What Happened Now? A Cleveland Newsletter
Issue 881: Oct. 7, 2025
"What Happened Now?" is a lively roundup and analysis of the top stories of the day in Northeast Ohio from News 5's Joe Donatelli. It’s like getting the news from a friend who does not understand trading a quarterback to a division rival.
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Which emergency rooms have the longest wait times? It’s not the kind of thing you have to think about – until it becomes the most important thing to think about. Waiting for emergency room treatment is a high-stress situation, and in that situation you want to be at a hospital thet gets you care as quickly as possible. Investigator Jonathan Walsh, who has done a lot of work on health care – and the frustrations of health care – crunched the ER wait time data with investigative producer Mark Ackerman, and here’s what they found.
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I don’t know how to interpret this: Other than the Browns are giving up on the season – they traded Joe Flacco today.
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First look: The new Cosm project coming to Downtown Cleveland looks awesome. Cosm is an immersive sports and entertainment complex that isn’t The Sphere, but I would say it looks Sphere-adjacent. Basically, it puts you in the action. The first renderings of the project have been released, reports Michelle Jarboe.
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Ohio’s new rail plan: For the first time in six years, Ohio's Rail Development Commission has voted to approve a plan that lays out what the state's future could look like on the tracks. The short version: freight still rules. The thing that will give many hope: passenger rails aren’t off the table, reports Caitlin Hunt.
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Mr. Hero City Hall? Cleveland will study selling the naming rights and sponsorships for certain city buildings and properties, reports John Kosich. The idea is to provide an additional revenue source to the city. I wonder how low they will go on pricing. Asking for a newsletter.
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This is a valuable public service: Signal Cleveland is out with some new voter guides, this time for the most mysterious office of all – judges. Who are these people? What do they do? What’s with the robes? So many questions.