Duke Energy told city officials to OK an operating deal for the streetcar before trying to talk costs. The fighting words are in the middle of an ongoing feud between city officials and Duke Energy about who will move utility lines and pipes to accommodate the streetcar. The operating details will help Duke know what “unbreakable rules” about maintenance and emergency repairs exist and where the streetcar will go, according to the company’s spokesperson. CityBeat previously covered the streetcar issue and all the pettiness from Duke here. A suspended frat is suing Miami University. The frat was suspended after a fireworks battle led to the discovery of illegal substances in the frat. The frat claims the university improperly suspended it, damaged its business and property, and made libelous allegations out of “malice, hatred and ill will.” The frat says it shouldn’t have been suspended without a written complaint, but Miami's spokesperson said the university is allowed to suspend students without a written complaint if there is a pending investigation.Ohio will soon begin tying college funding to graduation rates. If only that was done with e-schools.Equality Ohio announced Columbus, Ohio made a step forward in LGBT rights yesterday. It is now among the few cities in Ohio to have a domestic partner registry, which allows same-sex couples to legally declare their relationships without marriage or civil unions. Toledo, Cleveland, Athens and Dayton also have registries.Secretary of State Jon Husted wrote a “guest column” on his own website defending early voting rules in Ohio. Republicans are facing criticism over bringing racial politics and poor arguments into the early voting debate.Ohio’s unemployed will soon get a little less help from the federal government, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Ohio’s rapidly falling unemployment rate has triggered a second reduction in the amount of aid the unemployed can get. Before April 2012, unemployed Ohioans were eligible for 99 weeks of benefits. The eligible weeks dropped to 73 weeks in April and will drop to 63 weeks starting in September. However, the benefits are set to expire in December if the federal government doesn't act, and that would push the eligible weeks down to 26 weeks. Ohio's unemployment rate is currently 7.2 percent, down from 10.6 percent at the height of the recession. The University of Cincinnati’s new interim president just got a nice raise.The state texting-while-driving ban goes into effect tomorrow. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio made his speech at the Republican national convention yesterday. In the speech, he criticized President Barack Obama for the current state of the economy. In return, Democrats criticized Portman for his budget work for former President George W. Bush, whose administration is widely blamed for the current economic crisis.It seems like Paul Ryan spent a lot of time lying in his speech at the Republican national convention yesterday. The vice presidential candidate blamed Obama for an auto plant closing that closed before Obama was president. It seems Ryan is getting on-board with the Romney-Mandel plan of running on dishonesty. Cincinnati is the top hot dog city, according to a new survey. The survey says 7.3 percent of Cincinnati restaurant menus have hot dog options, making it the city with the most accessible hot dogs.Space sugars have been found around a young star.

UPDATE: 5:11 p.m. Updated with comment from Miami University spokeswoman.A Miami University fraternity that was suspended after an alleged fireworks battle led to police finding drugs when executing a search warrant has filed a lawsuit with the frat demanding $10 million from the university. The Phi Kappa Tau chapter at Miami university alleges in their lawsuit that university officials improperly suspended the fraternity, damaged its business and property and made libelous allegations out of “malice, hatred and ill will.” The frat is suing for compensation as well as $10 million in punitive damages and attorneys fees. The Tuesday court filing demanded a trial by jury. The fraternity was suspended after members of the Phi Kappa Tau and Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternities allegedly threw lit fireworks between their two frat houses.  When Oxford police officers tried to investigate, students refused to let them into the houses without warrants. So the police got warrants. According to the filing, inside the Phi Kappa Tau house police found fireworks, a baggy of marijuana and two pipes. The lawsuit alleges that the university improperly suspended the fraternity because it did so in the absence of any written complaint. It claims that there are no police complaints or charges as of the lawsuit’s filing. The suit also alleges that the university recklessly made false statements damaging the reputation of the fraternity and causing some of its members “severe emotional distress.” Miami University spokeswoman Claire Wagner declined to comment on the lawsuit. However, she said the school's student code allows the Dean of Students or a designee to issue a summary suspension without a written complaint if there is a pending investigation. She said the university, as well as Oxford fire and police, are investigating the incident.

Preempting the Wednesday homecoming of presumed Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan to his alma mater Miami University, the Obama campaign is opening an office in Oxford Tuesday evening. The guest speaker at the office opening will be Butler County Democratic Party Chairwoman Jocelyn Bucaro who, according to a news release, will contrast the competing visions of President Barack Obama and his presumptive Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. “The Romney-Ryan budget would devastate the security of senior citizens — ending Medicare as we know it by turning the program into a voucher system and privatizing Social Security,” the release read.Along with a Milford office which is also opening Tuesday, the Oxford office with contribute to the total of nine campaign offices in the region. The Obama campaign has offices in East Walnut Hills, College Hill, Forest Park, Cheviot, Middletown, Springboro and Mason. Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Ryan will speak Wednesday evening at Miami University’s Engineering Quad, according to the Miami College Republicans’ Facebook page.  Ryan graduated from Miami in 1992 and was asked back as the commencement speaker in 2009. Romney is planning a bus tour with three Ohio stops on Tuesday.Updates to include the opening of a Milford office on Tuesday.

Buyer beware! Cincinnati police are investigating reports of several hundred counterfeit tickets to Thursday's Opening Day game. The Cincinnati Reds say the tickets were sold on the streets in the lead up to the game versus the Marlins. At least 47 of the bogus tickets were collected when people tried to use them at the gate.Government, business and civic leaders are mulling a proposal to ask Hamilton County voters to raise the sales tax to help fund the operation and maintenance of the region's arts institutions. If a sales tax is proposed, voters could be asked to increase the current 6.5 percent sales tax by either one-quarter or one-half of a cent. Beneficiaries of the revenue might include the Museum Center at Union Terminal, Music Hall, the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden.Cincinnati Police Chief James Craig congratulated 10 at-risk youth Saturday who are the city's first boot camp graduates. The students from Rothenberg School were formally recognized for graduating from the first official Children in Trauma Intervention Boot Camp.A Pennsylvania man and two Illinois homeowners are suing Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bank and six mortgage insurers, alleging the bank got "kickbacks" from the insurers in violation of federal law. Fifth Third had arrangements with the insurers under which they bought "reinsurance" from the bank, according to the complaint. From 2004 to 2011, Fifth Third received $54 million in reinsurance premium payments from insurers and paid out $4.9 million in claims.A fraternity at Miami University is suspended from operations at the Oxford campus. Sigma Chi has been told to move out of their chapter house by their national headquarters. Officials didn't release details of the suspension, only stating it's the result of some kind of inappropriate behavior. Fraternity members have until Wednesday to move out. Let the speculation begin. In news elsewhere, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq are criticizing U.S. policy toward their nation. They say the Obama administration is ignoring Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s increasingly authoritarian behavior. Since U.S. troops withdrew in December, Maliki has extended his reach to take on his political rivals, drawing accusations from Iraq’s Sunni and Kurdish minorities that he is intent on establishing a dictatorship.Comedian and author Bill Cosby said in an interview that George Zimmerman never would've confronted Trayvon Martin if Zimmerman hadn't been carrying a gun, and that no neighborhood watch volunteers should be carrying weapons. Zimmerman shot and killed Martin — an unarmed African-American teenager — Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla., allegedly in self-defense. “The power-of-the-gun mentality had him unafraid to confront someone. Even police call for backup in similar situations,” Cosby said. “When you carry a gun, you mean to harm somebody, kill somebody.”Independent voters like President Obama better but feel ideologically closer to Mitt Romney, according to a new poll of a dozen battleground states released Monday. The survey, conducted by Global Strategy Group for the moderate Democratic think tank Third Way, examined attitudes of “swing independents” who express views of Romney or Obama that are neither strongly favorable nor unfavorable. In the poll, he led Romney 44 percent to 38 percent.Syrian forces have fired across the border into Turkey, hitting a refugee camp, just hours before a United Nations deadline to end the violent uprising in the nation is slated to take effect. Five people – three Syrians, one Turkish translator and one Turkish policeman – were wounded inside the camp near the town of Kilis, according to the governor Yusuf Odabas.Veteran TV journalist Mike Wallace, best known as one of the original co-anchors of 60 Minutes on CBS, died Saturday at age 93. The network plans an hour-long tribute to Wallace and his career on 60 Minutes next Sunday. In announcing his death, CBS lauded the brazen tactics that it said had made Wallace a household name "synonymous with the tough interview — a style he practically invented for television more than half a century ago." For the past three years, Wallace lived in a nursing care center and reportedly suffered from dementia.

University of Cincinnati and Miami University student organizations will hold rallies at 5 p.m. Thursday in response to the March 24 assault of two students — one from UC and one from Miami — on the Miami campus. The events are meant to show support for GLBT people and call for an end to hate crimes. Miami University student Michael Bustin and a male friend were reportedly walking home from a drag show when someone yelled a derogatory slur at them. Bustin's friend was then attacked by four men who also reportedly assaulted Bustin when he tried to help, according to WLWT-TV. The two men had been holding hands during their walk home. Miami University sent a memo to the community and reached out to Bustin soon afterward. The rallies’ Facebook page says the other man was a University of Cincinnati student. The police have released a sketch of one of the accused attackers and are seeking the public’s help to find those involved. Both events will begin at 5 p.m. Those attending the Miami rally are encouraged to wear "Love is the New Label/White Out Hate" shirts or just white T-shirts or tops. After the rally, participants will line up holding hands in a demonstration of solidarity and to show that “no one deserves to be hurt for showing affection.” More from the rallies’ Facebook page: “We, the students of the LGBTQA alliances of Miami University and University of Cincinnati, stand united in our demand for a safe places to live, learn, work and show affection. It is unacceptable for anyone to be assaulted, but it is especially repulsive for the victims to be targeted because of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or any other classification.” The Miami rally will take place at the Phi Delt Gates on the Miami Campus, while the UC event will take place at the corner of Martin Luther King Drive and Clifton Avenue. The events are being organized by Miami Spectrum and UC Alliance. For more information, click here or search on Facebook: “Emergency Action: Miami & UC Unite Against Hate!"

Cincinnati officials appear ready to ignore the recommendations of city staffers and allow a project that would add a bicycle lane along an East End road to proceed. The city's Transportation and Engineering Department had wanted to delay the bike lane on Riverside Drive for up to two years while construction was occurring to reconfigure a portion of I-471 in Northern Kentucky. Engineers were worried that motorists would use Riverside as an alternate route to avoid 471, and any work there might cause rush hour bottlenecks. But a Cincinnati City Council majority indicated Wednesday it doesn't agree with the assessment. Council members will discuss the issue again at a committee meeting in two weeks.Cincinnati officials are mulling whether a 118-year-old pump station and water tower behind Krohn Conservatory in Eden Park could be sold and converted into a micro-brewery. The Cincinnati Beer Co. approached the city to redevelop the 7,000-square-foot property so it could make small batches of beer there to sell to local restaurants. The buildings are now used for storage.E.W. Scripps Co. gave more than $4.4 million in cash and stock awards last May as a severance deal to the person who once managed the firm's newspaper division. Details on severance payments to Mark Contreras were disclosed in Scripps' proxy statement to shareholders on Monday. Contreras was a senior vice president for six years until he was fired on May 25, 2011. The Cincinnati-based media giant wouldn’t say why Contreras was terminated. During Contreras’ tenure, Scripps eliminated 2,500 newspaper jobs, including those lost when The Cincinnati Post was closed in 2007.Oxford police say two Miami University students who were left bloody and battered in an altercation probably were attacked because they are gay. Michael Bustin told police he was walking home from a local bar near campus and holding hands with a male friend when four men approached them, yelled a slur, then began hitting them. That's when other students intervened and stopped the attack. The university responded swiftly, Bustin said, sending a bulletin to the campus community.Meanwhile, an LGBT group in Lexington, Ky., has filed a discrimination complaint against a T-shirt printer after the company refused to honor a bid to produce apparel for an event. The Gay and Lesbian Services Organization filed the complaint Monday with the city’s Human Rights Commission. The group's president said it chose Hands On Originals to print t-shirts for a local gay pride festival, but the company refused to take the order. A Lexington official said the firm is subject to the city’s human rights ordinance because it deals in goods and services to the public.In news elsewhere, the U.S. government blocked a court case arising from a multimillion-dollar business dispute so it could conceal evidence of a major intelligence failure shortly before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, British officials were told this week. David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, said the FBI planned to begin eavesdropping on all telephone calls into and out of Afghanistan in 1998 to acquire intelligence on the Taliban, but the program was delayed more than a year in a turf war with the CIA. It finally was implemented on Sept. 8, 2001. When a related court case was filed in New York, it was blocked and all records removed from the courts' public database on the grounds of the State Secrets Privilege, a legal doctrine that permits the U.S. government to stop litigation on the grounds of national security.New claims for unemployment benefits fell to a four-year low last week, according to a government report that indicates an economic recovery is underway. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 359,000, the lowest level since April 2008, the Labor Department said today.A police detective told the father of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin that his son initiated two confrontations with the neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot him. Tracy Martin, describing the police version of events Wednesday to The Washington Post, said he didn't believe the official account, which was conveyed to him two days after his 17-year-old son was killed Feb. 26.In related news, police surveillance video of the teenager's killer, George Zimmerman, appears to contradict portions of Zimmerman's version of what happened that night. The video shows no blood or bruises on Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain who says he shot Martin after he was punched in the nose, knocked down and had his head slammed into the ground. The video, obtained by ABC News, shows Zimmerman arriving in a police cruiser. As he exits the car, his hands are cuffed behind his back. Zimmerman is frisked and then led away, still cuffed.A major influence in Bluegrass music died Wednesday. Earl Scruggs, the banjo player whose hard-driving picking style influenced generations of players, died in a Nashville hospital at age 88. Although Scruggs had a long and critically acclaimed music career, he is perhaps best known to the public for performing the theme song to the TV sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies, with his guitar-playing partner, Lester Flatt.