AKRON
Bat nests delay sewer work
AKRON: The city won’t start clearing trees and doing other site work for its ongoing sewer project near the corner of Howard Street and Cuyahoga Street until endangered bats leave their tree nests.
The work will begin after Oct. 1 to protect the Indiana and northern long-eared bats, endangered and threatened species that begin migrating from their nests after that date.
As part of the program, the city promised to plant two trees for every tree that is removed.
The city is constructing a basin that will be able to hold 2.5 million gallons of overflow water at the site.
Great Lakes Construction Co. is overseeing the project.
Child safety topic of forum
AKRON: Akron Municipal Court Judge Katarina Cook will discuss human trafficking and how to keep Summit County children safe during a Community Welfare Forum on Wednesday.
This is the first luncheon in the forum’s 2016-17 speaker series.
Registration begins at 11:45 a.m., with the luncheon following at noon, at First Congregational Church, 292 E. Market St.
Cost is $10 or $8 for forum members.
RSVPs are due by Thursday by emailing akroncwf@gmail.com or calling Sarah Rosenberger at 330-643-9186.
ASHLAND
Man confesses to killing
ASHLAND: A woman’s report that she was being held captive in a home led to the arrest of a kidnapping suspect, a murder confession and the discovery of the remains of three other people, authorities said.
Suspect Shawn Grate remained jailed Wednesday on an abduction charge as authorities identified one of the bodies and continued working to identify the other remains and collect evidence.
A decision on additional charges is expected Thursday, the Ashland County prosecutor said.
The woman whose 911 call led to the grisly discoveries whispered to a dispatcher she was afraid of waking her captor.
“I’ve been abducted,” the woman said in the Tuesday call, begging, “Please hurry.”
Police said officers following up on the woman’s report Tuesday found her and Grate at a home that was supposed to be unoccupied. Investigators also found the remains of two people at the home, Chief David Marcelli said.
Police confirmed Wednesday that one of the bodies at the home was that of Stacey Stanley of Greenwich, who’d been reported missing since Sept. 8 from Huron County. The coroner hadn’t determined Stacey Stanley’s cause of death or identified the second body in the home, police said.
Grate pointed investigators to a third person’s remains at a property near Mansfield in neighboring Richland County, police said. He confessed that he’d killed a woman in June at a house that was destroyed by fire.
STATE NEWS
Court blocks ballot rules
COLUMBUS: A federal appeals court blocked rules requiring precise completion of thousands of absentee ballots in swing state Ohio, but upheld other challenged election-law changes in a Tuesday ruling as legal and not unduly burdensome.
The three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati rejected all but one element of a lower court’s decision that found the laws violate the Voting Rights Act and place an undue burden on voters.
The ruling affirmed U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley’s rejection of absentee-ballot requirements for birthdate and address entries as presenting an undue burden on voters, saying Ohio could provide no justification for its precise standard. At the same time, the court reversed Marbley on other changes, saying they were not burdensome and didn’t disparately affect minorities.