Today is Election Day.  Polls will remain open until 7:30pm.

Ballreich's Potato Chips in tiffin suffered its second fire in less than a week Monday afternoon.  Monday's fire at the factory was reported about 2 p.m., and personnel from three fire departments responded to fight it.  The fire was in the production room on the factory's second floor and started with the same equipment as Thursday's fire.  Both fires were due to a malfunctioning machine.

There is plenty of high school football playoff action this weekend.  On Friday, Mix 96.7 WBVI will bring you the McComb Panthers and Convoy Crestview.  ESPN Radio 1430 WFOB will have Tiffin Calvert at Hicksville.  wfob.com Gridiron One has Arlington at Leipsic.  All games kick-off at 7:30pm.  On Saturday, Mix 96.7 WBVI will feature Van Buren at Gibsonburg at 7pm.

Cooper Tire and Rubber profits grew 11 percent last quarter to $53.2 million.  Officials attribute the gains to the selling of more high-profit tires in North and Latin America.  Overall sales declined 15 percent because of the absence of Cooper’s former partner, Cooper Chengshan Tire Co., in China.  However, excluding the loss of Cooper Chengshan, Cooper Tire’s $782.4 million in sales were 2 percent more than a year earlier.

The Hancock County Veterans Council will conduct a Veterans Day parade and services Sunday.  The parade will line up at 12:30 p.m. at East Lincoln and South Main streets and continue formation along East Lincoln Street. The parade will start at 2 p.m. proceeding from East Lincoln Street and north on Main Street to the War Memorial at Center and North Main streets, where services will be held honoring veterans.
 

Blanchard Valley Hospital was honored with an “A” grade in the Fall 2015 Hospital Safety Score, which rates how well hospitals protect patients from errors, injuries and infections.  The Hospital Safety Score is compiled under the guidance of national experts on patient safety and is administered by the Leapfrog Group, a national, independent nonprofit organization.  The score uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a score of A-F, representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from preventable harm.  More than 2,500 U.S. general hospitals were assigned scores in October, with 773 hospitals receiving an “A” grade.

Sen. Cliff Hite of Findlay will host hearings across the state as he explores what steps lawmakers might take to curtail or eliminate the fees.  The concern of Hite and others, including Secretary of State Jon Husted, who has been doing behind-the-scenes work on the issue, is that fees that can exceed $600 per co-curricular activity discourage participation.  They worry that is especially true when a student wants to do multiple sports and activities, or if a family has multiple students who want to participate.  The first hearing on participation fees will be on Nov. 12 at the Statehouse.  In addition, Hite also wants to discuss youth concussions and sudden cardiac arrest, and school start dates.

Former Ohio Governor and current US Senate candidate Ted Strickland shared coffee, doughnuts and concerns about the cost of higher education with students this past Friday morning at Grounds for Thoughts in Bowling Green.  More than a dozen students gathered and told individual stories about the stress of paying for college.  Strickland touted a number of proposals put forth by his fellow Democrats, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders to the students.  Those ideas include proposals to allow students to pay back their loans with payments of no more than 10 percent of their income.