Local & Regional

The City of Tulsa may hand over the reigns of the Performing Arts Center after more than 40 years.

Officials are in talks to turn over operations and management of the PAC to the 16-member Performing Arts Center Trust.

"The situation here is a little bit unique in that we have the advantage of working with a partner that’s been around for 45 years and that the city is directly a beneficiary of a public trust," said Mayor's Chief of Staff Jack Blair. "It’s a known quantity, so I think that helps quite a bit in making this kind of transition."

The Oklahoma Senate’s top Republican said the legislature wants to be more proactive — and that will start with the budget.

Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat said lawmakers have long relied upon agency reports and figures they can’t easily verify when crafting the state’s spending plan.

"In order to better represent the people of Oklahoma, have more transparency, we’ve thought about creating a legislative budget office between the House and the Senate that can dig into those numbers, dig into those programs. Are we getting our best bang for the buck?" Treat said.

An Oklahoma deputy acquitted in a 2016 fatal shooting of an unarmed black man is no longer scheduled to speak at a homicide investigators conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

News outlets report the Southeastern Homicide Investigators Association rescinded Roger County Sheriff's Deputy Betty Shelby's invitation on Sunday following pressure from civil rights leaders. Shelby is a former Tulsa police officer charged and acquitted of manslaughter in the killing of Terence Crutcher. She later resigned.

An early season winter storm has dumped up to 7 inches of snow in the Texas Panhandle and lesser amounts across Oklahoma as it moves toward Arkansas.

Meteorologist John Cockrell with the National Weather Service in Amarillo said Monday that the heaviest snowfall was reported around Amarillo.

No injuries or significant damage are reported as the system moved across the region. The weather service says are snow-packed, but no road closings are reported.

With snowy conditions in parts of the state, Oklahoma Department of Transportation's crews are treating roads and bridges. Crews are applying salt and sand to bridges in following the counties:

Crews will continue monitoring the weather conditions across the state and will deploy salt and sand trucks as needed. Drivers should use caution in these areas through the morning and be alert to change in weather conditions. 

REMEMBER during snowy and icy conditions, motorists are asked to:

Firefighters say a fire that raced through an agricultural barn at a central Oklahoma school district destroyed livestock raised by students.

Cashion Fire Chief Michael Henry says an electrical fire on Saturday destroyed a barn used by the Cashion Schools FFA chapter near the school campus in Cashion, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Oklahoma City.

  Clemency requests are on their way to Gov. Mary Fallin for 22 Oklahoma prison inmates convicted of various nonviolent offenses.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has recommended that sentences of between 10 and 40 years be reduced after voters approved a state question in 2016 that reclassified some nonviolent drug and property crimes.

State Question 780 made drug possession and low-level property offenses misdemeanors instead of felonies. The maximum sentence for simple drug possession now is one year in jail.

Authorities in northeastern Oklahoma say a 52-year-old man has died following an officer-involved shooting.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation says the shooting occurred about 9:15 a.m. Sunday in downtown Wagoner, about 37 miles (60 kilometers) southeast of Tulsa.

The OSBI says the shooting occurred after a Wagoner police officer initiated a traffic stop with a motorist identified as Elisha Edward Kelley. Officials say Kelley got out of his truck and refused to follow verbal commands.

A wintry mix of precipitation is expected across eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas Today. A mixture of rain and snow will transition to all snow by mid-morning across northeast Oklahoma, mainly to the north of Interstate 44 with the transition to all snow taking place later this morning and into early this Afternoon south of interstate 44 and into northwest Arkansas. The precipitation is expected to remain all rain across extreme southeast Oklahoma and portions of west-central Arkansas.

An Oklahoma woman said to be the mother of a newborn who was found dead in a trash bin has been ordered to stand trial on charges related to the case.

The Enid News & Eagle reports that Kathryn Juanita Green was ordered on Friday to stand trial on charges of child neglect, unlawful removal of a body, desecration of a body, possession of a controlled substance and obstructing an officer.

A man wanted for the death of his ex-wife in Oklahoma has been added to the U.S. Marshals Service's 15 Most Wanted list.

Authorities are searching for 34-year-old Luis Octavio Frias for the August 2013 stabbing death of his ex-wife, Janett Reyna, in Kay County and say he may be in Mexico.

Marshals Service Deputy Director David Anderson says the 15 Most Wanted list is for fugitives considered "the worst of the worst."

Authorities say Frias attacked Reyna as she entered his mother's home in Blackwell, then stabbed her 41 times in front of their three children.

Darrell Henderson rushed for 166 yards, going over 3,000 for his career, and two touchdowns and Memphis became bowl-eligible for a school-record fifth straight season with a 47-21 victory over Tulsa on Saturday. Brady White was 14 of 20 for 184 yards passing and two touchdowns.

Kyler Murray passed for 349 yards and ran for 66 and No. 6 Oklahoma survived a late two-point conversion attempt to beat Oklahoma State 48-47 on Saturday. Taylor Cornelius connected with Tylan Wallace on a 24-yard touchdown pass to cut Oklahoma's lead to 48-47 with 1:03 to play. Oklahoma State went for two, but Cornelius threw short and into coverage, and the pass fell incomplete.

A very cold airmass has settled over eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas this morning. Low temperatures this morning are expected to range from the mid teens to the upper 20s. Temperatures will warm into the mid 40s to around 50 this Afternoon under mostly sunny skies. There is potential for light wintry mix of rain and snow to develop across northeast Oklahoma late Sunday night and spread south and eastward during the day on Monday. Currently it appears a mixture of rain and snow is likely as temperatures are forecast to remain in the lower to mid 30s.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, in two separate cases, has upheld a murder conviction and rejected a request to withdraw a no-contest plea to manslaughter charges in the deaths of a woman and her 14-month-old granddaughter.

The court on Thursday upheld the conviction and life with parole sentence of Kendell Sparrow in the stabbing death of William Rivers in Stillwater.

Sparrow argued there was insufficient evidence to convict him and that improper testimony was allowed at his trial.

An eastern Oklahoma police chief who was suspended with pay more than a month ago has now been fired.

The McAlester News-Capital reports that Hartshorne Mayor Joy Cline sent Jeremy Pierce a letter on Wednesday, firing him as police chief.

Cline told the newspaper that she received legal advice before terminating Pierce "for the good of the service."

Pierce's attorney, Blake Lynch, said he is preparing an appeal and that he's "baffled" by the situation.

Civil rights leaders are calling for a detectives group to rescind a speaking invitation to a white Oklahoma officer acquitted for fatally shooting an unarmed black man.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund sent a letter Friday to the Southeastern Homicide Investigators Association expressing concerns about Rogers County Sheriff's Deputy Betty Shelby speaking on the topic "Surviving the Aftermath of a Critical Incident" next week in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

United States Attorney Trent Shores announced today the results of the November 2018 Federal Grand Jury.

The following individuals have been charged with violations of United States law in an indictment returned by the Grand Jury. The return of an indictment is a method of informing a defendant of alleged violations of federal law, which must be proven in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt to overcome a defendant’s presumption of innocence.

The City of Tulsa has changed its policy on building public improvements to foster new development.

Previously, the city would do the work, paid for through an economic development fund. Now, officials will allow private developers to do the work and pay them back out of the same fund. Chief of Economic Development Kian Kamas said that won’t be the default approach.

Tulsa zoning regulations for medical marijuana are temporarily on hold.

They’re going back to INCOG for a couple changes before potentially coming to the city council for approval later this month. Attorney Ronald Durbin, who was involved in the lawsuit against Broken Arrow's medical marijuana ordinances, said one problem is their borrowed definition of "marijuana" is too broad.

QuikTrip is moving to boost security at some Tulsa stores by hiring armed employees.

Spokesman Mike Thornbrugh saidthey already monitor stores 24-seven and recently upgraded surveillance systems.

"The next element is that we’re going to be hiring people that are QuikTrip employees that will kind of be a hybrid, if you will, where they’re still going to perform tasks in the store, but they’re also going to serve as the official security force for us," Thornbrugh said.

Environmentalists are lauding a federal court order that blocks a Trump administration permit for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, pending an environmental review.

The pipeline would begin in Alberta and shuttle as much as 830,000 barrels a day of crude through a half dozen states to terminals on the Gulf Coast.

U.S. District Judge Brian Morris essentially delayed the $8 billion project to study its environmental impact. Environmentalists and Native American groups sued to stop the project, citing property rights and potential oil spills.

The lawman killed in the Thousand Oaks shooting spree was a granduate of the University Oklahoma. The deputy graduated from OU's Extended Campus Program in 2019

Ventura County Sheriff's Sgt. Ron Helus, a 29-year veteran nearing retirement, was the first law enforcement officer into the bar. He'd been chatting on the phone with his wife when he got a report of trouble.

He ran into the bar and was shot multiple times in an exchange of gunfire, said Sheriff Geoff Dean, who added that the confrontation gave innocent bystanders time to escape.

Tulsa's Congressman-Elect Kevin Hern will get to drop the “elect” from his title next week.

Elected just Tuesday, he will be sworn in this coming Tuesday.  Hern will take office immediately since Tulsa has been without congressional representation since Jim Bridenstine resigned to become NASA’s Administrator.

A light freeze is possible this morning across portions of northeast Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas, mainly north of highway 412. Temperatures in this area will be in the lower 30s this morning. A hard freeze is expected for most of eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas late Friday Night and into Saturday morning. Lows will range from the mid-teens to the upper 20s across the area Saturday Morning. On Monday, there is a potential for some wintry precipitation across parts of northeast Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas.

Federal prosecutors in Tulsa say a Missouri man has pleaded guilty to having a pipe bomb at his former apartment in northeastern Oklahoma.

Officials say 36-year-old Richard Cole of Joplin, Missouri, pleaded guilty Thursday to one felony count of possession of an unregistered destructive device.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The panel that oversees Oklahoma's 25 public colleges and universities is asking the Legislature for $100 million in new funding, much of it for faculty raises.

The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education voted unanimously on Thursday to approve the $878 million budget request for the fiscal year that begins in July. The request represents a 13 percent increase over its appropriation for the current fiscal year.

In his second state of the city address Thursday, Mayor G.T. Bynum said Tulsa is safer, more prosperous and planning for the future, and it’s time to build on that.

Similar to his first state of the city, Bynum recapped accomplishments of the past year then announced several new initiatives. Among them is a renewal of the 2014 Improve Our Tulsa package.

While drafting it will be similar to the Vision Tulsa process, the projects will be more practical than ambitious.