More local residents struggling to make their home loan payments may be able to get financial assistance to avoid foreclosure.

FRANKLIN TWP. - Middletown Christian officials breathed a sigh of relief after the last of nine students injured in a head-on bus crash Wednesday was released from the hospital.

FAIRFIELD - Kroger wants to install a gas station at its Fairfield location, but city officials’ objections to the plans have caused the project to stall for the moment.

FAIRFIELD - At Fairfield West Elementary School, kids hustle through their classrooms, moving from desk to desk, playing games and high-fiving each other.

Improvements to a heavily traveled section of Butler Warren Road are scheduled to begin later this month to widen a two mile stretch to five lanes, according to officials from the Butler and Warren County Engineer’s Offices.

WEST CHESTER TWP. - Contech Construction Products has changed its name to Contech Engineered Solutions and its ownership structure, company officials announced Wednesday.

FAIRFIELD - Cincinnati Financial Corporation, Butler County’s second largest employer, today reported a fourth-quarter 2011 profit of $134 million compared with $126 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

HAMILTON - A top official in the city’s Electric Division has submitted his two-weeks notice to resign Wednesday.

Scott Lipps and David Bellos are not only small business owners, but advocates for small business on a local and statewide level, as well.

OXFORD - Longtime Oxford police Lt. Robert Holzworth has been selected as the city’s next chief of police.

STEUBENVILLE - Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Tuesday said that jobs in manufacturing, logistics and other industries are moving back, but the state needs to revamp public education and align work force training to match job openings.

Ohio will invest more than $10 million to boost its current broadband network speed tenfold to boost research and job growth statewide, Gov.

Job openings in Ohio and across the country were up sharply in December, climbing to their highest level nationally in nearly three years, according to the latest government figures released Tuesday.

HAMILTON - Although Billy DiSilvestro has been missing for a year without a trace, a group of about 75 friends, family and neighbors gathered Tuesday evening in the parking lot of Columbia Lanes to honor the anniversary and pray that he will find a way home.

Accidental falls kill more people in the Miami Valley than automobile crashes, and the aging Baby Boomer generation means that fall-related hospitalizations and deaths could continue to rise in coming years, according to a Dayton Daily News analysis of state data and interviews with experts.

Snow showers were expected to arrive between 3 and 5 a.m. Wednesday morning with the steadiest snow falling during the morning commute, said Storm Center 7 Chief Meteorologist Jamie Simpson.

STEUBENVILLE - Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Tuesday said that jobs in manufacturing, logistics and other industries are moving back but the state needs to revamp public education and align workforce training to match job openings.

TRENTON - The Edgewood City School District plans to close Bloomfield Elementary School and keep Seven Mile Elementary School open, tentatively housing grades K-5.

MIDDLETOWN - The city is considered the top site for a steel tubing manufacturer wanting to open a new facility that could lead to 200 new jobs in the next decade, company officials say.

CINCINNATI - Republican president candidate Newt Gingrich used a popular Cincinnati restaurant Tuesday to lambast his political opponents and detail his plan for America.

FRANKLIN - A healthcare services company is planning to add 100 new jobs here within the next year.

CINCINNATI - A federal judge said former Butler County politician Michael Fox’s health isn’t enough to delay his sentencing.

HAMILTON - A longtime city official has been terminated as part of a reorganization. Charles Young, managing director of utilities/deputy city manager, was terminated Tuesday afternoon as part of a reorganization to help the city achieve its strategic goals, said City Manager Joshua Smith.

By Eric Robinette Staff Writer FAIRFIELD - Jungle Jim’s might appear in the season finale of “Shipping Wars,” airing tonight on the A&E cable network.

The Dayton Daily News is seeking people who have remodeled their homes in the last year or who have built new additions.

The Liz Claiborne Distribution Center will close Sept. 1, affecting 365 jobs, company officials said.

MIDDLETOWN - Obama for America will open its fourth Ohio campaign office today in Middletown.

FAIRFIELD TWP. - After temporarily evacuating staff at Fairfield East Elementary early Tuesday morning, officials said they did not find anything related to a gas leak report.

MORGAN TWP. - One person was sent to the hospital tonight following a two-car accident at the intersection of Chapel and Jenkins roads.

There was a sharp drop in the number of new retail vendor licenses in Butler County in 2011, but county Auditor Roger Reynolds doesn’t think it is cause for alarm.

Beginning on Monday, Aug. 8, Lauren Pack will be the next Butler County Government reporter. For the past few years she’s been the county cops and crime reporter — all the big and not so big county court cases were...

HAMILTON — Butler County Commission hired a Columbus-based law firm to represent the county at the Aug. 17 hearing concerning an apparent worker’s compensation default. Following an executive session meeting Monday morning to discuss personnel, commissioners hire Vorys, Sater, Seymour...

With Kay Rogers now being sentenced, it was the last piece — the largest piece — in the Dynus scandal that rocked Butler County several years ago. It took so long to be sentenced following her December 2007 guilty plea...

Want to win a free Nook e-reader? Just “like” the Butler County Fair Facebook page. It will be easier to just click the link, but if you search for the fan page, make sure to search for “The Butler County...

For $500,000 you can have your name in big letters adorning the new Butler County Fairgrounds building — but it wouldn’t be until next year. The Butler County Agricultural Society, the managing organization of the county fairgrounds on Ohio 4,...

CANFIELD - Police spent most of the morning at a Carriage Hill apartment complex after a woman was shot to death there early toda.

STEUBENVILLE - "Everybody slow down, chill out, let's study this," said Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Tuesday on the renewed uproar from an older proposal of his to sell or lease the Ohio Turnpike.

STEUBENVILLE - Gov. John Kasich is calling for a cautious and smart approach to natural gas and oil well drilling in Ohio, saying safeguarding the environment must be as important as developing shale exploration.

GIRARD - A would-be thief cut through the roof of a downtown Girard pharmacy and dropped into the business early Tuesday morning. Despite cutting several phone and electrical lines, the intruder to Brine Pharmacy, 906 N. State St.

GREENE - A Mecca man with several convictions for illegally driving without a license tried to avoid a 17th conviction Monday by speeding from sheriff's deputies and abruptly turning into a driveway, according to reports.

Ohio House panel OKs bill on casino regulations

Judge tosses out lawsuit seeking freedom for orcas at SeaWorld SAN DIEGO — A federal judge in San

Cavs guard Irving out with concussion.

Reception planned for judge

Ohio watchdog critical of prison investigators

Kasich gets bill ending 'vicious' pit bull label

Appellate court to determine if Austintown man will be tried a sixth time for murder

EPA: US needs $308B in sewer, water work

Getting caffeine fix as easy as taking deep breath CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Move over, coffee and

Rescued dog bites TV anchor during live broadcast

Canfield police responded to a 911 call just after 7 a.m. Wednesday, finding a 40-year-old female found shot to death in the parking lot of Carriage Hill apartment complex. A police alert was issued to be on the lookout for Robert McLaughlin, described as ex-military and armed and dangerous.

In scientific coup, Russians reach Antarctic lake MOSCOW (AP) — After more than two decades of

Toyota to expand Indiana plant, add 400 jobs

W. Pa. woman goest to trial in bank robbery for denture money

Senators, Ohio National Guard to discuss Air Force cuts

CDC: Fewer smokers go to the dentist

Gary Busey files for bankruptcy in Los Angeles LOS ANGELES (AP) — Court records show Gary Busey

Sandusky argues for local jurors in his upcoming trial

Ohio judge grants new trial in fire that killed 9

Univ. of ND will use Fighting Sioux nickname BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The University of North

Burglars punched a large hole in a wall to steal about 80 firearms from a shooting range and gun-sales shop in Powell late yesterday or early today.

A legislative committee overwhelmingly approved a wide-ranging update of gambling regulations today, but not before fighting over an attempt to designate more money toward addiction services. The House State Government and Elections Committee OK’d about 20 amendments to the bill, including allowing bingo halls to stay open until 2 a.m. instead of midnight and letting charities pay poker dealers.

COLUMBUS (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court today added another wrinkle to Ohio's debate over how strictly the state's lethal injection procedures should be followed. The court without comment refused to allow the execution of a condemned killer of an elderly couple to proceed, an execution delayed by federal courts over concerns that the state continues to deviate too often from its written rules for lethal injection.

Vice President Joe Biden will make his second visit in a month to Columbus, speaking tomorrow at the Ohio Newspaper Association convention in North Columbus. Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks at 11 a.m. at the Hilton Columbus/Polaris Hotel at 8700 Lyra Drive, just off of Polaris Parkway.

Veteran GOP legislative staffer Bethany Rhodes was named this morning as director of the Ohio Retirement Study Council.

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio — It’s been almost 30 years since that TV commercial in which an incredulous Clara Peller demanded to know, “Where’s the beef?”

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio — Ohio’s broadband network is going to get faster. A $10 million program to boost the state’s broadband speeds tenfold and establish a $2.3 million broadband testing center at Ohio State University was the pre-eminent policy announcement Gov. John Kasich made in his State of the State address yesterday — historic for its circumstance but ripped by Democrats for being short on specifics.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich yesterday sought to recharge his stalled campaign by getting an early jump on Super Tuesday’s big prize — Ohio. The former U.S. House speaker from Georgia embarked upon a two-day, four-city bus tour mapped to expose his campaign to about 80 percent of Ohio’s GOP primary voters. But even as Gingrich appealed to conservative audiences in America’s political bellwether, his path to the nomination appeared to get bumpier as results came in from contests yesterday in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado.

CINCINNATI — A southwestern Ohio city is denying allegations that two police officers used excessive force against a man who died in 2009 after police used a stun gun on him.

DOVER, Ohio (AP) — A chemical company has agreed to pay $1.4 million in civil penalties for the unauthorized manufacturing of certain substances at plants in Ohio and Indiana, the Justice Department says.

This list is compiled from voluntary submissions by parents to hospitals.

The Ohio Division of Securities has accused the developers of a major Short North condominium project of lying to investors and improperly distributing funds to themselves.

Bioplastics is one of the hottest areas in the plastics industry, and one central Ohio company is moving quickly to bring its versions of the innovative material to the marketplace. “I feel like I’m flying about Mach 2,” said Keith Masavage, leader of Biobent, which last week was spun off from its former parent company, Marysville-based plastics manufacturer Univenture.

MARYSVILLE, Ohio — Just days after a Union County woman said she was raped by a man who stopped her vehicle by flashing red and blue emergency lights at her, Marysville police arrested a man early yesterday and charged him with impersonating a police officer because he followed and stopped two women overnight.

An attorney for the widow of a Zanesville man who released his menagerie of exotic animals before killing himself wants more information about the state’s plans for the surviving animals.

At precisely 10:15 a.m. yesterday, the computer-generated instructions sounded over the intercom and interrupted an ordinarily ordinary routine at the state’s Emergency Operations Center in Dublin. “Drop, cover and hold on,” the voice demanded. And like some freakish flash mob, visitors and office employees suddenly ducked under desks.

A forensic psychologist will meet with Art Schlichter in an attempt to determine why the former Ohio State University football star continues to break the law.

A divided Columbus school board postponed a vote last night on firing the architect of an overbudget historic-renovation project, instead ordering the district’s internal auditor to review what’s happened. The district’s chief of facilities, Carole Olshavsky, had asked the board to terminate the contract with Machisa Design Services for a new K-8 school to house the combined French and Spanish immersion programs. That project — renovating the Indianola Middle School at 420 E. 19th Ave., a 1929 building that is on the National Register of Historic Places — is $4 million to $6?million over its original projected cost, Olshavsky said.

The Pickerington City Council president says the police department could use an additional officer to fight the suburb’s growing problem with heroin and prescription painkillers.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration yesterday named Rose Gottemoeller, who grew up in Upper Arlington, as acting under secretary of state for arms control and international security.

The Bexley City Council voted unanimously Monday to appoint Council President Ben Kessler as mayor.

Columbus plans to appeal an $11.6 million verdict for a sewage backup that damaged a former rendering plant on the South Side.

A Columbus man accused of raping a woman and leaving her tied up at her home overnight was on parole from a kidnapping conviction when he was hired at the women’s shelter where the two worked.

An Ohio prison inmate yesterday admitted his involvement in a 2000 killing at an apartment near Ohio State University.

After a few years in which drug-fueled violence prompted many Americans to think twice about traveling to Mexico, a rebound in U.S. tourists could be on the horizon.

The Transportation Security Administration is expanding its pre-screening airport security program to 28 airports in 2012, the agency announced Wednesday.

Predicting an extended nominating fight, Mitt Romney said Wednesday he didn't expect the GOP primary season to result in a "coronation," all while downplaying a sweep of three nominating contests Tuesday night by Rick Santorum.

Tuesday’s three-state race ended on a high note for former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, but NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell reports. (Nightly News)

For many in the besieged country, life has become a humanitarian disaster. NBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin reports. (Nightly News)

Rock Center's Meredith Vieira talks to Mimi Alford, a woman who says she had an affair with President John F. Kennedy when she was an intern at the White House in the 1960s. In retrospect Alford says that she still wouldn't say no to the President. (Rock Center)

Kris Joseph scored a career-high 29 points, hitting a go-ahead 3-pointer in the final minute of overtime, and No. 2 Syracuse beat 12th-ranked Georgetown 64-61 on Wednesday night to give coach Jim Boeheim his 880th career win.

Jeff Withey scored a career-high 25 points and Kansas went ahead to stay during a stretch without Thomas Robinson as the seventh-ranked Jayhawks had another convincing victory over sixth-ranked Baylor, winning 68-54 Wednesday night.

More military jobs will be opening up to women as the Pentagon on Thursday releases findings from a report on whether they should be assigned to combat roles, officials said.

Washington has moved closer to becoming the seventh state in the nation to legalize gay marriage.

The Pentagon has launched an investigation into an independent report written by an Army lieutenant colonel for possible security violations, military officials say.

Truckloads of alcohol wipes, tankers of bulk liquids and cartons of chemicals have been hauled to secure landfills and waste disposal centers as a Wisconsin medical products supplier works to recover from a year-long contamination scandal blamed for illness and death.

Democrats and Republicans agree: People with higher incomes must pay more.

More than half of doctors surveyed told patients an untruth and 20 percent didn't report a medical mistake, new research finds.

A 34-year-old Lakewood police officer was charged with embezzling more than $120,000 from a fund for families of four slain colleagues and spending the money on a trip to Las Vegas.

Study finds that, when offered, many restaurant patrons choose to consume less food and fewer calories.

Members of the organization Dining for Women are raising money for women around the globe each time they get together for dinner. NBC’s Kristen Dahlgren reports. (Nightly News)

Chanel's creative director responded to the backlash that stirred, and explained that it was taken out of context and apologized to the singer.

Even though some employees are frustrated with their jobs because the tough economy has led to furloughs, wage freezes, and benefit cuts, many aren’t upset enough to say, “I quit!”

A group of nuns is ready to fight a new strip club adjacent to a Roman Catholic convent in suburban Chicago.

The Duchess of Cambridge has debuted at her first solo public engagement. It was at a major art exhibition, the Lucian Freud show at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Kate recently became a patron of the gallery. (Nightly News)

Sobel: With everything back to normal — or at least as “normal” as things get for him — there’s only one proper conclusion going forward. It’s time for Tiger Woods to do what he does best. It’s time for him to win.

Roland Martin apologized for what he called a misunderstanding, but the network suspends him for language about Super Bowl ad.

The producers of the popular medical drama announced Wednesday that the show will end after its current season.

Online dating sites advertise groundbreaking technology and sophisticated formulas and state-of-the-art programming to help you find your true soul mate.  But does it work?

Satellite telephones have been considered secure from eavesdropping. They are not, say two researchers who cracked the security used in some sat phone systems.

Syrian government forces have deployed tanks in the streets and are bombing indiscriminately in the city of Homs, according to a BBC correspondent on the scene.

AT&T technician Andrel Reid is being hailed a hero after saving a choking baby while working in a customer's home. WILX-TV's Fay Li reports. (NBC News)

Greece's economic crisis is taking its toll on people - hospital admissions are up 25%, suicides are up 40% and violent crimes, including murder, are up almost 100%. NBC's Keith Miller reports from Athens.

A teenager who confessed to strangling, cutting and stabbing a 9-year-old neighbor because she wanted to know how it felt to kill someone was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Pentagon rules will recommend that women be allowed to serve closer to the front lines. Though the rules are expected to continue to keep women from serving as infantry, armor and special operations forces, they will formally allow women to serve in other jobs at the battalion level.

The move would make the state the seventh in the nation to allow same-sex couples to wed. Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire is expected to sign the measure into law next week. The vote comes a day after a federal appeals court ruled that California's ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional.

Capello resigned suddenly amid disagreement over the stripping of John Terry's captaincy. Terry is facing criminal charges for allegedly aiming a racial slur at an opponent.

Some religious groups have attacked the Obama administration's plan to require most employers to provide coverage for prescription contraceptives. GOP lawmakers are now vowing to overturn the requirement; meanwhile, Democrats say they'll fight to maintain it to protect women's health.

Asking for less food isn't something most people think about when ordering from a menu. A new study suggests that asking people if they want less food and, in turn, fewer calories, before they order is key.

The NPR Delegate Tracker credits a candidate with delegates only when party rule or state law unambiguously awards those delegates to that candidate.

Martin made remarks about David Beckham's underwear ad that many called homophobic.

However, the Chinese-born Motorola employee was acquitted of more serious charges of corporate espionage. The trial in Chicago highlighted fears about China pilfering U.S. company secrets.

Most moms probably don't want their babies around pot growers, but San Francisco-based writer-photographer Lisa Hamilton is totally cool with it.

Fresh off victories in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum campaigned in Texas on Wednesday. He told a small group of pastors, some of them former supporters of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, that he is the true conservative left to challenge Mitt Romney.

A top State Department official wants to unleash the power of Twitter, Facebook and other services to crowdsource the fight to control the world's nuclear weapons.

Historic buildings in Beijing are being demolished in the pursuit of quick profit. Even the home of the architect who urged Mao Zedong to preserve Beijing's old city has fallen to the wreckers' ball, sparking considerable outrage. And the epidemic of destruction is spreading to new buildings, too.

More than 100 million years from now, the Americas and Asia might fuse together, squishing the Arctic Ocean shut in the process. That's according to a new model that predicts where the next supercontinent may form. But don't worry: Humans will likely be long gone by then.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's losses on Tuesday have raised questions once again about his ability to inspire passion from his party's base. There has been a daily drumbeat begging Romney to put some meat on the bones of his policy agenda and set out his vision for the country.

Dismal attendance rates have put Detroit Public Schools at risk of losing vital state funding, so the city has launched an assault on truancy. Attendance agent George Eason says, "If we see that the parent is willfully ... not sending the child to school, then we will take every means necessary to enforce the law."