Florida wildlife officials have given preliminary approval to a plan to reopen Apalachicola Bay for oyster harvesting, five years after the waters were closed due to dwindling shellfish populations.

As thousands of U.S. counties and towns report vote totals, it can be hard to figure out when the results reported so far will reflect the outcome.

The opinion comes as communities across the country fight solar and wind development, which play an important role in slowing climate change but use a lot of land.

In Franklin County, a group of locals are concerned about potential environmental harm from renewable energy facilities and support a bill that would impose more regulations on solar and wind. The industry says it’s being unfairly singled out.

A fired Vermont deputy sheriff who is the only candidate on the November ballot to become sheriff says he did nothing wrong when he kicked a handcuffed and shackled prisoner.

A man pleaded not guilty in Ohio to charges of raping a 10-year-old girl who traveled to Indiana for an abortion.

The Ohio sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot Casey Goodson Jr. in the back five times asked Friday to move the criminal case into federal court.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The mother of a Black man shot by an Ohio sheriff's deputy demanded answers Wednesday to her son's death, saying he'd done nothing wrong and was returning from the dentist with sandwiches for his family when he was killed. Police have only said that the deputy “shot” Goodson without detailing how many shots were fired. The deputy who shot Goodson was Jason Meade, a 17-year veteran of the sheriff’s office. One witness heard Meade command Goodson to drop his gun, and when he didn’t, the deputy shot him, Tobin said. The sheriff’s office does not provide officers with body cameras, and the deputy’s SWAT vehicle did not have a dash-mounted camera.

This photo made on Oct. 6, 2020, in Westerville, Ohio, shows Ohio absentee ballots. (AP Photo/Kantele Franko)COLUMBUS, Ohio – Nearly 50,000 voters received incorrect absentee ballots in the county that is home to Ohio’s capital and largest city, elections officials said Friday as they promised corrected ballots would be mailed within 72 hours. With about 240,000 ballots mailed, that meant one in five voters received a wrong ballot. The Franklin County Elections Board said 49,669 voters received incorrect ballots out of 237,498 that were mailed. LaRose said Friday that while the Franklin County board made “a serious mistake,” the county was working hard to fix it.

This photo made on Oct. 6, 2020, in Westerville, Ohio, shows Ohio absentee ballots. (AP Photo/Kantele Franko)BOSTON – Several high-profile cases of voters getting incorrect blank absentee ballots in the mail are raising questions about how often such mix-ups occur and whether they could affect this year's presidential election. About 100,000 absentee ballots with the wrong names and addresses printed on the return envelopes were sent to voters in Brooklyn, N.Y., in late September. County elections spokesman Mike Sanchez said every affected voter has already been mailed a corrected ballot. His bigger concern is the tendency of some election officials to rely heavily on outside contractors, for mail-in and in-person voting.

This photo made on Oct. 6, 2020, in Westerville, Ohio, shows Ohio absentee ballots. (AP Photo/Kantele Franko)BOSTON – Several high-profile cases of voters getting incorrect blank absentee ballots in the mail are raising questions about how often such mix-ups occur and whether they could affect this year's presidential election. About 100,000 absentee ballots with the wrong names and addresses printed on the return envelopes were sent to voters in Brooklyn, N.Y., in late September. County elections spokesman Mike Sanchez said every affected voter has already been mailed a corrected ballot. His bigger concern is the tendency of some election officials to rely heavily on outside contractors, for mail-in and in-person voting.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio judge has temporarily blocked the Republican secretary of state’s order limiting counties in the critical presidential battleground to one ballot drop box, and the state and Republicans have appealed. The state immediately appealed, and the Ohio Republican Party followed suit late Thursday, placing the fate of the order on hold. The faceoff makes unclear how many drop boxes will be available to Ohio voters just 2 1/2 weeks before voting begins Oct. 6. Access to ballot drop boxes has become an urgent matter nationally amid the coronavirus pandemic, questions about mail-in voting security and cutbacks at the post office. The Ohio Republican Party lashed out at Frye as a “partisan judge" and accused him of colluding with fellow Democrats before issuing his decision.