News;Ben Fenwick

A rocket contending for a $2 million NASA moon lander prize crashed Saturday at the Oklahoma Spaceport at Burns Flat, according to an industry news publication. The New Scientist reports that Armadillo Aerospace’s Texel moon lander prototype crashed during testing at Burns Flat, roughly two months before it was to compete in at the X […]

According to a report by U.S. Public Interest Research Group ” a public science watchdog group in Washington, D.C. ” global warming came on with a vengeance in 2006, resulting in the highest temperatures in 30 years in Oklahoma. “Warmer-than-average days hit Texas and the Great Plains the hardest in 2006, with average peak temperatures […]

A new bill will sever relations between the Cherokee Nation and the United States, cutting off $270 million in government funding to the tribe, “until such time that they return the Freedmen to full citizenship status,” Rep. Diane Watson, D-California, said Tuesday at the state Capitol.   Watson, a high-ranking member of the congressional black […]

The fight has begun over a faith-based initiative set to take effect Nov. 1, which would use tax dollars to fund religious organizations ministering to inmates of Oklahoma’s prison system. Passed in March by the Oklahoma House, House Bill 2101, the “Transformational Justice Act,” purports to “encourage state prisons to partner with faith-based, community and […]

Oklahoma prison officials executed a man Tuesday for a 1987 murder that went unsolved for more than a decade until police compared the DNA from a second murder for which he was also convicted. Police say Frank Duane Welch (pictured), 45, strangled to death Jo Talley Cooper, 28, at her home in Norman in 1987. Police said […]

The floodwaters that took the wife, daughter and niece of the leader of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma almost caught the chairman and two of his grandsons.   Shane Montgomery, grandson of Billy and Dorita Horse, said he, his cousin and Chairman Horse were ahead of his grandmother’s Dodge Caravan in their much larger GMC […]

Two Oklahoma National Guard helicopters as well as other National Air Guard assets were in Texas readying for the possibility of Hurricane Dean hitting that state’s coast when the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin hit Oklahoma, state emergency and military officials said today.   Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Michelann Ooten said two Oklahoma […]

At least two are dead and several missing after Tropical Storm Erin entered Oklahoma early Sunday, leaving flooding and fatalities in its wake. Emergency crews and law enforcement conducted rescue operations in the wake of a tropical storm that flooded parts of the state Sunday. Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Michelann Ooten said flooding was especially […]

In the debate over whether Oklahoma will build a $1.8 billion coal-fired power plant or use natural gas for fuel, both sides agree that:” coal is dirty, plentiful and cheap; and ” natural gas is cleaner and more expensive. When Chesapeake Energy Corp. chief Aubrey McClendon made his appearance before the Oklahoma Corporation Commission about […]

In February, a plan to build 11 new power plants operating on coal in Texas ran into a slick, hard-hitting and savvy campaign against it ” the “Clean Sky Coalition.” Although several companies are said to have funded the million-dollar campaign, the one that garnered much of the focus was Chesapeake Energy Corp. In a […]