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Let's keep the momentum going in Ohio! For the last 5 weeks, Ohioans to Stop Executions (OTSE) and Death Penalty Action have invited your help reaching out to Ohio's Speaker of the House, Matt Huffman, and your state representatives. Starting today we are expanding our calls to Gov. DeWine - encouraging him to work to end executions in Ohio once and for all.

Despite his personal feelings toward the death penalty, Speaker Huffman, acknowledged that if an overwhelming portion of his caucus wanted to pass legislation ending the death penalty, he was "not going to block that from coming to the floor."

Columbus City Council held a hearing Monday, April 6 at 3pm to discuss the contract negotiated by President Hardin and the Haslan Group to bring professional women’s soccer to Columbus.

The details were completed by him and his staff without input from the community. The hearing was supposed to be a simple hurdle before approval from City Council.

The “Guest Speakers” Take the Microphone

After the lengthy introduction all of the guest speakers (chosen by City Council) lauded women’s soccer and made claims that having a team would make a huge positive difference in the future of our city.

Surprising that these so called “experts” all left out a few important points of information such as…

We are witnessing a shift in warfare that should alarm every advocate for justice. The recent threats to target desalination plants infrastructure providing over 90 percent of the drinking water for millions of civilians move us past traditional conflict and into the realm of "Water Bankruptcy." ​The United Nations has warned that we have entered an era where water systems in many basins can no longer recover. In this fragile state, the deliberate destruction of water infrastructure is not a "strategic strike"; it is a death sentence for non-combatants. Because these nations have less than a week of water in reserve, the collapse of these plants would trigger a humanitarian catastrophe dehydration and disease within days. ​

The economic cost: Who really pays? As we witness the rapid escalation of "Operation Epic Fury" in Iran, we must look beyond the headlines. In just over 30 days since this conflict began on February 28, 2026, the shift in our global and domestic economy has been calculated and devastating. ​

As I have testified previously to this City Council, I have been a supporter of local women’s sports since the 1970’s when my sister Rose and her partner played for the historic Columbus Pacesetters Women’s Professional Football Team. I attended Columbus Quest women’s basketball games in the mid-90’s and I was an assistant girls’ softball coach for several years. I am a fan of the WNBA and women’s basketball and women’s sports overall.

It is quite clear that the mayor and this city council have been preparing to the lure a professional women’s soccer team to Columbus for some time now when you consider the amount of taxpayer money you all have expended to the sport recently. $30 million for the 62-acre Kilbourne Run Park in which 35 acres are dedicated to soccer fields. $113.9 million for Lower.Com field. And now you want to give away McCoy Parks, 30 acres of publicly owned park
land to one of the country’s richest professional sports owners, who has an estimated worth between $8- $10 billion to build his “Haslam Sports Group Training Facility” that will serve his National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) franchise.

Green Columbus has been organizing Earth Day volunteer events and celebrations for over a decade.

Earth Day is a great way to give back, and there are dozens of Earth Day volunteer opportunities during Earth Day Columbus 2026 celebration throughout April!

The service opportunities will be happening across central Ohio with thousands of volunteers working together to make our communities greener and cleaner.

Be part of the largest volunteer event around Earth Day in the United States.

Plant trees, pick up litter, work in public gardens and parks, or pick one of many other opportunities to do your part!

Sign up for volunteer opportunities, and/or commit to beautifying the Earth in your own way from late March until early May.

Leaders in the Black community of Columbus, Ohio, who support a change to the Columbus City Charter to move to true district representation have filed an urgent request for council action, to City Council President Shannon Hardin.

In a letter dated March 26, 2026, the group of Black community elders, activists and leaders say: “We are concerned that another citizen initiative petition (Our City, Our Say) may violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by retaining the current residential districts and turning them into electoral districts. While this looked like a simple fix to them, we note that although our city is economically and racially segregated, none of those residential districts have a majority-Black electorate. Thus, adopting those boundaries for this new purpose of defining an electorate unlawfully dilutes the votes of the city’s geographically-concentrated Black citizens. We submitted our proposed petition simply to pressure test the question for them of whether having a district map in a council change petition meets the single subject test – which the city attorney confirmed for us. 

Deadline: April 6, 2026

Ohio's primary election is May 5. The last day to register is April 6. Find statewide candidates here. For a list of central Ohio candidates, look here. General election info can be found here.

Go to the Ohio Secretary of State Office website to register to vote or to check your current registration. You never know if your voter registration has been purged.

At the site you can also change your address.and request an absentee ballot.

Early voting in Franklin County will begin April 7 at 1700 Morse Road. See the Franklin County Board of Elections website for dates and times.

Baladna: Palestine Society of Columbus held an afternoon poetry reading featuring author and filmmaker Hind Shoufani, with readings by Mandy Shunnarah and Sara Abu Rashed.

The event took place at Zora’s House in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday, April 4, 2026.

About 60 community members and students attended. A Q&A session followed the readings.

During the discussion, one audience member asked whether any of the panelists had suffered harassment or retribution from Israeli officials in response to their activism during visits to their homeland in Palestine.

Hind Shoufani shared that she had been detained and interrogated for about five hours by the Israeli Shabak—officially known as the Israel Security Agency and counterintelligence service.

Attendees enjoying the afternoon poetry reading at Zora's House today presented by three Palestinian guests. Photo credit CFP writer Mahmoud El-Yousseph

Gorilla Biscuits and Negative Approach playing the Newport on a Friday Night are an interesting exploration into Hardcore Punk’s continued evolution. 

Turnstile’s recent Grammy wins included the Metal Performance Award for “Birds.” This started a conversation about where is a Hardcore song also a metal song.

Gorilla Biscuits, and Negative Approach won’t answer this question. Both these pioneering bands would answer why Turnstile’s culture is both critically acclaimed, and loved by people who mosh.

Negative Approach is a legendary Hardcore band from Detroit formed in 1981. Negative Approach were a bridge between The Stooges, Hardcore, and Steve Albini. In 2026, Negative Approach took the Newport Stage filled people of all ages and backgrounds. Everyone looked punk in various years, and clothing styles.

This article first appeared online at Reel TIme with Richard Ades.

There was a time when Americans could watch political dramas like Two Prosecutors—set during the Stalinist purges of 1930s Russia—without feeling like we’re foreseeing our own future.

Since the film was written and directed by Ukraine’s Sergei Loznitsa (who adapted the story from a novel by Georgy Demidov), the obvious assumption is that it’s meant as a metaphor for Putin’s Russia. But given the prevalence of authoritarianism around the world and in our own backyard, that’s not necessarily the case.

Loznitsa himself has said the film has wider significance. “None of the existing societies, no matter how advanced and democratic, are immune to authoritarianism and dictatorship,” he told an interviewer. “This is why I believe that the great purges of 1930s still need to be studied and reflected upon.”