Lorain News

AVON LAKE — The finality of death softened a bit in the glow of hundreds of candles that bathed the faces of those who gathered Sunday night at Bleser Park to honor Army Capt. Michael Medders Jr.

The simple candlelight vigil began before sunset on a clear, crisp Sunday not far from Avon Lake High School, where Medders’ life had touched so many others.

Lorain County Community College is expected to set an enrollment record this year. So says LCCC President Roy Church who reports that the college made history when it signed up its 300,000th student earlier this year.

Lake Erie's plentiful waters drew settlers and industries, but it also served as a dumping ground for the wastes produced by the people it attracted.

From the toxic days of the 1960s and 1970s, the lake has staged a remarkable recovery, but its future remains an open question in an era of global climate change.

To monitor and study the lake's recovery, the Ohio Lake Erie Commission released its Lake Erie Protection & Restoration Plan 2008 last week, outlining 10 priorities for the lake from now through 2014.

With the Midwest Supermodified Association season championship all but wrapped up, Tim Jedrzejek came to Lorain County Speedway Saturday night just needing a decent finish in the night’s 30-lap feature to clinch the PPG Vibrance Supermodified point title.

Easier said than done.

Organizers of the second Power of Work job fair at Goodwill Industries are bracing for hundreds of people in need of work.

Sunday's sun-drenched skies and crisp temperatures were made to order for the city's biggest one-day party of the year - the Woollybear Festival.

Lorain County’s congresswomen split on the $700 billion bailout of the nation’s wounded financial industry Friday. Both U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Copley Twp., and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo, had voted against the first incarnation of the bill earlier this week.

That was New York Rep. Nydia Velazquez’s message Saturday morning as she rallied about 40 local Democratic leaders and party organizers at Laborers Local 758 AFL-CIO on North Ridge Road.

“This is the moment. We need you,” she told the mostly Hispanic audience. “It happens that (you) are on the electoral map for the first time. … You can tip the balance of power.”

Evelyn Hunt sits quietly at her kitchen table, a newspaper spread out in front of her and a cup of coffee at hand.

It’s when she sits here — where she can glance up and see the cabinets that she helped her former husband hang and the pale yellow walls that she painted that are nearly covered up with the trinkets she’s collected — that she starts reflecting, thinking about her home and her life.

William Wingo went to the polling place. He stood in line. He cast his ballot. But his vote didn't count in the March presidential primary.

But his vote didn't count in the March presidential primary.

Wingo voted with a provisional ballot, given to voters whose names don't appear on the rolls at the polling places where they are trying to vote. If a provisional voter's information cannot be verified later, the ballot is rejected.

For Wingo and other provisional voters in Ohio's primary, there was a good chance their votes would not be counted, according to a Plain Dealer review of March's ballot returns. Statewide, 20 percent of the provisional votes were rejected.

Lorain County, where 38 percent of ballots were rejected, had the highest rejection rate in Northeast Ohio. Summit and Portage followed at 24 percent. Cuyahoga was close behind at 22 percent.

Lloyd Melvin hasn't had a home in three years. He hasn't had a job in two, not since he was laid off as a press operator.

Schools are investing in high-tech upgrades to vocational education programs to keep up with the demands of a changing work environment.

The Lorain County Joint Vocational School in Oberlin is opening a high-tech welding lab on Sunday.

Mentor High School has created a new lab by transforming the school's old machine shop into a digital photography room.

Lorain County Commissioner Ted Kalo lost the long-time home of his business, Ted's Floor Covering, on Friday when a county judge approved a foreclosure request from a lending company.

Scotty Parker had nothing to say Friday when he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role as the getaway driver in a string of robberies that left the owner of a Lorain pizzeria dead last year.

This week's book sale will be anything but quiet. With more than 65,000 books, videos, CDs, records, cassettes and 8-track tapes to choose from, people are sure to make a lot of noise.

Pent-up vapors whooshed out of a U.S. Steel storage building Friday afternoon, overwhelming a worker and sparking a nearly six-hour hazmat investigation.

The Dutch want to peer under the hood and see how American elections work - and that curiosity brought a television news crew Saturday to Lorain.

Academy Award-nominated actress Rosie Perez will stop in Lorain this morning on a tour across Ohio to promote Democratic presidential candidate Sen.

Reclaim Lorain seeks city's poor voters Today, 100 volunteers will turn out Lorain's most "unlikely voters." Reclaim Lorain, the local chapter of the Industrial Areas Foundation, will send out volunteers to ...

Although a one-time cash infusion last month was able to prevent cuts to Lorain County Transit this year, the agency still is not on solid financial footing.