Charges dropped against deaf Black man who was punched by Phoenix police

(CRESCENT, Okla.) — The 28-year-old lab worker investigated alleged wrongdoing at an Oklahoma nuclear fuel facility, and was on her way to meet with a New York Times reporter when she died in a fatal car crash.

Fifty years ago, the death of a 28-year-old plutonium plant worker and whistleblower in Oklahoma — a death many found mysterious and sparked decades of speculation — shocked the nation.

The official story was that Karen Silkwood died in a one-car crash on Nov. 13, 1974. She was on her way to meet a New York Times journalist, reportedly to hand over documents she’d secretly been collecting at her job at a nuclear facility. The Oklahoma State Highway Patrol concluded that Silkwood fell asleep at the wheel — possibly under the influence of prescribed drugs — drove off the highway, crashed into a ditch, and died.

“We’ve never believed it,” Mike Boettcher said of the official narrative. Boettcher and his reporting partner Bob Sands, both veteran Oklahoma journalists, say many in Oklahoma speculate that Karen Silkwood may have died for what she knew.

Silkwood’s story has become widely known, inspiring several books, articles, and a major motion picture.

ABC Audio’s new podcast, “Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery,” hosted by Boettcher and Sands, explores the secrets Silkwood was uncovering and what some say is the mystery surrounding her death.

Silkwood worked at a nuclear fuel production plant that manufactured plutonium fuel rods to power a new type of nuclear reactor, which was part of a multi-million dollar experiment to enhance nuclear energy. When she noticed what she felt were unsafe working conditions — such as leaks, spills and co-workers frequently getting contaminated with radioactive material — she spoke up and tried to make improvements.

“Karen became nuclear energy’s first whistleblower, though the term whistleblower was just starting to be used,” Boettcher said. “This was at a time when the idea of someone inside of a big corporation exposing alleged misdeeds was shocking.”

Silkwood’s allegations, contamination, and untimely death sparked an investigation by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, an FBI inquiry, a civil lawsuit, several appeals, a congressional hearing and two appearances before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Several news outlets investigated the matter, and Silkwood’s story gained significant attention in 1983 with the release of “Silkwood,” a movie based on her life. In a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination, Meryl Streep portrayed Silkwood in the film.

For fifty years, this story has been one Boettcher and Sands say they can’t get out of their minds. Suspicion of foul play has swirled around it for decades: What had Silkwood uncovered? Who had she upset? Why did her car crash into a concrete wall? Was a second vehicle involved?

“There are fewer and fewer people alive to share what they know from the night Karen died,” Sands said. “Many of the people who worked with Karen in the plant are dead.”

However, Sands and Boettcher have new leads — never-before-heard investigative tapes, a fresh look at a critical piece of physical evidence. Plus, they tracked down people who can illuminate who Karen was and what she was uncovering about her workplace.

The duo first spoke with Michael Meadows, Silkwood’s son. He was only 5 years old when his mother died. “There’s never been a definitive answer,” Meadows said. “Both sides … told a very different story that night of what happened, and as her son, I would like to have a definitive answer of what really took place.”

Instead of cherished memories of his mother, Meadows was left with black-and-white photos, newspaper clippings and police reports. When he tries to picture what his mom was like, the image that comes to mind is Streep’s portrayal.

“The fact that … there’s still so many people afraid to tell what they know or what they’ve heard,” Meadows said. “It’s amazing to me that 50 years later, a company that barely even exists, if it does exist at all …still has that kind of control or that kind of intimidation.”

That company was Kerr-McGee, named after its influential leaders Robert Kerr and Dean McGee. It doesn’t exist anymore. But, in the early ’70s, Kerr-McGee was a giant in Oklahoma and in America’s oil and gas industry.

So, for Silkwood, going against her employer would be a steep hill to climb. The company maintained that allegations of malfeasance were overblown and some claims even made up by overzealous union workers.

Steve Wodka met Karen Silkwood in the early ’70s as a young staff member for the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW), which represented Silkwood and other plant workers.

Wodka recently retired from his career as an attorney advocating for people with work-related cancer. Living in a small New Jersey beach town, he spends his time trying to figure out what happened to Silkwood 50 years ago.

Silkwood had alerted him to possible problems at the plant and the union was concerned about worker safety.

“The belief is that intense radiation that goes on essentially for the rest of the person’s life causes lung cancer,” Wodka said. “So the handling of plutonium is supposed to be very strict… There’s always supposed to be a barrier between the worker and plutonium. And what was going on in this plant was that barrier was being breached on a daily basis.”

Silkwood raised some even bigger concerns about possible wrongdoing at the plant — that important quality control reports were reportedly being falsified. Concerns that, if true, meant the health and safety of a lot more people was at risk, well beyond people who worked at the plant.

The company denied contamination allegations and maintained that Silkwood was involved in a scheme to embarrass the company and improve the bargaining position of the union.

Silkwood never made it to that meeting, but after her death, interest in her story put a spotlight on the claims she was trying to make.

Boettcher, Sands, and others connected with Silkwood’s story, continue to probe for answers in a case that feels unfinished.

“Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery” is a production by ABC Audio in collaboration with Standing Bear Entertainment. Listen to the four-part podcast series for complete coverage.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Generative artificial intelligence companies capable of generating creative content are also said to be disrupting the livelihoods of creatives around the world, according to a group of creatives speaking out publicly about the issue.

“The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted, a ” statement signed by 11,500 actors, musicians, authors, photographers, and composers from across the world, read.

Julianne Moore, Kevin Bacon, Thom Yorke and Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus, are among the tens of thousands of creatives who have signed this open letter calling for these companies to stop indiscriminately training on content they say should be licensed.

“This is a major issue for many of the artists, musicians, actors, authors, and other creators whose work is being exploited by AI companies,” said Ed Newton-Rex, a former AI executive who released the statement.

As a former head of audio at Stability AI, Newton-Rex is well acquainted with the internal data training practices of generative AI companies. He resigned over the company’s belief that training their AI models on copyrighted content without licensing it constitutes “fair use.”

Generative AI models have generally scrapped as much content as they could from the internet, downloaded it and trained their model to be able to create new work that is in the style of the work it trained on, Newton-Rex told ABC News.

“None of this revenue is coming back to the original artists,” explained Overlai founder Luke Neumann in a blog post about his new mobile app which aims to protect photography in the age of AI.

Neumann, who also signed the letter, launched the free app Overlai with world-renowned photographers Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier, when they noticed text-to-image generators could easily replicate the unique styles of both photographers. And, Neumann stresses the amount of work that goes into conservationist photography – the cost of travel and spending weeks, sometimes months in a location documenting a delicate ecosystem.

“I think AI companies really need to think long and hard about like how long they’re going to need organic data and if they want to be messing with these fragile business models of the people out there capturing this stuff,” Neumann to ABC News.

Several lawsuits from creatives ranging from writers to musicians to comedians have piled up against some of the biggest generative AI companies for copyright infringement.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Schools in a Kentucky country reopened Tuesday under heavy police guard for the first time since a massive search was launched for a suspect in an interstate shooting that injured five people 11 days ago.

As the suspect, 32-year-old Joseph Couch, remained on the loose Tuesday, the Laurel County Public Schools reopened campuses to its nearly 9,000 students.

“We will not live our lives in fear,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said during a news conference Tuesday.

The school district said in a statement that the reopening plan “prioritizes the safety of our students and staff.”

“The reopening plan provides enhanced security measures for bus transportation services, school campuses and extra-curricular activities,” the school district said.

Tuesday’s search for Couch continued to focus in the thick woods of the Daniel Boone National Forest, according to the Kentucky State Police.

Both state and federal teams have combed through at least 28,000 acres of the more than 700,000-acre national forest, but have yet to find any sign of Couch, officials said.

As the search continues in the national forest, officials said they are expanding the hunt for Couch to the communities surrounding the forest.

Beshear said additional state resources are being made available to help with the ongoing search efforts.

The FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service are assisting in the search.

The search for the gunman began on Sept. 7, after police responded to reports that a dozen vehicles traveling on Interstate 75 near London, Kentucky, had been struck by gunfire, officials said.

The Laurel County Sheriff’s Office said 20 to 30 shots were fired from a hillside near I-75’s exit 49.

Couch was initially named as a person of interest after deputies found his SUV abandoned on a forest road near exit 49, officials said. An AR-15 rifle Couch purchased in the hours before the shooting and investigators believe was used in the incident was also found in the woods near Couch’s vehicle along with a bag with Couch’s name written on it, officials said.

A day after the shooting, Couch was upgraded to the primary suspect. Investigators warned that Couch should be considered armed and dangerous.

In addition to searching the national forest, a tip prompted investigators this week to search a home in Laurel County, but found no evidence of Couch having been there, officials said.

Before the interstate shooting, according to the arrest warrant, a Laurel County 911 dispatcher received a call from a woman who alleged Couch texted her before the interstate shooting and “advised he was going to kill a lot of people. Well, try at least.” The text message was sent to the woman at 5:03 p.m. on Sept. 7, about a half-hour before the interstate shooting started, according to the arrest warrant.

“Couch sent another message to [the woman] that read, in part, ‘I’ll kill myself afterwards,'” according to the arrest warrant.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.