News;Ben Fenwick

CAMP BUEHRING, KUWAIT ” As many as half or more of the members of Oklahoma’s National Guard ” the 45th Infantry Brigade, or Thunderbirds ” have deployed overseas. Detainee operations, “Green Zone” security and convoy protection are among the tasks that the Thunderbirds will undertake during their estimated year in Iraq. Most of these things […]

As advance elements of the Oklahoma National Guard land in Kuwait this week, their mission will be to hand off Baghdad’s International Zone to full Iraqi control, said Brig. Gen. Myles Deering, commander of the unit. Deering said the 45th, known as the “Thunderbirds” after the American Indian symbol that represents it, will have to […]

In October 2007, Oklahoma’s execution schedule ground to a halt. Attorney General Drew Edmondson said a case in Kentucky before the U.S. Supreme Court suggested that Oklahoma’s method of execution risks pain. “The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment,” Edmondson said. “The issue before the Supreme Court is what standard defines cruel and unusual. […]

“The Revenge Diet” ” heralded by a book of the same name by author Monica Grenfell ” promises its adherents will lose 15 pounds in a month on a daily intake of 1,200 calories. Maybe, said Dr. Brendon McCollom with St. Anthony Hospital. But a loss of 15 pounds in a month is stretching it, […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]