Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 64
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Prosecutors say a former Oklahoma Republican House leader has pleaded guilty to a felony count of perjury, admitting that he lied on travel reimbursement claims submitted to the state when he had already been reimbursed from his campaign account. Oklahoma County Assistant District Attorney Scott Rowland says 61-year-old Gus Blackwell received a five-year suspended sentence on Wednesday and was ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution to the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Rowland says Blackwell avoided any jail or prison t...
INDIANOLA, Okla. (AP) — Authorities say a woman's body found near Indianola in Pittsburg County may be that of a Haileyville woman missing for more than a year. Sheriff Chris Morris told reporters the suspect in the woman's disappearance led deputies to the site where the body was found Tuesday. Morris said the suspect told deputies he panicked when the woman died at his home and he buried her. He said the woman had been reported missing in October 2016. The sheriff said the body was found wrapped in plastic and that it was sent to the state m...
CACHE, Okla. (AP) — A body found along a road in southwestern Oklahoma has been identified as that of a Lawton woman. Comanche County Sheriff Kenny Stradley says the state medical examiner has identified the body as 21-year-old Ci'lina Teira Deloney and that she was shot to death. Authorities say a passer-by reported seeing Deloney's body about 11:15 a.m. Monday near Cache and that she had been shot several times. Investigators have said they believe her body was dumped there between 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Stradley says Deloney's car was f...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma City Zoo says a 30-year California sea lion named Moe has died of age-related health complications. Zoo officials say Moe lived longer than most sea lions and that his age was beginning to show before his death Tuesday. The zoo says Moe had developed cataracts in both eyes, had arthritis in his shoulders and hips and took medication for gum disease. But the zoo says the sea lion had recently learned a few new tricks and was a regular contributor to the zoo's annual animal art show. Zoo Curator Laura Bottaro w...
GOULD, Okla. (AP) — Authorities say a sheriff's deputy in western Oklahoma opened fire on a man during a traffic stop, but no one was seriously hurt. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation says the shooting happened Tuesday near Gould, or about 140 miles southwest of Oklahoma City. The OSBI says a Harmon County sheriff's deputy pulled over a man on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle. The OSBI says the driver got out of the pickup truck at the deputy's request, but then re-entered the vehicle and reportedly tried to run over the d...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators on Wednesday slammed Gov. Sam Brownback's accounting move to mask a hole in the state budget, then signaled they may approve it anyway. The House and Senate budget committees began their review Wednesday of the Republican governor's budget plan, which doesn't include widespread spending cuts that some legislators have advocated. Kansas is one of several states, including Oklahoma and Indiana, where the problems are serious enough that legislators are reconsidering past tax cuts designed to stimulate the e...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — After two years without increases, student health insurance premiums will go up more than 5 percent at state universities next year. The Kansas Board of Regents on Wednesday approved a 5.2 percent premium increase for all plans for the 2017-18 academic year. The Lawrence Journal-World reports (http://bit.ly/2iSEpdw ) a student-only plan will cost $1,464 a year, an increase or $72. No changes to plan benefits were recommended. In 2017-18, plans for a student plus spouse, or student plus child, will cost $2,928 per year, an i...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A 19-year-old Wichita man will be sentenced March 3 for killing another man in a drug deal gone wrong. Andrew Scott Bull pleaded guilty Wednesday to voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of 23-year-old Charles Hawkins III two days before Christmas. He was originally charged with first-degree murder. Bull also pleaded guilty to distributing marijuana. Investigators say Bull fired his gun when Hawkins tried to rob him during a drug deal in a Wendy's parking lot....
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Supreme Court will hear arguments March 16 in a case challenging a law that bans a second-trimester abortion procedure. The Lawrence Journal-World reports (http://bit.ly/2jowGmk ) two doctors have challenged a 2015 law that bans doctors from using forceps, clamps, scissors or similar instruments to remove a live fetus in pieces. Such instruments are used in certain dilation and evacuation procedures, which abortion rights supporters say are safer for the woman. A Shawnee County judge ruled the Kansas C...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach wants the Legislature to give him authority to bar potentially tens of thousands of people from casting votes in state or local races, a move that comes after federal and state rulings gutted the state's restrictive proof-of-citizenship voter registration law. Kobach asked a Senate committee Tuesday for legislation that would give him power to create separate voter registration lists — one for people who can vote in any election and another for only federal races, the Lawrence Jou...
SALINA, Kan. (AP) — The Salina City Commission has given initial approval to authorizing special tax funding for a multimillion dollar redevelopment project in downtown Salina. The commission voted Tuesday night on first reading to authorize $154 million in special tax funding for business and tourism projects. Commission members also approved a development agreement with Salina 2010, a private group leading the project. The Salina Journal reports (http://bit.ly/2iJGW6o ) the project is expected to include about $105 million in private f...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — An attorney for Kansas State Treasurer Ron Estes says Estes is remaining neutral on a key proposal from Republican Gov. Sam Brownback for balancing the state's current budget. Treasurer's office General Counsel Scott Gates said Wednesday that if legislators liquidate a $317 million state investment portfolio, Estes wants the authority to re-establish one when state finances improve. Gates testified before the House Appropriations Committee during a briefing on Brownback's plan. Brownback wants to sell off the portfolio i...
EMPORIA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say an Alabama man suspected in a kidnapping and robbery in eastern Kansas has been arrested after fleeing from law enforcement in a stolen pickup truck. The Lyon County, Kansas, sheriff's office said in a news release that the man surrendered Tuesday after ditching the truck and fleeing on foot. He is being held on various Kansas charges, including kidnapping, burglary, robbery, multiple counts of theft, possession of stolen property and criminal possession of a firearm. The release says there also are w...
BOSTON (AP) — Imagine you're behind the wheel when your brakes fail. As you speed toward a crowded crosswalk, you're confronted with an impossible choice: veer right and mow down a large group of elderly people or veer left into a woman pushing a stroller. Now imagine you're riding in the back of a self-driving car. How would it decide? Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are asking people worldwide how they think a robot car should handle such life-or-death decisions. Their findings so far show people prefer a self-driving...
BOSTON (AP) — Fifty years ago Wednesday, a factory worker who claimed he was the Boston Strangler was sentenced to prison. But questions still remain about Albert DeSalvo's confession. Many doubt his assertions that he stalked and killed nearly a dozen women in the Boston area in the early 1960s. DeSalvo later recanted the story and never was indicted in the murders. He was serving a sentence on unrelated charges when he was stabbed to death in prison in 1973. A look at the lingering questions clouding one of America's most infamous serial k...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump intends to nominate former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue to serve as agriculture secretary, according to a person familiar with the decision but not authorized to speak publicly before it is announced. Perdue, 70, would be the first Southerner to lead the Agriculture Department in more than two decades. He comes from the small city of Bonaire in rural central Georgia, where he built businesses in grain trading and trucking. The agriculture secretary job is the last Cabinet position for which Trump h...
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — In grizzly country, comments by President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for education secretary that schools should have guns on campus to protect against the bears aren't a punch line. Betsy DeVos' remark Tuesday to a Senate committee that state and local officials should decide whether guns might have a place at schools caused a big stir in some parts of the country after mass shootings have claimed scores of innocent young lives. But in places such as Wyoming, the issue is more about safety than politics. Grizzlies a...
OGDEN, Utah (AP) — State leaders have announced plans to add electric vehicle charging stations along 1,500 miles of highway running through Utah, Wyoming and Idaho. The leaders joined Utah's Rocky Mountain Power on Wednesday in announcing that the utility received a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for the electric transportation initiative. The money will go toward building charging stations every 100 miles along Interstates 15, 90, 70 and 84. Executive Director of the Utah Governor's Office of Energy Development Laura N...
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The biggest onshore wind development in the works in the U.S. has received two critical federal approvals that could allow the first turbines to go up as soon as next year. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday approved the 500-turbine first phase of the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind project in Wyoming. Meanwhile, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved permits allowing limited numbers of eagle nests to be disturbed and eagles to be killed during construction and initial operation. The turbines' s...
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Attorneys for a group of Montana landowners, health advocates and conservationists have filed a lawsuit seeking to force energy companies to divulge more about the chemicals they use in energy production. Oil and gas industry regulators in September denied a petition to make companies disclose the details on chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." A lawsuit challenging that decision was filed Tuesday in state court in Lewis and Clark County. During fracking, companies pump industrial fluids u...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — ExxonMobil could become one of southeast New Mexico's top oil producers after announcing plans to acquire 275,000 acres of oil leases in the Permian Basin, which also covers parts of western Texas. The Albuquerque Journal reported (http://bit.ly/2jWWYuW ) Tuesday that ExxonMobil is paying $5.6 billion to the Bass family of Fort Worth, Texas, to acquire the family's lease acreage and operating entities. Daniel Fine with the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy at New Mexico Tech says ExxonMobil is likely to begin d...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sylvia Douglas twice voted for President Barack Obama and last year cast a ballot for Democrat Hillary Clinton. But when it comes to "Obamacare," she now sounds like President-elect Donald Trump. This makes her chuckle amid the serious choices she faces every month between groceries, electricity and paying a health insurance bill that has jumped by nearly $400. "It's a universal thing, nobody likes it," Douglas, a licensed practical nurse in Huntsville, Alabama, said of Obama's signature law. "They need to fix it with w...
BARRINGTON, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey woman who found a kidney donor on Craigslist in 2015 but later was told the organ transplant couldn't happen because of complications has now received a kidney. Egg Harbor City resident Nina Saria, 34, said Tuesday she got a kidney last month from her mother, who lives in the Republic of Georgia. She said Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez intervened with federal officials to grant her mother permission to travel to the United States. "It's been difficult for us, but we kept fighting," Saria said. In 2014, S...
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — For many older couples, fun in the bedroom requires help from prescription drugs, but prices of popular brand-name sexual dysfunction drugs have tripled since 2010 and insurance coverage is spotty. Doctors who specialize in treating impotence and women's sexual problems say some patients say they're forgoing sex because medicines are unaffordable. However, experts say couples needn't choose between abstinence and breaking the bank. Here are some strategies: CHECK YOUR POLICY For women, health insurance usually covers new g...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Offering reassurances, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for health secretary said Wednesday the new administration won't "pull the rug out" from those covered by "Obamacare." Democrats were unimpressed, noting a lack of specifics. Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., also told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that Trump is "absolutely not" planning to launch an overhaul of Medicare as he tries to revamp coverage under President Barack Obama's signature health care law. He acknowledged that high prescription d...
