Ohio

One of the oldest Roman Catholic colleges in the U.S., Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, has stood up against President Barack Obama's birth-control policy by saying it will cut off contraceptive coverage to its employees by July.

The move comes as thousands across the U.S. are still holding rallies and protesting against Obama's policy that wants to force religious institutions to provide insurance that covers contraceptive costs.

Abortion and artificial birth control methods are prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church, who want to preserve pro-life ideals. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, the highest ranking Catholic bishop in America, recently said on Bill O Reilly's Fox show "The Factor" that the Church has no plans of backing down from its pro-life position, which he calls a matter of freedom of religion. more >>

With a bed and a stripper pole placed next to his pulpit, a pastor in Ohio is all set to begin a series of sermons on sex and relationships beginning Sunday.

Ready to start a new sermon series called "Battle of the Sexes," Pastor Mike Scruggs at the Light of Word Ministries in White Oak, Ohio, has put a stripper pole, video games and sports equipment on one side of the pulpit, representing what men desire. On the other side, he has set up a bed with candies, teddy bears, roses and a bottle of wine to depict what women want.

On all Sundays in April, Scruggs will share about best practices in bedroom, keeping intimacy alive and the need to build and maintain trust. "Right now we're having single people having too much sex and married people not having enough sex," he told Fox19. more >>

Correction Appended 

CANTON, Ohio – Dale Settle Jr. had a vision to take the business degree he was working toward at The University of Akron and use it to establish a ministry that would help people with both their physical and spiritual needs. He was killed by a gunman before he ever saw the ministry take form, but the vision he had is being carried on today by his father and step-mother and the foundation that now bears his name.

"The Dale Settle Jr. Foundation is not something that we came up with because Dale died. We were working on this before," Dale Settle Sr. told The Christian Post on Thursday. more >>

Classes resumed Friday at the Chardon, Ohio, high school that was the scene of a devastating shooting spree this week. Three students were killed and two others were left injured.

Students piled back into their classrooms following an emotional and distressing week as parents and police were on hand to show support and offer a semblance of security to the devastated teens.

One group of teens decided to march in line back into Chardon High School building. The students met at 9:30 a.m. about three-quarters of a mile away from the school and marched arm-in-arm back into the school building to show solidarity. more >>

Assistant football coach Frank Hall, deemed the hero of the recent student shooting at Chadron High School in Chadron, Ohio, quoted the Bible passage Matthew 5:14 Thursday afternoon at a press conference.

Hall spoke briefly after officials announced the charges of 17-year-old T.J. Lane, who allegedly shot and killed three fellow students and injured two others, after bringing a gun to Chardon High School Monday morning.

Lane entered the school's cafeteria at approximately 7:30 a.m. Monday and allegedly fired 10 times with a .22 caliber pistol at a table of students. He also admitted to bringing a knife to the school the morning of the shooting, according to authorities.  more >>

The grief-stricken mother of one of the three teens killed in Monday's shooting spree inside an Ohio high school echoed the words Jesus spoke from the cross as she said she had forgiven the suspected gunman, T.J. Lane, who "didn't know what he was doing."

"I forgive him because, a lot of times, they don't know what they're doing," said Phyllis Ferguson, the mother of 16-year-old Demetrius Hewlin who was pronounced dead in a hospital Tuesday, a day after the shooting incident at Chardon High School.

"I taught Demetrius not to live in the past, to live in today and forgiveness is divine," Ferguson, who remembered her son as a "huggy, kissy boy … computer nerd," told ABC News during an interview Wednesday. "You have to forgive everything. God's grace is new each and every day. Until you've walked in another person's shoes, you don't know what made him come to this point." more >>