Catching Our Eye News Roundup, April 24, 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

• Ohio governor’s race. The Statehouse News Bureau’s Jo Ingles is reporting, “Why votes for a longshot GOP candidate for Ohio governor won’t count.”Former Morgan County School Board member Heather Hill is on the statewide ballot in the race for the Republican nomination for governor, with Stuart Moats listed as her lieutenant governor. But votes for that ticket won’t be counted.On Wednesday, Moats filed official paperwork with the Ohio Secretary of State’s office, notifying it that he had withdrawn from the primary. The Ohio Secretary of State’s office said that without a valid running mate, Hill no longer qualified to receive votes for governor. And while their names will remain on the statewide ballot, Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections have been notified that votes for them will not be counted.

   

• Ted Carter (again). WOSU Public Media’s George Shillcock is reporting, “University of Nebraska confirms review of records from former president Ted Carter’s tenure.”The University of Nebraska says it is reviewing records from former NU and Ohio State University President Walter “Ted” Carter Jr.’s tenure at the university.A University of Nebraska spokesperson confirmed the investigation in a statement to WOSU, which said NU is looking through records and related materials.

  Carter was president at NU for three years prior to joining Ohio State in 2023. The statement said NU is aware of a report done by OSU into Carter’s alleged wrongdoing which led to his resignation on March 9.

   

• Purdue Pharma. Propublica and the Philadelphia Inquirer are reporting, “‘A punch in the gut’: After years of waiting, many opioid victims will be shut out of Purdue settlement.”Mary Jannotta sliced meat and cheese behind deli counters at Acme and Pathmark supermarkets in the Philadelphia suburbs for decades, developing aches that came with working on her feet. A botched back surgery in 2008 made the pain worse. Her doctor repeatedly prescribed OxyContin, Purdue Pharma’s marquee painkiller — the high-dose opioid the company later admitted it criminally marketed and distributed.Jannotta said she soon became dependent on opioids. Cut off by her doctors, she found her way to Kensington, home of Philadelphia’s dangerous open-air drug market, to score pills. She eventually lost her car, her home — and her grandson. Tyler Cordeiro first pilfered Jannotta’s prescription pills as a teenager. He was 24 when he died of an overdose.

  When Purdue filed for bankruptcy in 2019, Jannotta, along with nearly 140,000 other people, filed claims against the company for the harm they said its drugs caused. Though the money could not bring back what they lost, a financial settlement represented an opportunity to get justice from the company and its multibillionaire owners, the Sackler family.

  Then they waited.