Catching Our Eye News Roundup, Sept. 15, 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

• Faith leaders on Ohio Haitians. The Statehouse News Bureau’s Karen Kasler reports, “Faith leaders call on DeWine to help Haitians in Ohio facing ankle monitors, detainment.”

Faith leaders delivered a letter to Gov. Mike DeWine Friday, asking him to protect Haitians immigrants in Ohio who have lost temporary protected status.

Hundreds of clergy members signed the letter asking DeWine to forward on the letter to U.S. Sens. Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno and U.S. Reps. Mike Carey (R-15) and Mike Turner (R-10). It asks them take whatever action they can to help the tens of thousands of Haitians in Ohio, most in Springfield and Columbus. Temporary protected status (TPS) ended for Haitians in July, which ended their ability to live and work legally in the U.S. Some Haitians are now being detained, while others are ordered to wear GPS ankle monitors.

• Rural pharmacies. The Ohio Newsroom’s Kendall Crawford reports, “‘A financial lifeline’: Rural pharmacists hope federal funds can bridge healthcare gaps.”

A large federal grant could help better connect rural pharmacies with local physicians.

The Ohio Department of Health recently announced that $2 million from the Trump administration’s Rural Health Transformation fund will go to the Ohio Pharmacy Association.

The group aims to create a Health Information Exchange network that allows pharmacies to have access to patient medical history. That would help clear the way for small-town pharmacists to provide treatment, in addition to dispensing medication.

• Husted and Merrin at the Trump Fest in Dallas. Spectrum News’ Harri Leigh reports, “Why Husted and Merrin spoke at the GOP midterm convention.”

(T)wo Ohio Republicans in hotly contested races not only attended, but delivered speeches at the convention: former State Rep. Derek Merrin, who is challenging Rep. Marcy Kaptur in Ohio’s 7th District; and Sen. Jon Husted, who is fighting a comeback bid by former Sen. Sherrod Brown. Both of the races are considered toss-ups…

By speaking at the convention, both Merrin and Husted made a bet that tying themselves to the president would be a smart move in Ohio, a state that Trump won by a 12-point margin in 2024.

• Bankrupting the JFK memorial Kennedy Center and then extorting its future by tying it to Trump’s ego. The Washington Post reports, “Kennedy Center could close as early as Tuesday, warns of bankruptcy, documents show.”

Leaders of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, installed by President Donald Trump, say the center is on the brink of bankruptcy and argue that putting the president’s name on its facade — and thus ensuring his fundraising efforts — may be the only way to avoid imminent and “certain fiscal collapse,” according to documents obtained by The Washington Post…

Lawyers for Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), a Kennedy Center trustee who has sued to keep Trump’s name off the building, blasted the new proposal.

“This constant effort to add Donald Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center facade is the definition of insanity,” lawyers Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky said in a statement. “This is now the third attempt to deface this sacred memorial and turn it into a vanity project for one man’s ego.

“Worse still, now Trump is taking the Center hostage and threatening to in effect kill it unless he gets his way,” they added. “This has to stop.”

• Who among us hasn’t had their wedding funded by a Russian oligarch? ProPublica reports, “Donald Trump Jr.’s Bahamas Wedding Was Secretly Bankrolled by Russian Oligarch Close to Putin.”

The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large group of other Russian guests.

• Elon. The Washington Post reports, “‘Musk’ film is almost four hours long, engrossing and terrifying. What to know.”

The documentary paints the tech titan as a power-hungry megalomaniacal con man with a God complex. Musk accuses the filmmaker of compiling “hit list” against him.

• We’ll meet again some sunny day. The Guardian reports, “AI could kill all humans in next decade, warn experts: but how seriously should we take them?”

Does artificial superintelligence really pose a risk greater than nuclear weapons? Is there a significant chance of “a Chornobyl-sized catastrophe”. Might there even be a greater than 10% chance that AI could “kill all humans” in the next decade?

These warnings were issued on both sides of the Atlantic about the potential impact of a technology that most people still think of as a more talkative search engine.