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.

Please subscribe to our free daily newsletter to get all the Ohio news you need to know right to your inbox every weekday morning.

If you already subscribe, please share with your family and friends so they know about the Ohio Capital Journal too: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/subscribe/

Catching Our Eye

• Data center breaks. The Columbus Dispatch’s Haley BeMiller is reporting, “Gov. Mike DeWine pauses data center tax break that soared to $1.6B.”

  Ohio is pausing a controversial tax break for data centers that cost nearly $1.6 billion last year.

  Gov. Mike DeWine said the state won’t consider new requests for a sales tax exemption that saves companies money when they build data centers in Ohio. The tax break cost nearly $1.6 billion in 2025, according to the Department of Taxation, a number that shocked and angered lawmakers who think it’s bad for Ohio.

  The 2025 price tag − first reported by Signal Ohio − also blew past estimates that Ohio would forgo just $136 million. A Department of Taxation spokesperson attributed the discrepancy to “significant growth in the data center industry.”

• Solar and the supreme court. Signal Ohio’s Jake Zuckerman is reporting, “6,000-acre solar project permit nixed by Ohio Supreme Court, for now at least.”

  The Ohio Supreme Court overturned a permit that state officials previously granted to a massive, 6,000-acre industrial-scale solar farm and battery operation in Madison County.

  In a ruling Tuesday, a fractured majority of Republican justices sided with a sweeping challenge brought by local and county officials against Oak Run Solar, which would sit in rural farmland between Columbus and Dayton.

  This makes for a significant setback but not necessarily a fatal blow to the facility.