Every morning in the Ohio Capital Journal’s free newsletter, The Eye-Opener, we round up the news and commentary from across Ohio and around the country and world that is catching our attention. We call this feature Catching Our Eye, republished here.

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• Norfolk Southern. The Associated Press’ Josh Funk is reporting,”Norfolk Southern’s profit fell 27% as it didn’t collect big insurance payments for Ohio derailment.”

  Norfolk Southern railroad’s first-quarter profit fell 27% because it didn’t collect big insurance payments related to the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment and its planned merger with Union Pacific added to its costs.

  The Atlanta-based railroad said Friday that it earned $547 million, or $2.43 per share. That’s down from $750 million, or $3.31 per share, a year ago. The disastrous derailment in the small town on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border has generally boosted earnings in recent quarters as the railroad collected insurance payments, but that wasn’t the case this time, so it combined with planning costs related to the merger, earnings per share were reduced by 22 cents. Last year’s results were also helped by some land sales.

  Without those unusual costs, the railroad’s profit would have beat Wall Street estimates. The analysts surveyed by FactSet Research predicted the railroad would earn $2.51 per share.

• Springfield. WYSO’s Kathryn Mobley is reporting, “Springfield resident a plaintiff in national TPS lawsuit soon headed to Supreme Court.”

  On April 29, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments challenging the Trump administration’s attempts to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haiti and Syria. One of the plaintiffs is Springfield resident Vilès Dorsainvil.

  Since 2021, he’s lived in the Springfield community under TPS, founded the Haitian Support Center and serves as its executive director. Dorsainvil is also an active Moravian pastor.

• Newsrooms. The Ohio Newsroom’s Kendall Crawford is reporting, “This Ohio newspaper avoids the internet. Its readers like it that way.”

  Every week, Milo Miller is in charge of publishing a paper. Instead of relying on a newsroom full of beat reporters and columnists, his paper The Budget looks to handwritten letters from across the country.

  “These would be letters that came today,” he said as he leafed through a basket of letters. “[There’s] Williamsburg, Kentucky; Millersburg, Ohio; Rexford Montana…”
  The contents of each piece of snail mail will be printed in the next edition of the weekly paper and distributed across the country to tens of thousands of readers.

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