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Teen murder suspect to be tried as a youthful offender

Posted: 4:59 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010

KRMG Morning News "Stack of Stuff" and Notes 11/24/10 

Previous Posts

By Joe Kelley, Host of the KRMG Morning News

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  • KRMG.com - Tulsa Police are looking for the driver of a car that hit an elderly man as he walked across the street. Police say the 75-year old victim was hit about 6 p.m. Tuesday near 25th and South Garnett. He was hospitalized in critical condition. Police say the vehicle that hit him is a white or light blue Honda Civic or a car, early to mid-90's model, with possible damage to the windshield. Police say if you have information that could assist in the investigation, call Crime Stoppers at 596-COPS.
  • KRMG.com - Commercial Financial Services is sailing once again.  Bill Bartmann was at the helm of CFS when it foundered 12 years ago.  He maintains it was the fraudulent actions of one of his partners that torpedoed the company. Bartmann says that partner was convicted and spent time in prison for the crime.  Bartmann says the fact is he was found not guilty of any crimes by a federal jury after the company's collapse. Bartmann says he understands why some people would be skeptical of his new venture but says some of the original investors are on board with this one as well.  He says people are free to have negative opinions about him but he doesn't believe there are any facts to support those views. The new CFS is starting out in the CityPlex Towers with 77 employees and Bartmann hopes to expand that number to 200 sometime soon.  The original CFS had about 4,000 employees when it went belly up.
  • KJRH - Jason Grubbs - JENKS, Okla. - A massage parlor accused of providing sexual acts for money is busted on Main Street in Jenks. Police say the investigation started in Tulsa with another operation. An employee of the Jenks massage parlor, 47-year-old Han Xiufen, was arrested and federal investigators are now involved. The massage shop employee was arrested during a police sting operation. Detectives say Xiufen was taken into custody for offering an unlawful acts after the massage. The city shut the building down for several code violations.
  • TULSA WORLD - Mayor Dewey Bartlett said Tuesday that building the Gilcrease Expressway as a turnpike is the fastest way to complete the road and open north Tulsa to development. "That road has been on our map as an expressway since roughly 1955 and it's still not completed," Bartlett said in a speech at the Tulsa Press Club Page One Luncheon. "At the rate we're going, it will be decades before that road is completed," he said. "So the question is, do we wait for that period of time to happen or look at an alternative way and allow for commerce and economic development to occur and prosper." Earlier this month, the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority approved a $767,100 study of completing the Gilcrease Expressway.
  • KOTV - Oklahoma's own Garth Brooks gets a standing ovation on Wednesday's Oprah show. The best-selling American artist of all-time leads the audience in singing "Friends in Low Places." You can see Garth on Oprah Wednesday at 4 p.m. on Channel 6.
  • WASHINGTON, D.C. -- According to an announcement Tuesday, former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating has been chosen as the next president of the American Bankers Association. Frank Keating, a Republican, was governor of Oklahoma from 1995 to 2003. He will join ABA on December 1 and assume his new role on January 1, upon the retirement of current president and CEO Ed Yingling. Keating was selected for his experience, leadership skills as governor, and for his previous experience in federal government. Keating has been president of the American Council of Life Insurers [ACLI] since 2003.
  • National Opt-Out Day -- As if air travel over the Thanksgiving holiday isn't tough enough, it could be even worse this year: Airports could see even more disruptions because of a loosely organized Internet boycott of full-body scans. Even if only a small percentage of passengers participate, experts say it could mean longer lines, bigger delays and hotter tempers. The protest, National Opt-Out Day, is scheduled for Wednesday to coincide with the busiest travel day of the year. Body scans take as little as 10 seconds, but people who decline the process must submit to a full pat-down, which takes much longer. That could cause a cascade of delays at dozens of major airports, including those in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta.
  • The turkey isn't the only thing that's going to get carved up this Thanksgiving. More than two out of three women say their families will be pulling the long knives on each other Thursday and firing up family feuds before the holiday bird even hits the table. The survey of visitors to the iVillage Web site found that 68 percent of women are predicting a drama-stuffed Thanksgiving this year that will come with a side of angst and a second helping of acrimony all around. The prospects for actually being thankful on the big day are so dim that more than 1 in 10 women told iVillage they are "dreading" the holiday.
  • America's appetite for eating out is starting to rumble again. Three years after the $580 billion restaurant industry saw its harshest downturn in decades, there are signals that the worst may be over for an industry that suffered as people saved by eating out less. Families with kids started visiting restaurants in greater numbers this summer - up 1% following a three-year decline, reports researcher NPD Group. •Upscale. After double-digit declines in 2009, steak house Morton's posted positive same-store sales for the first three quarters of 2010. •Midscale. Applebee's same-store sales rose 3.3% in the third quarter. •Down-scale. Hardee's, hit hard by the recession, is seeing a lift, with same-store sales up 6.8%.
  • Facebook has rolled out a discreet attack on Google, vying for some of its business as a popular homepage default.  Facebook has reiterated time and time again that it is not Google's rival. Facebook doth protest too much, we think, first as the social networking site introduced its e-mail-meets-messaging feature and now as it quietly encourages users to make the site their homepage. Facebook began testing out its homepage prompts. A small amount of Facebook users logged into their accounts and were welcomed by a bar at the top of the page with a small icon, and a note reading "Drag this to your home button to see what's happening with friends as soon as you open your browser." The banner also included photos and names of specific friends you would be given immediate access to. As subtle as Facebook might think it's being, this is a clear play for part of Google's most prolific territory.
  • DRUDGE - THE HILL - The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for U.S. vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary. "[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through," Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on "Charlie Rose." "I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?" Napolitano's comments, made a day before one of the nation's busiest travel days, come in the wake of a public outcry over newly implemented airport screening measures that have been criticized for being too invasive.
  • DRUDGE - The final Nielsen ratings for Dancing with the Stars are in, and the Bristol Palin-fueled Dancing with the Stars (23.7 million, 4.9/13 in adults 18-49) posted the strongest results for a Dancing performance finale in six seasons, since the fifth cycle's Monday finale in November 2007.
  • DRUDGE - A shadow political campaign or an "attagirl" for a struggling amateur? Bristol Palin's success on this season's "Dancing With the Stars" defies easy explanation. Either way, Bristol has something to brag about if talk at the Palin dinner table turns toward vote-getting ability. Just like her mom, Sarah, and her campaign for the vice presidency two years ago, however, Bristol fell short at the end. She finished third to champion Jennifer Grey of "Dirty Dancing" fame during the ABC competition's two-hour finale Tuesday. Runner-up was Disney Channel star Kyle Massey.
  • DRUDGE - ABC - A California man accused of robbing banks and assembling what may be the largest cache of homemade explosives ever found in the U.S. was ordered held on $5 million bail Monday. George Djura Jakubec, a 54-year-old unemployed software engineer, pleaded not guilty to two bank robbery charges, 12 felony counts of possessing destructive devices and 14 counts of possessing ingredients to make destructive devices. He faces up to 40 years in prison. Prosecutors say that eight pounds of the homemade explosive HMTD was found after a gardener was seriously injured in an explosion on Jakubec's property near Escondido last week. Federal and local officials also say they found nine detonators and 13 unfilled homemade grenades with attached shrapnel.
  • DRUDGE - (Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson, which has been beset with recalls of Tylenol and other consumer products over the past year, has recalled almost 5 million additional packages of Benadryl, Motrin and Rolaids because of manufacturing "insufficiencies." J&J said the recalls, like many of the earlier ones, involved products made at its plant in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. The facility was closed earlier this year to fix quality-control lapses, including unsanitary conditions. The latest actions involve 4 million packages of Children's Benadryl Allergy Fastmelt Tablets in cherry and grape flavors. The allergy drug was distributed in the United States and other markets, a company spokeswoman said. An estimated 800,000 bottles of Junior Strength Motrin Caplets, a painkiller, were recalled in the United States. According to WebMD, the recall does not affect consumers. Johnson & Johnson says the medicines are not dangerous and insists there are no adverse effects. Consumers are not part of the recall. The company says it's just wholesalers and retailers that are being asked to remove product. FYI: Consumers with questions should call 888-222-6036.
  • GREYMOUTH, New Zealand (Reuters) - All 29 miners trapped underground in a New Zealand mine for five days are believed to be dead following a second explosion, police said on Wednesday, as the government vowed to investigate the disaster.
  • BOSTON (Reuters) - Massachusetts authorities are investigating the possibility a 16-year-old North Carolina boy whose mangled body was found outside Boston last week fell from an airplane, an airport official confirmed on Tuesday. Police have been unable to explain why Delvonte Tisdale, a high school student who ran away from his home in Charlotte, North Carolina, would have been in Milton, Massachusetts, some 850 miles away, where he had no known ties. "We have been asked to provide some information about flight tracks and flight approaches that go over that community," said Phil Orlandella, a spokesman for Logan International Airport. Some planes approaching the airport fly over Milton, Orlandella said. Police are investigating whether Tisdale may have hidden in the wheel-well of a commercial aircraft. That part of a commercial airliner is not pressurized, making it unlikely Tisdale would have survived the thin air and freezing temperatures after takeoff.
  • AOL - After becoming the most-watched premiere in TLC network history, "Sarah Palin's Alaska" saw a 40 percent decrease in ratings for its second episode. Despite unfavorable critical reception, the show's debut was watched by a whopping 5 million viewers. Episode two, however, only drew 3 million back for more Palin.
  • AOL - Passengers on a US Airways flight from Charlotte to Denver witnessed an unusual scene on Tuesday. Once the plane had landed it was boarded by officials who searched the aircraft with a dog. Then, according to an Associated Press reporter who happened to be on Flight 1525, "uniformed officers" inexplicably removed two male passengers from the plane but didn't handcuff or arrest them on site. According to the reporter, the men left calmly and the other passengers disembarked from the plane. Just which authorities escorted the men off the plane, however, remains unclear. The Denver Police and Denver airport officials, neither of whom immediately responded to a requests for comment by AOL News, told The Associated Press they didn't know anything about the incident and referred inquiries to the Transportation Security Administration. Officials at the TSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment today. The identities of the men are also unknown.
  • AOL - Apple Inc. announced that it has sold more than 2 million of The Beatles' songs since the Fab Four's catalog was made available on iTunes. In terms of albums, that old-fashioned way of grouping and releasing music, the group has sold more than 450,000 since Nov. 16.
  • Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-Texas) conceded defeat to Republican challenger Blake Farenthold late Monday after the recount he requested barely made a dent in the Republican's election night lead. Farenthold's final margin of victory stood at 648 votes. Farenthold's victory completes one of 2010's biggest upsets on the House side and brings the number of GOP House gains this year to 63.
  • State Chamber of Oklahoma President Fred Morgan has called on the chairman of the Judicial Nominating Commission to halt the selection process for a Supreme Court justice until the people's will is fulfilled through implementation of State Question 752. The question, which passed with a vote of 63 percent earlier this month, requires that two, non-lawyer appointees be added to the commission. It also requires that none of the six non-lawyer members currently serving on the commission be related to a lawyer. Until the two new appointments are made by the Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and it is confirmed that none of the six non-lawyer members are related to a lawyer, the commission should not continue its work, said Morgan.
  • WaPo - Cellphone users may be able to text 9-1-1 emergency services as the Federal Communications Commission explores ways to update public safety communications. In a speech Tuesday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined reforms that would include the ability to text 9-1-1 as more Americans use cellphones as their main tool for communications. He said cell phone users will be able to snap a photo of a car leaving an armed robbery scene and send it to 9-1-1. "If you find yourself in an emergency situation and want to send a text for help, you can pretty much text anyone except a 9-1-1 call center," Genachowski said at Arlington, Va.'s county emergency services center. "It's time to bring 9-1-1 into the digital age."
  • The Federal Bureau of Investigation's most recent hate crime statistics, released Monday, show that crimes committed due to racial biases are the most prevalent and that -- despite a great deal of rhetoric to the contrary -- for crimes committed due to a religious bias, it is still safer to be Muslim than it is to be Jew. According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program in 2009 there were 8,336 victims of hate crimes. 48.8 percent of those victims were targeted because of a racial bias, 18.9 percent because of a religious bias, and 17.8 percent because of a bias against a person's sexual orientation.
  • Shopping online to beat the Black Friday crowd? The busiest day of the year for online sales is next Monday, now known as "Cyber Monday." More than 70% of online retailers are planning special promotions for the Monday following Thanksgiving this year compared to 42.7% two years ago, according to a survey conducted by BIGresearch on behalf of trade group Shop.org. (Shop.org's parent, the National Retail Federation, coined the term "Cyber Monday" in 2005 as recognition of the sales spike that occurs online every year on the Monday after Thanksgiving as people return to work.)
  • Robert Decheine, chief of staff to Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.), has been fired following his arrest last week for allegedly soliciting sex from a minor, the lawmaker's office announced Tuesday. "Congressman Rothman immediately consulted appropriate House counsel and terminated Mr. Decheine's employment, effective November 19, 2010, due to the very serious nature of this charge," Rothman spokesman Aaron Keyak said in a statement. "Congressman Rothman considers this alleged criminal act to be shocking, appalling and indefensible. As a parent, he understands the vital importance of protecting our children from predators."
  • Foursquare -- starting today, the location-sharing service will award a badge to anyone who checks in at an airport with words along the lines of "TSA," "touch," or "Don't touch my junk!" Last week, Loopt announced its intentions to celebrate National Opt-Out Day by rewarding 10 travelers who opt out of body scans in favor of full-body pat-downs (and then check in via Loopt, of course) with a free iPod touch.
     
     

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