A 22-month-old Licking County boy died on Monday, three days after he was pulled from the family’s pond.

STRATTON, Ohio (AP) — A group advocating the separation of church and state is protesting a pair of crosses displayed for Easter at an eastern Ohio village’s municipal building. The Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation is challenging the claim by the mayor of Stratton that it’s constitutional to display the crosses during holidays.

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Winter temperatures are refusing to go away in northwestern Ohio. The thermometer dropped to 19 degrees in Toledo this morning, breaking a 139-year-old record for the same date set in 1875.

The state is asking a federal judge to hold off implementing his decision in the same-sex marriage case because it could trigger “premature” reactions such as couples hurriedly traveling to other states to get married.

The Ohio Department of Insurance is warning consumers about potential insurance gaps for app-based car services such as Uber and Lyft, which operate in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati. Those companies allow people to use a smartphone app to hire drivers who use their personal vehicles and pay with a credit card registered through the app.

After an hour of wasted time trying to pay his local taxes on Monday night, Kyle Clark figured he’d log back on to the website when it wasn’t so busy. So at 3:30 a.m. yesterday, he opened his eyes. He signed into his account with the Regional Income Tax Agency, paid what he owed the city of Ashville and went back to bed.

For the second day, a divided Ohio Board of Education debated a proposal to ban discrimination of teachers and school personnel based on sexual orientation. Supporters of the proposal told board members that protective language is needed to ensure lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender educators are judged based on their performance, not their sexual orientation.

CLEVELAND — Some taxi drivers who work at the Cleveland airport say they won’t drive cabs with rooftop placards advertising the upcoming Gay Games.

Environmental officials approved the dredging of Cleveland Harbor and the Cuyahoga River but said the sediment can’t be dumped in Lake Erie. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday that it will allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge up to 225,000 cubic yards of material and deposit it in designated confined disposal facilities, but not in the open lake.

Republicans have referred to the Democrats’ million-dollar running mate, attorney Sharen Neuhardt. And Democrats have long pointed to the sizable portfolio of Gov. John Kasich.

The body found on Thursday in an Athens County creek has been identified, Athens County Sheriff Rodney Smith said today. Dental records were used to identify Sammie Steven Donato, 22, who was on a walking trip from his home in Mt. Orab in Brown County to the East Coast, Smith said in a news release.

A Knox County woman died this morning from injuries sustained in a car crash yesterday. Kathy Reed, 63, of Fredericktown, died about 5:30 a.m., about 17 hours after she was struck by a semi traveling north on state Rt. 3. Reed, the wife of Knox County Commissioner Roger Reed, had pulled in front of the truck’s path from Sychar Road in Mount Vernon.

The first TV ad from either side in the 2014 gubernatorial election will come from Republican Gov. John Kasich and begin airing today, several sources told The Dispatch. The 60-second commercial, titled "Deliver," will air for one week.

AKRON, Ohio — Deputies in northeast Ohio say dozens of pairs of pricey athletic shoes seized in a drug case are going to be distributed to needy kids. The Akron Beacon Journal reports the 48 pairs of sneakers were seized by the Summit County Sheriff’s Office from three men who were convicted in February of trafficking heroin.

CLEVELAND (AP) — Some taxi drivers who work at the Cleveland airport say they won’t drive cabs with rooftop placards advertising the upcoming Gay Games.

As vote counting continues in Afghanistan’s presidential election, House Speaker John Boehner met this weekend with U.S. officials in Kabul and urged that the U.S. maintain enough troops in the country to stabilize the government after more than a decade of conflict.

Less than a week after his term as chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio ended, Todd Snitchler has joined a firm in he will advise clients on energy issues.

Momentive Performance Materials, which has a plant in Hebron, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of what it calls a restructuring plan that already has been negotiated by creditors.

Kele Stanley has been charged with a felony because officials say he refused to land the camera-equipped drone that he had been guiding over a traffic crash scene, but he says he is no idiot.

LANCASTER, Ohio — When the architect hired to assess the old Fairfield County Home for the infirm and poor walked inside for his first look, he braced for the worst. There had been flea infestations; chipmunks and other small animals had wandered inside; and there was mold. All the bad conditions that Steve Luchtenberg of VPL Architects Inc. of Lancaster had read about in newspaper reports were in his thoughts as he stepped inside the pre-Civil War brick building.

New research out of Ohio State University suggests being hungry can make a marital spat even worse. Scientists studied married couples and found that they could use the spouses’ blood-sugar levels to predict their level of anger. The lower the glucose levels, the higher the level of anger.

NEWARK, Ohio — Buildings keep toppling in Newark, thanks to a little help from the state. The latest went down yesterday, as a 114-year-old, three-story building next to City Hall was demolished after being deemed unsafe by the city’s property-maintenance and public-safety departments this year.

A federal judge’s ruling that Ohio must recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other states is expected to open the door to a variety of issues, including bereavement leave, health-care decisions, taxes and survivor benefits.

Ohio news report

CINCINNATI — Crews worked yesterday for the fourth week to clean oil that leaked from a pipeline into a nature preserve near Cincinnati as officials began to focus on restoration of the affected area.