Tag: Oklahoma

  • Former EPA Leader Had Safety Force Into Oncoming Site visitors To Get Dry Cleansing

    Scott Pruitt, a former head of the Environmental Coverage Company throughout the Trump management, incessantly requested his federal safety element to hurry and use sirens and emergency lighting fixtures as a result of he used to be operating overdue to conferences, in keeping with a federal record launched Thursday.

    In a single 2017 example, a unique agent drove Pruitt with the car’s lighting fixtures and sirens on thru oncoming site visitors. The administrator used to be operating overdue for an company assembly and wanted to select up his dry cleansing.

    “Are you able to guys use that magic button to get us thru site visitors?” Pruitt stated throughout any other example, in keeping with an account within the record. Different accounts come with Pruitt pronouncing “pace it up” and “we want to get there sooner,” which created a clumsy setting in his cars, the record says.

    The record used to be ready in June 2018, however most effective launched this week. The New York Instances used to be the primary to record at the record.

    The Instances added that the brokers knew the usage of the sirens and emergency lighting fixtures — that are most effective for use in emergency scenarios — violated federal insurance policies, however discovered it onerous to disobey Pruitt, who incessantly ran overdue to occasions and conferences.

    A former aide to Pruitt described his requests to make use of the lighting fixtures as “overly obnoxious, over the top and extra unhealthy to everybody.”

    A different agent interviewed for the record stated they went as far as to inform different brokers to disable or unplug the lighting fixtures and sirens “in order that they wouldn’t use them for the reason that administrator will nonetheless instruct they be used, however the agent can say they don’t paintings.”

    The EPA now mandates any violation of the company’s siren coverage be reported.

    Pruitt resigned in July 2018 after a debatable tenure that featured a spate of ethics scandals and greater than a dozen federal investigations. He used to be criticized for incessantly spending 1000’s of bucks on top notch flights house to Oklahoma and improperly spending $43,000 in taxpayer cash to construct a soundproof telephone sales space inside of his workplace.

    The EPA in the end discovered Pruitt spent virtually $124,000 on “over the top” shuttle plans.

    Main points from Pruitt’s tenure are virtually certain to return to gentle within the coming months after he filed to run as a Republican for the U.S. Senate. He’s vying for the seat held via longtime GOPer Sen. Jim Inhofe.

    “I believe Oklahomans know when the New York Instances and CNN and MSNBC and the ones puts are towards you, Oklahomans are for you,” Pruitt informed The Related Press in April.

  • Kamala Harris Calls Oklahoma’s New Draconian Abortion Ban ‘Outrageous’

    Vice President Kamala Harris slammed Oklahoma’s anti-abortion invoice that handed not up to an hour prior to she met with abortion suppliers on Thursday.

    The vp gave opening remarks prior to a digital dialogue with suppliers and reproductive rights advocates, through which she introduced up the Texas-style abortion ban that was once simply given ultimate approval via the Oklahoma state legislature. The invoice would restrict all abortions from the instant of fertilization and would deputize non-public voters in suing suppliers.

    “Now, consider that for a 2d: from the instant of fertilization,” Harris mentioned. “It’s outrageous, and it’s simply the most recent in a sequence of utmost rules across the nation. A number of of the scientific pros becoming a member of us nowadays are seeing the affect of those rules which can be designed to punish and keep watch over girls.”

    Harris then heard tales from the abortion suppliers she met with, all of whom are operating in states with extraordinarily restrictive anti-abortion regulation in spite of non-public chance. The suppliers integrated an OB/GYN training in California, Oklahoma and Kansas, an OB/GYN training in Texas, a primary scientific officer in Missouri and a nurse in Montana.

    The Oklahoma invoice that overwhelmingly handed on Thursday is certainly one of a minimum of 3 anti-abortion expenses despatched this yr to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who has indicated he’ll signal the most recent one. Previous this month, Stitt signed every other Texas-style abortion invoice that prohibits abortions after cardiac task is detected within the embryo ― at about six weeks. A 3rd invoice anticipated to take impact this summer season would make it a prison to accomplish an abortion, punishable via as much as 10 years in jail, without a exceptions for rape or incest.

    “At its core, that is about our long term as a country, about whether or not we are living in a rustic the place the federal government can intervene in non-public choices. That is about our long term,” Harris mentioned. “But on the similar time, we can’t deny that this determination can have actual and quick results on girls round our nation.”

    The large building up in state-level draconian abortion bans comes because the Superb Courtroom is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade in June, after a leaked draft opinion confirmed the conservative majority ruling to roll again the landmark determination granting abortion rights on the federal point.

    The White Area has time and again mentioned that it’s going to combat for abortion rights, on the other hand the management doesn’t have many choices to fight a Superb Courtroom determination and ensuing state rules. Congress lately didn’t advance the Ladies’s Well being Coverage Act, which might have successfully codified Roe v. Wade, placing American citizens all over the place the rustic susceptible to having their reproductive rights taken away.

  • Bob Dylan Museum Opening In Tulsa This Weekend

    NEW YORK (AP) — Elvis Costello, Patti Smith and Mavis Staples might be a number of the dignitaries anticipated in Tulsa, Oklahoma, this weekend for the outlet of the Bob Dylan Heart, the museum and archive celebrating the Nobel laureate’s paintings.

    Dylan himself received’t be amongst them, except he surprises everybody.

    The middle’s topic and namesake has an open invitation to return anytime, even if his absence turns out completely in persona, mentioned Steven Jenkins, the middle’s director. Oddly, Dylan was once simply in Tulsa 3 weeks in the past for a date on his live performance excursion, sandwiched in between Oklahoma Town and Little Rock, Arkansas. He didn’t ask for a go searching.

    “I don’t need to put phrases in his mouth,” Jenkins mentioned. “I will most effective bet at his reasoning. Perhaps he would to find it embarrassing.”

    It’s no doubt odd for a residing determine — Dylan is because of flip 81 on Would possibly 24 — to have a museum dedicated to him, however such is the shadow he has forged over fashionable song since his emergence within the early Nineteen Sixties. He’s nonetheless operating, acting onstage in a display trustworthy essentially to his most up-to-date subject matter.

    And he’s nonetheless pushing the envelope. “Homicide Maximum Foul,” Dylan’s just about 17-minute rumination at the Kennedy assassination and superstar, is as quietly surprising as “Like a Rolling Stone” was once just about a half-century in the past, even though he’s now not on the middle of pop culture.

    The middle gives an immersive movie revel in, efficiency house, a studio the place guests can play manufacturer and “combine” other parts of instrumentation in Dylan’s songs and a curated excursion the place other folks can take a musical adventure during the phases of his profession. The archive has greater than 100,000 pieces, many accessed most effective through students via appointment.

    Museum creators mentioned they sought after to construct an revel in each for informal guests who would possibly no longer know a lot of Dylan’s paintings and for the in point of fact fanatical — the skimmers, the swimmers and the divers, mentioned clothier Alan Maskin of the company Olson Kundig.

    The museum hopes to have a good time the inventive procedure usually, and at opening may have an show off of the paintings of photographer Jerry Schatzberg, whose 1965 symbol of Dylan is emblazoned at the development’s three-story facade.

    Since Dylan’s nonetheless developing, “we’re going to proceed to play catch-up” with him, Jenkins mentioned.

    So for a determine who was once born and raised in Minnesota, got here of musical age in New York and now lives in California, how does a museum dedicated to his lifestyles’s paintings finally end up in Oklahoma?

    He’s by no means appeared the nostalgic sort, however Dylan known early that his paintings can have ancient passion and worth, Jenkins mentioned. Along side his group, he set aside bins stuffed with artifacts, together with footage, uncommon recordings and handwritten lyrics that display how his songs went via revisions and rewrites.

    With use of the ones lyrics, two of the early presentations will focal point on how the songs “Jokerman” and “Tangled Up in Blue” took form — the latter with lyrics so elastic that Dylan was once nonetheless converting verses after the track have been launched.

    Dylan offered his archive in 2016 to the Tulsa-based George Kaiser Circle of relatives Basis, which additionally operates the Woody Guthrie Heart — a museum that celebrates one in every of Dylan’s musical heroes and is most effective steps clear of the brand new Dylan middle.

    Dylan likes the Guthrie museum, and likewise appreciates Tulsa’s wealthy holdings of Local American artwork, Jenkins mentioned. A lot of this is on show at any other new facility, the Gilcrease Museum, which may be the sector’s biggest keeping of artwork of the American West.

    “I feel it’s going to be a real vacationer draw to Tulsa for all of the proper causes,” mentioned Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum. “This is among the nice musicians within the historical past of humankind and everybody who desires to check his profession and spot the evolution of his skill might be interested in it.”

    Bynum hopes that it additionally encourages others who would possibly at some point need to put their archives on show, and make Tulsa a middle for the learn about of contemporary American song.

    Dylan designed and constructed a 16-foot-high steel sculpture that might be displayed on the front to the museum. Differently, he had not anything to do with the museum’s design and declined, via a spokesman, to supply a remark in regards to the opening.

    “If Bob had been telling us what lets or couldn’t do, it could have felt like a conceit venture, in some way,” Maskin mentioned. “It was once an incredible aid to not have to fulfill Bob Dylan.”

    Nonetheless, it’s protected to think the traces of conversation are open if vital: Jenkins, the middle’s director, is the brother of Larry Jenkins, Dylan’s long-time media consultant.

    Along with a dinner to have a good time the outlet this weekend, Costello, Smith and Staples will all carry out separate live shows at Cain’s Ballroom. Costello was once requested to program a jukebox that might be on show on the museum and, inside an afternoon, submitted his ideas for 160 Dylan songs and covers, Steven Jenkins mentioned.

    The Bob Dylan Heart is open to the general public on Would possibly 10.

    Maskin has no expectation that Dylan will ever see the clothier’s paintings. Nonetheless, he indulges himself in a fable of a sluggish summer time day, a safety guard sleeping within the nook, and somebody slipping in dressed in black denims, sun shades and a well-recognized mop of hair to wander a number of the presentations.

    “To be truthful, I don’t suppose that’s going to occur,” he mentioned. “I feel he’s within the paintings he’s doing, and no longer the paintings he’s achieved.”

    On-line: https://bobdylancenter.com/

  • 3 Typhoon-Chasing Meteorology Scholars Killed In Crash

    3 College of Oklahoma meteorology scholars killed of their SUV’s crash with a tractor-trailer have been getting back from chasing a twister in Kansas, government mentioned.

    Nicholas Nair, 20; Gavin Brief, 19; and Drake Brooks, 22, had adopted a twister close to Herrington, Kansas, and have been returning to their college in Norman, Oklahoma, Friday evening when their Volkswagen Tiguan SUV hydroplaned on wet Interstate 35, skidded into the out of doors lane and stopped, in keeping with the Oklahoma Division of Public Protection.

    An oncoming tractor-trailer slammed into their automobile, pinning the 3 scholars within the wreckage for greater than 5 hours, police mentioned. They have been declared useless on the scene, in Tonkawa, close to the Kansas border, as soon as rescue crews extricated them. The tractor-trailer driving force used to be handled at a health center and launched.

    Brief and Nair had posted movies to social media of the twister they have been tracking simply hours sooner than the crash.

    “Typhoon chasing used to be his interest,” Nair’s mom, Kate Nair, advised WFAA-TV in Carrollton, Texas, the place his circle of relatives lives. “Broadcasting used to be his interest.”

    Nair’s brother, Keane, spoke to his brother by means of telephone sooner than the crash and heard his pleasure after the 3 had observed their first twister as a bunch.

    “They have been like, this can be a large milestone for them,” Keane Nair advised WFAA. “He used to be simply glad. That’s one of the best ways God can have won him.”

    On the College of Oklahoma, the 3 scholars have been remembered for his or her devotion to meterology.

    “Their pursuit of that calling is admirable and serves as an inspiration to us all,” college President Joseph Harroz, Jr. mentioned in a commentary. “We’re immensely thankful for his or her lives and the affect each and every of them had.”

    The Nationwide Climate Provider in Norman devoted a climate balloon to the scholars on Saturday.

  • Republicans Cheer As Congressional Candidate Calls for Fauci’s Execution Via Firing Squad

    Oklahoma GOP chair John Bennett, who’s operating for Congress, mentioned he desires to position Dr. Anthony Fauci in entrance of a firing squad ― and the group at a marketing campaign tournament clapped and cheered.

    “We’re preventing communist Democrats, established order RINOs!” Bennett ranted in a video that Proper Wing Watch shared on-line Tuesday and has now long past viral.

    “We’re preventing in opposition to a gadget that stole the election in 2020 and no one have been held responsible,” he persisted, parroting former President Donald Trump’s baseless election fraud claims. “We’re in a conflict with bureaucrats that experience compelled vaccine mandates on us, masks mandates on us.”

    Bennett then railed in opposition to one thing he described as “wokeness confusion” which he alleged is being driven “down our throats now.”

    Then got here his sinister line about Fauci, who confronted repeated dying threats for his paintings at the coronavirus pandemic.

    “And by means of the best way, we must take a look at Anthony Fauci and put him in entrance of a firing squad,” mentioned Bennett, now not truly increasing on what crime Fauci has dedicated.

    Then he clarified “And for the Secret Carrier, in the event that they’re listening, I’m now not advocating we kill Anthony Fauci … till he’s convicted of his crimes thru a courtroom.”

  • Oklahoma Area Sends Competitive Abortion Ban To Governor

    OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma Area gave ultimate legislative approval on Tuesday to a invoice that will make appearing an abortion a legal, punishable via as much as 10 years in jail.

    With little dialogue and no debate, the Republican-controlled Area voted 70-14 to ship the invoice to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who has in the past mentioned he’d signal any anti-abortion invoice that involves his table.

    The invoice is considered one of a number of anti-abortion measures nonetheless alive in Oklahoma’s Legislature this yr, a part of a development of GOP-led states passing competitive anti-abortion regulation because the conservative U.S. Ideally suited Court docket is thinking about ratcheting again abortion rights which have been in position for just about 50 years.

    The Oklahoma invoice, which handed the Senate closing yr, makes an exception just for an abortion carried out to save lots of the lifetime of the mummy, mentioned GOP state Rep. Jim Olsen, of Roland, who backed the invoice. Beneath the invoice, an individual convicted of appearing an abortion would resist 10 years in jail and a $100,000 wonderful.

    “The consequences are for the physician, no longer for the girl,” Olsen mentioned.

    An identical anti-abortion expenses licensed via the Oklahoma Legislature lately had been stopped via the courts as unconstitutional.

    The invoice’s passage got here at the identical day as greater than 100 other people attended a “Bans Off Oklahoma” rally out of doors the Capitol in toughen of abortion rights.

    “Those legislators have endured their relentless assaults on our freedoms,” mentioned Emily Wales, period in-between president and CEO of Deliberate Parenthood Nice Plains Votes. “Those restrictions aren’t about bettering the security of the paintings that we do. They’re about shaming and stigmatizing individuals who want and deserve abortion get right of entry to.”

    Wales mentioned Deliberate Parenthood’s abortion health center in Oklahoma has observed an 800% build up within the choice of girls from Texas after that state handed probably the most restrictive anti-abortion legislation within the U.S. in a long time.

    The Texas legislation that took impact closing yr bans abortion as soon as cardiac task is detected, generally round six weeks of being pregnant, with out exceptions in circumstances of rape or incest.

    Additionally Tuesday, the Oklahoma Area followed a solution to acknowledge lives misplaced because of abortion and urge electorate to fly flags at half-staff on Jan. 22, the day the U.S. Ideally suited Court docket legalized abortion in its landmark 1973 determination in Roe v. Wade.

    This tale has been up to date to right kind the spelling of state Rep. Jim Olsen’s title.

  • Airways Cancel Flights As Wintry weather Typhoon Brings Freezing Rain, Snow To Huge Swath Of U.S.

    AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A significant wintry weather typhoon with tens of millions of American citizens in its trail introduced a mixture of rain, freezing rain and snow to the center segment of the US on Wednesday as airways canceled masses of flights, governors steered citizens to stick off roads and colleges closed campuses.

    The blast of frigid climate, which started arriving Tuesday night time, put a protracted stretch of states from New Mexico and Colorado to Maine beneath wintry weather typhoon warnings and watches. On Wednesday morning, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan noticed freezing rain, sleet and snow.

    Greater than a foot of snow used to be conceivable in portions of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Michigan by the point the typhoon strikes thru, at the heels of a vicious nor’easter ultimate weekend that introduced snowfall stipulations to many portions of the East Coast.

    “It’ll be an overly messy gadget and can make go back and forth very tough,” stated Marty Rausch, a meteorologist with the Nationwide Climate Provider in Faculty Park, Maryland.

    The footprint of the typhoon prolonged as some distance south as Texas, the place just about a 12 months after a catastrophic freeze buckled the state’s energy grid in some of the worst blackouts in U.S. historical past, Gov. Greg Abbott defended the state’s readiness. The forecast didn’t name for a similar extended and frigid temperatures because the February 2021 typhoon and the Nationwide Climate Provider stated the gadget would, usually, no longer be as dangerous this time for Texas.

    A street sign warns drivers of ice prevention operations on highways ahead of winter weather in Dallas, on Feb. 1, 2022.
    A boulevard signal warns drivers of ice prevention operations on highways forward of wintry weather climate in Dallas, on Feb. 1, 2022.

    “Nobody can make sure that there received’t be any” outages led to via call for at the energy grid, Abbott stated Tuesday. “However what we will be able to paintings to succeed in, and what we’re ready to succeed in is that energy goes to stick on throughout all of the state.”

    In November, Abbott had, if truth be told, made a ensure for wintry weather: “I will be able to ensure the lighting fixtures will keep on,” he advised Austin tv station KTBC.

    Abbott, whose dealing with of ultimate 12 months’s blackouts is a best line of assault for Democrats because the Republican seeks a 3rd time period in 2022, stated hundreds of miles of roads in Texas will turn into “extremely bad” over the approaching days. Power mavens stated the forecast this week, despite the fact that beneath freezing, will have to no longer pose a problem for Texas’ grid.

    “The query has all the time been if we get a repeat of ultimate 12 months, would the facility keep on? And that is nowhere close to a repeat of ultimate 12 months,” stated Doug Lewin, an power guide in Austin who has criticized Texas’ reaction to the blackouts as inadequate.

    No large-scale energy outages have been reported early Wednesday in Texas or in different places, consistent with poweroutage.us.

    Airways canceled greater than 1,000 flights within the U.S. scheduled for Wednesday, the flight-tracking provider FlightAware.com confirmed, together with greater than part taken off the board in St. Louis. So that you can keep forward of the elements, Southwest Airways introduced Tuesday that it could droop all of its flight operations Wednesday at St. Louis Lambert World Airport and Thursday at its Dallas Love Box hub. Airports in Chicago, Kansas Town and Detroit canceled extra flights than standard.

    “Across the nation, we’re making plans to function a restricted or diminished agenda from some towns within the trail of the typhoon however will make changes to the agenda as wanted,” Southwest spokesman Dan Landson stated.

    Missouri Gov. Mike Parson declared a state of emergency as faculty districts and universities shifted categories to on-line or canceled them fully.

    Illinois lawmakers canceled their 3 scheduled days of consultation this week because the central a part of the state prepares for heavy snow, ice and top wind gusts within the area. In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt has declared a statewide state of emergency because the wintry weather typhoon approached that may stay in impact for seven days.

    The Nationwide Climate Provider stated 6 to twelve inches (15 to 30 centimeters) of snow used to be anticipated via Thursday morning in portions of the Rockies and Midwest, whilst heavy ice is most likely from Texas in the course of the Ohio Valley.

    On Wednesday and Thursday, the elements provider stated 8 to fifteen inches (20 to 38 centimeters) of snow used to be conceivable in portions of Michigan. That comes with Detroit, the place the mayor activated snow emergency routes and town crews have been anticipated to paintings 12-hour shifts salting and plowing main roads.

    In Tulsa, Oklahoma, the place as much as 7 inches (18 centimeters) of snow and sleet used to be forecast however little ice, emergency control director Joe Kralicek stated the development isn’t anticipated to reason large-scale energy outages in keeping with an ice index utilized by the Nationwide Climate Provider.

    “Lets see some energy outages, alternatively, it’s additionally suggesting that they be restricted in scope and nature and really quick time period in length,” Kralicek stated.

    Becky Gligo, director of the nonprofit Housing Answers in Tulsa stated groups are running to transport homeless other folks into shelters forward of in a single day lows which might be anticipated to drop into unmarried digits via Friday night time.

    Related Press reporters Julie Walker in New York, Jill Bleed in Little Rock, Arkansas, Ken Miller in Oklahoma Town, John O’Connor in Springfield, Illinois, Terry Wallace in Dallas and Jeff Martin in Woodstock, Georgia, contributed to this record.

  • Tulsa Megachurch Pastor Beneath Hearth For Rubbing Spit Into Guy’s Face Throughout Sermon

    A pastor at a megachurch in Oklahoma apologized Monday after a video of him rubbing spit into a person’s face to exhibit how “receiving imaginative and prescient from God may get nasty” went viral.

    Photos from Sunday displays Michael Todd of Tulsa’s Transformation Church coughing and spitting into his hand, then wiping the spit onto the face of a person subsequent to him on degree.

    “Do you listen and spot the responses of the folk?” he stated, as contributors of the target market gasped audibly. “What I’m telling you, is the way you simply reacted is how the folk for your existence will react when God is doing what it takes for the Miracle.”

    “I watched it again, and it used to be disgusting,” he stated in a video, noting that the person used to be his brother. “Like, that used to be gross. I need to validate everyone’s emotions. That used to be a distraction to what I used to be actually looking to do. … I personal that.”

    Todd’s title used to be trending on Twitter on Monday as he confronted backlash for acting the stunt, specifically as COVID-19 circumstances surge in Oklahoma and across the nation.

  • Oklahoma Demise Row Inmates Search Firing Squad As Choice To Deadly Injection

    OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Two Oklahoma dying row inmates going through executions within the coming months presented firing squad as a much less problematic choice to the state’s three-drug deadly injection, one in all their lawyers advised a federal pass judgement on on Monday.

    The 2 inmates — Donald Grant and Gilbert Postelle — need U.S. District Pass judgement on Stephen Friot to grant them a brief injunction that will prolong their upcoming executions till an ordeal may also be held over whether or not Oklahoma’s three-drug deadly injection manner is constitutional. A tribulation is about to start out ahead of Friot on Feb. 28, however Grant is scheduled to be put to dying on Jan. 27, whilst Postelle is about for execution on Feb. 17.

    “Whilst it can be grotesque to take a look at, all of us agree it’ll be sooner,” legal professional Jim Stronski advised Friot after a day-long listening to in Oklahoma Town.

    Friot didn’t factor a call Monday at the inmates’ movement, however stated he was hoping to free up an order by way of the top of the week.

    “There’s so much for me to get my thoughts round,” Friot stated.

    Some of the professionals who testified was once Dr. James Williams, an emergency medication specialist from Texas who has greater than 40,000 hours of emergency room enjoy and who has widely studied using firing squads.

    Williams, himself the sufferer of a gunshot wound to the chest space, testified {that a} firing squad involving pictures from a minimum of 4 high-powered rifles to the “cardiac package” of the center could be so fast that an inmate wouldn’t really feel ache. He additionally stated that in contrast to deadly injection, there’s an especially low chance that the execution could be botched.

    Oklahoma hasn’t ever used firing squad as one way of executing prisoners since statehood, however present state legislation does permit for its use if different strategies, like deadly injection, have been decided to be unconstitutional or differently unavailable. The Oklahoma Division of Corrections does no longer lately have execution protocols in position for any manner as opposed to deadly injection.

    Friot additionally heard testimony from Justin Farris, leader of operations on the Division of Corrections, concerning the fresh deadly injections of dying row inmates John Marion Grant and Bigler Stouffer past due ultimate 12 months.

    Farris, who was once throughout the dying chamber for each executions, described the 2 deadly injections as being on “reverse ends of the spectrum.”

    Grant, who was once declared useless after vomiting and convulsing at the gurney, was once offended, hurling expletives and resisting the execution by way of seeking to flex his legs and arms, Farris stated. Stouffer, then again, “was once simply as well mannered as you’ll be able to believe below the instances,” Farris stated.

    Farris additionally testified that the physician who inserts the intravenous traces and is helping oversee the deadly injections is paid $15,000 for each and every execution he attends, in addition to $1,000 for each day of coaching. DOC coverage prohibits the discharge of the names of execution staff individuals, and the physician wore a masks right through each Grant’s and Stouffer’s executions.