All posts tagged: Oklahoma News

Oklahoma Bus Driver Crashes Into a Building After a Passenger Punches Him, Police Say

Oklahoma Bus Driver Crashes Into a Building After a Passenger Punches Him, Police Say

Published by skeptic

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A man was arrested after being accused of punching an Oklahoma City bus driver and causing the bus to crash into a building. Oklahoma City police reported only minor injuries stemming from the Saturday wreck. Authorities said the passenger asked the driver to let him off at an unauthorized stop in northwest Oklahoma City. When the driver declined, the passenger started hitting him. “The suspect then began punching the driver in the face and removed him from the driver seat. This caused the bus to leave the roadway,” said Lt. Jeff Cooper with the Oklahoma City Police Department. The bus crashed into a lumber business. Two people inside the building were unhurt, police said. Five passengers were on the bus when it crashed and one was hospitalized with minor injuries, police said. Photos You Should See – April 2024 The driver was also hospitalized with minor injuries, Cooper said. The man accused of assaulting the driver was taken into custody. Police did not immediately release his name or details on what …

Head Start Preschools Aim to Fight Poverty, but Their Teachers Struggle to Make Ends Meet

Head Start Preschools Aim to Fight Poverty, but Their Teachers Struggle to Make Ends Meet

Published by skeptic

WASHINGTON (AP) — In some ways, Doris Milton is a Head Start success story. She was a student in one of Chicago’s inaugural Head Start classes, when the antipoverty program, which aimed to help children succeed by providing them a first-rate preschool education, was in its infancy. Milton loved her teacher so much that she decided to follow in her footsteps. She now works as a Head Start teacher in Chicago. After four decades on the job, Milton, 63, earns $22.18 an hour. Her pay puts her above the poverty line, but she is far from financially secure. She needs a dental procedure she cannot afford, and she is paying down $65,000 of student loan debt from National Louis University, where she came within two classes of getting her bachelor’s degree. She dropped out in 2019 when she fell ill. “I’m trying to meet their needs when nobody’s meeting mine,” Milton said of teaching preschoolers. Head Start teachers — 70% of whom have bachelor’s degrees — earn $39,000 a year on average, far less than …

Winter Storm System Hits Eastern New Mexico, Headed Next to Texas Panhandle and Central Oklahoma

Winter Storm System Hits Eastern New Mexico, Headed Next to Texas Panhandle and Central Oklahoma

Published by skeptic

The remnants of a slow-moving atmospheric river storm that pummeled California last week delivered the first notable snowfall of the season across eastern New Mexico, with the National Weather Service warning Sunday of snowpacked and icy roads as the system headed toward the Texas Panhandle and central Oklahoma. A winter storm advisory was issued for eastern New Mexico, including the city of Roswell. The National Weather Service in Albuquerque said temperatures were in the mid-30s, which is up to 25 degrees below normal. “Hopefully it will diminish by sunset,” Jennifer Shoemake, a meteorologist for the weather service in Albuquerque, said Sunday. She said the storm system appeared to be headed next to the Texas Panhandle and central Oklahoma, where warnings were already in effect. The National Weather Service forecast up to 8 inches (20 cm) of snow Sunday in the west Texas city of Lubbock, with 1.3 inches (3.3 cm) already on the ground in Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle. Photos You Should See The storms stem from a slow-moving system that first hit California …

Toby Keith Wrote All Kinds of Country Songs. His Legacy Might Be Post-9/11 American Anger

Toby Keith Wrote All Kinds of Country Songs. His Legacy Might Be Post-9/11 American Anger

Published by skeptic

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Toby Keith’s songs accomplished, for some, what great art is intended to: They sustained people in challenging times, particularly U.S. service members and their families during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11. For others, Keith’s work sowed division and was blindly patriotic — a wedge that deepened America’s cultural fault lines. Keith, who died Monday of stomach cancer at age 62, is being celebrated for his immense catalog across a diversity of subjects, from small-town heartache to his preference for red Solo cups. But in the fractured political landscape of 2024 America, it’s the long-tail legacy of “Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American)” that may be remembered most. For many in post-9/11 America, the 2002 song caught the mood. It featured the lyric: “We’ll put a boot in your ass. It’s the American way.” Keith’s steering of his music into overt nationalism defined his career and helped set country music — one strain of it, at least — on a more political path that continues …

Much of US Still Gripped by Arctic Weather as Memphis Deals With Numerous Broken Water Pipes

Much of US Still Gripped by Arctic Weather as Memphis Deals With Numerous Broken Water Pipes

Published by skeptic

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Subfreezing conditions and treacherous roadways have contributed to dozens of deaths this month across the U.S., where states as far south as Texas and Florida remain gripped by deadly arctic weather Sunday. But the numbing cold is expected to ease up in the coming days. On Sunday, crews in Memphis, Tennessee, continued to work around the clock to find and fix broken pipes that were causing low water pressure throughout the system. Memphis Light, Gas and Water President and CEO Doug McGowen told reporters Sunday afternoon that crews are making progress and he expects most of the 700,000 people the utility services to have water restored over the next 24 hours. “If we remain on this very positive path, and we are on a positive path, I believe that by Wednesday we will have pressure sufficient for us to take samples of our water system,” he said. “Assuming good results, we think that means a Thursday for lifting of the boil water advisory.” McGowen also asked people to stop dripping their …