All information is current as of The Scoop’s production on Tuesday morning. Click the links for the most up-to-date information. The Athens County Independent believes the cited sources of information are reliable; however, these sources are responsible for the accuracy of their own reporting.
Submit news and information to info@athensindependent.com by noon on Mondays for inclusion in Tuesday’s issue of The Scoop.
Local
The Ohio Environmental Agency granted more than $312,000 for recycling and litter prevention in southeast Ohio, including Hocking College, Athens County Department of Job and Family Services, Athens-Hocking Solid Waste District, Rural Action, and Southeast Ohio Recycling Terminal. (Ohio Environmental Protection Agency)
The 11th Annual Bur Oak Alive Boat Flotilla was held at the start of the month to raise money for Burr Oak Alive, a nonprofit that works to maintain the state park in Glouster. (WOUB)
A local chapter of Promoting Educational Opportunities announced its scholarship winners for the 2025–2026 academic year, awarded to local women of all ages enrolled in accredited colleges/universities. The group awarded a total of $28,400 to 16 area residents. (Promoting Educational Opportunities)
Regional
The historic Hotel McArthur, Vinton County’s oldest building, caught fire in the morning Tuesday, July 8, with flames and thick smoke reported around 9 a.m. The following day, Lieutenant Evan Knox with the McArthur Fire Department told WSAZ the building’s roof and part of its second floor collapsed, and suggested an electrical surge may have caused the blaze. (ABC6, WSAZ)
Former Hocking County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Caleb Moritz is seeking the return of his $50,000 bond following a mistrial in his felony witness intimidation and theft case. (Logan Daily)
A Michigan woman was struck by a falling tree while hiking in the Hocking Hills and died Tuesday, July 1, along the Lower Rim trail in Conkles Hollow State Nature Preserve. (Columbus Dispatch)
State
The food assistance program SNAP will now require Ohio to assume benefit expenses for the first time. The federal spending bill passed and signed in early July will shift roughly 10% of Ohio’s SNAP benefit costs—an estimated $315 million—onto the state in 2028. (Statehouse News Bureau)
Twenty members of Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Mobile Field Force were sent to Texas to help with flooding rescue and recovery efforts after the Guadalupe River caused mass devastation when it rose over 26 feet in an hour at the start of the month. (Statehouse News Bureau)
A defamation lawsuit in Cambridge is the first to test Ohio’s new anti-SLAPP law, designed to allow defendants to file a fast-track review process for cases they believe are meant to silence their free speech. (Ohio Capital Journal)
State restrictions on which healthcare professionals can prescribe or provide drugs that cause abortions are likely headed to the Ohio Supreme Court. A Hamilton County judge issued a third injunction against the restrictions on grounds that they violate the reproductive rights amendment to the Ohio Constitution that voters approved in 2023. (The Statehouse News Bureau)
Ohio’s independent and private colleges won’tberequired to comply with the provision of Senate Bill 1, a public higher education overhaul that eliminated DEI programs, to be eligible for state-sponsored scholarships. Previously, the Ohio biennium budget would have required compliance, but that provision was removed from the bill before it passed. (Statehouse News Bureau)
