

Police say Anthony Saunders III turned himself in last night and remains in the Franklin County Jail on a charge of felonious assault.

Police have not said what led up to the shooting.

His arrest comes after 39-year-old Amy Develvis was struck in the head by a stray bullet while riding a city bus near downtown April 16. She is recovering at home.

Last week, a 22-year-old man was charged with tampering with evidence in the case.

Saunders will be arraigned Wednesday. Court records did not indicate if he had an attorney.

“I think we’ve seen some real challenges in that regard. Kids have been used to ten weeks and all of a sudden it stretches out to 16 weeks. Faculty has been used to ten weeks, it stretches out to 16 weeks. So how do you calibrate those issues?” Asks Gee.

Students and faculty were forced to change routines, everything from study habits to class schedules. And during the first weeks of the new school year a string of pedestrian and bicycle accidents involving students forced more changes. In one case, a student was critically injured while riding his bike on a campus sidewalk.

“Now, you know, for example, we no longer allow kids to ride their bicycles across the oval, a number of things, which are all consequences of a much busier, more engaged institution.” Says Gee.

Gee says class start times are now staggered so there are few lulls in activity on campus sidewalks and streets. In the classroom, Writing professor Alexis Martina says she see more anxiety on the faces of students.

“It’s definitely the most stressed I’ve ever seen students, through the semester switch. It’s a struggle for instructors and we’re learning just as much as the students are learning. But, I think that there’s bound to be that kind of, those growing pains, and you did definitely see that in my students.” Martina says.

4th year student Alex Graves and junior Joe Hosa say the change to semesters brought more pressure in the classroom.

“Definitely apparent when it comes to finals week. Because back on quarters, actually would normally have one or two finals and now I have four or five.” Says Hosa

“That’s like what I was most confused about, I thought with semesters that taking like a bunch of classes throughout a long time would may be easier. But I feel like I have an exam every week.” Graves says.

Ohio State University is among the last state campus to change to semesters. Assistant Provost Jay Johnson urges students to voice their concerns to their professors.

“Have a conversation, a frank conversation with the professor and ask them about the content, about the pacing and to just point out some of the things since I think the professors will at least be willing to hear them out.” Says Johnson.

Johnson contends the new academic calendar gives long term advantages to students like Graves and Hosa. He says now that course credits have been converted students can get an earlier start on job searches or internships.

“One of the main goals is that one is the ease of credit transfer for students who have taken some courses on a quarter basis, some on semesters. The other one of the benefits is that with students getting out a little bit earlier in the school year now, they’re going to be, the different internships and job opportunities are going to be available to them.”

Ohio State University is among the last state campus to change to semesters. On Sunday, more than 10-thousand Ohio State students will graduate.

——-
WOSU Intern Kayley Doyle contributed to this story.

Lee Rizor, 27, of Mt. Gilead, was operating a backhoe on the right berm when a tractor trailer drove off the right side of the roadway striking the backhoe.
The commercial vehicle flipped over and caught fire.

Rizor was pronounced dead at the scene.

The tractor trailer driver, Dwayne Allen Hill Sr., 59, of Ashland, Va., was taken to the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University in critical condition.

The crash is under investigation.

Buried deep in the more than 1,000 page document is a new amendment that would let the state superintendent of schools and a mayor in the district’s largest municipality appoint an academic distress commission, basically a second and even more-powerful school board.

But only if the district “is found by the Auditor of State to have knowingly manipulated student data with evidence of intent to deceive.”

Columbus remains under investigation by the auditor for what he calls widespread attendance recording scrubbing.

Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman has repeatedly said he’s not orchestrating a takeover of Columbus City Schools. On Wednesday, Coleman’s spokesman Dan Williamson said the mayor does not support the budget amendment and is focused on the meaningful work of the Columbus Education Commission. Williamson said the mayor views this latest development as a distraction.

The new amendment comes ahead of a townhall meeting Wednesday night for residents to talk about concerns over possible changes in the district.

We’ve all been there – at the end of long day when exercise is the last thing on your mind.

But some people think they’ve found a solution that involves a furry companion.

******

Heidi Braun runs a bootcamp to get people in shape.

But people aren’t the only participants. There’s Maggie, Braun’s peppy three-year-old bordercollie mix that she adopted a year ago from the Mahoning County Dog Shelter.

Maggie’s the reason Braun started what’s called Thank Dog! Bootcamp.

It’s a fitness class for people and their pooches.

I figured I couldn’t be the only person who had a crazy dog that I was leaving to go to the gym at night.

Today’s class is in the Beachwood Community Center but in the summer they meet outside.

People come to the classes to bond with their dogs and get fit:

I have ladies in some of my classes that have lost 40 pounds. I have other ones that are here to work on strength-training.

The beauty of the concept, says Braun, is your dog becomes your workout partner, your motivator to lace up.

“If your dog knows that every night at 6:30 you go for a walk, or every Thursday you go to bootcamp together, they know when that day is and they’re excited and they’re waiting for you and they’re going to pester you until you put on your shoes and take them to go.

“I mean Maggie spins in circles because she knows it’s bootcamp day.”

Braun says one of her regulars, when she had to miss class, sent her boyfriend with her dog because she didn’t want her dog to miss out.

“If you’re a single person and your dog is your best buddy that you share your life with, you don’t want to let them down.”

“We always ache after this class, says Linda Augustu from Pepper Pike Ohio. She and her dog Sadie started boot camp last summer.

“I’m Lea Taft, I’m from Chagrin Falls. This is Bailey.”

Reporter: “And what kind of dog is Bailey?”

Taft: “She’s a mutt! A very muddy mut!”

Braun says she gets people, and dogs, at all fitness levels and ages.

Ileen Kelner from Beachwood jokes that she’s twice as old as the others so it’s harder to keep up with her beagle, Amos.

“No, we got to go this way,” Amos says as she tries to reign in the dog.

The dogs have to practice going from a jog to a sit, and their human counterparts don’t get off the hook.

“Get on your mat on all fours. You’re doing rear leg lifts,” Braun shouts out.

The dogs are pretty good at staying put during this, but one of ‘em can’t resist a little sweaty-face-licking.

“Oh Lea, she won’t stop kissing me! I know I’m happy to see you too. Ok, sit. Oh dear, we’ve lost control of the situation,” Augustus says jokingly.

OSU health coach Jenny Pitcher says a pet can be a good tool for fitness and weight loss, whether in a bootcamp like Braun’s or just taking a spin around the block at night.

“Actually, yeah, we talk about dogs a lot.”

Her clients say their dogs keep ‘em honest, and research shows that having a buddy of some sort does help people stay on track.

So you can talk yourself out of going and doing the exercise but if you have committed to someone else to do it, it makes you more likely to get that done.

Back at doggie bootcamp, I had to ask one more question before I left:

Reporter: “Do you have any tips for those of us with cats?

Braun: “Umm…we’ll give you a loaner dog. Come to class!”

Heart failure is usually diagnosed by ordering tests like EKGs, x-rays, MRIs, and blood work. But new research suggests maybe all a patient needs to do is take a deep breath in, and blow it out. Dr. Raed Dwiek is a physician at the Respiratory Institute at the Cleveland Clinic.

“We were surprised to find that the breath of these patients is quite different from others who do not have heart failure.” Says Dr. Dwiek.

Dweik and his team analyzed the chemical content of heart failure patients’ breath, and found elevated levels of two compounds: acetone and pentane.

“So this is something we call the “breath print”—like you think of a fingerprint, you know somebody’s fingerprint and you can identify what’s going on, where they have been, what they’ve been doing.”

The study was published recently in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Dweik says eventually researchers hope to develop a low cost breath test for heart failure.

“That’s the holy grail for the future—we’re not there yet but this is a proof-of-concept to tell us that it is possible.” Adds Dr. Dwiek.

There’s already an FDA-approved breath test for asthma, and Dwiek says more are in development for lots of other conditions like liver and kidney disease and lung cancer.

This year’s First Four event has been sold out since last October, and what the event still has this year is a big economic payoff for the city of Dayton. Matthew Ferrel is part of this year’s organizing committee.

“Yea, last year the economic impact to the Dayton region was somewhere in the neighborhood of four to $5 million,” Ferrel says.

“That was with four games. This year we have ten nationally televised games, tens and tens of thousands of visitors to the Dayton region, the economic impact is estimated to be in the neighborhood of eight to $12 million.”

As of now, the First Four Tournament games will remain in Dayton through 2015, but The University of Dayton is hoping the NCAA will sign on for another 10 years.

Ferrel believes the city has earned it.

“I think Dayton has obviously proven, the UD staff has proven year in and year out, 28 years now they’ve been a host of the NCAA tournament, a hundred and one games will have been hosted after this week… They’ve proven that they are as good as anybody in the country at running an event with the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, and I think our community has shown, you know, it’s sincere about their role as the long term host for the kick-off of March Madness.”

With the tournament underway, 64 teams will vie for the national championship title. On Wednesday, the LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds will take on the James Madison Dukes—and the La Salle Explorers go up against the Boise State Broncos.

Amanda Clearcreek Schools – closed
Big Walnut Schools – closed
Bloom Carroll Schools – closed
Canal Winchester – closed
Columbus City Schools – closed
Eastland Career Center – closed
Fairfield Career Center – closed
Gahanna-Jefferson Schools – closed
Goodwill Columbus – no first-shift transportation
Graham Expeditionary Middle School – closed
Granville Exempted Village School District – closed
Groveport Madison Schools – closed
Hilliard City Schools – closed
Liberty Union/Thurston – closed
Millenium Community School – closed
New Albany-Plain Local Schools – closed
North Union – closed
Ohio Dominican University – closed except for evening LEAD classes
Olentangy Schools – closed
Reynoldsburg City Schools – closed
Southwest Licking Schools – closed
Upper Arlington City Schools -closed
Westerville City Schools – closed
Walnut Township Schools – closed
Worthington Schools – closed
Worthington Christian Schools – closed