* U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) announced that the Fiscal Year 2016 appropriations bill will provide needed security funding for the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
“Clevelanders are proud to be hosting the Republican National Convention,” said Brown. “The world will get to see what a great city Cleveland is. But to make sure the event is successful, ensuring public safety is essential. With this funding, the City of Cleveland will be able to meet the convention’s security needs and make sure state and local law enforcement have the support they need.”
In July, Brown met with Cleveland Mayor Frank G. Jackson to discuss Cleveland’s security needs ahead of the 2016 Republican National Convention. Brown helped facilitate meetings with key members of Congressional leadership, where they discussed the need for the federal government to appropriate security funding for the conventions, as it has in the past, to help hosting states and cities afford overtime pay for local law enforcement that will be required to staff the events.
* The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could significantly boost the export market potential for American farmers, as well as other sectors of the U.S. economy, says an economist with the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.
“TPP is important as it is the largest regional free trade agreement that has been struck in the past two decades,” said Ian Sheldon, the Andersons Professor of International Trade in the college’s Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics (AEDE).
After seven years of negotiations, agreement on TPP was reached in early October by the partnership’s 12 signatory countries: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States. However, TPP is not yet official, as it has to be passed by the legislatures of the signatory countries, Sheldon said. In the U.S., the agreement has yet to be presented to Congress.
* Dr. Craig Hovey, associate professor of religion and executive director of the Ashland Center for Nonviolence, has published his ninth book, titled “The Cambridge Companion to Christian Political Theology.” He is co-editor of the volume that includes 14 essays, including his own contribution on “Liberalism and Democracy.”
Published by Cambridge University Press, the book addresses the recent surge in political theology in recent years. The volume provides a focused overview of the field.
“Political theology is a really hot topic these days,” Hovey said. “Today, a lot of people are asking serious questions about religious faith in secular societies, the origin and function of democratic politics, worldwide economic challenges, the shift of Christianity’s center of gravity to the global south, and anxieties related to bold and sometimes violent assertions of theologically determined political ideas,” Hovey said.
