During a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado last night, a gunman walked into a theater, threw tear gas, and opened fire. Police identified James Holmes as the suspect in the shooting. Twelve were killed and at least 50 were wounded. On Twitter, one witness lamented that “there is no dark knight, no hero, that could save us from anything like this.”

Cincinnati Police Chief James Craig will learn later this summer if he'll be required to undergo additional training and take the state police exam. Craig and his attorneys yesterday told the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission about his 36 years of policing experience.

This summer, Ohio families will receive health insurance rebates as part of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The average family will receive $139. In total, Ohioans will be getting back $11.3 million. 

Ohio’s unemployment rate dropped to 7.2 percent in June, down from 7.3 percent in May. That’s the lowest unemployment has been since 2008.

An Ohio Supreme Court task force approved changes that will help prevent racial bias in death penalty cases.

Gov. John Kasich can’t get even his own people to agree with him on his tax plan. An Ohio Tea Party group came out against the plan yesterday.

Speaker of the House John Boehner called the issue of Mitt Romney’s tax returns a “sideshow” and said that Americans don’t care about it. But Romney apparently disagreed with Boehner’s perspective in 1994 when he asked then-Senator Ted Kennedy to release his tax returns.

First giant mirrors, then volcanoes. Now, scientists want to use plankton to help fight global warming.

Hamilton County has been killing people more often than Ohio counties of similar size, despite actually asking for the death penalty less often. Today's Enquirer takes a look at the growing opposition to the death penalty in other states and recent legislation and task forces aimed at either studying its effectiveness or stopping the practice altogether. Prosecutor Joe Deters says he's going to kill all the people who deserve it because the law is still the law.

Would you like to pay tolls or higher gas taxes in order to have a new Brent Spence Bridge? No? Then you're like a majority of people who take the time to respond to Enquirer polls.

City Manager Milton Dohoney plans to ask City Council to raise the property tax rate in response to a projected $33 million 2013 deficit that everyone knows was coming.

The Community Press on the East Side says Norfolk Southern is willing to consider selling the Wasson Way right of way that some would like to see turned into a bike trail. CityBeat in March found the proposed trail to have support among cycling enthusiasts but some resistance from light rail supporters.

President Obama hooked up an 11-year-old kid with a note excusing him from class on Friday.

“He says, ‘Do you want me to write an excuse note? What’s your teacher’s name?” Sullivan told ABC. “And I say, Mr. Ackerman. And he writes, ‘Please excuse Tyler. He was with me. Barack Obama, the president.'"

Fortune magazine has taken exception to Mitt Romney's recent criticism of Solyndra, the solar panel company that went out of business despite a $500 million Department of Energy loan.

So last Thursday Romney held a surprise press conference at Solyndra's shuttered headquarters. During his prepared statement, Romney said:

"An independent inspector general looked at this investment and concluded that the Administration had steered money to friends and family and campaign contributors."

Romney then repeated the claim later in the press conference.

Small problem: No inspector general ever "concluded" such a thing, at least not based on any written reports or public statements.

Wisconsin Gov./Union Crusher Scott Walker holds a slight lead over his Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, according to a recent poll.

George Zimmerman is back in jail after what his attorney is calling a misunderstanding over telling a judge that he had limited money even though a website set up to fund his legal defense raised more than $135,000.

Legal issues will be involved in New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's attempt to ban giant sodas.

Jason Alexander has released a lengthy and quite thoughtful apology for referring to the sport of cricket as "a bit gay" during a recent appearance on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson.

Why do people on the West Coast get to see all the cool stuff that happens in space? First the eclipse and now the Transit of Venus, when Venus will cross paths between the sun and earth. Next time it will happen is 2117. And Australia got to see a partial lunar eclipse the other day, too.

Connecticut will soon join the list of states that have ended the use of capital punishment.

In an 86-63 vote, legislators in Connecticut’s House of Representatives passed the bill Wednesday night. The state Senate approved the measure April 5, in a 20-16 vote.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, has indicated he will sign the bill when it reaches his desk, probably sometime this week. A similar bill was vetoed by then-Gov. Jodi Rell, a Republican, in 2009.

Connecticut’s law is prospective in nature, and won’t affect the sentences of the 11 people currently on the state’s death row.

In the last five years, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Illinois have repealed the death penalty, according to CNN. California voters will decide the issue in November.

Other states that have abolished capital punishment are Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, a man who spent 21 years on Ohio’s death row until he was exonerated in 2010 will speak tonight at a forum in Clifton.

Joe D’Ambrosio will discuss his experience and why he believes the death penalty should be scrapped at 6:30 p.m. at the St. Monica-St. George Parish Newman Center, located at 328 W. McMillan St. D’Ambrosio will be joined by the Rev. Neil Kookoothe, a Roman Catholic priest who worked to get him released.

D’Ambrosio was wrongfully convicted of the 1988 murder of Anthony Klann in Cleveland. Cuyahoga County prosecutors withheld 10 pieces of evidence that would have exonerated D’Ambrosio at his trial and implicated another suspect in the crime, a judge ruled in March 2010.

D’Ambrosio is the 140th Death Row exoneration in the United States since 1973 and the sixth in Ohio.

This week’s Porkopolis column looks at a report from Amnesty International about the use of capital punishment throughout the world, and how the United States is one of the only industrialized nations that still condones the practice.

Gov. John Kasich today denied a request for executive clemency from Mark Wayne Wiles, who was convicted in 1986 of the murder of 15-year-old Mark Klima in the northeast Ohio township of Rootstown.

Wiles is scheduled to be executed April 18 at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. According to the clemency report, members of the Ohio Parole Board on March 2 interviewed Wiles via video-conference from the Chillicothe Correctional Institution, after which arguments in support of and in opposition to clemency were presented. The board voted 8-0 against recommending clemency.

Ohio was subjected to a moratorium on executions from November of 2011 until April 4, 2012, when U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost of Newark lifted the moratorium he invoked for the state’s inability to follow its own execution protocol. The moratorium was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in February.

CityBeat reported here that despite lifting the moratorium, Frost expressed frustration with the state’s problems carrying out executions, despite the errors being largely minor paperwork technicalities, including “not properly documenting that an inmate’s medical files were reviewed and switching the official whose job it was to announce the start and finish times of the lethal injection.”

From CityBeat’s Politics/Issues blog April 6:

Since the moratorium, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has allegedly scrutinized its procedural policies and implemented a new "Incident Command System," which sounds like an initiative for ORDC Director Gary Mohr to more closely micromanage the processes during state executions.

"This court is therefore willing to trust Ohio just enough to permit the scheduled execution," Frost wrote regarding his rejection of Wiles' stay of execution. "The court reaches this conclusion with some trepidation given Ohio's history of telling this court what (they) think they need to say in order to conduct executions and then not following through on promised reforms."

Ohioans to Stop Executions and other human rights groups are asking Gov. John Kasich to halt any further executions of inmates until the Ohio Supreme Court completes its review of the state’s death penalty process.

The groups, which include the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center (IJPC) in Cincinnati, say the U.S. Supreme Court has denied a petition by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office to review an August 2011 ruling by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. That means the exoneration of Death Row inmate Joe D’Ambrosio is upheld.---

The denial was announced today by John Q. Lewis and David Mills, D’Ambrosio’s attorneys.

D’Ambrosio was wrongfully convicted of the 1988 murder of Anthony Klann in Cleveland. Cuyahoga County prosecutors withheld 10 pieces of evidence that would have exonerated D’Ambrosio at his trial and implicated another suspect in the crime, a judge ruled in March 2010. D’Ambrosio had spent 21 years in prison while awaiting execution and appealing his case.

D’Ambrosio is the 140th Death Row exoneration in the United States since 1973 and the sixth in Ohio.

The Plain Dealer had reported that Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joan Synenberg dismissed all charges against D'Ambrosio and ordered him released in March 2010, shortly after U.S. District Judge Kate O'Malley ruled D'Ambrosio couldn’t be retried for the 1988 killing.

“This case exemplifies one of the most serious flaws of our death penalty system — the dangerous risk Ohio runs of executing someone for a crime he didn’t commit,” said Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, in a prepared statement.

“Joe D’Ambrosio is exonerated today by sheer coincidence. It was a coincidence that Joe met Rev. Neil Kookoothe who is trained as a lawyer and critical care nurse and that Rev. Kookoothe was willing to look closely at this case,” Werner added. “Coincidence is not the standard we should be comfortable with when our justice system is seeking to execute people.”

In a statement issued today, IJPC said: “It's crystal clear that executions must stop in Ohio. No one should be executed under a system of justice while that very system is being closely examined to assess its fairness and accuracy.”

IJPC is urging people to call Kasich at 614-466-3555 and tell him to impose the moratorium on executions.

Statistics show that 94 nations — including most democracies like Canada and those in the European Union — have abolished capital punishment, while 10 others only allow it under special circumstances.

Fifty-eight nations allow the death penalty, with most of them totalitarian in nature like China, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. The United States, Japan and Singapore are the only fully developed countries that still use the death penalty.

Ohioans to Stop Executions is a nonprofit organization that includes faith and community leaders, activists, attorneys, Death Row exonerees and murder victims’ families who work toward abolishing the death penalty in Ohio.

Bengals wide receiver Jerome Simpson has some explaining to do after being caught yesterday receiving a shipment of 2.5 points of weed to his home. Authorities found another 6 pounds inside the Crestview Hills house, which Simpson owns. Here's how the incident will affect your fantasy football team, should you have made the mistake of drafting Jerome Simpson.---

The income gap between white and black families in the Cincinnati area is larger than the U.S. average. (Insert racist comment [here].) According to The Enquirer's Mark Curnutte (who formerly covered the Bengals beat but probably got tired of how dumb it was):

In the city, the median household income in 2010 for whites was $46,615 and $22,216 for blacks. In the county, the median household income was $53,967 for whites and $27,619 for blacks. The 2010 federal poverty level for a family of four was $22,050.

City Council yesterday approved $21 million in infrastructure work so there will be sidewalks and roads around the new casino. Chris Bortz was the only dissenter, but he also thinks it's cool to split 3's in Blackjack so no one was really surprised.

East Coast states are apparently very affluent. [Expletive] liberals.

In the meantime, Cincinnati and Cleveland are among America's poorest big cities.

Troy Davis was killed yesterday by the state of Georgia after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his latest request for a stay of execution. Davis, whose conviction of a 1989 murder has been doubted due to multiple witnesses changing their testimony or alleging that police coerced them, reportedly addressed the victim's family from the gurney, proclaimed his innocence and asked mercy for those about to kill him.

Why Obama and Warren Buffett are bros now.

So, NASA expects a satellite to fall from space one of these days onto Earth. But don't worry — it's not expected to smash into North America.

Annoyed with your new FaceBook layout? There will soon be an iPad app you can complain about. The company is going to meet with some developers and entrepreneurs this week to discuss creating more things for people to hate but still use all the time.

Apparently the world's largest sperm bank, Cryos International, in Denmark, has stopped requesting samples from redheads due to a lack of demand. I bet this Hoyt guy would be disappointed:

President Obama's Cincinnati bridge visit is an attempt to literally and figuratively connect Mitch McConnell and John Boehner. No word on whether the top two Republicans in Congress will show up, but Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer is reportedly going to pop in. ---

A new report suggests that Ohio health insurance costs could either go up a lot or down quite a bit when the national health care overhaul takes full effect in 2014. Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor called the situation “alarming” then later used the term “Obamacare” and lost all credibility on the matter.

The Cincinnati U.S.A. Regional Chamber of Commerce yesterday stated its opposition to Issue 48, the proposed charter amendment that would block construction of Cincinnati's planned streetcar system. According to CityBeat's favorite Coffee Stealer/News Editor, Kevin Osborne:

Regarding Issue 48, the Chamber stated, “The charter amendment would prohibit city spending or appropriating funds for a streetcar system before 2020. The Chamber does not support any measure that eliminates the community’s ability to develop transportation or other economic development projects.”

The Enquirer posted this story yesterday, titled “Exchange of looks led to I-75 shooting, crash,” which probably should have been titled, “Exchange of looks led to I-75 shooting, crash, according to a witness, said a police spokeswoman.” A simple “allegedly” might have helped the story look like something a freshman journalism student wouldn't get a “C” on.

Let's just accept it now: Poll season is about to begin. Fourteen month of polls. Straw polls, phone polls, skewed polls, favorable polls, fake polls and polls with margins of error so big they can't mean anything. Here's one suggesting that Mitt Romney and Rick Perry are tied in Florida, with Romney slightly ahead of Obama. Ugh.

European banks reportedly have a $410 billion credit risk. Should have paid your student loans, yo!

The clock is ticking for Troy Davis (literally — Georgia is going to kill him at 7 p.m.), despite these facts: “Since his conviction, seven of nine witnesses have changed or recanted their testimony, some have said they were coerced by police to testify against Davis and some say another man committed the crime. No physical evidence linked Davis to the crime.” Davis' attorneys have asked for a polygraph test in a final attempt at proving his innocence.

The state of Utah's liquor laws prove that freedom really isn't free, and they're reportedly becoming more restrictive:

Utah's alcohol laws already were unique. You can't order a double, or a stiff drink; happy hours and any other drink discounts, even for 3.2 beer, are illegal; licensed restaurants must use electronic ID scanners on patrons who look as if they're under 35 to make sure they're 21.

An oil rig exploded in Oklahoma, but no one was injured. Worker: “My B!”

Will the iPhone 5 be announced Oct. 4? Please, God, just give us our iPhones!

Users of FaceBook and Pandora today logged on to new designs and then started complaining like a bunch of old people whose newspapers were thrown in the yard instead of on the porch.

Many Charlie Sheen fans aren't happy with Ashton Kutcher's performance in Two and a Half Men. Maybe they forgot how stupid the show was after Sheen's hilarious meltdown.

Do you enjoy looking at slideshows of rich people? Here's a good one, themed “Most Corrupt Members of Congress.” Guess which local Eastside representative made the list … Here's a hint: Jean Schmidt.---

Gov. Kasich did his part this week to make Ohio cool, offering pharmacy company Omnicare $6 million in tax breaks to move to Cincinnati from Covington. If any of its 500 employees like the way music makes them feel, feel free to tell them about the MidPoint Music Festival this weekend.

Cleveland has a new “Complete and Clean Streets” policy going into effect Jan. 1 requiring that 20 percent of money spent on road projects goes to making streets more pedestrian friendly and energy efficient by including bike-only lanes, crosswalks, energy-efficient lighting and porous pavement.

A Georgia pardons board has denied a plea for clemency for Troy Davis, who was convicted in 1991 for the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer. It is the fourth time Davis has been scheduled to die, even after several witness have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured by police to testify or sign statements against Davis. According to Amnesty International:

One of the two witnesses who has not recanted his testimony is Sylvester "Red" Coles — the principle alternative suspect, according to the defense, against whom there is new evidence implicating him as the gunman. Nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles.

President Obama yesterday offered his debt-reduction plan to a bunch of mopes who are going to complain about it, then he threatened to veto any plan that cuts benefits without raising taxes on the wealthy. Then he started sounding like campaign-Obama:

Spending cuts alone "will not solve our fiscal problems. We can't just cut our way out of this hole," he added. "It's going to take a balanced approach. If we're going to make spending cuts -- many of which we wouldn't make if we weren't facing such large budget deficits -- then it's only right that we ask everyone to pay their fair share."

“Don't Ask, Don't Tell” is no longer an American military policy, just a stupid former policy.

Apple won't tell us anything about the iPhone 5, but there are enough dorks eager enough for information that there exists “leaked documents, secret sources and speculation” suggesting that the new model could be launched in October. PLEASE APPLE GIVE THEM THEIR PHONES SO THEY SHUT UP!

Scientists found a new raptor dinosaur whose big, spiky toe had permanently broken away from the foot joint to be used as a weapon instead of for walking.

Chronic diseases — cancer, diabetes, mental illness, heart disease and respiratory disease — could cost the world $47 trillion over the next 20 years. Probably still worth the delicious taste of corn syrup.

Here's what Ashton Kutcher was like as the Charlie Sheen replacement on CBS's Two and a Half Men. The account  notes that there were no witnesses to Sheen's character being pushed in front of a Paris subway car and suggests that the closed-casket funeral leaves open the possibility for his return to the show someday. But this report says he's real dead, probably at the hands of Rose, whoever the [expletive] that is. Hopefully he comes back as a ghost.