Local & Regional

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin says she believes a special legislative session is needed to address a $215 million budget shortfall after the state Supreme Court overturned a new $1.50-cent-per-pack fee on cigarettes.

Fallin stopped short of issuing a formal call for a session, but said Wednesday that the departments of Human Services, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, and the Health Care Authority would run out of money without legislative action.

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s Lighthorse police staged a raid Wednesday on the new, soon to open, Embers Grill in Broken Arrow.

Officers arrived around 6:30 p.m. They confiscated illegal gaming machines and equipment and took the owner, Steve Bruner, into custody.

The restaurant is within Broken Arrow city limits near 129th East Avenue and the Creek Turnpike, but it is on Kialegee Tribal Town allotment land. The tribal town is a faction of the Creeks. It wanted gaming to help pay for town projects.

Tulsa City Council action Wednesday may finally resolve the years-long dispute with Tulsa County over jail costs.

"Why no headlines of quarrels between Broken Arrow and the county over the jail? Why no high-profile rate hikes for Owasso or Sand Springs? Well, the difference is that each of those communities operates their own lockup facilities for their municipal inmates," said Mayor G.T. Bynum.

A new survey of Tulsa residents by the AARP shows some startling facts about caregivers. Joy McGill is with the AARP. She says caregivers are getting younger. Two in 10 caregivers are millennials; slightly over half of northeastern Oklahoma caregivers are age 50+.

Other Survey Results:

·         Less than three in 10 caregivers are aware of the resources or information available to help them in their community

·         56% of respondents are interested in receiving assistance or information

Law officers and safety agencies warn drivers classes are beginning this week and next in the Tulsa area, and it’s time to strictly obey laws in school zones. It’s not only speeding and reckless driving rules that will be enforced. The Triple A’s Mark Madeja says distracted driving while on an electronic device like an I-phone is a growing problem. He says focus on driving, especially around school zones and school buses.

Sheriff’s deputies and other law officers say there will be NO tolerance when enforcing laws in school zones.

The group of roughly two dozen service agencies known collectively as A Way Home for Tulsa is looking to build on its success.

The collective has housed 828 homeless Tulsans — 641 veterans and 187 chronically homeless — since 2015, more than double its original goal.

"Our neighbors who are in need, we just needed to give them a little bit of help, and so now those folks who were once homeless are living in safe, secure housing in Tulsa and they're still able to be a part of our community," said past A Way Home for Tulsa Chair Jeff Jaynes.

School officials in Oklahoma City and Tulsa will reconsider whether their schools should bear the names of confederate generals after a white nationalist rally decrying the planned removal of a Robert E. Lee statue turned deadly in Charlottesville, Virginia.

An online petition in Tulsa urges the district to rethink a 99-year-old decision to name a school after Lee. Four elementary schools in Oklahoma City also bear the names of Lee and other Confederate generals.

 The FBI says a 24-year-old man accused of robbing a Louisiana bank has been caught at a university in Oklahoma.

Jeffrey Sallet, special agent in charge in New Orleans, said in a news release Tuesday that Langston University police and FBI agents arrested Dillon Arnez Davis on Thursday in Langston, Oklahoma.

He says Davis is wanted in an Aug. 2 holdup at a Chase Bank branch in Kenner, a New Orleans suburb.

FBI spokesman Craig Betbeze ays the arrest was at Langston University. Vice President Mautra Staley Jones says Davis is not a student there.

Oklahoma's attorney general has requested that state regulators dismiss a preapproval case for a utility that wants to build a $4.5 billion wind farm.

The Oklahoman reports the motion against the Public Service Co. of Oklahoma's Wind Catcher project was filed last week by Attorney General Mike Hunter's public utility division. The motion argues the utility didn't follow competitive bidding rules and hasn't shown a need for new generation.

Tulsa International Airport is close to having final approval for a plan to subsidize public improvements that will draw new businesses to the area.

"We are looking to spur development of hotels around the terminal, support services for the terminal — a convenience store, for instance, or restaurants that serve the traveling public," said airport spokeswoman Alexis Higgins. "We're also looking for those industrial development opportunities where people are looking to expand or grow or even relocated their business from another area."

A new blueprint could help state lawmakers decide whether certain jobs need government-issued licenses.

"Most people would assume that a doctor would be a public safety concern and need to have a license from the state, but when you get into things like hair braiding, that might not have as high a level of potential danger to the public," said Labor Commissioner Melissa Houston.

Thick, black smoke filled the Tulsa sky from an afternoon blaze in the Pearl District.

Tulsa Fire Captain Stan May says it was a two-alarm fire at 5th and South Rockford. The building was a former manufacturing facility. A large section of the roof collapsed from the intense heat.

Captain May says the first was reported about one-o’clock this afternoon.  The cause of the fire is unknown at this time. 

Thick, black smoke filled the Tulsa sky from an afternoon blaze in the Pearl District.

Tulsa Fire Captain Stan May says it was a two-alarm fire at 5th and South Rockford. The building was a former manufacturing facility. A large section of the roof collapsed from the intense heat.

Captain May says the first was reported about one-o’clock this afternoon.  The cause of the fire is unknown at this time. 

Greenheck Group, a Wisconsin-based manufacturer of air movement, control and conditioning equipment, announced today it will build a new campus in Tulsa. The company plans to break ground later this year and be operational at its first of two facilities by the summer of 2018. Initially, the northeast Tulsa campus will include manufacturing operations and distribution for Greenheck Group’s Accurex brand of commercial kitchen ventilation systems and its Greenheck Tempered Air Products  line.

Federal Judge Gregory K. Frizzell sentenced Ronald Eugene Robinson, 62, of Tulsa, to 57 months of imprisonment for Accessing with Intent to View Child Pornography, announced Loretta F. Radford, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma.  Chief Judge Frizzell also sentenced Robinson to 10 years of supervised release following his release from prison. 

University of Oklahoma regents have decided to create a new entity to run OU Medical Systems.

The Journal Record reports that regents voted unanimously to take control of the hospital and clinic systems by forming an affiliation agreement with newly created nonprofit OU Medicine Inc.

The new agreement was spurred by the breakup of the system's former operator, Tennessee-based Hospital Corp. of America Holdings Inc.

OU Health Sciences Center Provost and Senior Vice President Jason Sanders says the integrated model will give the university more control.

A man is dead and a woman hospitalized after an overnight crash along the Tulsa/Okmulgee County line. The wreck happened during a chase by law enforcement near the community of Hectorville.

The male driver lost control, ran off the road, hit a tree and rolled the car near 204th and South Peoria. He was being running from authorities at the time of the crash.

Tulsa County approved an agreement Monday that will keep sheriff’s office dispatchers in the city’s 911 center another year.

Sheriff Vic Regalado said the city and county have simply renewed last year’s rental agreement, which will see the county pay $186,533.

"Our 911 center is ready to go, and it's funded through E911 funding; however, it's located in the training center, which is not complete," Regalado said.

The Tulsa School District will review the names of all of its schools. The announcement was made today by Tulsa School Superintendent Deborah Gist.

In a Facebook post she said  “Leading with equity means thinking critically about our traditions and histories and recognizing where changes may be needed to live our core values of equity, character, excellence, team, and joy.

We are committing to undertaking a full review of the names of all of our schools to ensure that our learning communities have names that are aligned with our values.”

The FBI has arrested a 23-year-old man who authorities say attempted to detonate what he believed was an explosives-laden van outside an Oklahoma bank.

Officials say Jerry Drake Varnell of Sayre, Oklahoma, was arrested Saturday in connection with a plot to detonate a vehicle bomb in Oklahoma City.

Tulsa Public Schools is asking parents to help their children get a head start on life-long success by taking advantage of the district’s free full-day pre-kindergarten programs. More than 200 seats are available in pre-kindergarten classes throughout the city. 

“There is no doubt that pre-kindergarten is a life-changer for children,” said Superintendent Deborah A. Gist. “Students who start school in pre-kindergarten are more likely to read at grade-level by third grade, master middle grade math concepts, and earn a high school diploma.

Tulsa Public Schools is asking parents to help their children get a head start on life-long success by taking advantage of the district’s free full-day pre-kindergarten programs. More than 200 seats are available in pre-kindergarten classes throughout the city. 

“There is no doubt that pre-kindergarten is a life-changer for children,” said Superintendent Deborah A. Gist. “Students who start school in pre-kindergarten are more likely to read at grade-level by third grade, master middle grade math concepts, and earn a high school diploma.

Tulsa Public Schools is asking parents to help their children get a head start on life-long success by taking advantage of the district’s free full-day pre-kindergarten programs. More than 200 seats are available in pre-kindergarten classes throughout the city. 

“There is no doubt that pre-kindergarten is a life-changer for children,” said Superintendent Deborah A. Gist. “Students who start school in pre-kindergarten are more likely to read at grade-level by third grade, master middle grade math concepts, and earn a high school diploma.

A federal judge has awarded $1 million against a former Oklahoma teacher who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2015 for sex crimes involving her teenage student.

An attorney for 31-year-old Jennifer Caswell says she will be in prison for the next several years and has no money to pay her former student.

The Oklahoman reports that the former student and his father sued Caswell and the Hollis School District in 2015 over the sexual relationship.

Heavy rains in eastern Oklahoma are believed to have caused a train to derail near Sallisaw.

The Union Pacific train with two locomotives and about a dozen cars derailed about 6 a.m. Sunday just north of Highway 64, about 160 miles (257 kilometers) east of Oklahoma City.

Union Pacific spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza says he train had a two person crew and there were no injuries. Espinoza says the conductor reported seeing water on the tracks, and the train derailed as the brakes were applied.

Tulsa Police are searching for a vehicle that struck a bicycle rider and then fled the scene. The crash happened over the weekend near the 2300 block of West Edison. That is near Tulsa's Central High School.

30-year-old Ronald Hill was dead at the scene. Police want to know who struck Hill and why that person did not stay at the scene or render aid.

  The City’s Streets and Stormwater crews will begin a special collection for green waste only on Monday Aug. 14 for residents affected by the midtown tornado Sunday. 

The City of Tulsa will make one green waste sweep at no cost for residents between Harvard to Sheridan from 31st St. to 41st St. and Harvard to Mingo from 41st St. to 51st St.

                                                 Designated Green Waste Collection Boundary Map