Franklin County's Crisis Care Center helped more than 4,400 people in its first eight months of operations, officials tell Axios.

Why it matters: The center gives adults facing behavioral health crises and addiction an alternative to hospital emergency rooms.

• As Columbus continues expanding its 911 response teams beyond police, having a centralized place for people to receive treatment is key to making the system work.

Catch up quick: The Franklinton center opened in September, supported by a levy voters passed in November funding the Franklin County Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health (ADAMH) Board.

• The goal is to offer comprehensive care under one roof, including 24/7 urgent care, substance abuse treatment, a family resource center and a pharmacy.
• The national nonprofit Recovery Innovations provides services for up to 40 people.

The latest: Thanks to the levy, plans remain on track to expand services later this year to 60 people and open a 16-room unit for inpatient stays in 2027.

• Currently, patients can stay in observation for up to 23 hours.
• After that, they're referred to other community health partners.

State of play: Columbus is in the early stages of creating a new 911 response team without police to respond to behavioral health emergencies, after voters approved a city charter amendment May 5.

• That may affect how people arrive at the center, but it won't change their experience, ADAMH spokesperson Erich Hiner says.

By the numbers: From September-April, 55% of patients walked in on their own and 45% came via transport with first responders, Hiner says.

• Walk-ins keep rising, making up 67% of April visitors.
• Most people are able to get the help they need, with less than 2% requiring a transfer elsewhere.

The bottom line: "Having all these things under one roof is novel, and it's really promising for the well-being of our neighbors who need help," Hiner says.

If you or someone you know needs support now, visit the Crisis Care Center at 465 Harmon Ave., call or text 988, or chat with someone at 988lifeline.org.

Following Issue 5's passage earlier this month, Columbus now has just under four years to establish an entirely non-police 911 response team.

How it works: The rollout will be gradual, with a Feb. 1, 2028, deadline for establishing the city's Civilian Response Team.

• By Feb. 1, 2030, it must operate 24/7.

The first step: Taking applications for an advisory board to guide the process, as required by the voter-approved city charter amendment.

• The board will be "instrumental in figuring out the protocol," Columbus Public Health commissioner Mysheika Roberts tells Axios.
• There's no deadline for appointments, Roberts says.

After that, the city will begin hiring team members, training and preparing for launch.

Follow the money: Issue 5 didn't specify a cost, but the city invested an additional $1 million toward the effort in its latest annual budget.

The big picture: The Civilian Response Team will join existing 911 alternative crisis response programs and will be the first to be staffed 24/7 when it's fully operational.

The bottom line: "Police can't be everywhere and do everything," Roberts says. "We need to make sure that our community gets the response that they need when they need it."

🤝 Mayor Andrew Ginther hired Julia Kennedy, a Democratic campaign adviser who worked with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, as a senior advisor ahead of his 2027 reelection campaign. (Dispatch)

Survivors of abuse by former OSU doctor Richard Strauss continue coming forward — now including Gahanna's public safety director and a retired Columbus firefighter. (WOSU)

🏳️‍🌈 Stonewall Columbus executive director Densil Porteous sat for a Q&A about the "challenges" Pride faces this year amid shifting "public presence" and corporate support. (Columbus Monthly)

Ten years ago today, Ohio became the center of the internet after Harambe — a 17-year-old gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo — died in one of the strangest viral news cycles of the social media era.

Flashback: On May 28, 2016, a 3-year-old boy entered the zoo's Gorilla World exhibit.

• Fearing the child could be seriously hurt or killed, a zoo response team shot Harambe, an endangered western lowland silverback.
• The child survived. Harambe didn't.

What started as a local breaking news story quickly became a global media machine.

💭 Casey's thought bubble: I was then working in comms for the city of Cincinnati, and much of my job quickly became monitoring nonstop tags on Twitter and fielding questions about whether the child's family might face criminal charges.

• "It was unlike anything I'd covered," my former WCPO-TV colleague Pat LaFleur recalled yesterday.
• "Ten years ago, a local story going viral was still a relatively new phenomenon to Cincinnati," he said. "The virality of Harambe's death quickly became the story itself."

State of play: The internet responded with tributes, conspiracy theories and endless posts treating Harambe as everything from a cultural martyr to a punchline.

• Rumors even ran rampant that tens of thousands of people wrote in "Harambe" for president in 2016.

Reality check: Back in Cincinnati, it always felt more personal and tragic.

• A local family lived under a microscope, enduring online harassment.
• Cincinnati, which had spent years trying to rewrite its national image, suddenly became the internet's main character in the worst possible way.

And the worst part: A beloved gorilla — known affectionately by his keepers as "Handsome Harambe" — was gone in a moment that still sparks debate today.

The intrigue: The city eventually got a happier internet storyline when Fiona, the premature hippo born in 2017, became a viral star.

Yes, but: Even now, many Cincinnatians (myself included) still pause when they see a photo of "Handsome Harambe."

Central Ohio's National Spelling Bee hopes were dashed early when Olentangy's Aayu Chamoli went home in the preliminary rounds of the competition.

Catch up quick: Chamoli, a 10-year-old fifth grader at Freedom Trail Elementary, was the only local in the bee out of 247 participants.

Spelling the news: Tuesday afternoon, he nailed the word "cochineal" and correctly defined "leaven," but was eliminated on the third-round vocabulary test.

• He ended the bee tied for No. 96 after a round that eliminated 72 contestants, nearly halving the field.

🤨 You've got us beat, Aayu — we had to look up "cochineal."