By Barbara Hoberock | Senior reporter
“I’ve worked 71 years, all my life, to have lakefront property just to watch it dry up.” - Don Machacek of low lake levels at Cedar Lake
A water level marker at Cedar Lake near Hinton, Okla., Wednesday, July 15, 2026. (Photo by Nate Billings/For Oklahoma Voice)
By Barbara Hoberock
A brown ring of dirt where waters once stood covers white rocks partially encircling Cedar Lake.
It is an emotional reminder to residents of this rustic and blue collar community 45 miles west of Oklahoma City that their way of life and livelihoods are dramatically changing.
Generations of families have celebrated the Fourth of July and other holidays on the beaches of the lake, which has served as a baptismal pool for children and grandchildren.
Oklahoma City Board of Education Chair Paula Lewis speaks during a board work session Nov. 18, 2024, at the Clara Luper Center for Educational Services in Oklahoma City. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
By Nuria Martinez-Keel
The longest-serving school board leader in Oklahoma City Public Schools’ history, credited with helping stabilize a once-turbulent district, resigned Monday evening.
A person walks into University Hospital in Newark, N.J. New Jersey has had one of the largest drops in deaths rates since 2015, according to a Stateline analysis. (Photo by Terrence McDonald/New Jersey Monitor)
By Tim Henderson
The nation’s death rate may have fallen to a historic low last year as many of the killers of young people such as drug overdoses, gun homicides and traffic accidents continued receding in 2025, according to new federal statistics.
The exterior of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Johnston, Rhode Island. (Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
By Ariana Figueroa
Federal asylum officers can deny interviews to asylum seekers and send them immediately to an immigration judge, speeding up deportation proceedings, under a rule U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published Tuesday.
David Hearn, of Bethesda, Maryland, is charged with destruction of property of more than $1,000 for allegedly vandalizing the newly refinished Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on June 19, 2026. Shown is construction at the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., on May 5, 2026. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
By Jennifer Shutt
Attorneys representing the former Olympic canoeist charged with damaging part of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool have asked the judge in the case to release more information from the grand jury.
ICYMI
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