Newsroom

By Jessica Wehrman & Jana Heigl -- The Columbus Dispatch

WASHINGTON — During Thomas Alva Edison’s youth in northern Ohio's Milan, he was known as a restless and imaginative boy whose teacher nevertheless reported to his mother that he was “addled” and “too stupid to learn.”

That curious boy grew up to invent the light bulb, the phonograph, the telegraph, cement and an electronic vote recorder that he unsuccessfully tried to sell to Congress when he was 22. (They eventually embraced the idea, 104 years later.)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Everyone wanted a piece of Thomas Alva Edison on Wednesday afternoon.

Speaking at a U.S. Capitol dedication ceremony for a statue of the prolific inventor from tiny Milan, Ohio, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recalled Edison's time working in a Kentucky telegraph office.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi likened Edison's laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, to Menlo Park, California: ground zero for Silicon Valley's innovation.

Sheet covering new Edison statue falls off just before the dedication ceremony -

Guests at the dedication of the Thomas Edison statue in the Capitol on Wednesday got a sneak peak — by mistake.

Five minutes before the start of the Statuary Hall ceremony, the fabric covering the statue accidentally dropped.

Members of the Capitol Police Honor Guard then took a few minutes to try and get it back on.

While the crowd laughed as the guards struggled to refit the sheet, a guard lifted his hand, jokingly implying that people shouldn’t look.

FEATURED EDITORIAL

Before Congress recesses for the election season, it has one very important piece of business to conduct — the funding of the recently passed Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act.

There should be no debate, no partisan bickering. Failure by congressmen to reach a deal to fund the opioid overdose fight would be irresponsible and a dramatic failure in meeting the needs of the constituents they serve.

LORAIN, Sept. 19, 2016: Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-9), along with representatives of the Smithsonian Museum, the Ohio Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs (OCHLA), the Lorain Historical Society, and the Lorain Arts Council, presented the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian award, to: Miquel Berlingeri, Carlos Móntes, Julio Santiago-Montanez, and Francisco Colón, four members of the U.S. Army’s 65th Infantry Regiment in recognition of their pioneering military service.