The leaves on the shin-high stalks of corn have begun to curl in the sweltering heat of early summer in the Grand Lake area.

It's dry, "abnormally dry," as weather experts across the United States have classified Ohio's current status. And that's a stone's throw away from the big "D" word that farmers don't want to think about just yet: drought. [More]

Area residents Bob Hoying and Nelson Smith belong to a select group - people who died but received a second chance to live thanks to trained emergency medical service personnel.

Each man collapsed outside as a result of sudden cardiac arrest and those who came to their assistance received "Gotta Have Heart" awards from the Ohio Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians during ceremonies held recently in Columbus. [More]

A squirrel apparently bit into a fiber-optic line and wreaked havoc with telephones and computers in the Verizon service area locally on Thursday.

A news release issued Thursday afternoon by Verizon estimated that about 34,000 West Central Ohio customers were affected by the service outage. That meant local and long distance telephone service was sporadic or inoperable and Internet availability also was affected. [More]