Ben Fenwick

Oklahoma’s Cmdr. John Herrington, a former NASA astronaut who joined the state’s Rocketplane Global Inc. aerospace company to fly tourists into space, resigned from the company Dec. 21, according to a news release. Herrington, a former U.S. Navy test pilot who flew into space in 2002 as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, […]

By unanimous consent, the Oklahoma City council voted Tuesday for a special election for voters to choose or reject a proposed penny sales tax to spend millions of dollars in improvements to the Ford Center.   Citizens will vote March 4 to decide if more than $120 million in improvements to Oklahoma City’s Ford Center […]

Theresa Hernandez, 31, wept in Oklahoma County Court as she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder of her stillborn baby last month. She should spend the rest of her childbearing years in prison, said Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater. “Unfortunately for Mrs. Hernandez, she has experienced 10 pregnancies of her own. She has five children […]

Respected war correspondent Joe Galloway, in a recent column for Editor & Publisher, called the interrogation technique of “waterboarding” a form of “torture.” In waterboarding, a victim has a rag placed in his mouth and is inverted head-down, as water is poured over the cloth, making it difficult to breathe. However, four members of Oklahoma’s […]

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, which helped write Oklahoma’s anti-illegal-immigration law, was designated a “hate group” Dec. 11 by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights law firm. With that designation, FAIR joined the ranks of the American Nazi Party, the knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the New Black […]

A Nobel Prize recently was awarded to a former University of Oklahoma professor ” along with hundreds of other people worldwide.   In October, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, would be the joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in […]

Racism was part of the motive of the author of Oklahoma’s anti-illegal immigration law, formerly House Bill 1804, according to an Oklahoma state senator.             Sen. Harry Coates, R-Seminole, said Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, wrote the law for reasons that aren’t “in the best interests of the state of Oklahoma,” he said at a Thursday […]

Would-be “best” ideas from the more than 3,000 sent into Lance Cargill’s “100 Ideas” campaign were already being culled before the deadline closed, according to spokesman Pat Schnake. Schnake said the push to publish the book into which the “best” 100 ideas are to be printed forced organizers to start the selection early. “They have […]

Oklahoma’s new anti-illegal immigrant law is working, said its author: Hispanics are leaving Oklahoma. Despite claiming repeatedly that the measure, formerly House Bill 1804, is “nationality neutral,” state Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, clearly identified Hispanics as the law’s target during his speech at a recent luncheon before Oklahoma City conservatives. The law took effect Nov. […]

The two things for Oklahoma wineries to fear are weather and government, according to Randall Miller, the owner of Piedmontese Nursery & Vineyard in Duncan. Miller, who is an adjunct professor of agriculture at Oklahoma State University’s Oklahoma City campus, teaches three different classes a semester on growing vinifera, or wine grapes. And without advertising […]