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COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Two Columbus businesses -- a bakery and a coffee and bubble tea shop -- are partnering up for a Downtown location due to a city initiative promoting minority- and women-owned businesses.

Three Bites Bakery and Little Cat Boba will be under one roof at the former Jack and Benny's location at 12 E. Broad St. Three Bites will move out of its current location at 999 Mt. Vernon Ave. while Little Cat will continue to operate out of its East Market location in addition to the new space.

Isabella Bonello, owner of Three Bites, and Raymond Kim, owner of Little Cat, said the partnership was made possible because of the Downtown Ground Floor Growth Initiative -- a program passed by Columbus City Council in October to help small minority- and women-owned businesses locate Downtown.

"Thankfully, we were accepted into this Downtown program," Bonello said. "They really created an opportunity for some small businesses to maybe take the next step, or like for us we're definitely moving to a better location."

"We're first and foremost very thankful for the city for really taking the initiative," Kim said. "Besides the whole plan to bring in a higher population density into Downtown but also taking actual tangible steps, and their overall vision to make the city more inclusive and diverse."

Both businesses will bring their own flare to the location, but the owners said they couldn't pair together any better.

"Given the relationship between baked goods, coffee and boba, it's almost a marriage of sorts," Kim said.

At Three Bites, Bonello specializes in Filipino- and Italian-inspired baked goods. She also sells cakes, offers catering and more. She said she started the business out of her home in 2019, before ramping up operations after losing her job because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, she was able to move into a brick-and-mortar location of her own.

Kim said he started Little Cat because he always had an affinity for coffee. Due to his roots in the West Coast, where he said boba is popular, he also wanted to bring some of the area's "fantastic" bubble tea to Columbus. As for the name, Kim said he got it from a nickname his mother had given him as a child.

"When I was a little child, I had a penchant for snacks, which my mom would hide in high cupboards," Kim said. "I would just crawl over whatever appliance I could, and she likened that behavior to a stray cat, hence the name Little Cat."

While the two businesses will operate in the same spot, they will remain independent.

"We're keeping separate but meshing ourselves with each other," Bonello said.

Despite this, the duo will be able to do new things with both businesses. For Three Bites, Bonello said the new location would allow her to expand her cake program and add a breakfast menu. Meanwhile, Kim expressed his excitement to operate Little Cat out of a bigger space.

Bonello and Kim said there will be room for the two to collaborate, which could include an evening concept, tapas-style options and teaming up with other local businesses.

"I feel like the opportunities are kind of endless for what we can provide in the early evenings," Bonello said. "And we both know so many people in the industry, collaborations are a very real possibility."

The two said they hope the partnership between Three Bites and Little Cat will be open for business in early July.

DUBLIN, Ohio (WCMH) -- Larger-than-life orange snails have popped up in central Ohio as part of a traveling art exhibit from Milan, Italy.

The three snails have been placed on the front lawn of the Dublin Arts Council at 7125 Riverside Drive to serve as a public art exhibit named "Dwelling: A Snail's Journey," open from May 11 through June 28. The sculptures traveled from Milan, where they were created by a group of six Italian-based artists known as "Cracking Art."

Along with an opening reception from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on May 11, the council will unveil a temporary exhibition in coordination with the three giant orange snails. The public artworks "will spark conversation about human connection and our relationship with natural and artificial environments," the council said.

• The three snails have been placed on the front lawn of the Dublin Arts Council at 7125 Riverside Drive. (Courtesy Photo/Dublin Arts Council)
• The three snails have been placed on the front lawn of the Dublin Arts Council at 7125 Riverside Drive. (Courtesy Photo/Dublin Arts Council)

While the Dublin Arts Council is serving as the initial home for the nails, the intention is that the artworks will travel to additional sites in the community. Through programming inspired by the concept of the snail, the council is inviting the community to meet the snails in person and "help build the snails' story and journey."

During the exhibition, the council gallery will be activated with creative prompts, sensory activities and contemplative practices inspired by the nature of snails.

Cracking Art choose to feature snails because the snail moves slowly and patiently, representing moving gradually toward a target. The council noted its shell is also associated with mass communication in Italy, as the Italian word for snail -- "Chiocciola" -- is also the name used for the "@" symbol.

"The helix of its shell, which allows the snail to both hear and move, emphasizes the importance of the ability to listen and the utility of the upward movement that regulates the universe," the council said.

The artists picked to adorn the snails with orange because of the color's association with the changing of seasons, representing movement. Orange is also associated with creativity, health and vitality, the council said.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The network of nonprofits that run Ohio’s victim service programs faces a funding cliff – and if it’s left unaddressed, some won’t survive the fall.

Over 300 organizations across the state help crime victims access housing and healthcare, navigate the courts and recover from violence. From rape crisis shelters to mental health programs and court-appointed advocates, these agencies rely on federal funding from the Victims of Crime Act, funding that has been cut nearly in half after several years of significant decline.

In fiscal year 2018, Ohio received more than $118 million for its assistance programs from the Crime Victims Fund, which is not financed by taxpayers but rather through fines, penalties, and forfeited bail bonds in federal cases. Last year, the state received $46.6 million. In fiscal year 2024, Ohio has been awarded $26.7 million, a 42.8% decrease from 2023 and a 77% decrease from 2018.

VOCA awards aren’t the only funding source for victim assistance programs, but they’re often a significant portion of agencies’ budgets. Some organizations rely wholly on VOCA grants to sustain their operations, said Rosa Beltré, president and CEO of the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence (OAESV).

OAESV and other agencies are calling for action at the local, state and federal level to bridge the funding gap. The statewide sexual violence prevention organization, which oversees nearly three dozen local rape crisis centers, could face devastating impacts to service, Beltré said.

“It would mean layoffs, service reductions. Programs will continue to go ahead and reduce staffing. It would be a crisis,” Beltré said. 

Local rape crisis centers run their own hospital advocate programs, meaning they send advocates to emergency rooms to meet victims and survivors. But OAESV provides hospital accompaniment and legal help in 12 rural communities without local crisis centers – and those services are also at risk.

Court-appointed special advocate programs in Appalachian counties are also likely to bear the greatest weight of VOCA funding cuts, said Doug Stephens, executive director of Ohio CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), which oversees CASA programs in 60 counties. Court-appointed special advocates are volunteers who look out for children’s best interests when navigating the court system. 

Advocates make up what Stephens called the third leg of a three-legged stool: Lawyers figure out what’s legally required for a child, social workers determine what’s physically safe for a child, and court-appointed special advocates make recommendations as to what is emotionally and socially best for a child. That might mean advocating for a child to live with a family member who lives in the same school district or ensuring proximity to mental health care providers.

Stephens said it’s hard to secure local funding for CASA programs because they’re not required by law. While programs in large counties will likely be able to weather the storm, Stephens said up to 10 programs, mainly in Appalachian counties, face closure due to the funding cut.

“Judges, they’re making these life and death decisions for these children. And the lawyers do their part, and the social workers do their part, but the judges can always use more information,” Stephens said. “It’s the judges that asked for this, but it’s not mandatory.”

In February, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and more than 40 state attorneys general urged Congress to provide funds to bridge the VOCA award gap. Beltré said state lawmakers can help make up the lost funds, too, without necessarily making taxpayers foot the bill.

Spokespersons for the Ohio House and Senate majority caucuses did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did the Attorney General’s office.

The funding decrease comes amid rising demand for services. LSS Choices, Franklin County’s sole domestic violence shelter, is frequently at capacity, said Rachel Lustig, president and CEO of Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio. The funding cliff is particularly worrisome as domestic violence homicides in the area rise; a record number of domestic violence homicides happened in Columbus last year.

“It's happening just when people are needing us the most,” Lustig said. “So here we are, our primary funding source no longer there, providing us with something that we can count on when people need a safe place to go.”

Beltré said OAESV, meanwhile, has seen a 93% increase in care requests since the start of the pandemic. A one-time funding boost from the federal government would help stave off imminent threats, but it won’t solve the long-term problem. Ohioans need to understand the breadth of services at risk without buy-in from their communities, Beltré said.

“It really takes a village to actually eradicate violence of any type within our communities of practice,” Beltré said. “We need the alliance of our communities to step forward.”

• Today: Slow clearing, breezy, high 55
• Tonight: Partly cloudy, frost, low 33
• Thursday: Mostly sunny, high 62
• Friday: More clouds, showers late, high 73
• Saturday: Sct'd storms, breezy, high 77
• Sunday: Some sun, iso. storm, high 82

Happy Wednesday!

Rain has cleared the region, and drier, albeit colder air is settling in. Expect cloud coverage most of the morning, before clouds slowly begin to break into the afternoon and evening. Highs drop back to the middle 50s this afternoon, with a slight breeze.

Freeze alerts then take effect tonight, as clearer skies allow for a steep temperature drop, back near freezing into Thursday morning. If you have outdoor plants, you'll want to cover them or bring them inside.

For Thursday afternoon, we'll see mainly sunny skies, with highs back into the lower 60s, with less of a breeze.

We really heat up on Friday, with highs into the lower 70s, and partly cloudy skies. We'll be dry most of Friday, before scattered showers move in Friday night into Saturday.

We will see some shower chances this weekend, but it's far from a washout, and not a weekend everyone will see rain or storms. It will be very pop-up type activity, and very scattered, as our southerly flow kicks in. That warms us up, but also increases our moisture. Highs will be in the upper 70s Saturday, low 80s Sunday, with a strong wind both days.

-McKenna

WebAssembly runtime maker Wasmer has unveiled py2wasm, a Python-to-WebAssembly compiler that transforms Python programs to the WebAssembly (aka Wasm) binary instruction format.

Using a fork of the Nuitka Python compiler, py2wasm converts Python programs to Wasm, allowing them to run without interpreter overhead. Introduced April 18, py2wasm addresses a situation in which the performance of Python programs in WebAssembly has been less than ideal, Wasmer founder and CEO Syrus Akbary wrote in a blog post. Akbary said that py2wasm gets about 70% of native Python speed, and is about 2.5x to 3x faster than the Python interpreter.

To read this article in full, please click here

Generative AI entered the global consciousness with a bang at the close of 2022 (cue: ChatGPT), but making it work in the enterprise has amounted to little more than a series of stumbles. Shadow AI use in the enterprise is sky high as employees are making day-to-day task companions out of AI chat tools. But for the knowledge-intensive workflows that are core to an organization’s mission, generative AI has yet to deliver on its lofty promise to transform the way we work.

To read this article in full, please click here

WebAssembly was originally designed to give in-browser web applications a way to run portable, sandboxed, high-performance binaries. As WASM matures beyond the browser, new uses for the technology are emerging. Using WASM to build programmability and extensibility into applications is one use case that is gathering steam.

The Extism software library lets you write programs that can interface with extensions written in WebAssembly. Extism handles the data and function-calling interface between code written in your host application and the WASM extensions. This lets you focus on writing the functionality in your application and extensions, rather than dealing manually with WASM's data types or calling conventions.

To read this article in full, please click here

Promises are a central mechanism for handling asynchronous code in JavaScript. You will find them in many JavaScript libraries and frameworks, where they're used to manage the results of an action. The fetch() API is one example of promises at work. As a developer, you might not be familiar with creating and using promises outside of an existing product, but it's surprisingly simple. Learning how to create promises will help you understand how libraries use them. It also puts a powerful asynchronous programming mechanism at your disposal.

In the following example, we're using a Promise to handle the results of a network operation. Instead of making a network call, we just use a timeout:

To read this article in full, please click here

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- ADAMH, a mental health service in Franklin County, said post-pandemic, alcohol use disorder affects about 1 in 9 adults in the county.

Data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health also shows a troubling trend: more adults and young adults are binge drinking in Franklin County than compared with the national average.

However, ADAMH said alcohol use disorder goes beyond statistics. It’s also about spreading awareness and creating a space where people feel comfortable asking for help.

It’s a message one Columbus man is emphasizing as he nears the end of his time at an addiction treatment center.

In January 2023, Ronald Lockhart woke up in a hospital bed.

"There was a doctor next to my bed, flipping through this clipboard and he told me I wasn't going to make it. 'You're going to die.'" Lockhart, currently a Maryhave client, said.

This wasn’t the first time.

"That was the 10th time that had happened to me and I had pretty much just given up," he said. "But this time, I don't know, I could change. I had changed, I didn't want to die."

Lockhart admits he struggles with addiction.

"If I take a drink of liquor, I can't stop drinking," he said. "And I know there's people that can understand that."

Now he’s sharing his story in the hope it can inspire others to get the help they need.

"I made up my mind that I was going to stay clean and sober no matter what, and my sobriety date is actually today of last year," Lockhart said. 

He credits Maryhaven with his progress. Maryhaven, an ADAMH partner, offers addiction counseling, in-patient stays, and much more to help those with substance use disorders live better lives.

"The other problem with alcohol and other substances is that once you start to use them, your body develops that tolerance to it," ADAMH System Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Delaney Smith said. "You get psychological dependence on it as well. So it can be very, very hard to stop."

ADAMH and its partner organizations are working to make sure people feel comfortable asking for help, no matter if they just realized they are struggling or are at rock bottom.

"What we're really wanting to do is open up conversations so people feel comfortable getting help, reaching out to loved ones, maybe starting a conversation with someone that they're concerned about the pattern of their alcohol use," Smith said. 

Data sent by ADAMH shows binge drinking in adults and young adults in cental Ohio is higher than both the national and state average by about three percent. They said not only is the area seeing the increasing problematic use of alcohol but also the negative health consequences that come along with it. These can include liver impairment, withdrawal symptoms and even death.

"I hope if anybody sees this, you can learn from my mistakes because you don't need to go through all that. It's not necessary. You can get the help you need," Lockhart said. "Alcohol is a lot more silent to get addicted to because you don't realize it until it's too late."

If you or a loved one is struggling with alcohol use, ADAMH encourages you to reach out. More information can be found here. 

LOGAN, Ohio (WCMH) -- Facing disbarment and a sexual harassment lawsuit, Hocking County's former prosecutor said alcohol use and mental health disorders contributed to his conduct.

In response to a filing with the Ohio Supreme Court Board of Professional Conduct, former Hocking County Prosecutor Ryan R. Black denied all allegations levied against him by the state disciplinary board.

One of those allegations includes coercing a woman who worked in the office into a sexual relationship, which is the subject of a civil lawsuit filed in February.

The response also denies that Black engaged in a sexual relationship with then-Hocking County Commissioner Jessica Dicken in August 2023, when Dicken, as a commissioner, was a client of Black, who served as the commission's legal counsel.

In addition to denying all the accusations against him, the response, filed Tuesday, also claims alcohol and a mental health issue led to Black's alleged behaviors.

"... at times relevant to the allegations in the Complaint, Respondent [Black] suffered from a mental health disorder and an alcohol use disorder (for which Respondent is seeking ongoing treatment), which contributed to cause any conduct for which Respondent is responsible," the response states.

In addition, Black is accused of trying to intimidate the county's IT director Mark Stout into putting his office's computer system issues above the director's other county responsibilities, threatening to have Stout arrested.

The complaint also accuses Black of "erratic" behavior often consisting of "screaming outbursts" and "refus[ing] to speak to staff members for several days," and of making sexually charged comments to women working in his office.

Black is facing three counts in the misconduct complaint: inappropriate sexual conduct with employees, inappropriate sexual conduct with client, and inappropriate use of public office.

Two judges and a mediator -- none of whom live in Black's district -- were appointed to the panel that will hear his case. A date for that hearing hasn't been scheduled as of Tuesday.

Should the panel find against Black, he faces sanctions up to and including disbarment.

Black, who was on the primary election ballot in March and finished last, resigned in March, with the resignation taking effect on April 19.

Black received his license to practice law in Ohio in November 2018 and was elected Hocking County prosecutor in November 2020.

The complaint as well as Black's response can be read below.

WARNING: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE IN THE DOCUMENTS BELOW. DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

• What do you call "Stuxnet on steroids"??
• Voyager 1 update
• Android 15 to quarantine apps
• Thunderbird & Microsoft Exchange
• China bans Western encrypted messaging apps
• Gentoo says "no" to AI
• Cars collecting diving data
• Freezing your credit
• Investopedia
• Computer Science Abstractions
• Lazy People vs. Secure Systems
• Actalis issues free S/MIME certificates
• PIN Encryption
• DRAM and GhostRace
• AT&T Phishing Scam
• Race Conditions and Multi-core processors
• An Alternative to the Current Credit System
• SpinRite Updates
• Chat (out of) Control

Show Notes - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-971-Notes.pdf

Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte

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