Catching Our Eye News Roundup, Sept. 3, 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

• Flock cameras. For The Ohio Newsroom, Ideastream’s Matthew Richmond, and WVXU’s Lilley Halloran are reporting, “Ohio cities take different approaches to Flock camera privacy concerns.”For years, Ohio police departments have used license plate readers to solve crimes.

  But there’s growing opposition mounting against Flock Safety’s surveillance cameras, in particular.

  There are more than 8,000 Flock cameras set up in Ohio communities, according to an open-source, volunteer database managed by the advocacy group DeFlock. It’s led Ohio residents to raise concerns about privacy and ask questions around how the data is being shared among law enforcement agencies.

  This resistance is being met differently across the state. In Cleveland, guardrails are being put in place to ensure databases aren’t searched nationally. In Oxford, the cameras are being shut down entirely.

• Data centers. Politico’s Amelia Davidson and Kelsey Brugger are reporting, “Republicans struggle for footing on data center response ahead of midterms.”Vulnerable House Republicans returned to Washington this week pushing for action before the midterms on reining in data centers, only to find their leadership still undecided on the volatile issue.

  Further complicating the debate: President Donald Trump’s Truth Social post Monday saying that the only reason Americans might not want data centers built in their communities is if they “want to end up being backwards and poor.”

  The desire for action on data centers, which had already divid ed the House GOP conference, came up in multiple member discussions early this week — including a conversation that House Speaker Mike Johnson hosted Monday with freshman lawmakers, Republicans told POLITICO.

• Food-borne illness. Mother Jones’ Dylan Scott is reporting, “Here’s why we’ve been seeing so much food-borne illness.”Summer is supposed to be the best time for fresh produce. Corn on the cob at the cookout. Berries plucked right from the vine. Salads on the cafe patio while you take an extra long lunch break because the weather and the food is that good.

  But this year, summer’s harvest brought something much different than the flavorful dishes we’ve come to expect. Since May, the United States has seen more than 17,000 lab-confirmed cyclosporiasis cases. Before this summer’s massive outbreak, the country had never recorded more than a few hundred infections in a single year from this parasite, which can cause watery and at times explosive diarrhea.

  And that isn’t the only bug invading Americans’ digestive tracts.