COLUMBUS — A Donald Trump-backed Ohio Republican whose military record was called into question during his unsuccessful 2022 congressional campaign says he is abandoning plans to run again next year.

J.R. Majewski tweeted Tuesday that he is bowing out of his latest effort to win the GOP nomination and take on Democratic U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur due to his mother’s health.

“Last cycle, I lost my father before the primary election and I can’t risk not giving my full attention to my family,” he said on Twitter. “But don’t fret, I love this country too much to stay idle.”

He had planned to focus his campaign on working-class citizens and “putting America first.”

Majewski, of Port Clinton on Lake Erie, first drew public attention for drawing a sprawling banner supporting Trump across his lawn, and the former president went on to promote Majewski’s political future at a rally in southwest Ohio in November.

The former nuclear power industry worker was the surprise winner of last year’s four-way Republican primary for the Toledo-area 9th Congressional District, winning just under 36% of the vote. He bested two sitting Republican state lawmakers and a third rival to secure the nomination, but ultimately lost to Kaptur, the longest serving woman in Congress, by more than 13 percentage points.

Ahead of the election, The Associated Press reported that Majewski had misrepresented his military record to voters. He claimed he has served in the Air Force in Afghanistan, but public records indicated he had never deployed there and instead spent six months on a base in Qatar. Majewski denied the report and defiantly remained in the race, saying his deployment was classified and therefore not present in public records.

The AP later reported that Majewski was demoted in the military for driving drunk on an air base, another contradiction to his previous statements.

Jason Lyle Conrad, 39, of Akron, was spotted on an Akron street around 9:40 a.m. by law enforcement officers on the ground and in an Ohio State Highway Patrol helicopter. A brief foot chase took place before he was taken into custody, according to the Summit County Sheriff’s Office.

Conrad was handcuffed and wearing a medical boot when he arrived at Summa Health White Pond Medical Center in Akron Tuesday morning. Authorities said he somehow removed the boot, which he was wearing for an undisclosed previous injury, and then ran away from the officer who had driven him to the facility.

A sheriff’s office spokesman said the deputy was not injured in the incident and the escape remains under investigation. He declined further comment.

Conrad was being held in the county jail on several charges, including felony drug possession and trafficking and weapons counts. He will now also face an escape charge, authorities said Wednesday.

The Summit County Sheriff’s Office said Jason Lyle Conrad was being removed from a transport van at Summa Health White Pond Medical Center in Akron when he somehow removed the boot and ran off around 8 a.m. Conrad was wearing the boot for an undisclosed previous injury.

Conrad was being held in the county jail on charges of drug possession and trafficking, willful fleeing and a parole violation, authorities said.

Numerous local law enforcement agencies and Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers were searching for Conrad.

The discovery brought to a close a manhunt for the missing inmate, Bradley Gillespie, 50. Authorities said the other inmate James Lee, 47, was captured last Wednesday after the two escaped earlier in the week from the Allen/Oakwood Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio.

Henderson Police Chief Sean McKinney said at a news conference that authorities got a call Sunday about a body floating in the river very near where Gillespie was last seen when his officers captured the other inmate during a pursuit and traffic stop on a stolen car. Gillespie, a passenger in the vehicle, fled on foot, prompting a multiday manhunt, he said.

“A preliminary investigation indicates we recovered the body of Bradley Gillespie from the river,” McKinney said, adding police, firefighters, a coroner’s office and others responded when the tip came in of a body in the river. Reports said tattoos and physical inspection helped with the preliminary identification.

McKinney said an autopsy is planned Tuesday.

Henderson is a city across the Ohio River from Indiana and about 350 miles southwest of Lima, Ohio, where authorities said the inmates escaped last Monday.

Lee was serving a sentence imposed in 2021 for burglary and safecracking. McKinney said Gillespie was imprisoned since 2016 and was convicted of a double homicide.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction had said Friday afternoon that investigators determined the inmates left the correctional facility “after concealing themselves in a dumpster.”

A major and three corrections officers have been placed on paid administrative leave and similar action may be taken against other people as the department’s internal investigation continues, officials have said. A criminal investigation by the Ohio State Highway Patrol is also continuing.

The two men were reported missing from the Allen Oakwood Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio on Tuesday, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Lee was discovered missing during a prisoner count at 11 a.m. Tuesday, prompting an emergency prisoner count that revealed Gillespie was also missing. Authorities later determined the two men were last seen on surveillance video inside the facility just after 8:40 a.m. Monday.

“At the request of National Park Service officials at the James A. Garfield National Historic Site in my district, I was asked to introduce this legislation,” Troy said. “James A. Garfield was a true son of Northeast Ohio who rose to the highest office in our nation. He had such promise, as someone who knew how to compromise and reach common ground on the important issues of his day. He was passionate in his efforts to end the spoils system and its blatant political patronage practices.

“Unfortunately, President Garfield became our second president to expire from an assassin’s bullet….sadly, his great promise was not realized,” Troy added. “I think it’s fitting that we formally declare November 19 (Garfield’s birthday) as James A. Garfield Day in Ohio.”

“I want to thank my colleagues for their support,” Callendar added. “President Garfield was a great American, great Ohioan and truly worthy of this honor as his impact can still be felt across the United States. From universal public education, a professional civil service and presidential libraries, the influence of President Garfield’s legacy can be seen in his hometown of Mentor, Ohio, and throughout the United States.”

Garfield served as the 20th president of the United States and had a varied career, including serving as the president of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, now known as Hiram College.

He also served as an ordained minister, attorney and officer in the Union Army, in addition to being a nine-term congressman and United States senator during his journey to the presidency.

Garfield was shot twice at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1881, fewer than four months into his term, and died 79 days later on Sept.19 in New Elberon, New Jersey.

Garfield’s widow, Lucretia, is credited with creating the first presidential library when she built an extension onto the family home in Mentor and filled the shelves with the president’s writings from both before and during his time in office.

The House Session vote came after passage by the House State and Local Government Committee in March. House Bill 61 now goes to the Senate for additional hearings.

Troy first proposed a House Select Committee on Property Tax Education and Reform in the 134th General Assembly.

“One of the most complex and least-understood public policy areas in Ohio is our local property tax system,” Troy stated in a news release, adding alterations, additions, redefinitions and challenging mathematics have made it very confusing and often misunderstood subject matter.

“While it is critical to providing much of the revenue that underwrites the cost of important public services, it is the belief of many that a significant comprehensive and educational review of the system is overdue,” he continued.

The legislation will require the committee to submit a report to the General Assembly making recommendations on reforms to property tax law, the release stated.

Additionally, the committee will review the history and purpose of all aspects of property tax law, including, but not limited to, the forms of levies, exemptions and local subdivision budgeting.

According to Troy, the budget will authorize the committee to hold hearings on pending legislation related to property taxation and will be made up of five senators and five representatives.

“The often indecipherable and confusing situation regarding our property tax system tends to generate mistrust and creates an adversarial relationship between the taxpayer and the service provider dependent upon that revenue stream to perform its functions,” Troy stated. “I believe the formation of this temporary committee and the information and input it can gather would be helpful in generating a better understanding and education on this complex subject.

“As a result of that initial informative process, it would serve to simplify, clarify, reform and modernize Ohio’s property tax system to create a better relationship between the system and the citizens that it assesses,” he added.

The Operating Budget containing the provision heads to the Ohio Senate for consideration.

INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana board decided Thursday night to reprimand an Indianapolis doctor after finding that she violated patient privacy laws by talking publicly about providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim from neighboring Ohio.

The state Medical Licensing Board voted that Dr. Caitlin Bernard didn’t abide by privacy laws when she told a newspaper reporter about the girl’s treatment in a case that became a flashpoint in the national abortion debate days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

The board, however, rejected accusations from Indiana’s Republican attorney general that Bernard violated state law by not reporting the child abuse to Indiana authorities. Board members chose to fine Bernard $3,000 for the violations, turning down a request from the attorney general’s office to suspend Bernard’s license. The board issued no restrictions on her practice of medicine.

Bernard has consistently defended her actions, and she told the board on Thursday that she followed Indiana’s reporting requirements and hospital policy by notifying hospital social workers about the child abuse — and that the girl’s rape was already being investigated by Ohio authorities. Bernard’s lawyers also said that she didn’t release any identifying information about the girl that would break privacy laws.

The Indianapolis Star cited the girl’s case in a July 1 article that sparked a national political uproar in the weeks after last summer’s Roe v. Wade decision put into effect an Ohio law that prohibited abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Some news outlets and Republican politicians falsely suggested Bernard fabricated the story, until a 27-year-old man was charged with the rape in Columbus, Ohio. During an event at the White House, President Joe Biden nearly shouted his outrage over the case.

Medical board President Dr. John Strobel said he believed Bernard went too far in telling a reporter about the girl’s pending abortion and that physicians need to be careful about observing patient privacy.

“I don’t think she expected this to go viral,” Strobel said of Bernard. “I don’t think she expected this attention to be brought to this patient. It did. It happened.”

Bernard’s lawyer Alice Morical told the board Thursday that the doctor reported child abuse of patients many times a year and that a hospital social worker had confirmed with Ohio child protection staffers that it was safe for the girl to leave with her mother.

“Dr. Bernard could not have anticipated the atypical and intense scrutiny that this story received,” Morical said. “She did not expect that politicians would say that she made the story up.”

Amid the wave of attention to the girl’s case last summer, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, who is stridently anti-abortion, told Fox News he would investigate Bernard’s actions and called her an “abortion activist acting as a doctor.”

Deputy Attorney General Cory Voight argued Thursday that the board needed to address what he called an “egregious violation” of patient privacy and Bernard’s failure to notify Indiana’s Department of Child Services and police about the rape.

“There’s been no case like this before the board,” Voight said. “No physician has been as brazen in pursuit of their own agenda.”

Voight asked Bernard why she discussed the Ohio girl’s case with the newspaper reporter and later in other news media interviews rather than using a hypothetical situation.

“I think that it’s incredibly important for people to understand the real-world impacts of the laws of this country about abortion,” Bernard said. “I think it’s important for people to know what patients will have to go through because of legislation that is being passed, and a hypothetical does not make that impact.”

Board member Dr. Bharat Barai opposed finding that Bernard violated privacy laws, saying that she released no direct protected identifying information such as the girl’s name or address. He disagreed with the board majority’s view that the combination of information about the rare instance of a pregnant 10-year-old girl could have exposed her identity.

“We are trying to suppose that yeah this could have been done and maybe somebody could have discovered it,” Barai said.

During Thursday’s hearing lasting some 13 hours, Rokita’s office kept up a running commentary on its official Twitter account, with one post saying: “When Bernard talked about the high priority she puts on legislation and speaking to the public, she did so at the expense of her own patient. This shows where her priorities are as an activist rather than a doctor.”

Bernard objected to Voight saying her choice to publicly discuss the case led to the misconduct allegations.

“I think if the attorney general, Todd Rokita, had not chosen to make this his political stunt we wouldn’t be here today,” Bernard said.

Lawyers for the attorney general’s office repeatedly raised questions about whether the policy of Bernard’s employer, Indiana University Health, to report suspected child abuse to authorities in the state where the abuse occurred complied with Indiana law. Officials of IU Health, which is the state’s largest hospital system, testified that the Indiana Department of Child Services has never objected to the hospital policy.

The Indiana board — with five doctors and one attorney present who were appointed or reappointed by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb — had wide latitude under state law allowing it to issue reprimand letters or suspend, revoke or place on probation a doctor’s license.

Ohio’s law imposing a near-ban on abortion was in effect for about two months, before being put on hold as a lawsuit against it plays out. Indiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature approved a statewide abortion ban weeks after the Ohio girl’s case drew attention, but abortions have continued to be permitted in the state while awaiting an Indiana Supreme Court decision on the ban’s constitutionality.

Bernard unsuccessfully tried to block Rokita’s investigation last fall, although an Indianapolis judge wrote that Rokita made “clearly unlawful breaches” of state confidentiality laws with his public comments about investigating the doctor before filing the medical licensing complaint against her.

INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana board is set to hear testimony Thursday that an Indianapolis doctor should face disciplinary action after she spoke publicly about providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim from neighboring Ohio.

The Medical Licensing Board’s hearing comes after Indiana’s Republican attorney general accused Dr. Caitlin Bernard of violating state law by not reporting the girl’s child abuse to Indiana authorities. She’s also accused of breaking federal patient privacy laws by telling a newspaper reporter about the girl’s treatment.

Bernard and her attorneys maintain that the doctor followed Indiana’s child abuse reporting requirements as the girl’s rape was already being investigated by Ohio authorities. Bernard’s lawyers also say she didn’t release any identifying information about the girl that would break privacy laws.

The Indianapolis Star cited the girl’s case in a July 1 article that sparked a national political uproar in the weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, putting into effect an Ohio law that prohibited abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Some news outlets and Republican politicians falsely suggested Bernard fabricated the story, until a 27-year-old man was charged with the rape in Columbus, Ohio.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s complaint asked the licensing board to impose “appropriate disciplinary action” but doesn’t specify a requested penalty.

The Indiana board — made up of six doctors and one attorney appointed by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb — could vote whether to impose any penalties Thursday after hearing what is expected to be several hours of testimony. State law gives the board wide latitude, allowing it to issue reprimand letters or suspend, revoke or place on probation a doctor’s license.

Amid the wave of attention to the girl’s case last summer, Rokita, who is stridently anti-abortion, told Fox News he would investigate Bernard’s actions, calling her an “abortion activist acting as a doctor.”

“This case is about two things – and two things only – patient privacy and this doctor’s failure to protect this child,” he said in a statement this week.

Ohio’s law imposing a near-ban on abortion was in effect for about two months before being put on hold as a lawsuit against it plays out.

Bernard unsuccessfully tried to block Rokita’s investigation last fall, although an Indianapolis judge wrote that Rokita made “clearly unlawful breaches” of state confidentiality laws with his public comments about investigating the doctor before filing the medical licensing complaint against her.

Bernard lawyer Kathleen DeLaney has called the complaint against the doctor “baseless attacks” done at taxpayer expense.

“Rokita’s actions set a dangerous precedent imperiling the provision of lawful patient care,” DeLaney has said.

James Lee, 47, was captured at the scene but Bradley Gillespie, 50, remained at large. Gillespie has been imprisoned since 2016 for murder, while Lee was serving a sentence he received in 2021 for burglary and safecracking.

The two men were reported missing from the Allen Oakwood Correctional Institution in Lima on Tuesday, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Lee was discovered missing during a prisoner count at 11 a.m. Tuesday, prompting an emergency prisoner count that revealed Gillespie was also missing. Authorities later determined the two men were last seen on surveillance video inside the facility just after 8:40 a.m. Monday.

Allen County Sheriff Matthew Treglia said officials believe the two inmates had been traveling together but did not provide further details.

The vehicle chase in Henderson, Kentucky, began around 3:15 a.m. Wednesday when officers spotted a car the men were believed to be traveling in and tried to stop it. A chase ensued and the crash occurred a short time later. Both inmates then fled the scene on foot.

Residents in the area were being told to keep their doors locked while authorities searched for Gillespie. They were urged to call 911 if they spotted him or had information regarding his whereabouts.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol is leading the investigation into the escape.

Bradley Gillespie, 50, and James Lee, 47, were reported missing from the Allen Oakwood Correctional Institution in Lima, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. They did not immediately disclose further details, including how the escape occurred or when the men were discovered missing,

Gillespie has been jailed since 2016 for murder, while Lee was serving a sentence he received in 2021 for burglary and safecracking. Authorities said both men should be considered dangerous and urged residents to call 911 if they spot either man or have information regarding their whereabouts.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol is leading the investigation.