Catching Our Eye News Roundup, April 1, 2026

Every morning in the Ohio Capital Journal’s free newsletter, The Eye-Opener, we round up the news and commentary from across Ohio and around the country and world that is catching our attention. We call this feature Catching Our Eye, republished here.

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Catching Our Eye

DeWine doesn’t like his endorsed successor’s idea. The Statehouse News Bureau’s Karen Kasler reports, “Gov. DeWine rejects consolidating Ohio universities, as concerns that could happen circulate.”

“I’m not in favor of consolidating our colleges or doing away with any of our 14 public universities,” DeWine said to reporters Monday. “It’s important to have them all over the state so frankly, people who can’t afford to live at the college and pay room and board, they can commute. We still have commuters.”

Lawsuit. The Toledo Blade’s Danny Eldredge reports, “Immigrants accuse feds of unlawful arrests as ICE enforcement increases in Ohio.”

A Toledo resident is one of several lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit accusing federal immigration authorities of making warrantless arrests without probable cause.

Jose Armando de Leon Zapata, who has lived in Toledo since October, 2022, and is married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested as a passenger in a ride-share vehicle on Sept. 30, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Ohio.

Hospitals. NBC News reports, “Medicaid cuts threaten hundreds of hospitals, new report finds.”

More than 400 hospitals across the United States are at high risk of closing or cutting services because of the Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” according to an analysis from the progressive watchdog group Public Citizen.

Jan. 6 pardons. NBC News reports, “Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by Trump gets prison sentence for possessing ‘enormous child pornography collection.'”

A man pardoned by President Donald Trump for his actions on Jan. 6 has been sentenced for possessing more than 100,000 child sexual abuse images and videos discovered in connection with his Capitol riot case.