The State Highway Patrol will conduct a sobriety checkpoint tonight. The checkpoint will run from 9 p.m. to midnight on Rt. 13 in Licking County.

Sweeping education changes will greet Ohio’s 1.6 million public school students when they return to the classroom in coming weeks. Starting this fall, Ohio is implementing new tests, literacy mandates and graduation requirements.

CINCINNATI — With only one of nine Greenpeace activists willing to accept a plea deal, a judge yesterday set a trial date for the other eight on felony charges stemming from an eye-catching protest at Procter & Gamble’s headquarters in downtown Cincinnati.

Hillary Clinton is still beating everyone in sight in possible 2016 presidential matchups, but some Republican challengers are creeping closer to the former secretary of state with Ohio voters.

The Muskingum County sheriff’s office confirmed yesterday that a body discovered on Sunday was that of a woman reported missing two days earlier.

A man shot and killed a woman who broke into his residence in Zanesville early yesterday morning, police said. He was wounded in the exchange of gunfire. Kristina Lynne Holskey, 39, reportedly broke into the apartment of Terry J. McConnell, 46, at 10701/2 Linden Ave. just north of downtown Zanesville about 3:30 a.m., said Zanesville Police Capt. Tony Coury.

A former state corrections officer is accused of stealing cases of shotgun shells from the London Correctional Institution and selling them on Facebook. Adam Barnett, 33, of Grove City, was charged by the State Highway Patrol with first-degree misdemeanor theft yesterday in Madison County Municipal Court in London.

For those who feel they are struggling to properly convey their excitement over the return of LeBron James to Cleveland, one Ohio legislator might have a solution. Legislation to create the “LeBron James Witness 2.0” license plate is to be introduced within two weeks, in plenty of time for consideration when legislators return to session after the November elections, shortly after the NBA season begins.

NEWARK, Ohio — If Licking County’s recent success is any indication, the periodic gathering of wrench-turners and scrap-metal dealers known as the impounding-lot auto auction could go the way of the Plymouth.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine continues to clamp down on the number of law-enforcement officials who can access his office’s controversial facial-recognition technology. But critics, such as his election opponent and the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, continue to have concerns.

A group of Powell residents wants voters to decide whether apartments are appropriate for the city’s downtown.

A man claiming to be a Delaware County deputy sheriff has been attempting to scam the county’s senior citizens out of money, law-enforcement officials say.

MASON, Ohio — A southwestern Ohio amusement park hopes to set a world record for the most heads shaved simultaneously to help raise awareness and money for the fight against cancer.

MILWAUKEE — Journal Communications Inc. of Milwaukee and E.W. Scripps Co. of Cincinnati have an agreement to merge broadcasting operations while spinning off newspaper holdings into a separate public entity, the companies announced late yesterday.

PITTSBURGH — It appears that the Kasich and FitzGerald campaigns have reached consensus on something: Coal is not going to be a major issue in the 2014 election.

Ohio’s prisons director told lawmakers today that Aramark Correctional Services either will clean up its food-service operations in state prisons or face the danger of losing its $110 million, two-year state contract. Mohr said he believes Aramark is turning the corner on correcting a host of problems – food shortages, reports of maggots in food-preparation areas and others – and that he will settle for no less.

With fewer than 70 days remaining until Ohioans can start voting, Democrat Ed FitzGerald is running out of time to make his case to Ohioans against Gov. John Kasich, a new poll indicates. Even with the launch of FitzGerald’s first TV ad two weeks ago, Kasich leads by 12 percentage points, about the same as his 15-point bulge in mid-May, the Quinnipiac University Poll shows.

To counter Ohio’s high number of drug-overdose deaths, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown proposed legislation yesterday to allow health-care providers to treat more addicted patients.

A Reynoldsburg man was killed yesterday in a head-on collision just south of Granville in Licking County. Michael R. Swiger, 40, of 2090 Hughey Square Dr., died in Newark’s Licking Memorial Hospital of injuries suffered in the crash on Rt. 16 near Sunset Drive just before 10 a.m.

Calling it “fundamentally un-American,” advocates of low-income housing in Ohio are teaming up to fight legislation that they argue would reduce penalties for housing discrimination and chill efforts to root out the problem.

Anchor Hocking’s parent company has reached an agreement with lenders that will avert a potential bankruptcy, providing a break from the financial crisis that has gripped the manufacturer since mid-May.

A state official has ordered the last abortion clinic in Toledo to close on Aug. 12. The decision by Lance D. Himes, interim director of the Ohio Department of Heath, follows a ruling last month by a hearing examiner barring the Capital Care Network from using a University of Michigan hospital 52 miles away as its legally required transfer-agreement hospital.

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport has regained its No. 1 national ranking for high ticket prices, showing that new low-cost airlines have had little if any impact on lowering overall average fares.

An online-sales company intends to revolutionize the estate-sale business as it expands to several cities in the Midwest. Everything But The House sells exactly that — anything in a building but not the building itself.

Following a new push to derail Ohio’s use of Common Core academic standards, supporters acknowledge they’ve been complacent and need to step up their game. Ohioans “are hearing from one side and not the other. We have not been effective in our counterpunch, and that needs to change,” said Greg Harris, state director for StudentsFirst. “We have to be much more aggressive in explaining what Common Core is about.”