Thunder Dome B!%<#

Top of Mind

Columbus Is About to Get Slow-Cooked

Ohio is about to be placed under a weather lid and slow-cooked until further notice.

Meteorologists call it a “heat dome,” which sounds fake, dramatic, and exactly like something your uncle would blame on the government. But it is very real, and this week it is parking itself over the Midwest like a giant invisible Crock-Pot.

A heat dome happens when a ridge of high pressure traps hot air in place. The air sinks, warms, and gets compressed closer to the ground. Since sinking air also keeps clouds and storms from forming, the heat has nowhere to go. It just sits there, reheats itself, and turns the city into a convection oven with scooters.

Columbus is expected to see highs in the mid-to-upper 90s this week, with the heat index pushing over 100 degrees multiple days in a row. Wednesday looks like the worst of it, with temperatures flirting with 98 degrees, which is less “summer fun” and more “why does the steering wheel feel legally dangerous?”

And Columbus is especially good at making heat worse. All our pavement, rooftops, parking lots, and treeless stretches soak up the sun during the day and radiate it back at night. That is the urban heat island effect, which is a polite scientific way of saying the city stores heat like a cast iron skillet.

That matters because the danger is not just the afternoon high. It is the fact that overnight lows may stay in the mid-to-upper 70s, giving homes, apartments, and bodies very little time to recover. Heat becomes more dangerous when it stacks day after day, especially for older adults, kids, outdoor workers, people without reliable air conditioning, and anyone living in a top-floor apartment that turns into an Easy-Bake Oven by dinner.

Columbus is opening cooling centers at several community centers, including Dodge, Driving Park, Glenwood, Linden, and Marion Franklin, with extended hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. City pools will also stay open later, from 1 to 8 p.m., with free admission starting July 2 while the heat sticks around. You still need a free Leisure Card, because even in dangerous heat, bureaucracy refuses to sweat.

This is the kind of weather where the boring advice becomes important. Drink water before you feel thirsty. Check on older neighbors. Bring pets inside. Do not walk your dog on pavement hot enough to fry a pierogi. And if you know someone without reliable air conditioning, check on them for real, not just in the “hope they’re good” way.

The good news is that storm chances may creep back in by the holiday weekend. The bad news is that in Ohio, “relief” often arrives wearing humidity and carrying lightning.

Until then, treat this heat like the threat it is. Stay inside when you can. Check on people who might not be okay. And remember: summer is no longer flirting with us.

Scarlet Letter Trivia

Question: What percentage of Ohio homes own guns?
A. 40%
B. 27%
C. 30%
D. 64%

Columbus Is Throwing a Party for People Who Still Smell Books

Good news for everyone whose idea of a perfect weekend involves wandering around with an iced coffee, buying three books they absolutely do not have room for, and saying, “I’ve been meaning to read this.”

The Columbus Book Festival is back July 11 and 12, taking over Main Library and Topiary Park for a free two-day celebration of books, authors, readers, and people who treat tote bags like a personality trait.

And honestly? We love it.

The festival brings together more than 120 national and Ohio-based authors for panels, talks, signings, and conversations across just about every genre. This year’s headliners include Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Laura Dave, TJ Klune, Paul Tremblay, and Lisa See, which is a pretty serious lineup for an event that costs exactly zero dollars to attend.

Outside in Topiary Park, the Festival Marketplace will feature more than 100 independent authors in Indie Author Alley, along with exhibitors, bookish vendors, food trucks, drinks, and family-friendly entertainment. Basically, it is a farmers’ market for people who have strong opinions about dust jackets.

There will also be an Official Festival Bookstore run in partnership with local independent bookstores, including The Book Loft, Cover to Cover, Gramercy Books, and Prologue Bookshop. So yes, you can support the library, support local bookstores, meet authors, buy books, and still pretend this was a financially responsible outing.

The whole thing started in 2023 as part of Columbus Metropolitan Library’s 150th birthday celebration, and it has quickly become one of the better summer events in the city. Not because it is flashy. Not because it is trying too hard. But because it feels like Columbus at its best: curious, local, free, a little nerdy, and spread across one of the prettiest public spaces downtown.

The practical details are simple. Saturday runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. All activities, panels, and author talks are free, though some headliner sessions require free tickets because space is limited.

There is also free event parking in Main Library’s attached garage and several nearby surface lots, which is maybe the most shocking plot twist of the whole festival.

So if your summer plans need something that does not involve sweating in a parking lot or pretending to enjoy cornhole, this is it.

Grab a tote bag. Clear a shelf. Lie to yourself about how many unread books you already own.

Ohio Found Rare Common Ground on Guns

Gun bills do not usually glide through the Ohio Statehouse.

They drag. They spark outrage. They turn into the kind of debate where everyone already knows what they are going to say before anyone else starts talking.

But Senate Bill 273, the Keep Them Safe Act, did something rare. It passed the Ohio House and Senate unanimously before Governor Mike DeWine signed it into law on June 18.

The law is built around a simple idea: put time and distance between a person in crisis and a firearm.

It allows Ohio gun owners to voluntarily and temporarily store firearms with participating federally licensed gun dealers or law enforcement agencies. It is not mandatory. It is not confiscation. It is an option for people who know they need space from a gun, or for families trying to help someone survive a dangerous moment.

That matters because suicide prevention often comes down to minutes. A crisis can be intense and temporary. A firearm makes it much easier for that temporary crisis to become permanent.

Until now, the advice to “get the gun out of the house” came with a very real problem: where?

Some gun shops were hesitant to store firearms because of liability concerns. SB273 gives participating gun dealers and law enforcement agencies civil immunity, meaning they can offer temporary storage without fearing a lawsuit if something happens later.

That is why the bill found support from groups that rarely line up together. Mental health advocates backed it. Gun violence prevention groups backed it. Second Amendment supporters backed it. Senator Kyle Koehler, a Republican from Springfield, sponsored it. Whitney Austin, a Cincinnati mass shooting survivor and founder of Whitney/Strong, helped push it forward.

The veteran angle is especially urgent. Veterans make up roughly 14% of suicide deaths in Ohio, and around three-fourths of Ohio veteran suicides involve a firearm. For families, this law answers a heartbreaking but practical question: when someone you love is spiraling and there is a gun in the home, what can you actually do right now?

This law will not fix Ohio’s mental health system. It will not end suicide. It will only work if gun shops and law enforcement agencies participate, and if people know the option exists.

But it is a tool. A voluntary one. A practical one. And in a state where gun politics usually turns into a shouting match, Ohio found a small patch of common ground and stood on it long enough to pass something useful.

That alone is worth paying attention to.

A) 40% of Ohio homes own at least one gun…Seems a little too high…