Proponents of adding able-bodied adults, including many working-age men, to Oklahoma’s Medicaid program promised it would solve virtually all the state’s health-care woes. Rural hospitals would suddenly be lavishly funded. State government would be flush with cash. Health outcomes would improve on a skyrocketing trajectory.
Obviously, none of those things has happened despite expansion having been in place for five years now.
In a sure sign that spring is not far behind, the first Purple Martins of the year have been spotted in Oklahoma, the Purple Martin Conservation Association reported today.
The birds were seen on February 18 in Lawton, Oklahoma by a Purple Martin enthusiast – one of many throughout the eastern and central United States who track and report on the birds’ annual migration on behalf of the Purple Martin Conservation Association. The migration of these unique birds can be reported and tracked through a community science project called the Scout-Arrival Study. Last year, as Tulsa Today reported, the birds were first seen on February 8 in Purcell.
On the fifth anniversary of February 2021’s Winter Storm “Uri,” appeals challenging more than $1.4 billion in bonds and $377 million in rate increases impacting the customers of electric utility companies OG&E and Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) are now in the hands of the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Tuesday, Reps. Tom Gann, R-Inola, Kevin West, R-Moore, and Rick West, R-Heavener, filed the final brief in their appeal of a 2025 Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) order approving a $127 million rate increase for OG&E without a CPA-led audit of the utility’s 2021 Winter Storm “Uri” bonds.
Oklahoma’s 2026 literacy bills represent one of the most serious legislative pushes for early reading improvement in recent memory. Lawmakers across chambers have introduced proposals addressing screening, intervention, coaching, summer programs, and—in some cases—third-grade promotion standards. That is encouraging.
But after studying these bills closely, I believe the real question facing Oklahoma is not whether we pass “a literacy bill.” It is whether we build a coherent literacy system.
Second Lady Usha Vance, in partnership with The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), announced a new Bookmark Design Challenge: Celebrating America’s 250th, an opportunity for students in grades K–8 to design an original bookmark celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary.
