After 9/11, the National Security Agency bought metadata from AT&T and Verizon. It began the intensive task of plotting relationships in billing records and call logs of cellphones and landlines all over America. By 2009, FISA warrants were issued so broadly that millions of records were incorporated into the database mashup.

Emmett Louis Till grew up and attended school on the south side of Chicago during an era in which segregated schools had become a part of American life. In 1954, despite the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, there was resistance in the Deep South to integration.

In the past few years, there's been a crusade among the public for media giants to tamp down "fake news," and rightly so. While newspapers are held to legal standards and can get successfully sued if they print lies, defame someone's character, or invade the privacy of a person who's not a public figure, social media platforms seem to be a free-for-all.

I few weeks ago, I implied I'd be writing about farts in church in my next column, rather than something as serious as the topic at hand. The next day, a local pastor called to say he'd share a story about bowel problems he experienced once from the pulpit after eating his grandmother's boiled cabbage the previous evening, on the condition that I not use his name. He preceded that by saying, "I suppose you were implying that people think farts in church are funny - and it's true, but I never could explain that sentiment."

Gov. Kevin Stitt says he won’t mandate that Oklahomans wear face masks in public to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

As churches in Oklahoma and elsewhere gradually reopen, they might do well to discourage congregational singing and keep the choir section empty for a while longer — perhaps a good while. Singing may be good for the soul but amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be dangerous.

It's too late to do anything about it, but the state's new logo is yet another example of the lack of prudence when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars at the state level.

Sometimes society moves faster than our legal system.

It always amazed me how in the first half of the 20th century, lone teachers in small, rural schoolhouses, were able to successfully teach all grades in a single classroom. And then, those students - who were educated and articulate - were able to win two World Wars, enrich the entire world, and send men into space.

By and large, our schools are already doing what they are being asked to do without realizing it. Criticism is coming from those who don't really know what schools are being asked to do.

Speculation abounds about the type of economic recovery that will take place as societies adjust to COVID-19. Many descriptive images related to a graph representing the economy are used to try to convey the possibilities.

While most of the country is performing virtual graduation ceremonies, the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention is looking ahead to fall. This week, the group released guidelines to schools when the time comes around again to open and resume some sort of normalcy.

Wouldn't it be nice to appoint a group of people to decide whether you should receive a raise, and have those folks come back with an annual bump of more than 35 percent?

OBI provides more than 90% of the blood provided to patients in the state, requiring 1,200 donors each day to meet the demand.

There was a time when Republicans championed a society with fewer government-imposed restrictions. With all due respect to Alexander Hamilton, they preferred a bottom-up structure, giving more weight to local leadership than blanket mandates from Washington, D.C.

Dr. Rick Bright came forward, and spoke about the lack of an effective White House pandemic response plan, and we are hearing less and less of Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx. And then, low and behold, the White House press secretary waves around an official-looking presidential binder that contains the actual “plan” for combating a disease that has now killed – at the time this column was penned – over 300,000 people in the world, with over 80,000 dead in the United States.

In Enid, NCBH can be reached at (580) 234-3791. For more information on IPS go to https://ipsworks.org.

Like many others, I am tired of hearing about pandemics, masks, proper treatment and massive death tolls or lack thereof. Stuck at home, many have been under a constant news barrage of fear and no hope for humankind to survive.

Better late than never.

We’d like to reiterate some wise words from an editorial in The Christian Chronicle. Recently, the Oklahoma City-based international publication advocated for tolerance.

Earlier this week, local law enforcement officials confirmed that the number of traffic incidents and crashes has increased since the city of Tahlequah began its reopening process.

The time has come around again for what has become the most popular annual feature for the Tahlequah Daily Press - at least, among regular readers. It's our annual "Best of Cherokee County Readers' Choice Awards."

It is troubling to see that retail workers are being shot as a matter of principle by mentally ill vigilantes who are anxious to dine in or who don’t want to order curbside while masked. In some cities, armed people demonstrate for their freedom to shop or something.

Anti-lockdown demonstrations have broken out around the U.S. recently – demonstrations directed at the state governments’ measures designed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Michigan is a state that has captured national attention regarding the conflict between some angry citizens and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer over the lockdown orders.

High school and college graduates were robbed of many milestones and moments — and we thank those using non-traditional ways to make it up to them.

We remain optimistic that a vaccine for COVID-19 will be found. And soon.

Unemployment rose by something like 20 million workers last month, and when you add that number to the previously unemployed, we have over 30 million workers looking for a job. Even that didn't tell the whole story, though, because millions more weren't counted because they had already given up finding a job and dropped out of the work force.

Many people today are "sheltering at home" by employer or doctor mandate. Others stay put more often than they want because the places they'd like to go are closed. Either way, those who aren't among the "essentials" or haven't been recalled to work appear to have a little more time on their hands than usual.

According to the old saw, patience is a virtue. That's true now, more than ever.

Nurses are a critical part of our health care system, even in so-called normal times.

On Jan. 13, 2017, a week before the Trump Transition Team was taking office, a global flu outbreak scenario briefing was held jointly between the incoming and outgoing Trump and Obama administrations. The new president's team had its first opportunity to grasp the historical role of presidential administrations in managing a national pandemic response. The briefing told of the framework for how nations cooperate in borderless disasters, to save lives. Transition briefings are aimed at safely getting new presidents past the early months when they might be vulnerable to crisis situations.

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute! And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me.”

When you go into the grocery store, you expect to pay for bread, milk and other items, and if you've been charged for something you didn't get, you return for a refund or the missing product. When you have a leak in a pipe in your house, you may call a plumber, who will hand you a bill, but you expect the pipe to be fixed before he leaves.

We understand the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission is in a tough spot given the surge in unemployment claims related to the COVID-19 closure of so many businesses.

I look around at the state of education in America and I am appalled by what I see.