Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation
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Chicken-Fried News: Learned income

Gazette staff

The headline alone provokes an almost Kafkaesque image. “‘Our kids have become a piggy bank’: Epic Charter Schools shields $50M in taxpayer funds from public scrutiny,” by Andrea Eger (Tulsa World, Feb. 23) reports Epic has paid its for-profit management company millions of taxpayer dollars annually “for school expenditures that are never audited and which […]

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Chicken-Fried News: Epic ails

Gazette staff

Despite the many controversies surrounding Epic Charter Schools, its advertising campaign, like a runaway train, continues full steam ahead. Tulsa World reported that Epic spent $2.5 million for an advertising campaign that covers television, radio and online ads. It also pays to sponsor play areas inside two malls, adding up to $105,000 in annual costs. […]

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Retroactive law

Miguel Rios

Nearly a thousand Oklahomans will be released from prison early — potentially in time for the holidays. Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law that makes State Question 780, which reclassified simple drug possessions from felonies to misdemeanors, retroactive. Department of Corrections (DOC) must provide a list of eligible inmates to the Pardon and […]

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Standardized testing

Miguel Rios

Senate minority leader Kay Floyd authored three bills that work together to reform the way the Oklahoma agencies handle sexual assault kits, also known as rape kits. All three bills cleared the Senate and have moved to committees in the House of Representatives. If passed, they would implement a statewide system to track the kits, […]

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Busted plans

Matt Dinger

Daniel Newberg expected to open his medical marijuana dispensary, No Rhyme or Reason Kratom Shoppe & CBD, after the paperwork went through in November. Now, he sees no rhyme or reason why his application cost him nearly a month of his life behind bars. Newberg was in the process of converting one of his shops […]

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Victims unite

Nazarene Harris

When 45-year-old Oklahoma City mortgage loan officer Lauren Layman finally laid eyes on the man who raped and murdered her great-grandmother 35 years ago, she felt a little sorry for him. Lester Blackbear was 27 years old when he allegedly broke into 77-year-old Ola Kirk’s apartment one summer night in 1983. He was accused of […]

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