WEST JEFFERSON, Ohio — Amanda Ward rounded the hallway corner, and the shattered glass crunched under her boots. Looking down, she saw that the lobby of the Madison County Humane Society was covered in shards and chunks and slivers. Someone had broken the front door.

Buoyed by the demographic shifts of recent decades, Franklin County’s hospitals have enjoyed some immunity from the struggles other Ohio hospitals face as health care rapidly transforms and modernizes. The shift from inpatient to outpatient care, for example, has been especially tough for hospitals dealing with other headwinds, such as a population that is declining or stagnant.

Former Ohio State University marketing professor Roger Blackwell said he turned down a chance to get involved with backers of a proposed ballot issue to legalize marijuana in Ohio.

When I compare one winter to another, I mostly use two measuring sticks — the amount of snow and the number of days with zero or below-zero temperatures. For instance, last winter, which I call the winter from hell, produced more than 50 inches of snow, while we had had fewer than 28 inches this winter as of yesterday, according to the official measurement at Port Columbus.

Add Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer’s voice to those concerned about the disproportionate impact of petroleum industry political contributions on Ohio government. The former state senator from rural Bucyrus joined Justices William M. O’Neill and Judith Ann Lanzinger in dissenting to a recent 4-3 ruling that state law trumped local ordinances designed to keep fracking out.

Gov. John Kasich wants to dramatically shift the way Ohioans pay for state government, taking less from paychecks but adding more to those shopping receipts. No longer would income taxes be the driving revenue source in Ohio — a progressive tax that levies higher rates for higher incomes, so the more you earn, the more you pay. Instead, sales tax, a regressive tax that generally costs lower- and middle-class workers a higher percentage of their incomes, would dominate.

TOLEDO — A northeastern Ohio man accused of driving more than 125 mph and causing a crash that killed two people on the Ohio Turnpike is now competent to stand trial, a judge has ruled.

Generations of Ohio lawyers earned the right to practice by passing the state bar examination administered for more than 55 years at Veterans Memorial.

CLEVELAND (AP) — A 911 caller reporting the fatal shooting of the brother of Cleveland’s police chief said the man’s girlfriend confessed to killing him, according to a recording of the call released by the city.

TROY, Ohio (AP) — Two teenage sisters died and two other children were hospitalized after a relative found all four unresponsive yesterday from a suspected carbon monoxide leak in their western Ohio home, officials said.

Gov. John Kasich will attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech Tuesday before a joint session of Congress. Kasich was invited to be at the speech by House Speaker John Boehner, R-West Chester. As a former member of the House, Kasich will be permitted to watch the speech from the House floor.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine issued a report today recapping the results of the Moving Ohio Forward Demolition Grant Program, which ended at the end of 2014. As a result of the $75 million invested into the program in May 2012, plus another $44 million in local matching funds, more than 14,600 abandoned and dilapidated buildings were demolished across the state.

WASHINGTON – With the U.S. Supreme Court expected to schedule arguments the week of April 27, the American Civil Liberties Union today filed legal papers with the justices contending that Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Leaders in the Ohio House say you can expect some kind of tax cut in the budget though it may not look like the one Gov. John Kasich proposed, Dispatch reporter Jim Siegel writes. “I think there will be a tax cut. It’s just what’s our path and what does it look like and which rabbit hole are we wanting to chase,” said House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger.

CLEVELAND -- Hundreds of people are asking Cleveland to reopen police mini-stations as leaders consider reforms for the city's police department. The Northeast Ohio Media Group reports more than 1,500 people have signed a petition demanding the mini-stations' return.

Members of Congress proposed legislation yesterday calling for additional obstacles to prevent Asian carp from reaching Lake Michigan through an Illinois waterway and a renewed push toward a permanent strategy for shielding the Great Lakes from the destructive fish.

WARRENSVILLE HEIGHTS, Ohio (AP) — A 20-year-old man from the Cleveland area has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder charges in the shooting of three people at a barbershop.

CLEVELAND (AP) — A northeastern Ohio man has admitted to driving off after fatally striking a 5-year-old boy who was on his way to school.

State Highway Patrol troopers wrote hundreds of citations last weekend during a coordinated multistate crackdown on speeding, safety-belt violations and drunken driving on I-75.

Flu seems to have settled down in Ohio, with hospitalizations and other measures that soared this season falling closer to the norm for this time of year. At its worst, flu put 1,623 Ohioans in the hospital in a single week, according to data reported to the Ohio Department of Health.

The shooting of as many as 375 white-tailed deer a year in Cuyahoga Valley National Park probably will begin late this year.

Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger said he expects that a tax cut will be part of the two-year budget his chamber will pass in mid-April, but he gave no indication that it will look much like the tax package proposed by Gov. John Kasich.

The number of concealed-carry gun permits issued or renewed in Ohio dropped by 24 percent in 2014, the first decline in several years. The annual report released yesterday by Attorney General Mike DeWine showed 110,212 licenses to carry concealed handguns were issued or renewed last year, compared to 145,342 in 2013. The attorney general is required by state law to compile a report annually based on handgun permits issued by Ohio’s 88 county sheriffs.

About 61,000 Ohioans will lose their tax-funded health coverage at the end of this week. Ohio Medicaid Director John McCarthy said yesterday that the Medicaid recipients will be removed from the rolls on Saturday for failing to verify household income as required under federal guidelines.

Erin West, the mother of a Pataskala 7-year-old, said she is sickened by the thought of more than 300 donated door-security barricades remaining boxed up inside the five buildings of the Southwest Licking school district. Less than a month after a parents group donated the cost of the barricades to the school board, the district received word that their use violates Ohio’s Building Code, which says it must be possible to open doors from the inside “without use of a key or any special knowledge or effort.”