Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Science and technology are helping Oklahoma City to sustain the DNA — and the spirit — of a tree that has symbolized hope in the 24 years since the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history shook the city to its core.

As part of an annual remembrance of the bombing, civic leaders and state officials on Friday transplanted a tree that was cloned from a scarred American elm that withstood the blast that leveled half of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — There is insufficient evidence to pursue federal civil rights charges against a white former Tulsa police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black man, the Department of Justice said Friday.

U.S. Attorney Trent Shores announced the closure of the investigation into whether Betty Shelby willfully used unreasonable force against Terence Crutcher when she shot and killed him in September 2016.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A 24-year-old man is guilty of trying to detonate what he believed was an explosives-laden van outside an Oklahoma City bank, a federal jury ruled Monday.

Jurors convicted Jerry Drake Varnell, of Sayre, of attempting to use an explosive device to damage a building and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.

Prosecutors alleged that Varnell planned to detonate what he thought was a half-ton (450-kilogram) vehicle bomb on Aug. 12, 2017.