Doug Caruso
USA TODAY
Columbus, OH, United States
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Past articles by Doug:
What happens if a dam fails? An inside look at one city’s nightmare scenario
Take a visual tour of known problems at the Overholser Dam in Oklahoma City and trace the devastating flood that would follow if it failed. → Read More
Facebook posts seeking missing Black children get much less attention than posts of white kids
Research has shown that news media and police pay less attention when people of color disappear. We found it's also true for Facebook audiences. → Read More
County election officials wait to hear Ohio’s plan for controlling voter registration
Local election officials across Ohio are keeping a skeptical eye but an open mind on Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s idea to give the state more control of voter registration systems and voter purges.LaRose has called the decentralized system that leaves it to 88 county boards of elections to clean up their own voter rolls “unacceptably messy” after problems were uncovered with two 2019 voter… → Read More
Ohio’s voter registration purge targeted thousands in error. Now, a call for change.
Ohio’s 2019 voter registration purge targeted thousands in error. Here’s how the state’s elections chief plans to restore trust. → Read More
More than 100 'high-hazard' dams across Ohio need upgrades, repairs
Hargus Lake Dam near Circleville in among the more than 100 Ohio dams in poor or unsatisfactory condition whose failure could threaten lives and property. The condition of Ohio's dams remains a concern four years after the start of the Buckeye Lake Dam restoration, and a Dispatch investigation, brought the issue to the fore. → Read More
Democrats call on secretary of state to halt 'deeply flawed' voter purge
COLUMBUS Opponents of Ohio’s voter purge renewed calls Monday to stop plans to remove the names of thousands of registered voters next week → Read More
Democrats call on secretary of state to halt 'deeply flawed' voter purge
Opponents of Ohio’s voter purge renewed calls Monday to stop plans to remove the names of thousands of registered voters next week after a vendor → Read More
Vendor's errors lead to hundreds of voters targeted for purge in Ohio
A vendor who works with county boards of elections mistakenly flagged more than 1,600 people for purging from the rolls of eligible voters, marking → Read More
Wet weather wreaks havoc on some crops
Mark Amato, president of the Marlborough-based Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation, said despite heavy rains in many parts of the country, Massachusetts farmers did "all right in terms of the quantity and price of crops.” → Read More
Weather makes 2019 planting season worst in Ohio history
More than 15% of state's farm acreage rendered unusable, according to USDA data. → Read More
Weather makes 2019 planting season worst in Ohio history
More than 15% of state's farm acreage rendered unusable, according to USDA data. → Read More
Ohio farmers face empty fields in worst weather-prevented planting season on record, USDA says
More than one in seven acres in Ohio went unplanted for farmers in the federal crop insurance program, the highest rate in the country. In some Ohio counties, nearly half of agricultural land lies fallow after heavy spring rains prevented crops from being planted. → Read More
Ohio sues opioid makers, distributors — while it gives them large tax breaks
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has said he has no doubt that drug makers and distributors are responsible for Ohio's opioid crisis as he called on them to settle state lawsuits against them, presumably for a large sum.But throughout the opioid epidemic and to this day, state leaders have supported a tax break that has been worth more than $4 billion since 2006 that has gone in large part to companies… → Read More
Ohio sues opioid makers, distributors — while giving them large tax breaks
Distribution centers, including those used by drug makers, can qualify for a tax break established more than a dozen years ago when Ohio changed how it taxes businesses. → Read More
Homemade semi-automatic weapons among thousands of guns Columbus police recover each year
More than 25,000 weapons have been taken off Columbus streets by police in the past decade. Most are seized during criminal investigations, including those for drug sales, robberies, assaults and homicides, or in instances where a person was not allowed to carry the weapon legally. → Read More
Billions of opioids shipped to Ohio in just 7 years
Nearly 3.4 billion prescription pain pills flooded the Buckeye State from 2006 through 2012, according to a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration database released as part of the largest civil action in U.S. history. → Read More
Ohio's population ages fast as services try to keep up
By 2030, the U.S. Census Bureau predicts, people over the age of 65 will outnumber children under the age of 18 for the first time in the nation's history. → Read More
Ohio ranks ninth in spending tax dollars to buy out flood-prone property owners
The next time Whims Ditch overflows its banks in a torrential rainstorm, fewer houses will be flooded.Franklin County, with the help of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, spent $2.8 million to buy and remove 24 houses under a program that offers buyouts to owners of chronically flooded properties. Whims Ditch, a shallow stream that runs through Franklin Township a few miles southwest of… → Read More
Columbus now bigger than San Francisco, Census says
According to new population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday, the city of Columbus has more residents than the city of San Francisco. But the San Francisco metropolitan area is still more than twice as populous as the Columbus metro area. → Read More
Scooter companies are slow to move to struggling neighborhoods
When Columbus wrote new regulations for the electric scooters that blanketed the city last summer, it told Lime and Bird to distribute a chunk of the → Read More