Oklahoma Watch
Oklahoma Watch is a non-profit organization that produces in-depth and investigative journalism on important public-policy issues facing the state. Oklahoma Watch is non-partisan and strives to be balanced, fair, accurate and comprehensive. The reporting project collaborates on occasion with other news outlets. Topics of particular interest include poverty, education, health care, the young and the old, and the disadvantaged.
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Oklahomans are reporting sticker shock at the mailbox when opening their electric bills this summer. While artificial intelligence and the data centers needed to support them have become major subjects of public discourse, state lawmakers and regulators say they are only one part of a much larger explanation. -
Oklahoma Native American students ranked first in the nation in reading, math and combined achievement in 2024, a result researchers link to aggressive student identification practices and robust Johnson-O'Malley program support. But flat federal funding despite a growing number of eligible students is threatening the programs that helped drive that success. -
There is no statewide standard for non-traffic offenses, leaving the price of pretrial freedom to depend largely on geography, individual judges and local politics. -
Oklahoma political candidates and outside groups are increasingly using texting, with its cheap cost and high open rate, as a campaign strategy. -
Most Oklahoma legislative attempts to regulate artificial intelligence stalled this session, even as other states pushed ahead despite President Trump's executive order discouraging state AI regulation. -
'Covered up quick': How a fatal Panhandle crash involving a drug task force officer was investigatedAn eight-year-old girl lay undiscovered for six hours after a Guymon crash that killed her and her grandfather when a drug task force officer's vehicle, traveling 85 mph in a 70 mph zone, struck their car. Records show a haphazard investigation, no photos taken, no interviews conducted and an incomplete collision report. -
Oklahoma soybean farmers are navigating a cascade of financial pressures: trade war fallout that cut China's soybean purchases by 78%, fertilizer prices driven up by tariffs and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, and fuel costs up more than 50%. Government assistance has helped, but margins remain deeply negative. -
Oklahoma consistently ranks near the top nationally in per-capita fatal encounters involving police with about 8 deaths per million residents. -
A variety of factors have caused some folks to take their own lives. -
Former Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Steven Harpe approved a million-dollar deal with a private vendor in early April to install AI call monitoring software in seven state prisons.
