Portsmouth pianist Jacob Tolliver spoke with WOUB’s Ian Saint ahead of Tolliver’s upcoming performance in Portsmouth on Friday. Friday’s show is part of the Southern Ohio Museum’s Plaza Party Kickoff Event, the inaugural outdoor concert for the new performing arts space.

The city of Athens has put on hold for now any plans to create special zoning regulations for recovery homes. Instead, the city is going to treat them like any other rental housing under the existing rental code, said Andy Stone, the city’s service-safety director.

President Trump’s director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to a Columbus-area elementary school to see the results of a government-sponsored vision program. But those at the event saw him react to recent stories about Medicaid fraud and snakes at his home.

In the latest edition of Now Playing, film scholar Dr. Gordon Briggs reviews "Is God Is", a violent and visually striking revenge road movie written and directed by Aleshea Harris. It follows twin sisters Racine and Anaia as they travel across the American South to confront their abusive father.

The Athens County coroner’s office has identified the man who was found dead after a fire in raged through an apartment in The Plains three weeks ago. The coroner named the person as David Stoyer, aged 73. He appears to have moved to The Plains last year from Franklin County.

WOUB’s Emily Votaw spoke with Mekons co-founder and guitarist Tom Greenhalgh ahead of the band's upcoming show next week in Cleveland. The mekons, formed in Leeds, England in 1977, are widely regarded as pioneers of an unlikely intersection of punk, folk, and country music.

Did Gov. DeWine have the authority to end the federal pandemic assistance program in June 2021 before it was set to end three months later, as several Republican-led states did? A group of 300,000 Ohioans have sued the state, saying they’re owed $900 million in federal funds from the FPUC program.

WOUB correspondent Nicholas Kobe attended all four days of Sonic Temple 2026 at the Historic Crew Stadium in Columbus earlier this month. The festival drew a record 184,000 fans across the four-day event, surpassing last year's attendance record of 175,000.

There is an ironic juxtaposition between the words “social media” and its affect on its users. Research is beginning to show our use of it may not be providing the social link once promised and could have a negative impact on mental health.

Statewide, data center proposals are shaking up small communities like Waterford and reshaping local politics. Public officials are resigning, while others are running in November on a platform of opposition to data centers.

WOUB's “Audiosyncracies” recently welcomed special guest Jon Chinn, an OU alumnus and Director of Media Operations at Sony Music Entertainment. He returned to Athens in April for the Ohio University Music Industry Summit, and sat in for a guest DJ slot on “Audiosyncracies.”

WOUB’s Now Playing takes a look at “Obsession”, a dark supernatural romance that blends horror, body horror, and psychological tension. The film follows a timid music store employee who uses a magical item to cast a love spell on his longtime crush, only to discover terrifying consequences.

Photo ID is required on Election Day in Ohio, and it has been since 2023, but state GOP leaders say the law they fought to get to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk three years ago isn’t enough.

A new report shows recent cuts in funding from Ohio’s Medicaid budget will force more than a half a million Ohioans off the program in the next decade and threaten the closure of 31 hospitals and clinics in Ohio.

People who live or work in the city of Athens will be paying higher income taxes next year now that the final votes have been counted from the election two weeks ago. The two-tenths of a percent increase passed by 10 votes, 993 to 983.

A remote hotel becomes the setting for mounting dread in the latest edition of Now Playing, a film criticism column from Dr. Gordon Briggs for WOUB Culture. The new review takes a closer look at “Hokum” (2026), director Damian McCarthy’s atmospheric folk horror film starring Adam Scott.

As of Thursday, a permanent ban on synthetic versions of the Asian herb kratom is in place in Ohio.

Two lawsuits recently filed in Ohio are taking on the 2023 voter-approved constitutional amendment that legalized reproductive rights and abortion access.

Scott Scovill has worked on marquee tours for Hall of Famers like Garth Brooks, Whitney Houston and Ozzy Osbourne. His path to that career began with an unlikely encounter with U2's crew while waiting tables at a Howard Johnson, which led to an unauthorized gig on their 1987 Joshua Tree Tour.

The HBCU Radio Preservation Project spent months digitizing and restoring the recordings from WCSU as part of the organization’s nationwide effort to protect radio history at historically Black colleges and universities.

Ohio is one of the top states for data centers, with around 200 already built and more on the way. People around those facilities and future sites are sounding the alarm about their land and water use, utility costs and jobs created, and some communities have enacted moratoriums.

AJ Good turned a childhood obsession with Slipknot into one of the internet's most dedicated mask-collecting platforms, the House of Masks. What began with a gas mask from a friend's attic when Good was six years old has grown into a full-time career spanning YouTube, merchandise, and live events.

This comes after a conservative outlet reported dozens of home health care businesses in Columbus allegedly billed the other government insurance program, Medicaid, for millions of dollars’ worth of services that were never provided.

While the premise may sound whimsical, the column argues that the film reaches for themes far more ambitious than a typical family comedy. The review particularly praises the film’s originality at a time when many studio releases feel overly familiar.

The interview arrives ahead of a busy stretch of local performances for Kaukonen. He and collaborator John Hurlbut will perform free shows during Athens Porchfest this weekend.

ClayStar Studios will present the Feeding Folk Spring Benefest on May 15 at Uncle Buck’s Riding Stable and Dance Barn in Nelsonville.

WOUB Culture has assembled a complete festival guide featuring performance schedules, locations, food and vendor information, and special event details. You can view that information at this link.

Ohio lawmakers are making changes to one of several bills designed to prevent the spread of deepfakes. Those are fake pictures or videos that have been manipulated to misrepresent someone without their consent.

In April, Toledo Public Schools’ Board of Education approved a plan to offset a multimillion-dollar budget deficit, in part, by closing seven elementary schools. It’s not a unique move.

The 2022 lawsuit filed by a coalition of Ohio’s public school districts over the constitutionality of the state’s EdChoice universal voucher program went to the Tenth District Court of Appeals Tuesday.

Hocking Athens Perry Community Action announced Monday the organization will contract with local companies RVC Architects and 740 Construction, Inc. to renovate the Athens motel property into an emergency shelter.

Any bill that restricts gun owners in any way is usually a hard sell in the Ohio Legislature. But a Democratic state lawmaker is pushing forward with a bill he said will promote firearm safety without putting a storage mandate on gun owners.

Canton is known for its role in founding the NFL. But just down the road from the flashy Football Hall of Fame, a small family-owned business is making quieter sports history. The company manufactures shirts, pants and hats for sport’s top shot-callers: referees.

A little over a third of school levies statewide passed in Tuesday’s primary, which is half of the passage rate last May.

Mac DeMarco brought his signature laid-back energy to a packed Agora Theatre and Ballroom in Cleveland Saturday night. The sold-out crowd filled the historic venue for one of the tour's marquee stops.

Unlike major cities, who have been rethinking cooperation with ICE, 10 rural Ohio police departments have signed voluntary 287(g) Task Force Model agreements. These Memorandums of Agreement (MOAs) allow rural police officers to aid in enforcing federal immigration law.

Despite holding the lead going into the final inning, Ohio Softball fell to Western Michigan in a heartbreaker, 7-6. Ohio ends its season with a 38-20 record.

Gov. Mike DeWine has picked Ohio Department of Public Safety Director Andy Wilson to fill in the rest of the term of Attorney General Dave Yost.

This year at the University of Dayton, 26 people have been confirmed — up from six people last year. This trend isn’t unique to Dayton. Other Ohio colleges are reporting similar numbers.

Ohio University’s former head football coach has filed a lawsuit claiming he was let go without a formal investigation into allegations that he denies.

Some rare low-income housing planned for inside the city of Athens took a significant step closer to becoming a reality this week with a vote by the City Council to transfer property to the developer.

Most of the medical discourse surrounding high blood pressure and pregnancy revolves around the possible complications that happen during pregnancy. But an Ohio University researcher is among a group taking an approach that looks at the before and after.

The film stars Anne Hathaway as an iconic pop star who reunites with her estranged fashion designer, played by Michaela Coel. What begins as a tense chamber drama gradually transforms into a surreal supernatural thriller centered on memory, trauma, and artistic creation.

Marty Conley, director of the Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce, says prior to the project, there was only one underground railroad location identified in the area. Now, the initiative is helping share local history that in some cases was unknown to communities.

There could be a big shake up coming among Republicans in state government, as one of the five term-limited statewide executive officeholders is set to suddenly resign from that post.

The Athens County Sheriff’s Office has arrested a person of interest in connection with a death inside an apartment building that caught fire in The Plains Tuesday morning.

The city of Athens’ proposed income tax increase appears to have passed by a slim margin in Tuesday’s election, but that could change.

The Republican races on Tuesday’s ballot included a landslide for governor, an easy win for a statewide officeholder seeking another statewide job, a multi candidate supreme court race and a contest for treasurer that were close. The two Democratic primaries ended with less dramatic results.

There has long been little doubt that tech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy would be the Republican nominee for Ohio governor this year. Tuesday’s primary left no doubt, as Ramaswamy cruised to an easy win over two other candidates listed on the ballot, though votes for only one of them counted.

The sheriff is asking for the public’s help in finding 35-year-old Andrew Joseph Martin. Martin has a warrant for his arrest out of Franklin County for failure to register as a sex offender.