Residents, workers grappling with downtown NATO closures
DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) — As security begins to take over downtown ahead of the NATO Assembly, many residents are left wondering what exactly is going on.
As police and city workers begin setting up the NATO Village, residents and workers are scrambling to adapt and find detours. Many say they are shocked to see barricades up near their homes and businesses, leaving many bewildered.
Downtown road closures, security measures announced for NATO 2025
'What's going on? What are they doing here?' asked one Dayton resident.
These questions were echoed by many others as they watched the Dayton Police Department and several other agencies completely lock down nearly ten blocks of Dayton's downtown area.
'I just think it's a bunch of hogwash, man, unfortunate,' said a downtown resident. 'You know, people that don't have cars can't avoid this nonsense, you know, it just impacts our daily life.'
While sidewalks are open for now, starting Wednesday, anyone who doesn't have proper credentials will be barred from the NATO Village — a secure area where the parliamentary assembly will be held.
'If you plan on coming downtown, just make sure you know everything is cut off,' said Angel Sims, who works downtown. 'Just prepare yourself, it's going to be way more secure, more police officers will be out. It's not going to be the normal everyday, where you can come downtown and go whichever way you want.'
For drivers, Dayton PD says that Apple and Google Maps will update to reflect the road closures. Bus riders will be able to view updated routes on the RTA website.
LIST: What is closing in Dayton during the NATO Assembly?
For people looking to get to work or simply walk through the heart of downtown, they're out of luck until next Tuesday.
'You can't do nothing around here, you can't even get from point A to point B,' said Neeko Lundy, who often travels through downtown.
Police say pedestrian access tunnels and throughways will be available for residents and workers to get to their buildings.
But residents and workers say the inconvenience is still apparent.
'The more fences and more security they put up, it's just harder to maintain and work downtown,' said Sims.
The NATO conference lasts until Memorial Day on Monday, and Dayton PD say they should have the downtown area cleaned up and reopened by that Wednesday.
Click here to learn more about the road closures and what to expect.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
The path not taken
Lake Martin outside of Dadeville is seen on May 25, 2025. A nonprofit maintains a trail in and around the lake that is free to the public. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector) My wife and I spent the Sunday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend hiking near Lake Martin in Dadeville. From a stunning view of the lake, we walked through a canopied forest with all kinds of rocks, ridges and flora. The trail took us to the lake shore, where we took in the vistas and the $1 million homes all around them. It's a reminder of how many natural jewels we have in Alabama. And it's free. All you have to do is drive there and start walking. No painful real estate investment required. I really needed that reminder after a long and bruising session in the Alabama Legislature. Any session of any lawmaking body anywhere means fighting over bills that could prove helpful or destructive to their interests. We see more of it because Alabama's constitution makes certain the interests of a few powerful elites always take precedence over public concern. Worse, a growing number of lawmakers view themselves less as representatives of their communities than lobbyists for whatever right-wing zealots reside there. So we get bills that could have subjected librarians to criminal prosecutions (not passed); would have required mandatory performances or broadcasts of the Star-Spangled Banner (a constitutional amendment, mind you, also not passed) and allowed local governments to separate men and women for whatever reason they deem fit (that one did pass, and within the first 10 days of the legislative session). Meanwhile, Alabama can't run safe prisons; rural residents struggle to access health care and our lax gun laws have created nation-leading rates of firearm deaths. The Legislature didn't spend nearly the time on these issues that they should have. Lawmakers did pass bills extending Medicaid coverage to pregnant people and making it a state crime to possess devices that convert semi-automatic weapons into automatic ones. Good steps. But just steps. Not the comprehensive, thorough fixes these issues demand. Maybe the political lift is too tough. Perhaps lawmakers don't see them as problems. The prison crisis persists because far too many people think prisoners deserve to live in violence and terror, not thinking about the safety of prison staff or what happens to the rest of us when those people brutalized in the system get out. But there's a larger problem preventing us from finding solutions. Alabama politics has no concept of the common good. We'd live in a much different landscape if it did. For one thing, Alabama's top income earners would pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than the bottom income earners, and not the other way around. The no-questions-asked attitude our lawmakers take to any request from Corrections would apply to Medicaid expansion. Right now, that's a nonstarter for most Republicans in the Legislature. Even though it will improve health and create jobs. And even though the state's largest insurer supports a version of it. We wouldn't send $180 million out of public school classrooms for 'nonpublic education purposes.' Most of that will go to private school tuition for the wealthy. Instead, the state might finally overhaul a Jim Crow-era tax system that denies poor and rural school districts adequate resources. Certainly, we wouldn't burn down public safety to satisfy a few paranoid gun owners. Or deny lifesaving health care for transgender youth for a handful of fertility-obsessed weirdos. Or rage at people coming to our state from foreign countries, trying to build better lives. All too often, the state's leaders see policy as a zero-sum game: if this person wins, someone has to lose. If I'm a winner, I need to push someone down. But that's not the case. And we know that from the things Alabama has done right. Expanding Medicaid access for pregnant people will be good for everyone. Doctors will be able to catch and treat more pregnancy complications before they become fatal. Infant and maternal mortality will drop. We have one of the nation's best pre-K programs, thanks in no small part to years of investment in it. One wishes lawmakers wouldn't have stopped the push to make pre-K universal. But it's still changing lives and leading to improved school outcomes around the state. And we have state parks, in Dadeville and elsewhere. Alabama government can help people. And there are issues that lawmakers, even those ostensibly allergic to any kind of government spending, will turn out their pockets for. But all too often, we funnel taxpayer money toward wealthy companies that don't need the help; wealthy families who don't need the help, and an incarceration system that punishes without rehabilitating. These are choices. They are not inevitable. But all too often, our leaders see their jobs as protecting the privileged, not making a government as good as its people, or as inspiring as its landscapes. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Wall Street Has a New Secret Code for Laughing Behind Donald Trump's Back
Wall Street traders have adopted a term to mock President Trump's flip-flopping trade policy. TACO, an acronym that stands for 'Trump Always Chickens Out,' was coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong. It has since become a favorite among stockbrokers. Simply put, the tongue-in-cheek term describes how markets dip on President Trump's tariff threats, only to rebound when he inevitably reverses course. In the latest example, markets rallied earlier this week after Trump delayed the 50 percent tariff on the European Union that he had threatened just days earlier. In response to his relenting, the S&P 500 posted its biggest gain in weeks. Speaking on MSNBC Tuesday, Australian economist Justin Wolfers mocked Trump by saying this tariff policy 'nearly lasted one entire long weekend.' 'He was a little unlucky. There was Memorial Day, extended the weekend to three days, and you couldn't have a tariff policy last a full weekend. So, Friday's policy was reversed by Monday. And so, we get to analyze it today on Tuesday. And I think that's really symptomatic,' he said. Suggesting that Trump's word is worth very little in certain circumstances, including tariff threats, Wolfers used the example of Wall Street's new favorite acronym. 'In fact, on Wall Street right now, and it's one level funny and another level tragic. There's a trade called the TACO trade, T-A-C-O, Trump Always Chickens Out,' he said. Wolfers had said Trump's word now lacks 'credibility.' 'There was a time when the president opened his mouth, when you had to pay attention because you thought it meant something, that it was a shift in policy that other countries could rely on and respond to. That's no longer the case,' he said. Salomon Fiedler, an analyst from German bank Berenberg, is just one of many speculators who now say they are happy to wait it out when Trump makes a threat. 'Wild threats by Trump are not unusual,' he wrote in a note last month, when the president 'paused' the super-charged 'Liberation Day' duties he imposed on a slew of countries. 'Given the damage the U.S. would do to itself with this tariff, he will probably not follow through.' Trump paused the duties to allow his economic buffs to secure renewed deals with dozens of nations. So far, only the United Kingdom and China have inked any sort of agreement. Sign in to access your portfolio
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Boston Globe
Biden's doctor failed to properly assess fitness for office, Obama's doctor says
The rare criticism of one White House doctor by another comes as Republicans have increased scrutiny of O'Connor and other former White House aides. House Republicans subpoenaed O'Connor on Thursday, a day after President Donald Trump ordered White House attorneys to determine whether Biden's inner circle tried to conceal his alleged cognitive decline. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Kuhlman also said the 2024 report merely assessed Biden's health when it should have considered his fitness to serve in one of the most taxing jobs on the planet. Advertisement 'It shouldn't be just health, it should be fitness,' Kuhlman said. 'Fitness is: Do you have that robust mind, body, spirit that you can do this physically, mentally, emotionally demanding job?' O'Connor did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Biden's recent disclosure of metastatic prostate cancer and reporting about his alleged physical and cognitive decline have fueled suspicion - among Democrats as well as Republicans - that the true state of Biden's health toward the end of his term was known only by O'Connor and a few others closest to Biden. Advertisement Journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson sketched a picture of a well-meaning but weakened president in a book they released last month. The book, which draws on interviews with dozens of Democratic insiders after the 2024 election, paints a portrait of a man suffering at times from forgetfulness, incoherence and fatigue. It also says that O'Connor was reluctant to give Biden a cognitive test, though he was assessed by a neurologist for conditions such as Parkinson's disease. Biden gave a sarcastic response last week. 'You can see that I'm mentally incompetent, and I can't walk, and I can beat the hell out of both of them,' he told reporters at a Memorial Day event, apparently referring to Tapper and Thompson. Biden's granddaughter Naomi Biden has called the book 'political fairy smut.' The book isn't the first time Biden's cognitive state has been questioned. Special counsel Robert K. Hur said in February 2024 that Biden had 'limited precision and recall' - including not remembering when his vice-presidential term ended - after Hur conducted two days of interviews with Biden about his handling of classified documents. Kuhlman formerly worked alongside O'Connor in the White House medical unit, a nonpartisan post, and appointed him in 2009 to serve as then-Vice President Biden's personal doctor. Kuhlman was Obama's physician from 2009 to 2013. O'Connor examined Biden - and signed his name to the February 2024 medical report that said the president 'continues to be fit for duty' - four months before a disastrous campaign debate between Trump and Biden prompted Democrats to call for Biden to step down as the nominee. Advertisement Kuhlman, who left the medical unit in 2013, said he tries not to criticize those who have held similar positions. He called O'Connor 'a good doctor' who seemed to do his best to 'give trusted medical advice.' 'I didn't see that he's purposely hiding stuff, but I don't know that,' he said. 'Maybe the investigation will show it.' Kuhlman wrote a 2024 book about his experiences in the White House Medical Unit in which he argued for cognitive testing for older candidates and presidents. O'Connor's six-page report included Biden's lab results and an explanation of various conditions for which he was being treated. It also listed 10 medical specialists, including a neurologist, who also examined Biden. 'President Biden is a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency,' O'Connor wrote. White House doctors have long been under intense public scrutiny, balancing the deeply personal doctor-patient relationship with a responsibility to tell the American public whether the president is fit to serve - and if not, why. Some have gone to great lengths to hide when the president is severely ill - as Grover Cleveland's doctors did when they turned a yacht into an operating room to secretly remove a tumor from the president's mouth in 1893. Presidential physicians also are expected to communicate to Americans personal information about the very person who could fire them. 'Whether it's family who are worried for them or people who work for them and don't want to lose their jobs, no one has a vested interest in hearing the truth about the president's health - except for the American people and the world,' said Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia. Advertisement It has not always been clear what role the White House doctors see for themselves. Even as they are often close confidants of the president, they must consider the good of the country in their recommendations about what tests and treatments to pursue. O'Connor repeatedly refused last year to administer a cognitive exam to Biden even as aides privately expressed concerns about his mental fitness, according to Tapper and Thompson's book. Trump's former doctors, including Ronny Jackson and Sean Conley, have at times sounded more like cheerleaders for the president than sober judges of his health. His current doctor, Sean Barbabella, mentioned Trump's 'frequent victories in golf events' in the first medical report of his second term. Jackson suggested to the media in 2018 that Trump had 'incredibly good genes' and joked that he might live to 200 years old if his eating habits were more healthful. Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas, was demoted by the U.S. Navy after an inspector general report shed light on multiple misdeeds involving alcohol and harassment while he served in the White House medical unit. Conley, who succeeded Jackson, repeatedly downplayed the severity of Trump's symptoms when he was hospitalized with covid-19 in the fall of 2020. Past presidents who didn't want the public to know the truth about their poor health have orchestrated elaborate cover-ups. After Woodrow Wilson suffered a major stroke in 1919, leaving him with a paralyzed left side, his doctor conspired with Wilson's wife to keep his condition hidden from his own Cabinet. Advertisement Cleveland insisted the operation to remove his tumor be secretly performed on a friend's yacht, under the guise that he was on a fishing trip near his summer home on Long Island. The administration denied an initial report about the surgery, and the truth wasn't widely accepted until after Cleveland's death many years later, when one of his doctors publicly confessed. On the other hand, Dwight D. Eisenhower reportedly ordered his press secretary to 'tell them everything' after suffering a heart attack in 1955. His surgeons regularly briefed the public after his heart surgery. But medical transparency is only as strong as the president wants it to be. Like regular Americans, the president is protected by medical privacy laws, so disclosing any health information is ultimately up to him. An additional challenge, former White House doctors and presidential historians say, is that there is no official requirement for how often a president should undergo an exam, what the exam should include and which of the results should be made public. 'There's nothing codified about what to do,' said Kuhlman, who also served on the White House medical unit under George W. Bush. White House doctors traditionally conduct an annual physical exam on the president and release a memo of varying length that includes vital signs, a summary of the physical examination and the results of blood tests. These memos generally conclude with some kind of pronouncement from the doctor that the president is fit to execute the duties of the presidency. Trump's and Biden's doctors have largely followed that pattern, although the reports on Biden's health have been significantly longer and more detailed than the reports on Trump. Advertisement Kuhlman and Lawrence Mohr, who served as physician to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said they were never asked by any president to withhold medical information in their reports. Mohr said he recalls that there was 'never any question' about being candid about the president's health. 'You never lie; never, never say anything that's not true,' Mohr said. 'You put out a clear press release about what's going on, what to expect and you get it out there. If you don't do that, you end up with all sorts of speculation.' Reagan was 77 when he left office and five years later announced he had Alzheimer's disease. He faced similar questions about his fitness to serve. Mohr recollected administering the Mini-Mental State Examination - a test used to assess cognitive function - to the 40th president. Trump's doctors have given him a different cognitive test, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. But cognitive tests are not standard practice. Neither George W. Bush nor Obama took one, Kuhlman said. But they were much younger while in office than Biden. 'I was fortunate to have 50-year-old patients instead of 80-year-old ones,' Kuhlman said.
