The Oklahoma House of Representatives passed House Bill 4156 on Thursday by a vote of 77-20, which proposes the creation of the criminal act of impermissible occupation, targeting individuals who willfully enter and remain in Oklahoma without legal authorization to be in the United States.

Under the provisions of HB 4156, impermissible occupation is defined as the act of a noncitizen entering and remaining in Oklahoma without legal authorization. The first offense constitutes a misdemeanor, carrying penalties of up to one year in the county jail, a fine not exceeding $500 or both. Additionally, the individual must leave the state within 72 hours following conviction or release from custody, with subsequent offenses classified as felonies, punishable by up to two years in prison, a fine of up to $1,000 or both.

The measure also imposes penalties on noncitizens who have been denied admission, excluded, removed or departed from the United States while facing an outstanding removal order and then enter or attempt to enter Oklahoma. Law enforcement is mandated to collect identifying information of those arrested for impermissible occupation, which is cross-referenced with criminal databases by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

Proponents of the bill argue that it is essential to uphold the rule of law and protect state borders. However, Rep. Arturo Alonso-Sandoval (D) said the bill  “promotes racial profiling, which puts every Oklahoman at risk.” He further criticized the bill as “strictly political. This is not policy-focused. It’s not solution-focused. It’s campaign messaging.” House Majority Floor Leader Jon Echols, R-Oklahoma City, defended the bill, stating that “nothing inside this bill will allow racial profiling.”

The Oklahoma bill largely mimics a similar immigration bill from the Texas Legislature, which was signed into law in December 2023 and has since been embroiled in legal challenges. Iowa also passed a similar law in March.

New York City will no longer be home to the tallest building in North America if a plan freshly approved by Oklahoma City officials stays on course.

However, some residents near the site of the proposed Legends Tower have expressed concerns over the 1,907-foot structure — a number representing the year Oklahoma officially became a state.

Three months after announcing plans to build the tallest skyscraper in the country, the Oklahoma City Planning Commission approved zoning for a building that will stand 131 feet taller than lower Manhattan’s One World Trade Center. Once completed, Legends Tower will be a football field bigger than 1,550-foot Central Park Tower, North America’s second-tallest building.

According to the AO architecture firm behind the design, Legends Tower will be part of a mixed-use project called The Boardwalk at Bricktown, featuring nearly 2,000 apartment units, a Hyatt hotel, a sports arena, and 110,000 square feet of retail, dining and entertainment.

But while the planning commission gave its blessing on the height of the estimated $1.6 billion project, officials held off on approving bright signage that isn’t sitting well will locals, according to The Oklahoman.

“We’re not Las Vegas,” Oklahoma City resident Cynthia Ciancarelli told officials. “We’re not Manhattan.”

Ciancarelli and other Oklahomans worry proposed ad space on the building could cause sensory issues as well as appearing “a bit tacky.”

She also expressed concern that Oklahoma City is already a “one-stop shop for disasters,” including earthquakes, tornadoes and terror attacks.

More than 160 people were killed when a domestic terrorist detonated a truck full of explosives outside a federal building in 1995 — but tornadoes are a far more regular occurrence. The National Weather Service reports the Oklahoma City area has been hit by more than one twister on the same day at least 30 times.

But a well-designed skyscraper could structurally survive in the area known as “Tornado Alley,” the architecture firm said. At a planning meeting last week, the team offered reassurance that engineers will build a concrete core surrounding the skyscraper’s elevator shaft, and that the windows will be capable of withstanding a tornado without damage.

Experts told The Oklahoman that once completed, Legends Tower and The Boardwalk at Bricktown could be a boon to continuing growth in Oklahoma City, which the U.S. Census Bureau says is the sixth-fastest growing city in the nation.

Construction is set to begin later this year on parts of the project, with Legends Tower coming later.

If all goes according to the city’s plans, Legends Tower will become the sixth-tallest building in the world, behind China’s Ping An International Finance Centre.

Former President Bill Clinton is debuting a new video today in which he reflects on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, warning of the threat that toxic political discourse has on democracy.

The video is part of an “Explainer-in-Chief” series that Clinton is doing with ATTN:, the Candle Media division that publishes content fusing entertainment and topical issues.

The bombing, which killed 168 people, took place 29 years ago today. “For every president there are certain days in your presidency you will never forget,” Clinton says in the video. “April 19, 1995, the day of the largest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history is one of those days for me.”

“In the aftermath of the Oklahoma city bombing, I knew that we had a responsibility to do everything we could to ensure that something like this would never happen again,” Clinton says. “But perhaps an even greater responsibility was to urge people all across America to reassess how they talked about and thought about people who disagreed with them. Timothy McVeigh was himself motivated by that extreme rhetoric.” McVeigh was arrested, convicted and executed for perpetrating the attack.

Clinton said that he “thought it was my duty to help prevent that hatred from spreading to the average citizen.”

“I had to do two things that almost seem contradictory. I had to defend the right of people to speak freely, and assault the content and the predictable consequences of that kind of speech today. I think the challenge is the same. If you just regularly dehumanize people, so that they are no longer people, but ugly cartoons, bad things are going to happen.”

He adds, “A lot of life is about not so much what your opinion is, but how you express it, and how you relate to other people who just don’t agree with you. Democracy is a hard form of government. We are now the longest continuous democracy in human history, even though we are a very young country. And when you ruin democracy, when people don’t have enough regard for each other to listen, learn and chart a path forward, that is what you get. But it isn’t better.”

The video comes amid ongoing concern over the effects of political division and extreme rhetoric, perhaps reflected in the recent box office success of Civil War at the box office. Clinton has reflected on the Oklahoma City bombing a number of times before, including on his podcast and in a Time essay.

Matthew Segal, the co-founder and co-CEO of ATTN:, said in a statement that they hope that the video “encourages all Americans to look beyond the divisiveness – and instead listen to and treat each other with empathy and kindness.”

The videos are being released on YouTube and Instagram and other social media platforms.

ATTN: and Clinton will release additional videos this year on the politics of dehumanization and  the epidemic of loneliness. They will be tied to other moments in Clinton’s presidency, including the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993 and the White House Conference on Mental Health in 1999. ATTN: and Clinton previously partnered on “Explainer In Chief” videos last year, on topics that included bipartisan solutions to gun violence and Ukrainian solidarity, among other things.

ATTN: also has produced videos featuring former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the series Well Versed, an animated civics project that launched on Nickelodeon with First Lady Jill Biden and former First Lady Laura Bush headlining a debut event in Philadelphia. Also collaborating on the project were Moonbug and iCivics.