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Yvonne Chouteau was the epitome of a prima ballerina in the eyes of artist Mike Larsen. “When you were in her presence with her, she was THE prima ballerina. There's no other way to describe her. … We watched her move, and we could see her on stage all those years ago,” he said. “Truly, I cannot describe the loss. It seems like recently we have lost so many legends. And Yvonne was one of those. She was one of the legends — and not just in Oklahoma.” Chouteau, one of the five American Indian ballerinas from Oklahoma who gained...

From his early childhood, Dan Hill wanted to be a soldier. At the age of 15, he forged his birth certificate and enlisted in the United States Army. By the time he was 22 he had seen action as a covert sniper in the Hungarian Revolution, a paratrooper during the Lebanon invasion, an infiltrator during the Algerian Revolt, a gunrunner to Cuba, an undercover mercenary in the Congo– and he had killed more than 200 men. That's when he stopped counting. That was before two tours in Vietnam, before fighting with the Mujahedin in Afghanistan, before going undercover to spy...

One of the suspects in this case is dying. She is in her 60s, and confined to a wheelchair. One of the other suspects is her caretaker. Related News/Archive Roll call of some who died in 2012 Tampa Bay area has a long history of violent, heinous crimes Panhandle Tasering and rogue deputy hold lessons for current Pinellas Sheriff's Office troubles A young woman struggles with oxy addiction and recovery The girl in the window He is also in his 60s, and a disabled Vietnam veteran. This husband-and-wife crime wave were at their home in Parrish, just across the Sunshine...

The issue of legalizing medical marijuana is not high on the priority list for the Romney/Ryan ticket. However, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan on Thursday told Colorado station KRDO-TV that legalizing medical marijuana is a decision that should be made by individual states. “My personal position on these issues has been let the states decide what they want to do with these things,” he said. “This is something that is not a high priority of ours.” Colorado is currently mulling whether to legalize marijuana and residents will vote on the issue in November with “Amendment 64” on the ballot....

The 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center towers' felling on Sept. 11, 2001, is approaching. The San Francisco Opera will commemorate the date with the world premiere of an opera based on what happened that day. The two-act opera "Heart of a Soldier" was written by Christopher Theofanidis and mines still achingly raw subject matter. Its world premiere is scheduled at the War Memorial Opera house on Sept. 10. The opera, commissioned by San Francisco Opera general director David Gockley, is described by the company as as a tale of "war, love and heroism." The work is based on...

TAMPA - Sheriff's officials are investigating why a deputy in a jail booking video appears to dump a quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair. Hillsborough sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway said the agency is looking into what happened to Brian D. Sterner, 32, during his Jan. 29 booking at the Orient Road Jail, after a television reporter confronted Callaway with the jail's own video. Footage aired on WTSP-Ch. 10 Monday night showed a uniformed officer unseating Sterner from his chair, then searching him as he lay on the floor where he had fallen. "She said, 'Stand up.' I said, 'I can't...

"He's probably gone with more black women than Barack," Young said of former President Clinton,

A brazen attack by four gunmen on the Pelindaba nuclear facility has left a senior emergency officer seriously injured. Anton Gerber, Necsa emergency services operational officer spoke to the Pretoria News from his hospital bed hours after the attack. He was shot in the chest when the gunmen stormed the facility's emergency response control room in the early hours of Thursday morning. The shooting comes four months after Necsa's newly appointed services general manager Eric Lerata, 43, was gunned down in front of his Montana home after returning from a business trip in France. Pelindaba is regarded as one of...

TAMPA -- The two men detained in South Carolina over the weekend after police said they found a suspicious item in their car are University of South Florida students, officials said. At a 1:30 p.m. news conference today, USF Spokesman Ken Gullette said Yousef Megahed is an undergraduate student and Ahmed Mohamed is a civil engineering graduate student. Mohamed is originally from Kuwait and completed his undergrad education in Cairo. He has been at USF since January and was registered for six hours during summer session, Gullette said. Megahed, originally from Egpyt, has been enrolled at USF since 2004 and...

The State May Allow Marijuana Use For Medical Purposes, But There Is Still Strong Opposition. Should A Pot-smoking Paraplegic Go To Jail Then?

Richardson signs medical marijuana bill SANTA FE (AP) — Nearly three decades after medical marijuana first was approved in New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson on Monday signed a law authorizing the state Department of Health to give the drug to some seriously ill patients. New Mexico became the 12th state to legalize the use of marijuana for medical reasons. Richardson said the new law provides ‘‘a humane option for New Mexicans living with cancer, HIV and other serious medical conditions.’’ The second-term governor is seeking the 2008 Democratic nomination, and Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico said he is the first...

Watch film of CIA agents at RFK assassination - identified by co-workers

On Sept. 29, 2006, in the middle of the night, Congress passed the Safe Port Act, in order to provide more stringent rules to protect 361 U.S. seaports from potential terrorist shipments. How is this gambling news? Pages 213 to 244 of the Port Security Act included the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. This was an unrelated attachment added to the bill at the last minute by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN). The bill was approved by the conference committee and sent to President Bush with neither a debate nor a formal vote. Most congressmen weren’t even...

“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”—Raymond Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder” A kind of shorthand had developed between fellow OU alums Rick Rescorla and Fred McBee during their 30-year friendship. When one of them quipped Raymond Chandler’s famous quote on the detective hero, they both knew what it meant: Sometimes, you have gather your courage and just do what needs to be done.

Early Sunday morning, I sat down to write my column. As I typed “September,” the computer prompted me with the date. September 11, 2005. My stomach dropped. I hadn't remembered. But all of a sudden, there it was, staring me in the face, hovering over the otherwise blank page. In a flash, it all came back to me. I could barely sleep for the flood of memories. I realized how long it had been since I'd thought of 9/11. Reference to it would pass before me from time to time, but I hadn't remembered it. Shortly after September 11, news...

Tony Blair has backed calls for a posthumous honour for a British-born hero of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York, it has emerged. Rick Rescorla served in Vietnam Rick Rescorla, 62, was head of security for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter when two hijacked airliners hit the World Trade Centre in 2001. He died after helping save 2,700 people by making sure they left the South Tower before it collapsed. His body has never been found. Originally from Hayle, west Cornwall, Mr Rescorla was granted US citizenship in the late 1960s and served in Vietnam. In 2002 he was...

Rick Rescorla helped save thousands before losing his life at World Trade Center In Susan Rescorla's eyes, the very traits that made her late husband a hero on 9/11 were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam almost 40 years ago. "He was a soldier... and a warrior," she whispered, shortly after an Al Reid portrait of Rick Rescorla, an Officer Candidate School Hall of Famer who led more than 2,700 Morgan Stanley employees to safety after terrorists crashed a plane into the World Trade Center, was unveiled Thursday at the National Infantry Museum. "He made one last sweep, as he'd...

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) - Barry Corbet, a member of a climbing team that forged a new route up Mount Everest in 1963, has died at the age of 68. Mr. Corbet died of natural causes at his home in Golden, Colo., on Saturday. Besides being a pioneering alpinist, he was a climbing guide in the Tetons of northwest Wyoming in the 1960s, a filmmaker and an inspirational skier who saw his promising outdoor career end when he was paralyzed in a helicopter crash in 1968. Mr. Corbet is best known in Jackson Hole for Corbet's Couloir, a double-diamond run named...

TAMPA - Cigarette smoking will finally be tamped out Sunday at Grandma's Kitchen, a truck-stop restaurant that had been flouting the state's indoor smoking ban. Owners of the Citgo truck stop at 6503 U.S. 301 told restaurant operators Wava and John Saunders on Friday that they are being evicted . They have leased the place since May. Wava Saunders said the plaza owners gave the couple the option of tossing the butts and keeping the restaurant. ``That would have gone against what I believe in and what we have been fighting for,'' she said. So the Saunderses have to be...

HEART OF A SOLDIER