ASHLAND -- A mentally disabled Ohio woman who authorities say was enslaved for two years with her daughter recently spent time in jail after pleading guilty to beating the girl. Court records show that a child endangering complaint was filed against the woman in October 2012. That came just after the woman was charged with shoplifting and asked to be jailed because three people had been mean to her.

WASHINGTON — Eric Fanning, a graduate of Centerville High School near Dayton, is expected Friday to assume the post of acting secretary of the U.S. Air Force. The promotion comes less than two months after the Senate confirmed Fanning as undersecretary of the Air Force.

State lawmakers are again considering age restrictions on indoor tanning beds, and industry leaders are prepared for a fight. The bill would ban anyone under 18 from using a tanning salon without a doctor’s prescription. Teens could not be punished for visiting indoor tanning beds, but violating salon owners who could face fines up to $1,500 and have their license revoked.

Doctors at Cincinnati Children’s hospital have developed new technology that they say can reduce radiation exposure from CT scans by as much as 37 percent, according to new research. Software that bases radiation use on patients’ weight and size helps administer safer, more consistent doses to children, said Dr. David Larson, radiology quality and safety director at the medical center and principal creator of the technology. And he and his colleagues say they believe the technology can work for adults, too.

A national group today named a picturesque Ohio village as one of the nation’s most endangered historic places and is calling on state authorities to scrap a transportation plan that village leaders and preservationists say could permanently scar the area.

ASHLAND -- A woman told authorities she was held captive for more than a year by three people who forced her to do housework, raided her bank account and menaced her with snakes and pit bulls. But an attorney for one of the suspects and the alleged captor's mother said the mentally impaired woman was given a place to stay because she and her young daughter had no home and that the woman was free to move in an out whenever she wanted.

NEWARK, Ohio — A 15-year veteran of the Licking County sheriff’s office resigned last week after being questioned about the unreported seizure of a deer skull and a digital scale.

While being praised as a “comeback state” in one study for dramatically reducing the number of incarcerated youths, state officials are addressing another study showing high sexual-assault rates within the system.

The state is expected to end the fiscal year on June 30 with a whopping $2.1 billion surplus, likely leaving Ohio lawmakers some extra money as they finish work on the new two-year budget. But state Budget Director Tim Keen warned lawmakers yesterday that the ballooning tax revenue is more a flash of lightning than lingering sunshine.

Invoking a heavenly imperative, Gov. John Kasich said yesterday he will never give up the fight to expand Medicaid, even as a legislative leader said it is unlikely to happen this summer. Kasich told reporters he won’t rest until the legislature passes his plan to expand Medicaid coverage to 275,000 more poor Ohioans.

The state is spending $167,000 to install storm-water control features at Buckeye Lake in hopes of reducing the runoff that can cause toxic-algae blooms. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources is doing the work at two parking lots at the lake, which has a history of blue-green algae blooms.

WASHINGTON — Tension over gun restrictions resurfaced as Vice President Joe Biden urged Congress yesterday to pass additional gun-safety laws.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled yesterday that police officers are not exempt from prosecution under the state’s witness-intimidation law. In a 6-1 decision, the court upheld the 2010 conviction of a former Cincinnati police officer for intimidating a teenage boy into making a false confession for several robberies by threatening to jail his mother and remove his siblings from their home.

NEWARK, Ohio — The Licking County commissioners approved two fee increases yesterday designed to help mend what one called the deplorable condition of the county’s roads and bridges.

NEW YORK — Taco Bell plans to test a “Power Protein” menu that it’s hoping will be a hit with its core audience — young men.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A central Kentucky man who goes by the online name KyAnonymous says he's the target of a federal investigation into who hacked into an Ohio high school's computer and leaked a video related to the rape of a teenage girl at an alcohol-fueled party.

TOLEDO — A former park ranger in northern Ohio has been sentenced to prison after admitting he videotaped women undressing in park restrooms. A judge in Bowling Green sentenced John Millinger to just over four years in prison today. But he could get out after six months as part of a plea deal.

Ohio is praised in a new national report as one of the “comeback states” for reducing the number of youth incarcerated in state prisons by 38 percent from 2000 to 2010. The findings come just two weeks after the Ohio Department of Youth Services was hit in a different study by the U.S. Justice Department for having some of the nation’s highest rates of sexual assaults on incarcerated youth. In response to the sexual violence report, Gov. John Kasich put together an interagency task force.

YOUNGSTOWN — A northeast Ohio woman has admitted allowing her ex-boyfriend to fatally beat one of her sons while his twin brothers watched.

MARYSVILLE, Ohio — County commissioners have to make sure that the Union County Children’s Protective Services agency has money to care for children in crisis who must be removed from their homes.

TOLEDO — Divers with the FBI searched the Maumee River yesterday for 18-month-old Elaina Steinfurth, who has been missing for more than two weeks.

If drone aircraft are going to hover over Ohioans’ heads, state law has to catch up with them, a lawmaker argues.

A pipeline for transporting natural gas from shale-drilling sites in eastern Ohio to Detroit and southern Ontario would run under more than 50 miles of Stark, Summit and Medina counties, according to a map the Akron Beacon Journal has obtained from one of the government entities whose officials met with Spectra Energy about the proposal.

A man who solicited money he falsely claimed would be used to help veterans has been sentenced to 21/2 years in prison, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said.

NEWARK, Ohio — Orfelina Miller said her husband’s soul now can rest in peace. Danny Hensley, 50, whose last known address was N. Cassady Ave. in Columbus, pleaded guilty yesterday to aggravated murder and aggravated robbery in the 2012 killing of Thomas Miller of Pataskala.