Emmy Award-winning Feagler & Friends is a lively, weekly half-hour television discussion of local and national issues impacting lives in Northeast Ohio. Hosted by award-winning journalist and former Plain Dealer columnist, Dick Feagler, Feagler & Friends explores the various issues behind today's news. With a changing ensemble of "friends" ranging from journalists to community and political leaders, Feagler & Friends takes on issues from many different perspectives. Always entertaining and never boring, Feagler & Friends is the program for people "in the know" in Northeast Ohio.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Short URL  Share Leave a Comment

Roundtable: Joan Mazzolini, reporter, The Plain Dealer; Chris Sheridan, editorial writer, The Plain Dealer; Harry Boomer, reporter, 19 Action News.

Voting Machine Troubles: A study by California’s Election Science Institute again calls into question the accuracy of Cuyahoga County’s electronic voting devices. The study says the information in the machines’ electronic memory rarely matched the results recorded by their paper back-ups. As a result, the study concluded, a recount in a close election probably couldn’t have produced an accurate result. A spokesman for machine maker Diebold said the study was flawed, not the machines.

School Report Cards: Annual report cards from the state department of education showed Ohio schools doing a better overall job of teaching reading, math and writing. State educators were particularly impressed that test scores improved in most of the urban districts. One of those with no measurable improvement was Cleveland, where the school district failed to meet any of the 25 standards. Despite that, the Cleveland schools managed to avoid being declared in “academic emergency.”

Population Shrinkage: The Census Bureau says Cleveland’s population continues to shrink and could well plummet under the 400,000 mark by this time next year. Metropolitan Cleveland held steady at about 2.9-million, but Cuyahoga County lost population as people continued to migrate to newer housing in places like Medina and Lorain Counties.

Middle East Cease-Fire: Residents are trickling back to their hometowns in southern Lebanon, sometimes to find they have no homes to return to. International authorities are rushing to put peacekeepers in place hoping to preserve and extend a fragile cease-fire. Both Israel and Hezbollah claim victory after a month of fighting.

Welfare Reform: Next week brings the tenth anniversary of the legislation that promised to “end welfare as we know it.” Critics predicted it would lead to widespread misery, but the reality turned out to be far different. The government reported poverty rates declined, helped somewhat by the economic boom of the late 90s. But the percentage of people living in poverty remained lower even through the mild recession of 2001. Today, the welfare caseload is about a third of what it was in the early 90s.

Leave a Comment

Please note that all comments must adhere to ideastream's discussion rules and terms of use. Name:

Email:

Comment:

Please enter the word you see in the image below:

Send questions and comments to feagler@wviz.org.