Oklahoma

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A Utah man accused of groping another passenger on a Salt Lake City-bound American Airlines flight that diverted to Tulsa for his arrest has been charged with abusive sexual contact.

The man, identified in court records as James Clayton Cholewinski-Boy, 32, was charged by federal prosecutors Friday.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Trump administration no longer needs to detain migrant children at an Oklahoma Army base and preparations to house them there have stopped, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.

LAWTON, Okla. (AP) — The federal government has chosen a military base in Oklahoma as the location for a new temporary shelter to house migrant children and is considering a customs port in southern New Mexico as another option as existing shelters are overwhelmed.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement said Tuesday it’s dealing with a dramatic spike in the number of children crossing the border without parents. The agency already has received referrals for nearly 41,000 kids so far this fiscal year, marking an increase of almost 57% over the same period last year.

27 May 2019; AFP: Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva agreed on Sunday to pay the US state of Oklahoma $85 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of fueling the state's opioid epidemic, Oklahoma's attorney general said.

The announcement comes after Purdue Pharma, maker of the opioid painkiller OxyContin -- a key driver of the crisis responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in the United States -- reached a $270 million settlement with the state in March.

EL RENO, Okla. (AP) — A tornado leveled a motel and tore through a mobile home park near Oklahoma City overnight, killing two people and injuring at least 29 others before a second twister raked a suburb of Tulsa more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) away, authorities said Sunday.

EL RENO, Okla. (AP) — A likely tornado killed at least two people as it destroyed a motel, roared through a nearby mobile home park and caused significant damage in the Oklahoma City area, officials said Sunday.

El Reno Mayor Matt White said during a news conference that “there have been two fatalities at this point in time,” adding that officials are currently working to notify relatives.

White said search and rescue efforts are continuing.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Two barges broke loose and floated swiftly down the swollen Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma on Wednesday, spreading alarm downstream as they threatened to hit a dam.

The emergency was the latest consequence of storms and torrential rains that have ravaged the Midwest, from Texas through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.

Authorities urged residents of several small towns in Oklahoma and Kansas to leave their homes as rivers and streams rose.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An intense storm system moved across the Southern Plains on Monday, spawning tornadoes that caused scattered damage and a deluge of rain but not the “particularly dangerous” twisters that forecasters had feared.

No injuries were reported.

BOKOSHE, Okla. (AP) — Susan Holmes’ home, corner store and roadside beef jerky stand are right off Oklahoma Highway 31, putting them in the path of trucks hauling ash and waste from a power plant that burns the high-sulfur coal mined near this small town.

For years, when Bokoshe residents were outside, the powdery ash blowing from the trucks and the ash dump on the edge of town would “kind of engulf you,” Holmes said. “They drove by, and you just couldn’t breathe.”

HUGO, Okla. (AP) — Three children were wounded in a police shooting Friday in Oklahoma when an officer fired at a man in a truck who was suspected of robbing a restaurant earlier in the month, according to state investigators.