Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 58
No one knew. Russell Westbrook had a chance to put the Oklahoma City Thunder ahead in the final moments of Game 6 of their Western Conference first-round series against Portland. He tried a layup with 18 seconds left. It missed. No one knew that was the 17,350th and final shot he would take as a Thunder player, the last time he would touch the ball in an Oklahoma City uniform, the end of an storied 11-year run that — when factoring in both regular-season and postseason games — saw him score more points than anyone else in franchise his...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma judge on Tuesday acknowledged making a nearly $107 million miscalculation in determining how much drug maker Johnson & Johnson must pay the state to help address the state's opioid crisis. Following a hearing in Cleveland County, District Judge Thad Balkman acknowledged making the error in his August judgment in which he ordered the consumer products giant to pay the state $572 million to address the opioid crisis. Balkman said the actual amount he should have included in his judgment was $107,000 to help the st...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The board that sets the salaries of Oklahoma lawmakers voted Tuesday to boost legislative pay by 35% next year, just two years after cutting lawmakers' pay. Jake Lowrey, spokesman for the Office of Management & Enterprise Services, said the Legislative Compensation Board cut legislators' pay by 8.8% in 2017. Board Chairman Wes Milbourn said at the time that Oklahomans were frustrated with the Legislature. But since then, the board's membership has changed. The new board — appointed by the governor, House speaker and Sen...
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — The three largest school districts in Kansas' most populous county are suing a leading e-cigarette maker as they struggle to stop students from vaping. The Kansas City Star reports that school boards for the 27,000-student Shawnee Mission district and 22,000-student Blue Valley voted Monday to sue Juul. Last month, the board for the nearly 30,000-student Olathe district decided to sue. The suits seek unspecified compensation for the costs of trying to keep vaping out of schools. Blue Valley school board President Cindy B...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas legislator who defected from the Republican Party last year is running for the U.S. Senate next year as a Democrat. The Kansas City Star reports that State Sen. Barbara Bollier, of the Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, promised an independent approach in kicking off her campaign Wednesday. The 61-year-old retired anesthesiologist also condemned dysfunction in Washington as she seeks to replace retiring Republican Sen. Pat Roberts. Republicans haven't lost a U.S. Senate race in Kansas since 1932. But Democrats a...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas' most influential anti-abortion group launched an effort Tuesday to block two candidates for a state Supreme Court vacancy even before a state commission selects finalists for Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, an abortion rights supporter, to consider. The unusually vocal and public move by Kansans for Life comes as conservatives are trying to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that protects abortion rights and are pushing to require state Senate confirmation of the high court's justices. Both changes would require a c...
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A 37-year-old Mexican national who repeatedly entered the United States illegally was sentenced in federal court in Kansas City to 2.5 years in prison without parole. Rigoberto Vasquez-Milan was sentenced Tuesday for illegal re-entry after being deported and aggravated identity theft. Federal prosecutors say Vasquez-Milan used another person's name, Social Security card and lawful permanent resident card to get a job at a Kansas City restaurant. U.S. immigration authorities began investigating Vasquez-Milan in 2018 a...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita lawyer has admitted to paying a software engineer who launched cyberattacks on websites that criticized the attorney's work. Court filings show 63-year-old Bradley A. Pistotnik pleaded guilty Tuesday to three counts of being an accessory after the fact to online extortion threats. He was immediately sentenced to pay a $375,000 fine and $55,200 in restitution as agreed in a plea deal with the government that spares him from prison. His co-defendant, VIRAL Artificial Intelligence co-founder David Dorsett , has a c...
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Attorneys are considering offering diversion to a 13-year-old Kansas girl who was arrested last week for pointing a finger gun at classmates. The Kansas City Star reports diversion was discussed Tuesday during a juvenile court hearing for the Overland Park eighth-grader, who is charged with felony threatening. Another court hearing was scheduled for Dec. 17. The girl's mother told The Star last week that on Sept. 18, a boy asked her daughter who she would kill if she could kill five classmates. The girl reportedly m...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita man who admitted threatening workers of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue has been sentenced to federal prison. The U.S. attorney's office in says 22-year-old Christopher M. Thompson was sentenced Tuesday to a year and a day on one count of making a threat. Operation Rescue Vice President Cheryl Sullenger says that Thompson threatened to rape her and her daughters and then murder her family. She says in a news release she takes no pleasure in his incarceration, but believes it is a just sentence. S...
RUSSELL, Kan. (AP) — A prominent Republican state legislator has launched a campaign for the western Kansas seat in Congress. State Rep. Troy Waymaster of Bunker Hill announced his candidacy Tuesday in the 1st Congressional District. Waymaster has been chairman of the Kansas House Appropriations committee since 2017 and is a key player in budget debates. Waymaster said he's a conservative running partly because "socialists" in Washington "are tearing our country apart." He is a farmer who was first elected to the Legislature in 2012. Former L...
BRANSON, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas man is suing after he was injured while driving a go-kart in the Missouri tourist town of Branson. The Springfield News-Leader reports that Ryan Landie, of Lenexa, Kansas, filed the lawsuit Saturday in federal court. It alleges that the operators of The Track Family Fun Parks in Branson were negligent in failing to prevent the May 2018 crash. It happened as Landie was riding with his young son, who was ready to stop after several laps. The lawsuit says Landie was told to pull over to the staging area, where they w...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a man jailed in the shooting of two homeless people in downtown Wichita was having "a mental health crisis" and thought he was gunning down cartel associates. The Wichita Eagle reports that 45-year-old Dexter Solomon is being held on suspicion of two counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of being a felon in possession of a gun. His bond is $200,000. Capt. Brent Allred says methamphetamine may have played a role in the shooting. He says a woman is hospitalized in "very, very critical c...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Federal prosecutors want to keep $180,000 in suspected drug money that was found during a Kansas traffic stop. The Wichita Eagle reports that court records say the money was uncovered in July when a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper pulled over a pickup truck on Interstate 70 in Wabaunsee County for a traffic violation. The driver said he was traveling from Chicago to Denver to visit his sick mother, but a vehicle search turned up seven bundles of cash wrapped in duct tape. Documents say the driver then told law enforcement t...
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — An escaped Alaska goat continued to elude capture despite a widely shared social media request by animal control officers for public assistance, officials said. Fairbanks North Star Borough Animal Control officers were on the lookout for the goat first reported missing Monday around 10 a.m., The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported Tuesday. The male goat was still on the loose as of noon Tuesday. The animal is used to being in a herd and is not a pet, said animal control operations manager Sandy Hill. "He's very s...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico's largest police force wants to go slow and low. The Albuquerque Police Department is inviting high school students to design the department's first lowrider patrol car . The winner of the competition will have his or her artwork displayed on the car's hood and will receive a $5,000 scholarship. Officials say the design must be free of offensive, inappropriate, and gang-related material. The contest winner will be selected by the Albuquerque Police Department's Southwest Area Command Program Response Team. L...
BREMERTON, Wash. (AP) — A Washington state man was charged with a felony assault after police say he attacked his roommate believing he acknowledged being a vampire. Kitsap Sun reported Monday that a Kitsap County court charged the 40-year-old Bremerton man Monday after he was suspected of using a metal rod to nudge his roommate in the chest. The roommate told county deputies that the suspect accused him of being a vampire, threatened to kill him and struck him with a metal rod. The roommate says he feared his life because the suspect has s...
DADE CITY, Fla. (AP) — Authorities say a Florida man repeatedly called 911 to report that his roommate had stolen his marijuana. A deputy for the Pasco County Sheriff's Office posted a Twitter response to the man's calls Saturday night: Stop calling. Deputy Neal Zalva says in the Twitter video that he called the man back to tell him to quit contacting the sheriff's office about his stolen marijuana. Zalva recorded the video as part of the agency's #TweetAlong program, which allows viewers to get a behind-the-scenes look at the police work by t...
AKCAKALE, Turkey (AP) — National soccer team players give military salutes during international matches, Turkish flags flutter from balconies and storefronts, songs extolling the glory days of the Ottoman Empire blare from a border town's loudspeakers, punctuated by the occasional boom of outgoing artillery. Since Turkey announced its incursion into neighboring Syria to clear out Kurdish fighters last week, patriotic sentiment has run high — as has bewilderment and anger at the overwhelmingly negative international reaction to Ankara's act...
DETROIT (AP) — The United Auto Workers and General Motors have reached a tentative contract agreement that could end a monthlong strike that brought the automaker's U.S. factories to a standstill. The deal was hammered out Wednesday but it won't immediately end the strike by more than 49,000 workers. They're likely to stay on the picket lines at least a few more days until union committees vote on the deal. The entire membership also must vote. Details of the four-year agreement have yet to be released. Workers left their jobs early Sept. 1...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Writer-director Callie Khouri is drawn to stories about female friendships and country music, and her latest television film "Patsy and Loretta" combines those passions into the true story of a friendship between two of country music's most powerful voices. The biopic about Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, which airs Oct. 19 on Lifetime, centers on their friendship, which has often been underexplored in country music history, at a time when the two pioneering women's careers overlapped in the early '60s. Khouri, who w...
CEYLANPINAR, Turkey (AP) — Russia offered Wednesday to mediate a resolution in northern Syria, further asserting Moscow's role as a regional force, ahead of a mission by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence to press Turkey for a cease-fire in its attack on Syrian Kurdish fighters. Ahead of talks with Pence, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defied U.S. economic sanctions, saying the only way its military offensive would end was if Syrian Kurdish fighters leave a designated border area. Erdogan also said he had "no problem" accepting an invitatio...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A dozen Democrats seeking the presidency tussled in a debate packed with policy, flubbing some details in the process. Several gave an iffy explanation Tuesday of why they're not swinging behind a bold proposal to make people turn over their assault-style weapons. Sloppiness also crept in during robust exchanges over foreign policy, health care, taxes and more. How some of their claims from Westerville, Ohio, stack up with the facts: SYRIA JOE BIDEN: "I would not have withdrawn the troops, and I would not have withdrawn the a...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Health care memo to Democrats: There's more than one way to get to coverage for all. A study out Wednesday finds that an approach similar to the plan from former Vice President Joe Bide n can deliver about the same level of coverage as the government-run "Medicare for All" plan from presidential rival Bernie Sanders. The study from the Commonwealth Fund and the Urban Institute think tanks concludes that the U.S. can achieve a goal that has eluded Democrats since Harry Truman by building on former President Barack Obama's h...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House impeachment inquiry is exposing new details about unease in the State Department and White House about President Donald Trump's actions toward Ukraine and those of his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. One witness said it appeared "three amigos" tied to the White House had taken over foreign policy. Another quoted national security adviser John Bolton as calling Giuliani a "hand grenade" for his back-channel efforts to get Ukraine to investigate Trump's Democratic rival Joe Biden and Biden's son Hunter. On Wednesday, a...
