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An Oklahoma man is facing up to 12 years in prison for having ammunition in his carry-on bag at a Turks and Caicos airport, according to a GoFundMe page for his family. Ryan and Valerie Watson, the parents of two young children, were flying home from their island vacation, where they were celebrating a friend's 40th birthday, on April 12 when they were arrested at the airport. "They had their lives turned upside down when they tried to return home, as local airport security found four rounds of ammunition unknowingly left in a duff[le]bag from a deer hunting trip," a...

University of Texas which was laying off around 60 employees in order to belatedly comply with a state law prohibiting DEI. I say belatedly because the law in question took effect at the beginning of the year but it seems UT's first reaction wasn't to get rid of DEI offices and employees but instead to simply rebrand them. For instance, at the University of Texas the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement was renamed the Division of Campus and Community Engagement. But one of the authors of SB 17, the Texas DEI prohibition, caught wind of what was happening and...

<p>ENID, Oklahoma (AP) — Voters in the northwest Oklahoma city of Enid ousted a city council member with ties to white nationalism, according to unofficial results posted Tuesday on the Oklahoma Election Board website.</p><p>With all four precincts reporting in Enid’s Ward 1, results show voters chose to recall 42-year-old Judd Blevins. They instead selected Cheryl Patterson, a grandmother and longtime youth leader at an area church, to fill the seat.</p>

Video shows an Oklahoma woman being interrogated by FBI agents regarding her social media posts, according to her lawyer. One of the alleged FBI agents is seen on video admitting to grilling Americans about social media posts "every day, all day long." Rolla Abdeljawad was reportedly confronted by FBI agents at her home in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Abdeljawad uploaded video of the alleged encounter with government agents on her Facebook. Abdeljawad asked the agents for their credentials, but they refused. The agents would not provide the woman with their names when asked. The FBI agents allegedly interrogated Abdeljawad over her posts...

It may seem like a surprise to many that there could be a confrontation between Chinese gangsters at a marijuana farm on the Oklahoma prairie.But it is a reality that has been commonplace in Oklahoma since legislators opened the state up to the medicalmarijuana business. As of January 2022, there hadn't been widely reported cases of Chinese gangsters specifically involved in the Oklahoma marijuana business. However, it's important to note that organized crime groups often exploit vulnerabilities in various industries, including the cannabis market. Here are some ways in which organized crime groups, including those with Chinese connections, might become...

(The Center Square) – Two dozen Republican U.S. senators are pushing back against the Biden administration's plan to increase taxes on the U.S. oil, natural gas and coal industries to the tune of over $110 billion. U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., led a coalition of 24 senators expressing “grave concern regarding the administration's continued hostility towards American energy production.” In a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, they wrote, “America's working families and small businesses are facing immense challenges including high energy prices. At the same time, our allies and partners across the globe are asking for reliable American...

The photo of Judd Blevins was unmistakable. In it, Blevins, bearded and heavyset, held a tiki torch on the University of Virginia campus, on the eve of Unite the Right, a 2017 coming-together of the nation’s neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. Connie Vickers had found the photo online along with others showing Blevins marching alongside an angry mob — a crowd of men recorded throughout the night spitting and shouting “Jews will not replace us!” Vickers had it enlarged at a local print and copy shop. On a January night in 2023, she and Nancy Presnall, best friends, retirees and...

Between 2017 and 2022, the number of farms in the U.S. declined by 141,733 or 7%.. Acres operated by farm operations during the same timeframe declined by 20.1 million (2.2%), a loss equivalent to an area about the size of Maine. Only 1.88% of acres operated and 1% of farm operations were classified under a non-family corporate farm structure. ... USDA defines a farm as an operation that produced and sold, or normally would have sold, $1,000 or more of agricultural products during the census year. While the number of farm operations and acres operated declined, the value of agricultural...

A national LGBTQ youth nonprofit group said crisis calls from Oklahoma more than tripled in the weeks after transgender student Nex Benedict died there on Feb. 8. Lance Preston, founder of the Indianapolis-based Rainbow Youth Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, said the group’s crisis hotline for LGBTQ young people received 1,097 contacts, including calls and online messages, from Oklahoma in February — an increase of more than 200% from its monthly average of 350 contacts. The group received just under 1,000 of those contacts after Feb. 16, when Nex’s death began to receive widespread media attention. Of...

Chinese gangs have set up thousands of illicit weed farms across the US as they begin to challenge Mexican cartels for supremacy as America's cannabis kingpins. Authorities in Oklahoma, Oregon, California, New Mexico and Maine have all been battling a surge in Chinese weed farms, with some thought to be linked to criminal gangs known as 'triads'. The spread is seemingly uncontainable, with police in Penobscot County, Maine, last week arresting three Chinese nationals at a weed farm and seizing 40 pounds of the drug alongside $4,700 in cash. It is thought to be one of around 270 illegal weed...

On Thursday, the U.S. government sold the Federal Helium Reserve, a massive underground stockpile based in Amarillo, Texas, that supplies up to 30% of the country’s helium. Once the deal is finalized, the buyer — which will likely be the highest bidder, the industrial gas company Messer — will claim some 425 miles of pipelines spanning Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, plus about 1 billion cubic feet of the only element on Earth cold enough to make an MRI machine work. Regulatory and logistical issues with the facility threaten a temporary shutdown as it passes from public to private ownership, and...

Cernovich @Cernovich In 2018, Senator Lankford admitted he was doing an amnesty deal with Democrats, behind his voters back. 8:18 PM · Feb 5, 2024

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), hours before his months-long work on a pro-migration border deal is projected to go down in flames, defended Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas against impeachment. Asked about the House’s effort to impeach the embattled secretary amid an unprecedented border crisis that began under his watch, Lankford said, “It’ll fail in the Senate,” while mockingly taunting, “If I can use the House term, it’ll be dead on arrival when it comes over.” Lankford on House Republicans trying to impeach Mayorkas again “It’ll fail in the Senate. If I could use the House term, it’ll be dead on...

Senate leaders on Sunday released the details of a long-awaited comprehensive border security bill, which also contains a substantial foreign aid component.The discussions, led by Senators James Lankford (R-OK), Krysten Sinema (I-AZ), and Chris Murphy (D-CT), come after months of negotiations with the Biden regime, seeking to address both the ongoing crisis at the U.S. southern border and foreign policy commitments abroad.The 370-page deal, according to Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, claims it reflects weeks of good-faith negotiations, balancing domestic concerns with urgent international aid needs.“As Ukraine runs low on ammunition to fend off Putin’s...

Senator James Lankford (R-OK) said Monday on FNC’s “Fox & Friends” that people should read the bipartisan border bill he co-authored before going off on a Facebook post. Lankford said, “People have got to be able to read it and go through it themselves. Don’t just go off of a Facebook post somewhere what the bill says.” He continued, “The key aspect of this, again, is are we, as Republicans, going to have press conferences and complain the borders bad and then intentionally leave it open after the worst month in American history in December? Now we’ve got to actually...

A Republican winning an Oklahoma special election on Tuesday night in a deep red area by just five points has sparked concerns about the GOP's performance in November's races. Republican Erick Harris won House District 39's special election by 261 votes, beating Democrat Regan Raff into second place (50 percent to 45 percent). The election was triggered following former state Representative Ryan Martinez's resignation last September after pleading guilty to a felony offense of being in physical control of a vehicle while intoxicated. While the result is not likely not an indication of the outcome of the 2024 presidential election...

OKLAHOMA CITY—An Oklahoma judge agreed to step down Friday after she was caught sending hundreds of texts from the bench while overseeing a murder trial in the killing of a 2-year-old boy, including messages that mocked prosecutors and were sprinkled with emojis. District Judge Traci Soderstrom also agreed to not seek judicial office again in Oklahoma under a proposed settlement agreement filed with the Oklahoma Court on the Judiciary. She had faced removal from the bench over accusations that included gross neglect of duty, oppression in office, lack of proper temperament, and failure to supervise her office. Judge Soderstrom had...

Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem ... Mexican drug cartels have set up shop on tribal reservations in her state because they know the federal government has jurisdiction over those lands, and that the Biden administration is "letting it happen." "Even though South Dakota isn't a neighboring state to Texas, we're on the front lines of this thing," Noem said .. "I've got nine Native American tribes, and the cartels are set up on our tribal grounds. They are facilitating this drug trafficking, this human trafficking through my tribal grounds here in South Dakota because I don't have jurisdiction there....

A gas pipeline exploded January 30, 2024 north of Darrouzett (Elmwood, OK Fire Department) The pipeline is reportedly owned by DCP Midstream. According to the Booker Fire Department, flames are shooting 500-feet into the air. Crews are staged a "safe distance" away until the gas can be turned off.

Florida earned its reputation as the retirement capital of the US.. A fixed income in retirement can go a lot further in some states than others .. ... To make the most of your retirement savings, you should retire in a state where the cost of living and tax rates are friendly to retirees, if you have the resources to. You should also consider factors like the quality of the state's healthcare system and the abundance of activities that you enjoy.' Colorado, which ranked second for the best state to retire in 2024, offers similarly taxpayer-friendly conditions, with no estate...