Catching Our Eye News Roundup, March 11, 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

Stadium money grab ruling. Cleveland.com’s Laura Hancock reports, “Tapping unclaimed funds for sports venues, including Browns stadium, blocked with lawsuit pending.”

A Franklin County Court of Common Pleas magistrate put on hold the state’s plan to transfer billions of dollars in unclaimed funds for sports arenas, including the Browns’ new stadium.

Hostess with the mostest. The Columbus Dispatch’s Shahid Meighan reports, “Ted Carter’s improper Ohio State relationship linked to podcast host.”

Former Ohio State President Ted Carter resigned following an inappropriate relationship with a non-employee.

JobsOhio, an economic development firm, sponsored a podcast hosted by the woman allegedly involved.

The university is investigating the business filing, which used a WOSU public radio address.

Forest City Cleveland. Cleveland Scene’s Mark Oprea reports, “Forest City Cleveland is the Name of the City’s Newest Men’s Soccer Team.”

Cleveland’s next soccer team will be Forest City Cleveland. (Yes, that’s FC Cleveland.)

That’s the name selected by Cleveland Pro Soccer for the MLS Next Pro men’s team tentatively scheduled to launch in 2027 following months of design drafting, focus group feedback and survey input from 3,000 fans.

Char Bar. Signal Ohio’s Jake Zuckerman reports, “Former top PUCO staffer tells jury of late night at the bar with FirstEnergy CEO and lobbyists.”

The former chief of staff of the state agency responsible for regulating Ohio utility companies told jurors Friday about his long night of drinking with a power company’s CEO and its lobbyists.

Their March 2016 dinner at Mitchell’s Steakhouse followed by drinks until close at the Char Bar, a dive known for its Long Island ice teas, was a celebration, according to testimony from Jason Rafeld.

Casualties. WTVR reports, “Pentagon says about 140 US troops wounded in Iran war.”

About 140 US troops have been wounded in the Iran war, including 8 severely and 108 who returned to duty, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

Cancer research, axed. The New Yorker reports, “The Unmaking of the American University.”

Nationally, N.I.H. grants to universities are down by more than ninety percent in the current fiscal year; during that time, the National Cancer Institute hasn’t made a single grant.

Iwashyna and his colleagues worry about the future. Who’s going to want to go into medical research as a career? With large cuts in admission to Ph.D. programs at many universities—the intake of Ph.D. candidates at Hopkins’s public-health school is down by fifty per cent—how can people who remain interested in research even get the opportunity? “This Administration has introduced multiple levels of stochastic dysfunction,” Iwashyna told me. “Everything is brittle, nothing is working. Then they pick individual institutions to bully. Part of how bullies function is to make sure the others are too scared to intervene. . . . It disturbs me. I was a nerdy kid in the nineteen-eighties. I recognize these tactics from the folks I knew growing up who valued humiliation.” He mentioned Biff Tannen, the bully in the “Back to the Future” movies.