Statewide News

Ohio's unemployment rate went down for the third month in a row in January thanks to continued strength in the state's health care sector. Joblessness fell to 7.7 percent in January, down from an adjusted 7.9 percent in December, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said Friday. Payrolls outside of farms rose 32,800 over the last month to 5.1 million, the state said. The total number of unemployed people decreased by 11,000 from December to January.

The state of Ohio is turning 209 years old, and is celebrating with a Statehouse exhibit that examines the debate over statehood between two founding fathers.

Ohio's birthday today marks the day when it became the country's 17th state on March 1, 1803.

Statehood came a year after President Thomas Jefferson approved a law allowing residents to form a constitutional convention and start the process toward becoming a state.

The state says it's disappointed by results of bidding for a closed juvenile detention center, as the high bid of $284,000 is millions less than the facility's reported value of $11.5 million.

County records show the 36 acres around the former Ohio River Valley Juvenile Correctional Facility in Franklin Furnace are worth more than $800,000 alone.

The Columbus Dispatch reports Thursday that the high bid came from MGNR Properties of North Ridgeville.

The state also received a second bid of just $118,000 from National Scrap Corp. of South Bloomfield.

The owner of an Ohio nuclear plant along Lake Erie says a lack of exterior weatherproofing coating caused concrete to crack in the outer shell protecting the plant.

FirstEnergy Corporation told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the exterior cracking at the Davis-Besse plant near Toledo traces back to a 1978 blizzard when wind, rain and a drastic temperature drop caused moisture to penetrate the concrete. The Blade newspaper  reports the utility says the moisture caused the concrete to freeze and expand, prompting the cracks found in October.