Several candidates have tossed their hats into the ring to replace former state Rep. Jeff Manning, who recently resigned to take the position of Lorain Co. prosecutor.

Click on the "Read More..." link below to learn more about efforts to replace this pro-CCW, OFCC PAC 2002 endorsee.

Brook Park - Police remained baffled yesterday over the shooting death of Ramona Krotine, whose body was found Friday in the trunk of her car at a rapid transit station.

Cuyahoga County Coroner Elizabeth Balraj said Krotine was shot once in the neck and was beaten on the neck and head.

"We have no leads," Police Chief Kevin McQuaid said.

Krotine, 53, a wife and mother of three who lived in a quiet middle-class neighborhood in Parma, worked at a fudge stand at the International Exposition Center in Brook Park during the Cleveland Sports, Travel and Outdoor Show Thursday night.

After the show, she apparently went to a party with I-X workers at the Clarion Hotel on Bagley Road in Middleburg Heights. Police say she was last seen walking to her car in the lot about 1:30 a.m. Friday.

Family members issued a statement through police, saying Krotine "was a devoted wife, a loving mother and a valued friend and co-worker of many."

Meanwhile, in a state that allows (some) law-abiding citizens to carry a concealed handgun for self-defense, a different outcome resulted when this California real estate agent was attacked by a would-be rapist:

Click on the Read More..." link below for the full story.

A Republican state legislator [and 2002 OFCC PAC endorsee] said he will announce this week that he will challenge incumbent Don Plusquellic for mayor.

State Rep. Bryan Williams said the city needs new leadership after 17 years of City Hall being run by Plusquellic, a Democrat who is seeking re-election next year.

He doesn't have the fire in the belly to get the job done," Williams, 38, said of Plusquellic, 53. "He's bored. He wants to be president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors more than he wants to be mayor of Akron."

Williams said he has received significant support already for his campaign.

"There are a lot of people eager to part company with Don Plusquellic," Williams said.

Click here to read the entire story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

After the firing of (former) Emory professor Michael Bellesiles for having falsified research in his anti-gun book, "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture", after Columbia University retracted their awarding of the Bancroft Prize to him for the book, and after having his book pulled from publication, the anti-gunner's needed to try and hit the good guys back.

They thought they had their man in Dr. John Lott, when the Washington Post printed a report last month that he had posted comments about his book to a website under a pseudonym. The attackers further tried to make hay of the fact that Lott had lost much of the research he used in writing his first book in a hard drive crash. What they could not and did not do, however, is disprove the facts concerning his research. And faulty research was the very heart of the Bellesiles scandal.

While Dr. Lott is far from the only researcher, that has come to the conclusion that more guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans equals less crime, he is perhaps the most well known. No matter how well known, it is important that ALL researcher's works be weighed on merit alone.

Not only has Lott responded to this personal attack, but many others have come to his defense as well. Yet until now, the Post refused to print any response. Finally, they have.

Click here to read Lott's letter to the editor in the Washington Post.