The Daily Chief-Union

Longtime GOP party boss survives challenge in Ohio county
AKRON (AP) - One of the state's most powerful political bosses survived a challenge Wednesday night, changing titles but retaining control over Republicans in a northeast Ohio county.
Summit County Republican Party Chairman Alex Arshinkoff opted to run as chairman of the party's central committee rather than the executive committee he currently heads. Although a change in title, either post allows the hard-charging operative to continue running the county's political machine.
Arshinkoff faced a challenge from the New Summit County Republicans, a group that complained he consolidated power for personal benefit. State Sen. Kevin Coughlin, a member of the group, also accused Arshinkoff of exploiting his position to steer business to his lobbying firm and to pay for a car and other personal perks.
"I think that people are just fed up," Coughlin said in March. "Everyone's got their own reason for letting him go, whether it's how he treats people, how he spends the money, or his losing record of 10 wins and 67 losses over the last six years."
Arshinkoff, who took charge of the party in 1978 at the age of 23, defends his record and his approach. He has never been found to have broken an ethics or elections law in three decades of service.
(Refer to page 8 of the Daily Chief-Union)

Police: Ohio teen hides in bed from home intruders
LITHOPOLIS (AP) - A teenager home alone pulled bed sheets over her head to hide from two intruders and sent a text message to her mother, whose 911 call led to the arrest of two suspects, authorities said Wednesday.
Lauren Durnbaugh, 13, didn't go to school Tuesday and was home when she heard someone open an unlocked rear door. She climbed into bed and hid under the covers as the suspects began ransacking rooms in the house about 15 miles southeast of Columbus, authorities said.
"OMG. They're in the house. I think we're being robbed," Durnbaugh said in a text message to her mother, Margo Roby, 53, who was working at a car dealership about 15 minutes away.
Racing home, Roby called 911. Back in the house, the intruders roamed from room to room, and at one point sat on Lauren's bed, police said.
"They didn't know she was there while they were going through stuff," Fairfield County Sheriff Dave Phalen said.
Roby arrived home and rammed her vehicle into the back of the suspects' car parked in the driveway, Phalen said.
(Refer to page 8 of the Daily Chief-Union)

District offers reward for tips on nonresident students
AKRON (AP) - A suburban district is offering $100 for tips on children who aren't supposed to be attending the schools because they live outside the district, and it's paying off.
Four people have collected rewards, and Julie Schafer, a school board member in the Copley-Fairlawn district, said others have provided tips but turned down the financial incentive since the deal began in September.
The crackdown was prompted by bus drivers who saw students getting off in front of vacant buildings or parents in cars dropping off students at bus stops.
District officials suspected 100 of its 3,500 students live outside the district.
Since September, 45 such students have left and six others stayed and paid the annual nonresident tuition of $7,614.
The Ohio Department of Education is unaware of any other financial incentive program of its kind in the state, spokesman Scott Blake said Wednesday.
(Refer to page 8 of the Daily Chief-Union)

WEDNESDAY APRIL 30, 2008

Prosecutors want twin of slain teen charged as adult
COLUMBUS (AP) - Prosecutors say Derris Lewis was an accomplice in the shooting death of his twin brother while masked robbers held a gun on his mother. The boys' family says Lewis never would have endangered his mother or brother.
On Wednesday, a juvenile court judge will hear arguments on whether Lewis should be charged as an adult in the January shooting. He turned 18 shortly after the death of his brother, Dennis Lewis, in the Columbus home the slain teen shared with his mother.
Derris Lewis - the younger twin by 22 seconds - is charged in juvenile court with being an accomplice to aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping.
Authorities will not say what Derris Lewis is accused of doing. They say the motive that night was robbery but will not comment further.
Police based their arrest on a bloody palm print belonging to Derris Lewis, found in the bedroom where his brother fought with his attacker.
Prosecutors planned to call Lewis' mother, a fingerprint expert, police officers and someone from the coroner's office.
(Refer to page 5 of the Daily Chief-Union

Democratic leader says party strongest ever
COLUMBUS (AP) - The Ohio Democratic Party is the strongest state party organization in the country, and it will help Democrats take the Ohio House and the presidency this fall, its chairman said.
Chris Redfern's party looks nothing - either in its appearance or its results - like its feeble predecessors, whose candidate for governor won barely 25 percent of the vote in 1994 and who saw no wins for statewide positions other than the Ohio Supreme Court for the next 11 years.
Before the fast-talking, sound-bite rich state lawmaker took the helm, the state party was a sporadic operation confined to the pockets of Ohio that never would think about voting Republican.
"Democrats have worked very hard at losing over the course of the last 16 years," Redfern said in an interview with The Associated Press.
(Refer to page 5 of the Daily Chief-Union)

New pastor to head Obama's 8,000-member Chicago church
CHICAGO (AP) - When the Rev. Otis Moss III takes to the pulpit before the nation's largest United Church of Christ congregation, he is as likely to preach about rapper Tupac Shakur or author William Faulkner as he is the Apostle Paul.
The 37-year-old Ohio native and "hip-hop pastor," as he's called by congregants, will become the head of Trinity United Church of Christ in June, taking over at a time of transition and turmoil for the 8,000-member church whose Cleveland-based parent denomination is the United Church of Christ.
Moss' ascent follows the long-planned retirement of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the controversial former pastor of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
It is a shift from more than three decades under Wright, a preacher born of the civil-rights era whose highly publicized fiery comments have placed the South Side church under a microscope, even drawing death threats.
(Refer to page 5 of the Daily Chief-Union)