COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican Mike DeWine is embarking on a statewide campaign tour a day after announcing a bid for Ohio governor. The 70-year-old state attorney general and former U.S senator is one of Ohio’s longest-serving and best-known politicians, but he faces a competitive and widening GOP field. Secretary of State Jon Husted and U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, of …

CINCINNATI (AP) — The family of an American college student who died days after being released from North Korea in a coma says the 22-year-old “has completed his journey home.” Otto Warmbier died Monday, relatives said in a statement. They did not cite a specific cause of death. “Unfortunately, the awful, torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of …

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio Supreme Court justice who’s mulling a run for governor thinks it’s time for the state to decriminalize marijuana. Justice William O’Neill, the lone Democrat holding an Ohio statewide office, said making marijuana legal is working in Colorado and doing it in Ohio would bring hundreds of millions of dollars in sales taxes. O’Neill announced …

WAVERLY, Ohio (AP) — State authorities on Tuesday charged the brother of one of the eight relatives slain in an unsolved massacre with tampering with evidence and vandalism over the destruction of a GPS tracking device they placed on his truck. The state attorney general’s office accused James Manley of destroying the device being used in the investigation of the …

School officials never told the mother of an 8-year-old Ohio boy who killed himself that another student had thrown him against the wall two days earlier and knocked him unconscious in an attack recorded by a surveillance video, attorneys for the boy’s mother said Thursday. The 8-year-old hanged himself with a necktie in the bedroom of his Cincinnati home on …

TIFFIN, Ohio (AP) — Investigators say a suspect in a stabbing at an Ohio home fired at responding officers with a high-powered rifle before being fatally shot. A sheriff’s deputy was injured in the gunfire on Tuesday in Tiffin. The Advertiser-Tribune reports the deputy was hit in the shoulder and hospitalized in stable condition. Tiffin’s police chief says the deputy’s …

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — State lawmakers are looking at giving Ohio farmers a break on their real estate taxes that have skyrocketed over the last few years. The Blade reports that taxes for farmland are rising. Republican state Rep. Kirk Schuring estimates that property values have gone up 300 percent in recent years. However, prices for crops that farmers produce …

CLEVELAND (AP) — A mayor has upped the ante in the fight over a proposed high-pressure natural gas pipeline by hiring attorneys to file a lawsuit aimed at stopping the pipeline from being built or stopping the project altogether. The Green City Council authorized spending $100,000 at a special meeting Tuesday to hire a Cleveland firm specializing in environmental law. …

NEWTON FALLS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio family says they learned just 20 minutes before dinner this week that a planned mystery guest would be Facebook founder and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg. The Vindicator of Youngstown reports Zuckerberg dined Friday with the Moore family in Newton Falls, about 55 miles southeast of Cleveland. The newspaper reports Zuckerberg had asked his staff …

MOUNT VICTORY — As auditor for the State of Ohio, Dave Yost has had success fighting corruption and he hopes to continue that life-long theme as the next Ohio attorney general. Current Attorney General Mike DeWine is running for governor, leaving the office open for the auditor to make a bid for the position.