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Attorneys for the two remaining survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre said Thursday they will petition the Oklahoma Supreme Court for a rehearing in the case seeking reparations for one of the worst single acts of violence against Black people in U.S. history. In an 8-1 decision on Wednesday, the state's highest court upheld a decision made by a district court judge in Tulsa last year to dismiss the case. Although the court wrote that the plaintiff's grievances about the destruction of the Greenwood district, also known as "Black Wall...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, dampening the hope of advocates for racial justice that the city would make financial amends for one of the worst single acts of violence against Black people in U.S. history that left as many as 300 people dead and a once-thriving district in smoldering ruins. The nine-member court upheld the decision made by a district court judge in Tulsa last year, ruling that the plaintiff's grievances about the destruction of t...
VALLEY VIEW, Texas (AP) — The dazed residents of a north Texas county sifted through their mangled homes on Sunday after seven people there were killed when a tornado ripped through the remote region near the tiny community of Valley View. Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington said there's "just a trail of debris left" in the area bordering Oklahoma where the dead included two children, ages 2 and 5, in Valley View, a town where barely 800 people live. The bodies of three family members were found in one residence, the sheriff said. The county b...
VALLEY VIEW, Texas (AP) — The dazed residents of a north Texas county sifted through their mangled homes on Sunday after seven people there were killed when a tornado ripped through the remote region near the tiny community of Valley View. Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington said there's "just a trail of debris left" in the area bordering Oklahoma where the dead included two children, ages 2 and 5, in Valley View, a town where barely 800 people live. The bodies of three family members were found in one residence, the sheriff said. The county b...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice sued Oklahoma on Tuesday seeking to block a law that seeks to impose criminal penalties on those living in the state illegally. The lawsuit in federal court in Oklahoma City challenges a law that makes it a state crime — punishable by up to two years in prison — to live in Oklahoma without legal immigration status. Similar laws passed in Texas and Iowa already are facing challenges from the Justice Department. Oklahoma is among several GOP states jockeying to push deeper into immig...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A tornado destroyed homes, forced the evacuation of a nursing home and toppled trees and power lines when it roared through a small Oklahoma town, one of several twisters that erupted in the central United States amid a series of powerful storms that stretched into Tuesday. At least one death was reported. The tornado ripped through the 1,000-person town of Barnsdall, about a 40-minute drive north of Tulsa, on Monday night. It was the second tornado to hit the town in five weeks — a twister on April 1 with maximum wind spe...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and his wife were indicted on conspiracy and bribery charges and taken into custody Friday in connection with a U.S. Department of Justice probe into the couple's ties to the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. From 2014 to 2021, Cuellar, 68, and his wife accepted nearly $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico, and in exchange, Cuellar agreed to advance the interests of the country and the bank in the U.S., according to the i...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Republican-led states are rushing to give broader immigration enforcement powers to local police and impose criminal penalties for those living in the country illegally as the issue of migrants crossing the U.S. border remains central to the 2024 elections. The Oklahoma Legislature this week fast-tracked a bill to the governor that creates the new crime of "impermissible occupation," which imposes penalties of as much as two years in prison for being in the state illegally. Oklahoma is among several GOP-led states j...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas will remain among the handful of states that haven't legalized the medical use of marijuana or expanded their Medicaid programs for at least another year. Republican state senators on Friday blocked efforts to force debates on both issues before the GOP-controlled Legislature's scheduled adjournment for the year Tuesday. Supporters of each measure fell short of the 24 of 40 votes required to pull a bill on each subject out of committee. Backers of both proposals argue that they have popular support yet have been t...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma judge ordered public defenders to represent four members of an anti-government group who appeared in court Wednesday on charges of kidnapping and killing two Kansas women. The judge also entered not-guilty pleas and denied bail for Tifany Adams, 54, and her boyfriend, Tad Cullum, 43, both of Keyes, Oklahoma, as well as Cole and Cora Twombly of Texhoma, Oklahoma. Texas County Associate District Judge Clark Jett assigned the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System to represent all four defendants, OIDS Executive D...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A two-week search for two missing Kansas women came to a fatal end last weekend when Oklahoma authorities confirmed the two were dead and announced the arrests of four people who allegedly belonged to an anti-government group that called themselves "God's Misfits." Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, of Hugoton, Kansas, disappeared on March 30 while driving to pick up Butler's two children for a birthday party. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation confirmed on Tuesday that the bodies found in Texas County w...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma judge ordered a Kansas City Chiefs superfan known as "ChiefsAholic" who admitted to a series of bank robberies to pay $10.8 million to a teller who was assaulted with a gun, though attorneys say the teller may never collect any money. A judge in Tulsa handed down the order last week against Xaviar Michael Bubudar, 29, who was known for attending Chiefs games dressed as a wolf in the NFL team's gear. Former bank teller Payton Garcia alleged Bubudar used a gun to assault her during a robbery of a Bixby, O...
McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — A man convicted of shooting and killing two people in Oklahoma City more than two decades ago was executed Thursday morning. Michael Dewayne Smith received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was pronounced dead at 10:20 a.m., Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesperson Lance West said. After the first of three lethal drugs, midazolam, was administered, Smith, 41, appeared to shake briefly and attempt to lift his head from the gurney before relaxing. He then took several short, a...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma judge ruled Thursday that a death row inmate is not competent to be executed for his role in the 1999 slayings of a mother and son. Pittsburg County Judge Michael Hogan issued an order in the case involving 61-year-old James Ryder in that county. "The court could go on ad nauseum discussing the irrational thought processes of Mr. Ryder, but this is not needed," Hogan wrote in his order. "To be clear, the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence, Mr. Ryder is not competent to be executed" under state l...
WILSON, Okla. (AP) — Before Oklahoma became one of the last places in the U.S. to outlaw cockfighting in 2002, it wasn't uncommon to see hundreds of spectators packed into small arenas in rural parts of the state to watch roosters, often outfitted with razor-sharp steel blades, fight until a bloody death. More than 20 years after the ban took effect, some worry Oklahoma is starting to waver. A proposal to weaken cockfighting penalties cleared the Oklahoma House. A political action committee is raising money to support farmers who raise game f...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The death of a nonbinary student the day after a fight inside an Oklahoma high school restroom has been ruled a suicide, the state medical examiner's office said Wednesday. A summary autopsy report was released more than a month after the death of 16-year-old Nex Benedict, a student at Owasso High School. Family members said Benedict had been bullied at school and the teenager's death in February drew concern from LGBTQ+ rights groups, as well as attention from Oklahoma's governor and the White House. "From the beginning o...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A state panel on Wednesday denied clemency for an Oklahoma death row inmate convicted of shooting and killing two people in Oklahoma City more than two decades ago, paving the way for his lethal injection next month. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole voted 4-1 to deny recommending clemency for Michael Dewayne Smith, 41, who has been sentenced to die for the slayings of Janet Moore, 41, and Sharath Pulluru, 22, in separate shootings in February 2002. Smith has exhausted his appeals and is scheduled to be executed on April 4. A...
CANADIAN, Texas (AP) — A cluster of wildfires scorched the Texas Panhandle on Wednesday, including a blaze that grew into one of the largest in state history, as flames moved with alarming speed and blackened the landscape across a vast stretch of small towns and cattle ranches. An 83-year-old grandmother from the tiny town of Stinnett was the lone confirmed fatality. However, authorities have yet to make a thorough search for victims and have warned the damage to some communities is extensive. Known as the Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest b...
STINNETT, Texas (AP) — Firefighters in Texas faced rising temperatures, whipped-up winds and dry air Saturday in their battle to keep the largest wildfire in state history from turning more of the Panhandle into a parched wasteland. Firefighters were focused on containing the fire along its northern and eastern perimeter, where aggressive gusts from the southwest threatened to spread the flames and consume more acreage, according to Jason Nedlo, a spokesperson with the team of firefighters battling the Smokehouse Creek Fire that began Monday an...
CANADIAN, Texas (AP) — A cluster of wildfires scorched the Texas Panhandle on Wednesday, including a blaze that grew into one of the largest in state history, as flames moved with alarming speed and blackened the landscape across a vast stretch of small towns and cattle ranches. Authorities warned that the damage to communities on the high plains could be extensive. The largest fire — which expanded to more than 1,300 square miles (3,367 square kilometers) — jumped into parts of neighboring Oklahoma and was only about 3% contained, accor...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Police in Oklahoma are investigating the death of a 16-year-old student who died a day after an altercation in a high school bathroom that may have been prompted by bullying over gender identity. Neither police nor school officials have said what led to the fight. But the family of Nex Benedict says there had been harassment because the teen was nonbinary. No cause of death has been released for Benedict, an Owasso High School student in suburban Tulsa who used they/them pronouns. Benedict was able to walk out of the b...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Tribal sovereignty is expected to again be a top issue facing Oklahoma lawmakers and Gov. Kevin Stitt as they returned on Monday to begin the 2024 legislative session. Stitt, a Republican and himself a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, has had a contentious relationship with tribal leaders that began with a dispute during his first year in office over casino revenue and has worsened with conflict over agreements on tobacco sales, motor vehicle tags, taxes and criminal jurisdiction. In his State of the State address to l...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — With four young children and a fifth on the way, Kristina Stadelman was ecstatic after qualifying for a $50,000 bonus for taking a hard-to-fill job as a special education teacher in Oklahoma. She used the money to finish home improvements and buy a new car for her growing family. Then a letter arrived from the Oklahoma State Department of Education: It told her she received the money in error and must repay it, quickly. "I don't obviously have the money to pay it back by the end of February," Stadelman said. "I came home t...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters said Wednesday his agency is working to see if several teachers who were improperly awarded bonuses of up to $50,000 can keep them after he faced bipartisan criticism over attempts to recover the money. During a press conference, Walters said the Oklahoma Department of Education is working closely with the federal government to ensure there is no clawback of the bonuses as long as all federal requirements are met. "We have been in close contact with the feds throughout this e...
ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's first-ever use of nitrogen gas for an execution could gain traction among other states and change how the death penalty is carried out in the United States, much like lethal injection did more than 40 years ago, according to experts on capital punishment. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Friday that the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, a 58-year-old convicted of a 1988 murder-for-hire, went off as planned and his office is ready to help other states if they want to begin nitrogen executions. "...
