Clemency Hearing for Oklahoma Death Row Inmate Delayed Following Board Resignations
A clemency hearing for the next Oklahoman scheduled for execution is delayed. This comes after two board member resignations have forced the Pardon and Parole Board to push back its meeting.
Before someone can be executed in Oklahoma, the Pardon and Parole Board has to hear their case and pass it to the Governor’s desk.
Kevin Ray Underwood, whose time in front of the Parole Board was scheduled for Dec. 4 will now wait an additional five days before being considered.
The board has lost two of its five voting members in the last month.
One stepped down at the end of November’s scheduled meetings because of a pending move.
The second abruptly resigned amid a criminal investigation for “inappropriate behaviors.”
The board has a quorum, but Stitt could appoint replacements before the meeting takes place.
Underwood’s execution is still scheduled for Dec. 19.
Bird Flu Outbreak in Northeastern Oklahoma Prompts Flock Culling and Control Measures
A commercial chicken flock has been culled after testing positive for the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus. Officials have set up a control zone in Northeastern Oklahoma.
The bird flu is fatal for poultry and was found in a commercial flock in Adair County last week. About 64,000 broiler breeder chickens were euthanized to contain the virus.
Lee Benson, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture Food and Forestry, says the department has been preparing for a situation because the illness has been in the U.S. for the past couple of years.
“This confirmed positive happens, our Avian Influenza Response Plan was activated and right now, we're working with USDA and poultry producers and livestock producers to control and mitigate the spread of the disease here in Oklahoma," said Benson.
He says there will be extra monitoring and restricted movement of commercial birds in and out of the control zone in Adair County and the southern part of Delaware County.
The department urges flock owners to prevent their flocks’ contact with wild birds and areas where wild birds have been because they can carry the illness.
Oklahoma, Denmark Partner to Advance Renewable Energy and Innovation
Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a memorandum of understanding between the state of Oklahoma and the Ambassador of Denmark to the United States on Monday. The two governments intend to increase collaboration on energy innovation.
The memo details a collaboration between Oklahoma and EE North America, which is a subsidiary of Denmark-based company European Energy.
Collaboration objectives listed in the memo include developing renewable energy projects that harness Oklahoma’s wind and solar energy potential and exploring the possibility of establishing a facility to produce green methanol from renewable resources in Oklahoma.
Biomedical, aerospace, and defense innovations are also listed as areas of interest for the collaboration.
In a press release, Stitt thanked Oklahoma’s “pro-business” policies for making the collaboration possible and said a mutually beneficial relationship will create economic development and job opportunities in both Denmark and Oklahoma.
Headless Monarchs? Oklahoma Researcher Documents Surprising Survival in Butterflies
If you lost your head, you probably wouldn’t be able to walk, let alone fly. But sometimes monarch butterflies can survive and go about their business without heads following research out of the Oklahoma City Zoo.
Emily Geest’s research isn’t normally quite so macabre — she mostly focuses on helping Oklahoma’s butterfly populations survive and thrive.
"When you study butterflies, people bring you butterflies more than you'd anticipate them doing. And so they brought me this headless butterfly, and they were like, ‘Here you go. Here's a gift,'" said Geest.
A few years later, someone brought her another one. Then another.
She found other records of headless monarchs on social media but not a ton of academic writing. Online, people called it the Marie Antoinette phenomenon, after another monarch who lost her head.
Some headless butterflies Geest found on social media had lost their heads in accidents, but at least one emerged from the chrysalis headless.
Geest published her observations in American Entomologist, but she plans to leave the follow-up questions about headless monarchs to other researchers. She hopes the Marie Antoinette phenomenon inspires people to focus on butterfly conservation.
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