Cleveland

Updated: 11:13 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 13, 2020 The Cleveland Indians will change the baseball team's name, according to a Sunday evening report from the New York Times The Wall Street Journal, ESPN and the Washington Post quickly followed with additional confirmation, all from anonymous sources.

Updated: 5:50 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020 Cleveland-area Democrats are leaping to fill the void in Congress that will be left by Rep. Marcia Fudge’s nomination to the Biden cabinet. Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Chair Shontel Brown and Nina Turner, a top supporter of Bernie Sanders’ presidential run, filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to create campaign committees on Wednesday. Jeff Johnson, a former state lawmaker and city councilman, told ideastream he also is running for the seat.

Updated 11:00 a.m., Dec. 10, 2020 Housing and neighborhood advocates in Northeast Ohio and beyond reacted with optimism Wednesday to news that Cleveland Congresswoman Marcia Fudge would be President-elect Joe Biden's pick to lead the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The “Dennis!” yard signs aren’t back out quite yet, but former Rep. Dennis Kucinich has taken a step toward a Cleveland mayoral bid. Kucinich filed paperwork with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections this past week to form the “Reelect Mayor Kucinich” campaign fundraising committee, according to Joe Tegreene, an attorney acting as treasurer for the committee. That’s reelection to the job he held 41 years ago.

Dr. Thomas Gilson, Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner, announced Friday he has requested refrigerated trucks in preparation for a surge in COVID-19 deaths. The request is part of the county’s pandemic plan, which requires them to ask for refrigerated units if the county reaches three sustained days of 30 or more deaths. The county reached that threshold in the last week, Gilson said. “In conversations with funeral homes, they are reporting they are busy but not overwhelmed. There is not a storage issue right now,” Gilson said.

Forty years after the murder of Sister Dorothy Kazel and three other missionary women in El Salvador, members of the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland continue work to preserve their legacies. Local Catholic institutions are planning virtual events for Wednesday to honor the anniversary of their deaths. Kazel was abducted by five members of the Salvadoran National Guard after a trip to the airport on Dec. 2, 1980, along with her fellow missionary Jean Donovan and Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford. The women were raped and later murdered by the guardsmen.

The City of Cleveland has agreed to pay $4.85 million to David Ayers, 20 years after he was wrongfully convicted of murder. The city tucked the settlement announcement into its daily coronavirus press release Monday night. The judgement appears to bring to a close a decades-long saga for Ayers.

Updated: 4:35 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2020 The City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have issued a stay-at-home advisory starting Wednesday and ending on Dec. 17 in an attempt to curb the skyrocketing spread of COVID-19 in the area.

Updated 4:20 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16, 2020 As the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to climb in Ohio, Cleveland-area hospital leaders are concerned about the growing number of health care workers who are out sick with the coronavirus. According to hospital officials, about 800 Cleveland Clinic employees, 200 at University Hospitals, and 60 MetroHealth staffers are out, making it more difficult to care for the rising number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Cuyahoga County.

A "Celebration of Democracy" event was held at Cleveland's Public Square to recognize successful voter turnout.