• UPDATE: Man struck by tractor-trailer killed in eastbound lanes at Shields Boulevard on I-40

    FROM STAFF REPORTS | Updated: 13 min ago

    A fatality has been reported on Interstate 40 in south Oklahoma City. The eastbound lanes of I-40 at Shields Boulevard are shut down.

  • More than 56K tons of debris cleared in Moore

    BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Published: Wed, Jun 19, 2013

    MOORE — More than 56,000 tons of debris has been removed from neighborhoods in Moore as the city reaches the one-month mark since a deadly tornado carved through the Oklahoma City suburb on May 20.

  • Men's Wearhouse ousts founder and exec. chairman

    Updated: 34 min ago

    NEW YORK (AP) — Men's Wearhouse Inc. has dismissed its founder and executive chairman George Zimmer. In a terse release issued Wednesday, the company didn't give a reason for the abrupt firing of Zimmer, who built Men's Wearhouse from one small Texas store using a cigar box as a cash register to one of the nation's largest specialty retailers in men's clothing, with 1,143 locations. In light of Zimmer's termination, the company postponed its annual shareholders' meeting scheduled for Wednesday. It said the purpose of the postponement is to re-nominate the existing slate of directors without him.

  • FBI hunt for ex-Teamster boss Hoffa's remains ends

    Updated: 37 min ago

    OAKLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — The FBI says it has found no sign of the remains of former Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa and is ending a dig in suburban Detroit. The announcement was made Wednesday by Robert Foley, head of the FBI in Detroit, just a few hours after digging resumed. The dig began Monday. Authorities have pursued multiple leads on Hoffa's whereabouts since his disappearance in 1975. He was last seen outside an Oakland County restaurant where he was to meet with a New Jersey Teamsters boss and a Detroit Mafia captain.

  • Family: Country singer Slim Whitman dies at age 90

    Updated: 43 min ago

    MIAMI (AP) — Country singer Slim Whitman, the high-pitched yodeler who sold millions of records through ever-present TV ads in the 1980s and 1990s and whose song saved the world in the film comedy "Mars Attacks!," died Wednesday at a Florida hospital. He was 90. Whitman died of heart failure at Orange Park Medical Center, his son-in-law Roy Beagle said. Whitman's tenor falsetto and ebony mustache and sideburns became global trademarks — and an inspiration for countless jokes — thanks to the TV commercials that pitched his records. But he was a serious musical influence on early rock, and in the British Isles, he was known as a pioneer of country music for popularizing the style there.

  • Former TWA Flight 800 investigators want new probe

    Updated: 48 min ago

    MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — There is a renewed effort to reopen the investigation that downed TWA Flight 800 off the coast of New York in 1996. Former investigators on Wednesday called on the National Transportation Safety Board to re-examine the cause, saying new evidence points to the often-discounted theory that a missile strike may have downed the jumbo jet. The New York-to-Paris flight crashed July 17, 1996, just minutes after the jetliner took off from John F. Kennedy Airport, killing all 230 people aboard.

  • Neighbors: Couple killed waited for order to leave

    Updated: 53 min ago

    DENVER (AP) — Bob and Barbara Schmidt dashed to their home on a dirt road in a heavily wooded area northeast of Colorado Springs as smoke from what would become the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history filled the air. After quickly grabbing a few items, they spotted their neighbors. "They were sitting on their porch, watching TV," said Bob Schmidt, adding that his wife urged their neighbors to immediately flee as smoke rolled in at 4:35 p.m. on June 11. "They said they'd leave when they needed to." The couple, Marc and Robin Herklotz, told the Schmidts they hadn't gotten automated calls from authorities ordering them to evacuate and that, while they were packing and monitoring the approaching blaze on TV, the

  • Best-selling author Vince Flynn dies at age 47

    Updated: 58 min ago

    ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Vince Flynn, a best-selling author of political thriller novels, has died at age 47 after a two-year battle with prostate cancer. A statement from Flynn's publisher, Simon & Schuster, Inc., said he died Wednesday. Flynn self-published his first book, "Term Limits," in 1997 before landing a publishing deal. "Term Limits" became a New York Times bestseller. Most of his books centered on the character Mitch Rapp, a counterterrorism operative. He averaged a book a year. Flynn announced in 2011 that he had been diagnosed with stage three metastatic prostate cancer.

  • Stocks edge lower as investors wait on Fed

    Updated: 1 hr ago

    NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks edged lower in early trading on Wall Street Wednesday as investors waited for word from the Federal Reserve. The U.S. central bank will release its latest policy update at 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke will speak at a press conference thirty minutes later. The Fed has been buying $85 billion of bonds a month to support an economy that is still struggling to recover following the Great Recession. Comments by Bernanke last month suggesting the central bank may soon ease that support unsettled investors and caused this year's rally in stocks to stall. "All eyes are on Bernanke and markets are being held hostage until he speaks," said Joseph Tanious, Global Market Strategis

  • Judge reads charge against Zimmerman to jurors

    Updated: 1 hr ago

    SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — A Florida judge has read the formal charge against George Zimmerman to 40 potential jurors who could be selected to decide if he committed murder when he shot Trayvon Martin. Judge Debra Nelson read the second-degree murder charge Wednesday before 40 potential jurors. Those potential jurors are on moving on to the second round of questioning of what they know about the case involving the former neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot the unarmed 17-year-old last year. Zimmerman is pleading not guilty, claiming self-defense. Both Zimmerman's parents and Martin's parents were in the courtroom when the charge was read.

  • Afghan leader backs away from Taliban talks

    Updated: 1 hr ago

    KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan's president said Wednesday he will not pursue peace talks with the Taliban unless the United States steps out of the negotiations, while also insisting the militant group stop its violent attacks on the ground after it claimed responsibility for a rocket attack that killed four Americans. Hamid Karzai's strong response and the Taliban attack deflated hopes for long-stalled talks aimed at ending nearly 12 years of war in Afghanistan, just a day after the United States and the Taliban said they would begin initial meetings in Qatar.

  • Crash on I-44 reported with injuries in northwest Oklahoma City

    FROM STAFF REPORTS | Updated: 2 hr ago

    Firefighters have responded to a crash involving four vehicles on Interstate 44 Wednesday. The crash is near NW 23

  • Jury recommends death for 2009 Cache slayings

    BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Published: Wed, Jun 19, 2013

    LAWTON — A jury has recommended a death sentence for an Oklahoma man convicted in the 2009 killings of a Comanche County couple.

  • Obama: 'Lives have been saved' by NSA programs

    Updated: 3 hr ago

    BERLIN (AP) — Trying to tamp down concerns about government over-reach, President Barack Obama on Wednesday defended U.S. Internet and phone surveillance programs as narrowly targeted efforts that have saved lives and thwarted at least 50 terror threats. "This is not a situation in which we are rifling through ordinary emails" of huge numbers of citizens in the United States or elsewhere, the president declared during a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He called it as a "circumscribed, narrow" surveillance program. "Lives have been saved," Obama said, adding that the program has been closely supervised by the courts to ensure that any encroachment of privacy is strictly limited.

  • Oklahoma City water wins first place in national taste test competition

    BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Published: Wed, Jun 19, 2013

    Oklahoma City's tap water has come in first place in a national taste test competition.

  • United 787 heading to Tokyo diverted to Seattle

    Updated: 3 hr ago

    SEATTLE (AP) — A Boeing 787 flying from Denver to Tokyo diverted to Seattle because of an oil filter issue, a United Airlines spokeswoman said. An airline maintenance team was inspecting the jet after Flight 139 landed normally Tuesday afternoon at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, United spokeswoman Mary Ryan said in an email statement. United just put its 787s back in the air May 20 after smoldering batteries on two 787s owned by other airlines prompted authorities to ground the planes in January. The Tokyo-bound jet's problem was "completely unrelated to any battery issues," Boeing spokesman Kate Bergman told The Seattle Times on Tuesday evening. "We are aware of the situation, and we're working with Unit

  • UN says 45.2 million refugees and displaced people

    Updated: 5 hr ago

    GENEVA (AP) — The Syrian civil war contributed to pushing the numbers of refugees and those displaced by conflict within their own nation to an 18-year high of 45.2 million worldwide by the end of 2012, the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday. Those are the highest numbers since 1994, when people fled genocide in Rwanda and bloodshed in former Yugoslavia. By the end of last year, the world had 15.4 million refugees, 937,000 asylum seekers and 28.8 million people who had been forced to flee within the borders of their own countries, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a report. Of those, 17 percent were new to their situations in 2012: 1.1 million new refugees and 6.

  • Police: Paraplegic castrated at Philly facility

    Updated: 5 hr ago

    PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A 41-year-old man is being held on $5 million bail after police say he castrated a paraplegic during a dispute at an assisted living facility in Philadelphia. Authorities say Edgar Bonilla is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and other counts in Monday night's attack inside the Inglis Apartments at Elmwood. Lt. John Walker says Bonilla was visiting a female friend at the facility and that she apparently had some sort of dispute with the victim. Walker says Bonilla was apparently trying to settle that dispute. The victim, Bonilla and the woman were all apparently friends. Bonilla is in custody and it couldn't immediately be determined if he had an attorney.

  • United 787 heading to Tokyo diverted to Seattle

    Updated: 5 hr ago

    SEATTLE (AP) — A Boeing 787 flying from Denver to Tokyo diverted to Seattle because of an oil filter issue, a United Airlines spokeswoman said. An airline maintenance team was inspecting the jet after Flight 139 landed normally Tuesday afternoon at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, United spokeswoman Mary Ryan said in an email statement. United just put its 787s back in the air May 20 after smoldering batteries on two 787s owned by other airlines prompted authorities to ground the planes in January. The Tokyo-bound jet's problem was "completely unrelated to any battery issues," Boeing spokesman Kate Bergman told The Seattle Times on Tuesday evening. "We are aware of the situation, and we're working with Unit

  • Sunny day in the 80s in central Oklahoma Wednesday

    FROM STAFF REPORTS | Published: Wed, Jun 19, 2013

    A sunny day is ahead Wednesday in central Oklahoma. Winds will gust up to 21 mph