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News
Woman injured during garage fire near Viola
A woman suffered smoke inhalation during a detached garage fire Tuesday near Viola.
The fire started shortly after 1 p.m. at a rural Sedgwick County home at South 227th Street West and 111th, Sedgwick County fire Capt. Kip Hiebert said. A propane delivery truck driver “running on his route happened to drive by and happened to see the fire,” he said. Then someone called 911.
Fire units from Sedgwick County, Clearwater and Conway Springs responded to extinguish the blaze, which took nearly an hour, a Sedgwick County dispatch supervisor said.
Sequestration: Oklahoma Health Department anticipates losses
BY JACLYN COSGROVE jcosgrove@opubco.com
Over the next two weeks, several organizations across Oklahoma will receive letters explaining why they might soon receive less federal grant money.
The state Health Department anticipates that, because of automatic federal budget cuts known as sequestration, it will see a reduction in the amount of grant money that it has available for the 2013 fiscal year.
Because of that reduction, the agency is alerting its federal grant recipients that, although the specific details aren't known, organizations might see a reduction in the amount of grant money they receive.
“I don't think anybody has ever seen anything like this,” said Dr.
Read more on NewsOK.com
Anadarko company owner, wife jailed in gambling inquiry
BY NOLAN CLAY nclay@opubco.com
ANADARKO — Out of a simple white-brick building here, where the windows are painted over and barred, software company owner Chase Egan Burns quietly became a millionaire.
In one Oklahoma bank account, over two years, he deposited $75 million, prosecutors say.
Burns, 37, turned himself in Tuesday morning at the Caddo County jail after he was accused of providing gaming software to an illegal gambling operation in Florida.
Read more on NewsOK.com
Couple is found dead in Okfuskee County
By BRYAN DEAN bdean@opubco.com
BOLEY — A husband and wife found apparently slain at their rural Okfuskee County home were “the kind of people you want your kids to marry,” a family member said Tuesday.
Denver Holloway, 54, and Martha Holloway, 53, were found dead Monday afternoon inside their home about a half-mile west and two miles south of Boley on State Highway 62, said Jessica Brown, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
OSBI agents were working the case at the request of the Okfuskee County sheriff.
Read more on NewsOK.com
Harrah superintendent retires amid criticism
BY RANDY ELLIS rellis@opubco.com
HARRAH — The superintendent of Harrah Public Schools announced his retirement Monday, but said he plans to finish out the school year.
Dean Hughes, who will turn 62 later this month, has come under community criticism over computer purchasing practices and the Feb.
Read more on NewsOK.com
Oklahoma City Public Schools looks to update wellness policy
BY CARRIE COPPERNOLL ccoppernoll@opubco.com
Dawn Chernicky hates to see students standing against the wall during recess.
The physical education coordinator for Oklahoma City Public Schools said she asks children why they're not playing, and often it's because they're in trouble.
Read more on NewsOK.com
Oklahoma House approves income tax-cutting measure
BY MICHAEL MCNUTT mmcnutt@opubco.com
An income tax-cutting proposal backed by Gov. Mary Fallin passed easily Tuesday night in the House of Representatives, despite concerns from House Democrats that the state can't afford to reduce revenue.
House Bill 2032 passed mostly along party lines, 65-30.
Read more on NewsOK.com
Kan. House panel OKs tax plan to rival governor's
A legislative committee approved its Republican chairman's plan for cutting Kansas' sales and income taxes on Tuesday, advancing an alternative to the governor's proposal that more aggressively slashes income taxes.
The plan drafted by Rep. Richard Carlson, chairman of the powerful House Taxation Committee, would reduce individual income tax rates over the next four years only if state revenues grow by at least 2 percent each year. Republican Gov. Sam Brownback's proposal calls for cutting income tax rates each of those years regardless of state revenue.
But Carlson's proposal also would allow the state's sales tax to decrease to 5.7 percent in July, as scheduled by state law. The governor wants to keep the tax as its current 6.3 percent rate.
Radio traffic tells story of Sedgwick County deputy’s shooting
On the Sedgwick County emergency radio traffic, the deputy’s voice sounds urgent.
“Shots fired!” he blurts out and repeats the words.
Following a 12-minute high-speed chase from Sedgwick County, into Harvey County and ending in Butler County, he’s just been hit by shotgun pellets on his right side. And he’s announcing his own wounding over radio traffic in the fading sunlight Monday evening. He’s down on the ground off a remote dirt road near a farmhouse outside the little town of Potwin.
Three die in Oklahoma crashes
FROM STAFF REPORTS
TRAFFIC
Three die in crashes on Oklahoma roadways
Three people have died in state crashes, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
Clint Caskey, 33, Blair
About 4:45 p.m.
Read more on NewsOK.com
Oregon police storm motel room, capture man suspected in slaying of Washington grandparents
LINCOLN CITY, Ore. (AP) — Oregon police storm motel room, capture man suspected in slaying of Washington grandparents.
Read more on NewsOK.com
Two bodies found in two southwest Oklahoma City houses
FROM STAFF REPORTS
Police are investigating the discovery of two bodies Tuesday morning inside neighboring houses in southwest Oklahoma City.
Two men, both in their 50s, were found dead inside their homes, police Capt.
Read more on NewsOK.com
10th Circuit restores lawsuit against Oklahoma County over man who died in custody
BY ROBERT BOCZKIEWICZ
DENVER — An appeals court Tuesday cited years of warnings about serious deficiencies at the Oklahoma County jail as a basis for reopening a lawsuit stemming from the 2009 death of a sick inmate.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded “a reasonable jury could find that Sheriff (John) Whetsel and the County acted with deliberate indifference” to substandard jail conditions that may have caused the death.
Appellate judges decided 3-0 that the daughters of inmate Charles Holdstock should get an opportunity to prove their claim that he was denied his constitutional right to adequate medical attention while in custody.
U.S. District Judge Robin Cauthron in Oklahoma City erred in granting a summary judgment to Whetsel and the board of county commissioners, 10th Circuit Judge Jerome Holmes, of Oklahoma City, wrote in Tuesday's 27-page decision.
There was “ample evidence indicating constitutionally inadequate conditions at the jail,” the appellate judges stated.
They cited numerous reports, between 2003 and 2009, of inspectors from the Oklahoma Health Department and the U.S. Justice Department “that evince deficiencies in the medical care the jail furnished to prisoners.”
The judges said “the failure to remedy ongoing constitutional violations may be evidence of deliberate indifference.”
Whetsel said he had not seen the decision and had no comment.
Holdstock, 63, was found unresponsive in his cell on May 15, 2009, and died.
Tuesday's decision states he had pre-existing health conditions when he was jailed in 2006.
Read more on NewsOK.com
Mo. golfer survives fall into Ill. course sinkhole
Mark Mihal was having a good opening day on the links when he noticed an unusual depression on the 14th fairway at Annbriar Golf Club in southern Illinois. Remarking to his friends how awkward it would be to have to hit out of it, he went over for a closer look.
One step onto the pocked section and the 43-year-old mortgage broker plunged into a sinkhole. He landed 18 feet down with a painful thud, and his friends managed to hoist him to safety with a rope after about 20 minutes. But Friday's experience gave Mihal quite a fright, particularly after the recent death of a Florida man whose body hasn't been found since a sinkhole swallowed him and his bedroom.
"I feel lucky just to come out of it with a shoulder injury, falling that far and not knowing what I was going to hit," Mihal, from the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur, told The Associated Press before heading off to learn whether he'll need surgery. "It was absolutely crazy."
Insider attacks in Afghanistan have long troubled military leaders, lawmakers
BY CHRIS CASTEEL ccasteel@opubco.com
WASHINGTON — Insider attacks in Afghanistan, often referred to as green-on-blue attacks, had been a concern of U.S. military leaders and lawmakers on Capitol Hill long before an Oklahoma soldier and three others were killed in a firefight started by an Afghan police officer Monday in the Wardak province.
Edmond soldier is killed in Afghanistan attack
BY ROBERT MEDLEY and BRYAN DEAN
EDMOND — A week after Rex Schad graduated high school in Edmond, his mother paid the application fees to enroll him at the University of Central Oklahoma.
A few hours later he “confessed” that what he really wanted to do was join the Army, said his mother, Colleen Whipple.
Read more on NewsOK.com
Wichita police investigating after body found
Authorities are investigating the death of a person whose body was found Tuesday afternoon in the 3100 block of South George Washington Boulevard, the site of a December apartment fire, according to a Sedgwick County dispatch supervisor.
Someone discovered the body shortly before 4 p.m. and called 911, the dispatch supervisor said. The circumstances of the death and whether it is connected to the fire are unknown, he said.
The address given by dispatch is to Southfield Apartments, 3161 S. George Washington Blvd. The multi-building complex is tucked on East 31st Street South, near McConnell Air Force Base.
Sedgwick County Chairman Skelton 'disgusted’ by idea of closing Southeast High
A Sedgwick County commissioner said Tuesday he is “disgusted” by the idea of closing Southeast High School and building a new school at 127th Street East and Pawnee.
“I know what that would do to that area of town,” Chairman Jim Skelton said of closing Southeast. “It’s ridiculous in my opinion.”
He said he doesn’t want to see children in his district, which includes south Wichita, bused to school.
Oklahoma's tax revenues for February fall below last year's collections
BY MICHAEL MCNUTT mmcnutt@opubco.com
Oklahoma tax collections for February came in about 10 percent below compared with the same month last year, state finance officials said Tuesday.
The drop is blamed on the continued decline in gross production taxes on natural gas and higher than expected state income tax refunds, according to figures released by the state Office of Management and Enterprise Services.
However, sales tax collections continued to come in at a healthy pace, state Finance Secretary Preston Doerflinger said.
Collections to the general revenue fund, the state's main operating fund, totaled $254.6 million in February, which is $28.9 million, or 10.2 percent below, collections for the same month in 2012.
Read more on NewsOK.com
Students expand their ‘so what’ campaign as they prepare for international competition
Karlee Cooper was born missing the lower part of her right arm.
But she doesn’t let that define who she is.
“For me growing up, I didn’t have a role model,” Cooper said. “I wanted to turn on the TV and see someone like me or open a magazine and see a model that’s missing an arm or a leg.
