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      Potential Trump running mate JD Vance says he still questions results of 2020 election

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      JD Vance, the Ohio senator who is being floated as a potential Republican running mate to Donald Trump, said on Sunday that he still questions the results of the 2020 election and that the votes should not have been immediately certified.“Do I think there were problems in 2020? Yes, I do,” Vance told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos, adding it was “ridiculous” to ask if he would have certified the results as Mike Pence had done and told the host he was “obsessed with talking about this”.In a contentious interview, the senator also suggested that Trump should ignore “illegitimate” US supreme court rulings.That remark came after Vance was questioned about a 2021 podcast during which he said he would advise Trump to “fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people” and ignore legal rulings against it.“We have a major problem here with administrators and bureaucrats in the government who don’t respond to the elected branches … If those people aren’t following the rules, then of course you’ve got to fire them, and of course the president has to be able to run the government as he thinks he should,” Vance said.“The constitution says that the supreme court can make rulings … but if the supreme court said the president of the United States can’t fire a general, that would be an illegitimate ruling,” added Vance, whose wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, has previously clerked for John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, the supreme court justices.Vance also argued that the civil claims and criminal cases against Trump were not legitimate efforts to prosecute the former president for wrongdoing, but “about throwing him off the ballot because Democrats feel that they can’t beat him at the ballot box. And so, they’re trying to defeat him in court.”The interview ended badly, with the network cutting to a commercial break after Stephanopoulos told Vance he had made it “very clear” he believed a president can defy the supreme court.“No, no, George …” Vance said before the sound was cut.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy, was elected senator in 2022 after abandoning his past criticism of Trump, in which he had said the former president was “America’s Hitler”, “a total fraud” and “a moral disaster”.The reversal helped to secure Trump’s endorsement and his backing has not wavered since. He has described the legal claims against Trump, specifically E Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit that last week concluded with an $83m judgement against Trump, as “illustrative of what’s gone wrong in this country”. More

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      A year on from the East Palestine toxic train derailment, what’s changed? – podcast

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      A year ago on 3 February a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in a small village on the border of Ohio and Pennsylvania. A few days after the derailment, officials decided to vent and burn the chemicals it was carrying to prevent an explosion.
      Those still living in East Palestine and the surrounding communities have been told the air they breathe is safe, but many aren’t confident in what they’re being told.
      So what led to the derailment? What’s changed in terms of legislation to make sure this kind of accident doesn’t happen again? And how are residents coming together to advocate for their safety and that of fellow Americans in the future?
      The Guardian’s fossil fuels and climate reporter, Dharna Noor, travelled to East Palestine to see for herself what’s changed in the 12 months since the disaster

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Ohio Man Who Threw Molotov Cocktails at a Church Gets 18 Years in Prison

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      Aimenn D. Penny, 20, was angry because the Community Church of Chesterland had planned to host two drag shows, federal prosecutors said.An Ohio man who prosecutors said had tried to burn down a church in anger by throwing Molotov cocktails at it last year because it planned to host two drag shows was sentenced on Monday to 18 years in prison, federal authorities said.The man, Aimenn D. Penny, 20, of Alliance, Ohio, who was arrested and charged after the March 25 episode, pleaded guilty in October to violating the Church Arson Prevention Act and to using fire and explosives to commit a felony, according to federal prosecutors, who had recommended a 20-year sentence.“We hope this significant sentence sends a clear and resounding message that this type of hate-fueled attack against a church will not be tolerated in our country,” Kristen Clarke, who leads the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said in a statement on Tuesday.John W. Greven, a lawyer for Mr. Penny, said in an interview on Tuesday that his client intended to appeal the sentence. He called Mr. Penny’s case “a classic example” of a young person looking for acceptance and turning to the internet to find it.Fire damage on a door and sign at Community Church of Chesterland after Molotov cocktails were thrown at the building in March 2023.Jim Urquhart/Reuters“I feel he was brainwashed by some people because really there is nothing in his past that would ever indicate that he would do something like this,” Mr. Greven said. “It’s sad all the way around.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Ohio pastor fights court battle with city over shelter for unhoused people

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      A Christian pastor is fighting back against a city in Ohio after it charged him with breaking a municipal law by opening up his place of worship to unhoused people as well as others who need shelter.Police in Bryan, Ohio, filed 18 charges accusing Chris Avell – the pastor of Dad’s Place – with zoning violations at his rented church building. Officers alleged that the church lacked proper kitchen and laundry facilities, safe exits and adequate ventilation, as required.Avell pleaded not guilty. Then his church sued Bryan’s government in federal court on Monday, arguing the city has violated the pastor’s constitutional rights to religious freedom.Despite Avell making changes trying to address the city’s complaints, including the installation of a stove hood and closing its laundry facility, the church alleges in its lawsuit that officers are still harassing and intimidating them.An attorney for Avell and the church, Jeremy Dys, said he suspects city leaders do not want a ministry for the unhoused in the middle of town. He described it as a “not in my backyard” – or, colloquially, “Nimby” – issue that his client’s lawsuit seeks to reframe as a test of the federal rights of free religious exercise and protection against government intrusion on religion.“Nothing satisfies the city,” Dys said on Monday, hours after the lawsuit was filed. “And worse – they go on a smear campaign of innuendo and half-truths.”Dys also accused the city of “creating problems in order to gin up opposition to this church existing in the town square”.The defendants in the church’s lawsuit – the city of Bryan, its mayor, Carrie Schlade, and other municipal officials – deny allegations that any religious institution has been dealt with inappropriately.“The city has been and continues to be interested in any business, any church, any entity complying with local and state law,” an attorney for the city, Marc Fishel, said.The church said in its lawsuit that its leaders decided in March to remain open at all hours as a temporary, emergency shelter “for people to go who have nowhere else to go and no one to care for them”.On average, eight people stay there each night, and a few more do so when weather is bad, the church said.The city said police received complaints of criminal mischief, trespassing, theft and disturbing the peace and requests to investigate generally inappropriate activity at the church.The church said its policy had been to let anyone stay overnight and not to ask them to leave “unless there is a biblically valid reason for doing so or if someone at the property poses a danger to himself or others”, according to the complaint.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe church holds a “rest and refresh in the Lord” ministry from 11pm to 8am, which includes scriptural readings piped in under dim lights. It is open to anyone.The city argues these actions constitute housing, and the church is in a zone that does not permit residential use on the first floor of a building.Bryan’s planning and zoning administrator gave the church 10 days to stop housing people. After an inspection, police in December sought charges against Avell for code violations.The church wants a federal judge to enforce its rights to free exercise of religion and protection from government hostility. It also seeks a restraining order keeping Bryan officials from taking action against the church in connection with the charges in the case that were obtained by police, and the church additionally is pursuing damages along with attorneys’ fees.“No history or tradition justifies the city’s intrusion into the church’s inner sanctum to dictate which rooms may be used for religious purposes, how the church may go about accomplishing its religious mission, or at what hours of the day religious activities are permitted,” the church said in its lawsuit.Dys added in a statement: “Instead of supporting a church that is trying to help citizens going through some of the worst situations in their lives (and in the dead of winter), the city seems intent on intimidating the church into ending its ministry to vulnerable citizens or relocating it somewhere out of mayor Schlade’s sight. The constitution and the law say otherwise.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Ohio trans candidate threatened with disqualification cleared to run in house race

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      A transgender candidate vying for a seat in the Republican-majority Ohio house was cleared to run on Thursday after her certification had been called into question for omitting her former name on qualifying petitions as required by a little-used state elections law.The Mercer county board of elections chose not to take up a vote on disqualifying Arienne Childrey, a Democrat from Auglaize county who is one of four trans individuals campaigning for the legislature, for not disclosing her previous name on petition paperwork.Childrey, who legally changed her name in 2020, has said she would have provided her deadname – the name a trans person was assigned at birth but does not align with their gender identity – if she had known about the law.“I would have filled out whatever was necessary, because at the end of the day, while it would have been a hit to my pride, there is something much more important than my pride, and that’s fighting for this community,” Childrey said.The Ohio law, unfamiliar even to many state elections officials, mandates that candidates disclose any name changes in the past five years on their petition paperwork, with exemptions for changes caused by marriage. But the law isn’t listed in the 33-page candidate requirement guide and there is no space on the petition paperwork to list any former names.All four trans candidates for the legislature this year have run into issues with the name-change law, which has been in place in some form for decades but is rarely used – typically in the context of candidates wishing to use a nickname.The complications in Ohio come at a time when Republican-controlled state governments nationwide have moved to limit trans rights. Last year, legislatures passed dozens of bills restricting medical care for trans youth, governing pronoun and bathroom usage at schools and dictating which sports teams trans athletes can join.Earlier this month, Ohio’s Mercer county board of elections received a protest to Childrey’s ballot certification from the county Republican party chairman, Robert J Hibner. Because the ballot is for the upcoming 19 March primary, the board ruled Hibner’s protest invalid, as Hibner is from the opposing political party.The board did not immediately respond to questions regarding the elections law itself and what role it played in Thursday’s decision to keep Childrey on the ballot.If Childrey were to win the Democratic primary, she would probably face representative Angie King, a Republican lawmaker who has sponsored anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and voted for bans on gender-affirming care for minors in November’s general election.Childrey told the Associated Press on Thursday that it’s “nice to take a deep breath” as she and her team now plunge into campaigning.“Hopefully people will see that this is a marginalized community in Ohio, and yet we’re still standing,” she said.Last week, the Republican secretary of state, Frank LaRose, said his office was open to putting the rule on the candidate guide but not to tweaking the law, and that it was up to candidates to ensure they comply with Ohio election law.But the Republican governor, Mike DeWine, said on Tuesday that the law should be amended and county boards should stop disqualifying trans candidates on these grounds. DeWine did not say how it might be amended.“We shouldn’t be denying ballot access for that reason,” the governor told Cleveland.com’s editorial board. “It certainly should be fixed.”DeWine recently vetoed a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors, but the state house overrode that veto. The senate is expected to do the same next week.Vanessa Joy, a real estate photographer from Stark county running for the Ohio house who legally changed her name in 2022, was disqualified earlier this month for omitting her deadname from petition paperwork. She appealed her disqualification but was denied. Joy, who said the current law was a barrier to trans individuals who want to seek office but do not want to disclose their deadname, is now working with legal counsel and the Ohio Democratic party to try to change the law.Ari Faber, a Democratic candidate for the Ohio state senate from Athens, was cleared to run but must use his deadname, since he has not legally changed it.Bobbie Arnold, a contractor from West Alexandria running as a Democrat for the Ohio house, had her possible disqualification dismissed on Tuesday by the Montgomery county board of elections and will be on the ballot in the March primary.However, under the state law, if Arnold or Childrey were to win their elections, they could still be removed from office for not disclosing their deadname and both are consulting with legal counsel about that part of the law.Arnold hopes that between Joy’s work with her own team to change the law and DeWine’s call for candidates to stay on the ballot, that will not be an issue come November.For now, like Childrey, she is excited to start campaigning.“It’s important for the overall wellbeing of our society that every voice has an opportunity to be heard,” said Arnold, who went to Childrey’s hearing to support her. “And that’s something that we’re not experiencing right now in Ohio.”In light of the outcomes of Childrey and Arnold’s cases, Joy appealed again on Thursday to the Stark county board of elections. 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      Vanessa Joy, Transgender Candidate in Ohio, Is Disqualified for Not Disclosing Birth Name

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      Vanessa Joy, who wanted to run for a state House seat, said she was unaware of a statute that said candidates must disclose previous names on nominating petitions.A transgender woman was disqualified from a race for the Ohio House of Representatives after she did not include her previous name in election materials, raising the prospect that transgender candidates would face similar barriers elsewhere.Vanessa Joy, a real estate photographer running as a Democrat in Ohio’s 50th District, was informed in a letter from the Stark County Board of Elections on Tuesday that she had been disqualified from the state House race.The board cited a state law that requires a person running for office to list on the candidacy petition any name changes within five years of an election, and it gave Ms. Joy until Friday afternoon to appeal.Ms. Joy, who hopes to be among the first openly transgender elected officials in Ohio, said in an interview that she had appealed the board’s decision and planned to challenge the law in court.“Had I known this law existed, I likely would have bit the bullet and put my deadname next to my legal name,” she said, using a term for a transgender person’s birth name.“I would have done it because I care enough to get on the ballot, but this will be a huge barrier to entry for transgender people,” she said, adding that many transgender people have their birth names sealed out of concern for their safety.Ms. Joy noted in her appeal letter that Ohio’s candidate guide made no mention of the law and that the county elections board had not raised any concerns when she submitted the dozens of signatures required to secure a place on the ballot.She also argued that the law had been “applied unevenly.” At least two other transgender legislative candidates will appear on ballots in Ohio this year despite not having included prior names in their election paperwork, according to the L.G.B.T.Q.+ Victory Fund, a national organization that supports L.G.B.T.Q. candidates. The organization said it was not clear if those candidates changed their names within the last five years.Ms. Joy, 42, grew up in a conservative Christian household. She came out as transgender two years ago after the death of her father, who she said would have disapproved of her decision to transition. She also left her job running the family’s manufacturing company to work as a photographer.She said she chose to publicize her transition on social media and in a podcast as Republicans have advanced a wave of measures nationwide restricting medical care for transgender people, regulating which public bathrooms they can use and dictating which youth sports teams they can play on.“The Republicans have an absolute stranglehold supermajority in Ohio, and I want to give other people my age the courage to get out and run or vote,” she said. “If they can see a trans girl in red Ohio running for office, maybe they’ll be like, Well, I can do it, too.”Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who focuses on voting rights, said the Ohio statute had a practical purpose.“The reason you’d want to know prior names of a candidate is if they have something in their past they were trying to hide, like a criminal history or some embarrassing incidents,” he said. “Voters want to be able to judge backgrounds.”However, in the history of voting rights in the United States, many laws that appeared neutral had the consequence of being exclusionary, said Atiba Ellis, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.“In the anti-transgender political environment in Ohio, this disqualification raises that specter of concern that this becomes a new mechanism of exclusion,” he said.Melanie Amato, a spokeswoman for the Ohio secretary of state, said the office was aware of the disqualification.“The law applies to everyone and there is no discussion to have this law amended at this time,” Ms. Amato said in an email.A record number of transgender candidates sought and won office last year, according to Sean Meloy, the vice president of political programs for L.G.B.T.Q.+ Victory Fund, and he expects that trend to continue in 2024.Mr. Meloy said there was no accounting of how many states had laws like Ohio’s that could pose a barrier for such candidates.In 2017, there were no known openly transgender legislators in the United States, according to an LGBTQ+ Victory Fund database. This year, at least 14 transgender people are serving in state legislatures. More

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      Trans candidate disqualified in Ohio for omitting previous name

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      Despite receiving enough signatures to appear on the ballot, a transgender woman has been disqualified from an Ohio state house race because she omitted her previous name, raising concern that other transgender candidates nationwide may face similar barriers.Vanessa Joy of was one of four transgender candidates running for state office in Ohio, largely in response to proposed restrictions of the rights of LGBTQ+ people. She was running as a Democrat in house district 50 – a heavily Republican district in Stark county, Ohio – against Republican candidate Matthew Kishman. Joy legally changed her name and birth certificate in 2022, which she says she provided to the Stark county board of elections for the 19 March primary race.But as Joy found out on Tuesday, a little-known 1990s state law says that a candidate must provide any name changes within the last five years to qualify for the ballot. Since the law is not currently listed on the candidate requirement guidelines on the Ohio secretary of state’s website, Joy did not know it existed.To provide her former name, Joy said, would be to use her deadname – a term used by the transgender community to refer to the name given at birth, not one they chose that aligns with their gender identity.And while Joy said the spirit of the law is to weed out bad actors, it creates a barrier for transgender people who want to run for office and may not want to share their deadname for important reasons, including concern about their personal safety.“If I had known that I had to put my deadname on my petitions, I personally would have because being elected was important to me,” Joy said. “But for many it would be a barrier to entry because they would not want their names on the petitions.”She continued: “It’s a danger, and that name is dead.”The office of the Ohio secretary of state, Frank LaRose, and the Stark county board of elections did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on Thursday. It is not clear if this law has applied to any current or previous state lawmakers.Rick Hasen, a professor at UCLA law school and an election expert, said that requiring candidates to disclose any name changes posed problems in Ohio, but generally serves a purpose. “If a candidate has something to hide in their past like criminal activity, disclosing former names used by the candidate would make sense,” Hasen said in an email.Sean Meloy, the vice-president of political programs for the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, which supports LGBTQ+ candidates, said he did not know of tracking efforts to find how many states require name changes in petition paperwork.“The biggest issue is the selective enforcement of it,” Meloy said in an interview on Thursday.Over the past few years, many states have ramped up restrictions on transgender people – including barring minors from accessing gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormones. In some states, that has extended to limitations on which school bathrooms trans children and students can use and which sports teams they can join.Last year, Meloy said, a record number of candidates who are transgender sought and won office, and he expects that trend to continue in 2024.Ohio lawmakers passed restrictions late last year that were vetoed by the state’s Republican governor, though many Republican state representatives say they are planning to override that veto as soon as next week.Meloy said that some conservatives are trying to silence transgender voices.He pointed to Zooey Zephyr, a transgender lawmaker who was blocked last year from speaking on Montana’s House floor after she refused to apologize for telling colleagues who supported a ban on gender-affirming care that they would have blood on their hands.“Now that anti-trans legislation is being moved once again,” Meloy said, “this seems like a selectively enforced action to try to keep another trans person from doing that.”Joy appealed against her disqualification on Thursday, and is now seeking legal representation. She plans to try to change Ohio’s law. More

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      Republicans seek to override Ohio governor’s veto of trans rights bill

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      A legislative showdown is brewing in Ohio after Governor Mike DeWine split from his party to veto a bill that would impose substantial new restrictions on the lives of trans children.The bill, HB 68, prohibits doctors from providing gender-affirming care to trans youths. It also blocks transgender female student athletes from participating in girls’ sports.On Friday, DeWine said signing HB 68 into law would signal that “the government knows better what is medically best for a child than the two people who love that child the most: the parents”.Ohio hospitals do not offer gender-affirming care to young patients without the consent of a parent or guardian.“Parents are making decisions about the most precious thing in their life, their child, and none of us should underestimate the gravity and the difficulty of those decisions,” the governor said. “Many parents have told me that their child would be dead today if they had not received the treatment they received from an Ohio children’s hospital.”The veto by DeWine, a Republican, marked a rare victory for LGBTQ+ advocates, who spent the past year battling a historic rise in anti-trans legislation and rhetoric across the United States.Maria Bruno, policy director for Equality Ohio, said the governor’s veto was “a relief for Ohio’s transgender youth, parents, healthcare professionals and educators who can finally take a breath and get back to their lives”.But that relief could be short-lived. Top Ohio Republicans, including the secretary of state, Frank LaRose, are now urging the state legislature to reverse the governor’s decision by overriding his veto.“We have a duty to protect safety and fair competition for female athletes and to protect children from being subjected to permanent, life-altering medical procedures before the age of 18,” LaRose said.The Republican speaker, Jason Stephens, announced this week that the Ohio house would reconvene on 10 January, weeks earlier than scheduled, in an attempt to revive the bill before the official start of the 2024 legislative session. Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers of the Ohio legislature, meaning Stephens’ push to sidestep the governor is likely to succeed.“It is disappointing that the governor vetoed House Bill 68,” Stephens said. “The bill sponsors, and the house, have dedicated nearly three years to get the bill right.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDespite Stephens’ insistence that HB 68 is a tool to “empower parents and protect children,” hundreds of Ohio families, including the parents of transgender children, have spoken out in fierce opposition to the GOP-backed proposal.Last year, the Ohio house received more than 600 written testimonies from people who oppose the ban on gender-affirming care, compared with just 56 in support of the legislation.In her testimony against the bill, Minna Zelch, the parent of a transgender daughter, asked why she and her husband “are qualified to make other medical decisions for our children, such as if they should have surgery for a broken bone or take ADHD medication, but we’re not qualified to decide if and when they should receive gender care?”Zelch added: “All transgender kids and their families deserve the basic right of deciding what medical care they receive.” More