Oklahoma has authorized four different lethal injection protocols: a single, lethal dose of either pentobarbital or sodium pentothal, a two-drug procedure using midazolam and hydromorphone, or the same three-drug method used in Florida.
The Supreme Court has ordered Oklahoma to postpone lethal injections executions using a controversial sedative until the court rules in a challenge involving the drug.
The court's order Wednesday came as little surprise after both the state and the lawyers for three inmates who faced execution between now and March requested the temporary halt. The justices agreed on Friday to take up the challenge to the use of the sedative midazolam, which has been used in problematic executions in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma.
The case will be argued in April and decided by late June.
New Jersey-based National Weather Service meteorologist Gary Szatkowski apologized for not getting the forecast right for the snow storm this week. (Twitter)
Originally published on Wed January 28, 2015 2:17 pm
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Meteorologists have apologized for getting yesterday’s snow totals so wrong in New Jersey, where only about 3 inches fell instead of the 24 that was predicted.
But other weather experts say the forecasts were not all that wrong because due to last-minute changes in the air, the storm simply tracked about 75 miles farther east than expected, and dropped 30 inches of snow on Long Island.
Five members of the Friendship Nine — Willie Thomas Massey (from left), Willie McCleod, James Wells, Clarence Graham and David Williamson Jr. — sit at the counter of the Five & Dine restaurant in Rock Hill, S.C., on Dec. 17. A judge in South Carolina has thrown out the convictions of the nine black men who integrated a whites-only lunch counter in 1961.
Originally published on Wed January 28, 2015 6:56 pm
Updated at 2:28 p.m. ET
A judge in South Carolina has thrown out the convictions of the Friendship Nine, nine black men who integrated a whites-only lunch counter in 1961, at the peak of the civil rights movement.
"We cannot rewrite history, but we can right history," Judge John C. Hayes III said before signing the order that vacated their trespassing convictions. (Hayes is the nephew of the judge who handed down the original sentence.) The prosecutor apologized to the eight surviving members of the Friendship Nine who were in the courtroom.
Two nurses tend to wounded inside an ambulance-train ward, France, during World War I. Ambulance trains were used in the main to transport large groups of soldiers to the French coast so that they could return to England for treatment.
The demands of two world wars and changing gender roles opened the way for women to gain more rights as citizens in the United States and Britain.
Before the 20th century, women in the United States and Britain couldn’t vote in national elections and generally weren’t seen as key players in war efforts. With the professionalization of military nursing during the Crimean War, women’s participation in war efforts grew and paved the way for women’s heavy involvement between 1914 and 1918.
Originally published on Wed January 28, 2015 6:11 am
A day after a monstrous winter storm spun its way across the Northeast, life is slowly getting back to normal.
Some residents of Massachusetts are digging out of almost 3 feet of snow. The AP reports that a travel ban has been lifted and Boston's highways are filling up with traffic.
Originally published on Wed January 28, 2015 3:32 pm
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Ask Americans if someone in their family served in the military, and the answer is probably no. After all, fewer than 1 percent of Americans serve these days.
But ask if one of their grandfathers served, and you'll likely get a different answer. Between World War II and the wars in Korea and Vietnam, millions of men were drafted into service — and both men and women volunteered.
The Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training said Tuesday during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Safety and Judiciary that its training track is in desperate need for repair.
CLEET requested $3,809,401 in appropriations for FY2016. In FY2015 they were given $3,554,474.
Director Steven Emmons said their 1.8 mile training track is plagued by deep, hazardous ditches that have formed along the side of the road as a result of soil erosion that is a problem for the area they are located.
A series of state agencies met Tuesday with the Senate Appropriation Subcommittee on General Government and Transportation seeking increases or decreases in their budgets, maintaining their facilities to hiring on additional staff.
The Military Department requested an increase from the $11,868,249 it received in fiscal year 2015 to $15,753,000. The department primarily focused their budget priorities for the new year on maintaining its armories across the state, increasing the facilities’ maintenance budget, and increasing the energy budget.
The Department of Corrections defended its fiscal year 2016 appropriation requests Tuesday during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Safety and the Judiciary budget hearing.
The department is requesting appropriations that would be nearly 18 percent more than what they were given for the current fiscal year.
Director of Communications Terri Watkins said the agency wants to eventually get back to levels of funding it saw six or seven years ago.
The Oklahoma School for the Deaf in Sulphur, Oklahoma, one of the agencies requesting a budget increase for FY16 by the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services.
The trend in requesting budget increases continued into the second day of budget hearings presented to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services.
All four agencies presenting Tuesday requested significant increases to their fiscal year 2016 budgets.
The Oklahoma State University Medical Authority requested a $4.9 million increase, $4 million of which would be a one-time appropriation to replenish funds for the Rural Residency Expansion Act.
