Program Directory

 
Feagler and Friends - Move-in Day for Ted Strickland
Feagler and Friends
 
 
 
Newsmaker: Gary Suhadolnik, executive director, Ohio Turnpike. 2007 ushers in new tolls, making it more expensive for some to travel the turnpike, less expensive for others. Cars will pay more, the biggest 18-wheelers will pay less. Lower truck tolls are an attempt by the Turnpike Commission to entice truckers away from the narrow and more dangerous surface roads paralleling the toll road. Motorists will also notice a new brand of gasoline. Valero, a San Antonio-based brand, is taking over from Sunoco at turnpike service plazas.

Roundtable: Kevin O'Brien, editorial writer, The Plain Dealer; Tim McCormack, former Cuyahoga County Commissioner; Mike Roberts, freelance journalist.

Move-in Day for Ted Strickland: Ohio's new democratic governor officially takes the reins of the executive branch Monday. Ted Strickland leaves Congress with the hope of restoring confidence in a state government rocked by scandal and perceived inertia. Strickland is joined at the top of the state government organizational chart by several other democratic office holders, but he'll work with a legislature still controlled by the GOP.

Madam Speaker: California democrat Nancy Pelosi becomes the first woman to be Speaker of the House. She and the new democratic majority are pledged to their "100 hours" strategy of passing measures like a minimum wage increase without republican amendments. Republicans say the democrats have reneged on a pledge of bipartisanship in the House. Senate leaders, meanwhile, met privately and emerged promising a cordial working relationship in the upper chamber.

Week in Iraq: The U.S military death toll passed the 3,000 mark as controversy swirled around the swift execution of former dictator Saddam Hussein. Saddam's executioners were heard taunting him in video bootlegged from the death chamber. The video has infuriated Saddam's Sunni backers. Iraq's government has made arrests and promises punishment. Former President Ford, quoted in an interview embargoed until after his death, was critical of the Bush administration for using weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for the Iraq war.

Police Radios: The Department of Homeland Security says safety agencies in greater Cleveland are poorly equipped to communicate with each other in regional crises. Greater Cleveland ranked at the bottom of the metropolitan areas evaluated by DHS. Officials blame the problem on dozens of different radio systems in use that can't be linked to systems in neighboring communities. They say the solution is money; and that's lacking.
January 8, 2007