Latest The Columbus Dispatch Stories

By Mary Beth Lane, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Jul. 23--JUNCTION CITY, Ohio -- It took three seconds for Elizabeth Blythe to get out of bed and walk the few steps to her kitchen window to check out the hail pelting the sides of her mobile home early yesterday. The wind cracking through the trees sounded to her like gunshots. Just then, the stout trunk of an oak tree crashed through the metal roof of the trailer and landed on the queen-size bed where the 68-year-old woman had just been...

By Elizabeth Gibson, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Jul. 22--The 90-year-old Town Street bridge over the Scioto River closed six months early today, after the Ohio Department of Transportation determined the bridge might not be safe. "It's breaking up," said Mary Carran Webster, assistant director for the Columbus Public Service Department. "None of the engineers could ensure the structural integrity of the bridge." Public Service Director Mark Kelsey made the call to...

By Spencer Hunt, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Jul. 22--Lime sludge from a Columbus water-treatment plant burst from a corroded pipeline and left a large, gray stain on the Olentangy River today. The city uses lime to help remove dirt and aluminum sulfate from water so that it is safe to drink. Leaked sludge can irritate people's skin, choke off life on stream bottoms and make it difficult for bottom-feeding fish to find food. Today's leak is the third from a city waste pipeline since June...

By Marla Matzer Rose, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Jul. 22--The one-two punch of Skybus Airlines' demise and nationwide airline industry cuts continues to affect Port Columbus. According to data released at the airport's monthly board meeting this afternoon, the decline in passengers at Port Columbus accelerated in June, causing the airport to revise downward its expected passenger total for the full year. A total of 631,029 passengers traveled through Port Columbus last month, 13...

By Nick Chordas, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Jul. 22--'High and Low' Not rated, $39.95 Based on an Ed McBain novel, High and Low from 1963 is best seen as a triptych: a morality play, a policier and, in between, an indelible suspense sequence. Playing a wealthy manufacturer confronted with a kidnapper's demands, Toshiro Mifune is at his most ragingly magnificent. Akira Kurosawa, that most imperial of filmmakers, uses the wide screen to stunning effect. The second segment lasts barely...

By Barbara Carmen, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Jul. 22--Franklin County landfill fees will likely jump nearly 12 percent over the next three years because the economy is down in the dump. The Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio is being hit by higher fuel costs, lower interest earnings on investments and more frugal customers. Business is down 3 percent at the landfill because people are holding onto old items -- or buying fewer new items encased in packaging that becomes trash....

By Nicquel Terry, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Jul. 22--Colleen Staats stared at her son in a hospital bed, where he lay with broken limbs and a fractured skull. A sport-utility vehicle struck 14-year-old Harrison Lucas on June 22 as he was crossing Rt. 256 near Stonecreek Drive South in Pickerington. "It's obviously the worst nightmare you can have as a parent," Staats said. She said it was hard to keep up with the dozens of phone calls and voice mails she received from friends and...

By Nick Chordas, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Jul. 22--Web sites of Mass Distraction are entertainment-oriented sites (humor, jokes, office time-killers). www.rumandmonkey.com/ widgets/toys/namegen/9341 We love name generators -- largely because they do all the work for us. "Soap Opera Name Generator," for example, reveals your daytime-TV moniker without forcing you to fake your death, have a torrid affair with your father's third wife or wear an eye patch. Nick Chordas, say, becomes...

By Suzanne Hoholik, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Jul. 20--While searching Angie's List recently for someone to fix her garage door, Dr. Diana Frey decided to type in her own name to see whether any patients had posted reviews about her. She found three ratings, all positive. "I don't think (Angie's List is) a bad place to find a physician," said Frey, who practices internal medicine on the city's North Side. "It's just another tool where you can look up your doctor and see the...

By Sarah Pulliam, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Jul. 19--It wasn't exactly the six-figure throng of young people camped in Sydney, Australia, but Catholic teenagers from Ohio and Michigan still made it to World Youth Day today. They were about 650 strong at a Catholic high school in Sidney, Ohio, a town of 20,000 north of Dayton. "I practiced my rap routine but decided to scratch it," 59-year-old Leonard Blair, the bishop of Toledo, told laughing teenagers who sat cross-legged on the...