This is true. This is not something that needs to be solved at the local level, but at the state level instead. I truly believe that the day will come soon where Ohio voters will choose to ban smoking in public spaces. That day, however, is still on the horizon.

Today is the last day smoking will be legal in virtually all public establishments in Ohio. Voters last month decided to snuff out smoking in bowling alleys, bars, restaurants, clubs and nearly all workplaces.

Columbus -- Cleveland's year-old program of using cameras to catch speeding motorist is being driven quickly towards extinction by the state legislature, some city leaders say. Substitute House Bill 56 was approved Tuesday by the Senate highways and transportation committee after hours of tense debate between city and police officials and the committee's chairman, Sen. Jeff Armbruster, a fervent supporter of the bill. The so-called red-light traffic bill would put significant restrictions on how the cameras can be used, making them so cost-inefficient that some cities might have to consider dismantling their programs altogether.

The Constitution says the governor, judges and any state officer can be impeached if they are charged with a misdemeanor, even if they are not convicted. The Ohio House of Representatives has the sole power to initiate impeachment proceedings. A simple majority -- or 50 of 99 members -- would have to vote for impeachment. The Ohio Senate would conduct the impeachment trial, with a two-thirds majority vote -- 22 of 33 members -- required for a conviction.

Cleveland and Shaker Heights are no longer in the running to land OfficeMax Inc.'s new global headquarters. As had been feared by local leaders, the giant office supplies retailer said today that its 1,300 corporate employees split between Shaker Heights and Itasca, Ill., will consolidate in the Chicago area. The company is considering several sites there and expects to decide by October. The announcement ends an underdog bid by a regional coalition that included Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell, Shaker Heights Mayor Judy Rawson and various civic organizations. It also severs the last local thread of a company founded in Cleveland in 1988 and drains the tax pool in Shaker Heights, which annually receives more than $1 million from OfficeMax.

For the second time since the Iraq war began, the Pentagon is struggling to replace body armor that is failing to protect American troops from the most lethal attacks by insurgents. The ceramic plates in vests worn by most personnel cannot withstand certain munitions the insurgents use. But more than a year after military officials initiated an effort to replace the armor with thicker, more resistant plates, tens of thousands of soldiers are still without the stronger protection because of a string of delays in the Pentagon's procurement system. The effort to replace the armor began in May 2004, just months after the Pentagon finished supplying troops with the original plates - a process also plagued by delays. The officials disclosed the new armor effort Wednesday after questioning by The New York Times, and acknowledged that it would take several more months or longer to complete.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- U.S. President George W. Bush said on Israeli television he could consider using force as a last resort to press Iran to give up its nuclear program. "All options are on the table," Bush, speaking at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, said in the interview broadcast on Saturday. Asked if that included the use of force, Bush replied: "As I say, all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any president and you know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country."

People are starving to death in Niger, but famine is also whittling away the populations across the region and beyond, in Mali, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Eritrea and southern Sudan.

Saminou, 16 months old, died hours after emergency treatment at a Maradi, Niger, feeding center.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that Americans need to ease their concerns about turning over personal information to the government — especially if they want to fly safe from terrorism. Chertoff said there is too much worry over a plan by the Transportation Security Administration to collect passengers' full names and birth dates before they board. "The average American gives information up to get a CVS (drugstore discount) card that is far more in-depth than TSA's going to be looking at," Chertoff told reporters and editors at USA TODAY's headquarters in McLean, Va. "But I actually make that case that giving up a little bit more information protects privacy."

"Would you rather give up your address and date of birth to a secure database and not be pulled aside and questioned," he said, "or would you rather not give it up and have an increased likelihood that you're going to be called out of line and someone's going to do a secondary search of your bag and they're going to ask you a lot of personal questions in the full view of everybody else?" Chertoff vowed to implement Secure Flight, a plan by the federal government to screen out potential terrorists by scrutinizing the backgrounds of passengers. Under the plan, passengers will be encouraged — but not required — to give their full names and birth dates when reserving a seat. The TSA hoped to begin testing Secure Flight this month but that timetable is in doubt. The current system, in place since before the 9/11 attacks, requires airlines to do the background checks. Passengers must give only their last name and first initial to book a flight. American Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel Tim Sparapani said collecting more information from passengers is a waste of time and money. "The public does not get any advanced security by giving up more information," Sparapani said. Would-be hijackers can easily foil background checks, he said, by either keeping a clean criminal record or by stealing someone's identity. Money would be better spent on machines that detect plastic explosives on passengers or in bags, he said.

Woodward's half-hour talk, punctuated several times by well-received jokes, was followed by 11 questions from the audience. He theorized that Hillary Clinton would earn the Democratic nomination in 2008 and would run against Dick Cheney, and he rejected the likelihood of a third party being a threat to Democrats and Republicans.

Washington -- KraftMaid builds kitchen cabinets in Middlefield, and for that it needs wood. So when U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette said he suddenly learned that the company had been socked with tariffs on Central American plywood -- and that they jeopardized the company's jobs in Ohio -- he decided to vote for a controversial trade pact to eliminate those tariffs. "Absolutely," he said after the vote two weeks ago, confirming that his motivation was solely to protect KraftMaid jobs.

One problem: No U.S. company has to pay tariffs on plywood from Central America, according to trade records reviewed by The Plain Dealer and interviews with industry and trade officials. Plywood, and almost every other wood product from Central America, is exempt from tariffs under arcane but long-standing trade rules. "He's either been duped or is not being honest," Lori Wallach, a Washington trade lawyer, said of LaTourette.

But in the afternoon before the final vote, LaTourette got a phone call from KraftMaid's president, Tom Chieffe. Chieffe said the tariffs on Central American plywood, used to make cabinets, was making it harder for the company to stay viable, according to an interview with LaTourette after the vote. Chieffe is not a player in the world of Washington power politics, and LaTourette has said he didn't know him well. But KraftMaid is owned by a larger corporation, Masco Corp., whose Michigan-based chairman is a major Republican donor. Richard Manoogian donated $115,000 to the Republican National Committee and its affiliates between 2002 and 2004, as well as $4,000 for Bush's re-election, records from PoliticalMoneyLine show. He has stayed overnight at the White House as a guest of Bush, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Columbus -- A group that hopes voters will embrace fundamental changes in the way Ohio's elections are conducted and financed filed nearly twice the number of signatures needed Tuesday to place the proposed constitutional amendments on the November ballot. Reform Ohio Now supporters are banking on investment losses at the Bureau of Workers' Compensation and other scandals to fuel voter outrage and provide money and volunteers needed for their campaign. Spokeswoman Scarlett Bouder said the 521,000 people who signed the petitions show "that over a half-million Ohio voters want to clean up the corruption" that has all but paralyzed state government. The amendments would: create a nonpartisan commission to approve boundaries for legislative and congressional districts; change campaign finance laws to limit contributions from individuals to $2,000 for statewide candidates and to $1,000 for legislative candidates; and create an independent panel to oversee elections -- duties that are handled by the elected secretary of state.

Republicans - who control the legislative map-making process and secretary of state's office - are expected to lead the opposition through a new nonprofit group, Ohio First. Ohio First spokesman David Hopcraft disputed assertions that the measures would increase citizen participation. "They would take the right to decide elections one step farther from the voters by setting up appointed panels to do the work elected officials should be doing on behalf of their constituents," Hopcraft said.

The proposal to end political gerrymandering calls for an appointed, five-member board to determine the boundaries of legislative and congressional districts. It would replace a system in which the lines are drawn every 10 years by the Ohio Apportionment Board, a panel composed of the governor, auditor, secretary of state and a legislator from each party.