A federal appeals court says Oklahoma's Indian "rain god" license plate can be challenged on grounds that amounts to a state endorsement of a religion.

The license plate depicts Allan Houser's "Sacred Rain Arrow" sculpture, in which an Indian shoots an arrow into the sky to bring down rain.

Every four years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency releases an analysis of how much federal money states will need to complete water projects to provide clean drinking water over the next 20 years.

The most recent update of the EPA’s Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment was just released, and the national need is staggering:

The extreme drought blanketing Southwestern Oklahoma has taxed water resources in Altus and plagued farmers.

With an unfunded liability among Oklahoma's seven major pension systems exceeding $11 billion, several Republican leaders have said changing from a traditional pension to a 401(k)-style retirement account for new state workers will be a top priority during the 2014 legislative session.

The unfunded liability is the amount owed to pensioners beyond what the system currently afford to pay. It has become a growing concern for Gov. Mary Fallin and other state leaders, who say it hinders the state's effort to improve its bond rating.

Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma is denying that he was ever briefed on cell phone and Internet surveillance by the National Security Agency that sweeps up an estimated 3 billion phone calls a day and collects Internet data from U.S. providers in an attempt to stop terror attacks.

Mullin said in a statement Saturday that comments that he and his colleagues in Congress knew of the surveillance "is absolutely false."