Statewide News

After a setback last week, opponents of Ohio's new elections law submitted additional signatures in hopes of putting the measure before voters in a 2012 repeal effort.

Democrats and their allies loaded a U-Haul truck full of more than 166,000 signatures to deliver to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's just more than a week after he said they were more than 9,500 short of the roughly 231,000 they needed.

Among other changes, the election overhaul shortens the swing state's early voting period.

A study group is proposing that Ohio ban new ownership of venomous snakes, monkeys, tigers and other dangerous animals with only limited exceptions.

The group has been holding expedited meetings since last month, when police were forced to kill 48 wild animals — including endangered Bengal tigers — after their owner freed them from his Zanesville farm and then committed suicide.

A summary of the group's input and state agencies' recommendations for new regulations was obtained by The Associated Press on Monday, after the group's final meeting.

The first of the two conflicting reports comes from Team NEO—an economic development firm based in Cleveland. It says employment should return to pre-recession levels in about two years. The other study, from IHS Global Insight, says Ohio will need five years.

Ohio's largest state employee union says it's reached a tentative deal with state officials to extend its current contract until 2015.

Leaders in the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association credited last week's defeat of a contentious collective bargaining law with allowing them to better negotiate their contract.

The tentative agreement will retain all current contract provisions between the union and the state. It doesn't include furlough days or personal leave that were in the current agreement that is set to expire at the end of February.

New jobs are coming to Northern Ohio - Chrysler says it will add 1,100 jobs at an Ohio assembly complex as part of a $1.7 billion investment to build a new Jeep sport utility vehicle.

The automaker said Wednesday that includes $500 million to expand its Toledo assembly plant and add a body shop. State and local officials signed off on incentives for the project.

Chrysler Group LLC sought millions to enlarge the plant where it makes the Jeep Liberty and Wrangler and the Dodge Nitro. It plans to add the new shift by late 2013.