Tag: ohio

Millionaire Sex Toy CEO Bankrolled a Massive Gender Clinic for Kids

The CEO of a sex toy company has been bankrolling a massive pediatric sex change clinic since 2018, according to public records and numerous reports.

Pure Romance CEO Chris Cicchinelli founded the Living with Change Foundation in 2018 to fund a massive expansion of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s Transgender Clinic after his son began identifying as a girl at age 8, according to WCPO 9 in Cincinnati. Prior to Cicchinelli’s $2 million donation, the clinic only had one nurse, one doctor and one social worker; it has since tripled its staff, been renamed the Living with Change Center (LWCC) and is now a massive operation which boasts of serving more than 800 children and young adults this year alone on its website.

Cicchinelli joined Pure Romance, a sex toy company his mother founded, in 2000 and grew the company from $3 million in annual revenue to more than $350 million by 2021. Calexotics, another sex toy company, is also listed as a sponsor of the Living With Change Foundation.

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Police Officer Sparks Outrage, Investigation After Shooting Family’s Dog

The owners of a “lovable” 3-year-old dog named Dixie, who was fatally shot by a local police officer, opened up to Newsweek about the confusion and heartbreak their family is facing following the pet’s death.

The officer said he had no choice but to shoot the dog to “stop the threat” as he feared for his safety in the July 2 incident.

Tammie Kerns, 52, of Lorain, Ohio, and her 25-year-old daughter Mellenie told Newsweek in an interview over Facebook Messenger that their dog Dixie was “lovable, playful, sneaky, and mischievous” golden Labrador mix. The Kernses said they had to watch their beloved pet bleed to death on the sidewalk in front of their home on Sunday after Dixie was shot multiple times by a Lorain Police Department (LPD) officer.

Just a few months ago, a CBS poll showed that “large bipartisan majorities believe at least some policing changes are necessary”, including 61 percent of Democrats, 47 percent of independents, and 29 percent of Republicans, who all say that it should be a “high priority.” It’s a trend shown in polls by ABC News and Pew Research as well, dating back to 2020.

Tammie said Dixie and three other dogs rushed out the door when she was leaving the house that afternoon. As she was wrangling the pups with her daughter, a police officer pulled up in front of her house in the Northeast Ohio suburb.

Lorain police Lieutenant Jacob Morris told Newsweek in an email that the department’s office of professional standards is currently investigating the shooting.

At roughly 1 p.m. on July 2, LPD Officer Elliot Palmer was on patrol when he saw several large dogs roaming “at large” near a home on the corner of Eighth Street and Oberlin Avenue, according to the incident report provided to Newsweek by Morris.

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Not just public schools: Ohio PRIVATE school reports mothers to FBI for questioning leftist curriculum

Amy Gonzalez and Andrea Gross are suing Columbus Academy in Ohio for launching a retaliation campaign against them following complaints they made about the private school’s leftist curriculum.

According to reports, Columbus Academy reported Gonzalez and Gross to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), calling them “dangerous to the health and wellbeing of the entire Academy community. Administrators also allegedly attempted to destroy the two mothers’ reputation out of spite.

Filed on June 12, the lawsuit claims Columbus Academy overreacted to questions the two women had about critical race theory (CRT) concepts being embedded into their children’s curriculum, which they believe is “indoctrination.”

“And so, when I say an overreaction, I mean an overreaction of calling the police on us, alerting almost 900 faculty members that they had alerted the FBI that we were dangerous,” Gross told Fox News Digital.

“Just things that were so far beyond the pale that it would lead one to ask why? Why is the reaction so extreme?”

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Ohio Cops Raided Afroman’s House Looking for a Dungeon Because of a Bizarre Confidential Informant Tip

When sheriff’s deputies in Adams County, Ohio, raided Afroman’s house last year, they were looking for more than just marijuana, which the rapper is famously fond of. The deputies were searching for evidence of outlandish claims from a confidential informant that the house contained a basement dungeon.

The Adams County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) executed a search warrant on Afroman’s house last August on suspicion of drug possession, drug trafficking, and kidnapping. Afroman was not charged with a crime, and the kidnapping angle was never explained. But now, public records obtained by Arthur West, a public records advocate, and provided to Reason shed more light on the raid, which has since led to a bitter legal battle between Afroman and the ACSO deputies.

According to the search warrant affidavit, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office received a tip from a confidential informant that Joseph Foreman, better known as Afroman, was not only trafficking large amounts of marijuana, but he also “has a basement, referred to as ‘the dungeon’ in which he…keeps women locked in, forcing them to urinate and defecate in a bucket as punishment for upsetting or disobeying him.”

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Slavery as punishment for crimes is on the chopping block in Ohio

The Ohio Constitution currently allows slavery when it’s used “for the punishment of crime,” but that may not be the case for long, according to a CNN report.

Rep. Dontavius Jarrells, a Democrat, reportedly teamed up with Republican Rep. Phil Plummer to introduce an amendment to the state constitution that would remove slavery and involuntary servitude entirely from the document. The proposed change was referred to the Constitutional Resolutions Committee on Wednesday, according to CNN.

“Lawmakers are proposing the language to change to, ‘There shall never be slavery in this state; nor involuntary servitude,'” according to the report.

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Ohio State receives first-ever DEA license to grow psychedelic mushrooms for research

Ohio State University is about to grow psychedelic mushrooms.

For scientific research, people.

Ohio State, alongside the mental health and wellness research and development company Inner State Inc., was awarded the first-ever license by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to grow whole psilocybin mushrooms. The mushrooms will be used in the study of mental health treatment capabilities with naturally grown psychedelic mushrooms.

“This license is a major milestone not only for Inner State and Ohio State, but for the entire field of psychedelic research,” Inner State CEO Ashley Walsh said Wednesday in a news release.

The license allows Ohio State and Inner State to cultivate psilocybin mushrooms for research purposes only. All research will be conducted in a federally sanctioned and secured grow house in accordance with strict DEA regulations and guidelines.

“By combining cutting-edge techniques in genomics and metabolomics, we have the opportunity to obtain a high-resolution picture of the chemical diversity of mushrooms that have remained difficult to study for several decades,” according to Ohio State researchers Dr. Jason Slot and Dr. Kou-San Ju.

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8 Cops Who Shot Fleeing Unarmed Man 46 Times on Video, All Get Off Scot Free

Before he was filled with taxpayer-funded bullets in July 2022, Jayland Walker, 25, was a standout wrestler at Buchtel High School, where he graduated in 2015. According to his family, he worked for Amazon, took a job driving for DoorDash, and was set to get married. All of this is over now, however, after multiple officers decided to dump more than a dozen rounds each into Walker’s body after he fled a traffic stop for a simple violation.

Now, despite the fact that these officers executed — in firing squad fashion — an unarmed man on video, they all will go back to work. This week, a grand jury concluded the officers were legally justified in their use of force against Jayland Walker, according to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.

“He reached for his waistband in what several officers described as a cross-draw motion, planted his foot and turned toward the officers while raising his hand,” Yost said. “Only then did the officers fire, believing Mr. Walker was firing again at them.”

“The law allows officers to use deadly force to defend themselves or others against a deadly threat,” he added.

Apparently, ‘belief’ in danger is enough to justify execution by firing squad. One can only hope that police never ‘believe’ you are a danger and treat you in a similar manner.

As we reported at the time, days after he was killed, officials released the body camera footage from Walker’s killing and the chief himself admitted that it was hard to determine what provoked the officers to fire their weapons.

Chief Mylett said in still photos of the footage, it appears Walker was reaching down to his waist but admitted Walker did not have a gun on him when he was killed.

The medical examiner had originally said he had “multiple gunshot wounds,” but Mylett said the medical examiner confirmed more than 60 wounds on Walker’s body.

Laughably, the Fraternal Order of Police in Akron described the shooting as being “consistent with the use of force protocols and officers’ training.”

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Ohio Woman Says Cops Broke Her Wrist for Recording During Traffic Stop

A new lawsuit alleges that an Ohio woman suffered a broken wrist and other injuries after being violently arrested during a traffic stop, in part due to filming the police who pulled her over.

In February 2020, Amanda Mills was pulled over for speeding in Walton Hills, a small town outside Cleveland, Ohio. According to the suit, a police officer, identified in the lawsuit only as “Officer Schmidt” exited his cruiser “irate” and “screaming.” Nervous, Mills began recording the encounter. Schmidt ordered Mills to get out of her vehicle. According to the suit, “Amanda asked ‘why?’ without making any other statement or any sudden movement. At this point, Officer Schmidt realized Amanda was filming him with her cellphone, and he became even more agitated.”

According to the complaint, Schmidt “opened Amanda’s driver-side door, grabbed her by the wrist and arm, and ripped her out of her vehicle.” Another officer helped Schmidt pin Mills to the side of her vehicle. The suit alleges that “Amanda screamed that she was not resisting arrest and continued to cry out in pain.” However, rather than releasing her, officers handcuffed Mills and put her in the back of their cruiser while they searched her vehicle. Eventually, Mills was released from custody after officers could not find illegal substances or outstanding warrants for her arrest. While Mills was initially charged with a first-degree misdemeanor for “failing to comply” with police orders, that charge was eventually dropped.

According to the suit, Mills was left with a broken wrist and other injuries to her arm and breasts. The complaint alleges that the officers’ excessive force violated Mills’ Fourth and 14th Amendment rights. The complaint also says that the Walton Hills Police Department’s practices are the “moving force behind the injuries suffered by Amanda,” and the department is guilty of “failing to adequately train, adequately supervise, as well as failing to investigate and discipline, its police officers when it comes to the excessive use of force.”

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EPA Wants To Move Chemical Waste From Ohio Train Crash To Landfill In Another State

Indiana Republican Governor Eric Holcomb denounced a plan from the Environmental Protection Agency to move chemical waste from the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, to a landfill in the western portion of the Hoosier State.

Local and state authorities previously evacuated all residents within one mile of the February 3 derailment and started a controlled burn of industrial chemicals on the vehicle to decrease the risk of an explosion, which could have sent shrapnel throughout the small Ohio town. Vinyl chloride, a carcinogen used to manufacture PVC, was emitted from five train cars in the form of massive plumes of black smoke visible throughout eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

Officials from the EPA revealed on Monday that contaminated waste from the disaster would be transported to an incinerator in Grafton, Ohio, and a landfill in Roachdale, Indiana, according to a report from Fox 59. The former city is 103 miles from East Palestine, while the latter is 402 miles from the small rust belt community.

Holcomb revealed in a Tuesday press release that he disagrees with the decision to transport chemical waste from the disaster site on the eastern border of Ohio to the far western portion of Indiana, effectively crossing the breadth of both midwestern states.

“There has been a lack of communication with me and other Indiana officials about this decision,” Holcomb said. “After learning third-hand that materials may be transported to our state yesterday, I directed my environmental director to reach out to the agency. The materials should go to the nearest facilities, not moved from the far eastern side of Ohio to the far western side of Indiana.”

Holcomb added that he requested to speak with EPA Administrator Michael Regan about the decision and “what precautions will be taken in the transport and disposition of the materials.”

Norfolk Southern, the company at the center of the derailment, warned the EPA that a number of other volatile chemicals beyond vinyl chloride, including ethylene glycol monobutyl ether and ethylhexyl acrylate, were present at the site. The EPA released the full list of substances only after residents were told they could safely return to their homes.

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5 unanswered questions on East Palestine derailment after preliminary NTSB report

The National Transportation Security Board (NTSB) issued its first preliminary report Thursday on the Feb. 3 derailment of a train carrying hazardous chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.

While the report seemingly faults an overheated bearing for the derailment, the NTSB investigation is ongoing, and a number of questions remain.

Here are five remaining questions about the train derailment…

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