Ohio

An Ohio woman who gave birth to a baby boy after a fertility clinic implanted her with the wrong embryo is a "guardian angel," the boy's biological parents said Saturday. Paul and Shannon Morell of suburban Detroit said in a statement that they would be "eternally grateful" to Carolyn Savage, of Sylvania, Ohio, for her decision to give birth to their child despite the clinic's mistake. "We will be eternally grateful for his guardian angel, Carolyn Savage, and the support of the entire Savage family," the Morells said.

Hundreds of gulls were killed or maimed in Cleveland after what investigators believe was cooking oil spewed from a sewer pipe into the Cuyahoga River. Investigators said Friday that several hundred gallons of the substance killed or disabled hundreds of gulls near the Kingsbury Run tributary. Most of the birds are just downstream from the site where environmentalists last week celebrated the Cuyahoga River's comeback since floating oil and debris caught fire on June 22, 1969.

An eroding economy has left industrial state voters uneasy and angry, and as Hillary Rodham Clinton made her last stops in Wisconsin before today's primary and Barack Obama swept across Ohio in advance of the state's March 4 contest, both tailored their messages to tie into the anxious mood.

As they race back and forth between Ohio and Texas in advance of their March 4 primary showdown, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are squaring off over who has the answer to the nation's spiraling foreclosure crisis. Neither presidential rival offers a comprehensive solution, economists say, but that has not inhibited them from touting their populist credentials and tugging at voters' heartstrings.

Whoever wins the crucial Ohio Democratic presidential primary Tuesday, thanks will probably be owed to the likes of Jim Aldrich, a 61-year-old union worker at the Glatfelter paper mill on the southern edge of this small industrial city. But even Aldrich doesn't know from whom to collect the "thank you," because he still hasn't decided what he is going to do in the voting booth.

A campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination that has pivoted on race and gender could be decided here today by another divide, the state's urban north versus the rural south -- pitting Ohio's popular governor against a cadre of big-city mayors. While Sens.

In winning New Hampshire a few weeks ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton declared, "I found my own voice." But it was a much different voice in the closing days before Tuesday's voting that carried her to victory in Ohio and Texas -- and which now lets her make a strong case for extending the Democratic presidential race into the spring and possibly beyond. Gone was the misty-eyed Clinton who scored points showing her human side.

Patricia Lyons stood in wind-whipped drizzle outside a westside neighborhood polling site Tuesday evening and talked about her choice for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. "She can swim with the sharks," said Lyons, 59, a customer service representative for a local utility. "Obama . . . he is all rhetoric. Granted, it's lovely rhetoric, but I don't believe he has what it takes."

The California Nurses Assn. on Wednesday secured a temporary restraining order against the Service Employees International Union, accusing it of harassing the board members of the Oakland-based group. The two influential nationwide unions have a long, acrimonious rivalry that reached a new height in March after they publicly battled over whether the SEIU should represent more than 8,000 nurses and other healthcare workers in Ohio. The dispute flared again at a labor conference in Dearborn, Mich.

As the architect of Ohio's ballot measure against gay marriage, Phil Burress helped draw thousands of conservative voters to the polls in 2004, most of whom also cast ballots to reelect President Bush. So Burress was not surprised when two high-level staffers from John McCain's campaign dropped by his office, asking for his help this fall. What surprised Burress was how badly the meeting went.