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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• $40 trillion in debt. The New York Times reports, "U.S. Debt Hits $40 Trillion as America's Borrowing Binge Continues."

America's gross national debt topped $40 trillion for the first time on Wednesday, an ominous milestone for an economy that sits on a shaky fiscal foundation after decades of borrowing to pay for the rising costs of the military, social safety net programs and President Trump's tax cuts.

This year alone, the United States is on track to borrow more than $2 trillion to help pay for its obligations, including spending on the war in Iran and the sweeping tax cuts that Republicans enacted in 2025. Soaring interest payments to investors who have purchased America's debt now make up about half of that red ink, pushing the United States into a deeper financial hole.

• Trump's "clean, beautiful coal." Louisville Public Media reports, "Black lung rates in Appalachia are high as the 1970s, with thousands of miners sick."

NIOSH researchers found that working veteran underground coal miners in central Appalachia are suffering from the incurable and fatal lung disease at the highest rates in nearly 50 years.

Ohio has only around 15 active coal mines today, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But, at its peak in the early 1900s, there were hundreds, employing tens of thousands of Ohioans underground.

Miners working in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia who've had at least 25 years underground have the worst rate of coal workers' pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease. One in three — 32.5% — tested positive in X-rays conducted by NIOSH during the last five years.

• The forever target for corporate and industrial exploitation: Appalachia. The Athens County Independent's Amanda Pirani reports, "Appalachian Ohio a target for data centers."

Athens County is just the latest community in Southeast Ohio to be shaken up by data center proposals.

Some public officials and residents hope the centers will bring long-awaited economic development — or at least substantial tax revenue. However, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that data centers can have positive economic impact — but mostly in metropolitan areas. Rural counties see "negligible gains," they wrote.

• Disability rights. NPR reports, "They grew up with disability rights. Now, they're fighting to keep them."

(A) lawsuit brought by several Republican-led states, Texas v. Kennedy, is working its way through the courts. The plaintiffs argue that the federal government cannot require states to provide disability services in the community rather than in institutions. Then, in June, the Department of Justice (DOJ), which enforces the integration mandate, issued a legal opinion taking a similar position — essentially aligning itself with the plaintiffs in the case. "Congress has not imposed an integration mandate on states," the memo reads. It goes on to say the Olmstead decision "held only that a state cannot institutionalize such patients without justification. … What counts as adequate justification remains an open question." In July, the DOJ also clarified that it would no longer enforce Olmstead in the same way it had in the past.

• School attendance. The Cincinnati Enquirer's Grace Tucker reports, "Why parents might get more calls about student attendance this year."

Changes in Ohio state law require schools to respond sooner when students are absent. It also removes the condition of medically excused absences, which means doctor appointments can now count toward a student's chronic absenteeism. The legal definition of truancy, which is based on unexcused absences, has not changed.

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