CHEERS: to officers from 10 Medina County law enforcement agencies teaming up to reverse a disturbing trend — the rising number of drug- or alcohol-related fatal car accidents. The new OVI Task Force will not stage checkpoints, but rather saturate high-incident areas, targeting motorists with signs of impaired driving. Officers from local departments have been granted countywide arresting authority. “We need to remove these people from the streets before people get killed,” said officer Jerry Klue, director of the Medina County Safe Communities program.

CHIDINGS: to the cruel irony that the same reason increasing numbers of travelers are looking to public transit — high fuel prices — is the reason the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority is cutting a bus route that stops in Brunswick, effective Oct. 1. On average, 72 riders per day take RTA buses from Brunswick to downtown Cleveland. The agency receives most of its funding from Cuyahoga County sales tax revenue, with little help from the state. Ohio has systematically underinvested in public transportation and commuters are paying the price.

CHEERS: to Medina grad and University of Michigan sophomore Frank Shotwell, who earned a first-place finish in the decathlon during the Big Ten track championships in Champaign, Ill. Shotwell earned the win in dramatic fashion, gutting out a second-place finish in the 1,500-meter race — the last in a grueling series of 10 events over two days. His point score in the decathlon set a school record, qualified him for the national championships and helped that, ahem, School Up North win its first outdoor track conference championship in 25 years.

CHIDINGS: to companies that take a federal law designed to protect employee benefits and use it as a broad shield against individuals who sue the companies to get benefits they believe they are owed. Federal judges have criticized the unfairness of the law — known as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act — even as they have been constrained by it to rule in favor of employers and throw the lawsuits out of court. Congress, which could amend the law to better define its scope, and the U.S. Supreme Court, have so far refused to take action.

CHEERS: to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut for enacting a new policy that allows out-of-state military veterans to attend Ohio’s public colleges and universities at in-state tuition rates. It’s a well-deserved benefit for American service personnel and may help bring people to the Buckeye State, which has seen its population growth become stagnant, and keep them here once they graduate. Strickland and Fingerhut say Ohio is the first state to make the offer, which extends to the spouses and children of veterans.