Journal Record Week in Review for the week ending March 24, 2023

Journal Record Week in Review for the week ending March 24, 2023
Oklahoma Secretary of Transportation Tim Gatz answers a question from Christy Gillenwater, Greater Oklahoma City Chamber president and CEO, during a forum about Oklahoma’s highway and turnpike needs. The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority must push ahead with a proposed turnpike extension through Norman despite pending litigation, public opposition and an audit, Gatz said. All the pushback doesn’t diminish the need to complete the metro’s outer loop to move traffic safely and efficiently as the population continues to grow. (Photo by Kathryn McNutt)
Oklahoma Secretary of Transportation Tim Gatz answers a dilemma from Christy Gillenwater, Better Oklahoma Metropolis Chamber president and CEO, in the course of a discussion board about Oklahoma’s freeway and turnpike wants. The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority need to drive forward with a proposed turnpike extension by means of Norman in spite of pending litigation, public opposition and an audit, Gatz said. All the pushback doesn’t diminish the have to have to finish the metro’s outer loop to shift visitors safely and securely and effectively as the inhabitants carries on to expand. (Image by Kathryn McNutt)

Tulsa workshop addresses gender wage hole
A 6-minute wander from the Centre of the Universe, Holberton Tulsa, a program engineering school, celebrated Women’s History Month on March 15, urging women to use their voices to close the gender hole. In partnership with Oklahoma Girls in Know-how and Tulsa Distant, a Countrywide Equal Pay out Working day workshop addressed the gender spend hole and taught negotiation methods. On typical, females make 84 cents for each dollar gained by males amongst entire-time, year-spherical staff aged 15 and older, according to current census information.

Study: Strength staff fear for work protection, basic safety
Oil and gas employees unveiled fears about career protection, unsafe doing the job problems, wage declines, and transitioning to other work opportunities in a report unveiled March 17 by Genuine Transition. The report contains a countrywide study of 1,635 American oil and gasoline personnel 87 get the job done in and 50 reside in Oklahoma. The survey targeted on non-management and mainly blue-collar oil and fuel workers engaged in the physical wage labor of oil and fuel exploration, production, transportation and refining. Amid history earnings announced by Significant Oil CEOs, providers are generating extra with fewer personnel, claimed Megan Miliken Biven, 1 of the report’s authors and founder of True Changeover, a general public policy collaborative representing electricity workers’ interests in the course of the clean electricity changeover.

Feds: Oklahomans shedding tens of millions to frauds
U.S. individuals noted shedding almost $8.8 billion to fraud in 2022, an boost of more than 30{64d42ef84185fe650eef13e078a399812999bbd8b8ee84343ab535e62a252847} over the former 12 months, in accordance to new Federal Trade Fee info. The FTC report reveals Oklahomans dropped $54.6 million in 2022 primarily based on 17,072 fraud stories submitted. The median decline was $500. When identity theft and all other classes are included to fraud, the reports totaled 34,503. In Oklahoma, identification theft and imposter cons accounted for about 1-3rd of the experiences at 6,068 and 5,322 cases respectively.

Point out application funding to support strengthen providers
Oklahoma organizations with ideas to broaden, diversify item strains or in any other case improve their sector positions may gain from funding made readily available this year by means of the Oklahoma Innovation Expansion Program. According to the Oklahoma Office of Commerce, the plan last 12 months funded 125 jobs proposed by quite a few companies throughout the point out, with expectations that their predicted development would end result in development of no less than 750 work opportunities and extra payroll of at least $35 million.

Choose extends agreement day in poultry lawsuit
A federal choose is giving Oklahoma and just about a dozen poultry firms, like the world’s premier poultry producer, Tyson Meals, an added 90 times to arrive at an settlement on plans to clean a watershed polluted by hen litter. U.S. District Choose Gregory Frizzell on March 17 scheduled a June 16 status convention in Tulsa, saying equally sides requested the extension. The state and the poultry providers are to submit a joint standing report by June 9. Frizzell ruled in January that Arkansas-primarily based Tyson, Minnesota-based mostly Cargill Inc. and other firms polluted the Illinois River, prompted a community nuisance and trespassed by spreading the litter, or manure, on land in eastern Oklahoma, and that it then leached into the river’s watershed. The ruling came from a 2005 lawsuit filed by Oklahoma.

Women of all ages in construction market share activities, troubles
A new review by Today’s Home-owner stories throughout development trade careers, women are most represented in the occupations of painters and paperhangers (10.2{64d42ef84185fe650eef13e078a399812999bbd8b8ee84343ab535e62a252847}) and development and developing inspectors (8{64d42ef84185fe650eef13e078a399812999bbd8b8ee84343ab535e62a252847}). The examine identified that Oklahoma ranks 24th for the best percentage of woman construction trade employees. Out of 75,601 development trade personnel in the state, 2,054 (2.7{64d42ef84185fe650eef13e078a399812999bbd8b8ee84343ab535e62a252847}) of them are ladies.

Oklahoma courtroom OKs abortion to protect mother’s lifetime
A divided Oklahoma Supreme Court docket overturned a portion of the state’s in the vicinity of whole ban on abortion, ruling girls have a ideal to abortion when pregnancy pitfalls their well being, not just in a medical crisis. It was a narrow earn for abortion legal rights advocates due to the fact the U.S. Supreme Court docket struck down Roe v. Wade. The court docket dominated that a woman has the appropriate beneath the condition constitution to acquire an abortion to maintain her lifestyle if her medical professional establishes that continuing the pregnancy would endanger it due to a affliction she has or is most likely to establish through the pregnancy. Earlier, the ideal to an abortion could acquire spot only in the situation of healthcare emergency.

Expenses target unlawful marijuana expand internet sites, illicit activity
State lawmakers have advanced several expenditures created to clamp down on unlawful marijuana mature operations and other illicit actions linked to Oklahoma’s health care marijuana market. Just one, Residence Bill 2095, proposes to extend a moratorium on issuing any new licenses for cannabis expand functions till at the very least Aug. 1, 2026. The evaluate also would give the state’s lawyer common wide authority to guide the Oklahoma Health-related Marijuana Authority in investigating mature sites and linked people today or corporations. Among the other things, it would let for unannounced on-website inspections and, “upon acceptable suspicion,” evaluations of subpoenaed land ownership files.

Trainer pay increase bill earns passage by way of Senate
Instructors and licensed university staff in Oklahoma could be in line to get a pay out raise amounting to many thousand dollars if legislation advancing at the Capitol continues to make progress. A bill to provide an throughout-the-board pay out raise for educators handed by way of the Senate. The measure, Senate Invoice 482, authored by condition Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, would provide a scaled pay out boost ranging from $3,000 to $6,000 based mostly on many years of service.

Political heavyweights are finalists for dean at OCU Regulation
Two former point out senators who graduated from the Oklahoma Metropolis University School of Law are between the finalists to succeed Legislation Dean Jim Roth when he methods down at the end of the educational yr. Oklahoma Metropolis Mayor David Holt and former Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb are two of the 4 candidates the research committee picked to arrive meet up with with college and legislation school constituent groups on campus.

BOKF executives: Fed right to remain centered on inflation
Inflation, as perfectly as problems about very long-time period injury to customers and to the economy if it is authorized to keep on unchecked, justified a go by the U.S. Federal Reserve to increase its important desire rate nonetheless all over again, the chief investment decision strategist at BOK Fiscal said. The action had been commonly anticipated, even with fears that the hottest in a string of fee hikes by the Fed would place stress on financial institutions, by now feeling detrimental outcomes of the collapse of Silicon Valley Lender in California and declining assurance in other establishments both of those in the U.S. and Europe. BOK Financial’s Steve Wyett stated the Fed confronted a rough choice but in the long run made the proper shift in demonstrating ongoing determination to throwing the brakes on inflation.

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