Oklahoma City

Terry L. Nichols has asked the federal appeals court in Denver for a new trial in the Oklahoma City bombing, contending that the federal judge who presided over his case erred at his trial and his sentencing.In December, a federal court jury in Denver convicted Nichols, 43, a military-surplus dealer, of conspiring with his former Army buddy Timothy J. McVeigh to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building, where 168 people died April 19, 1995.Nichols was also convicted on eight counts of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of the eight federal law-enforcement agents killed in the bombing.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- During a day filled with personal sorrow, public grief and religious reflection, President Clinton remembered the victims and survivors of the bombing here a year ago, offering comfort in the Good Friday celebration of rebirth and resurrection.Aided by his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and six children who lived through the deadly blast, Mr. Clinton arranged a huge wreath of seasonal flowers in the barren field where the Alfred P. Murrah federal center once stood.The massive building was destroyed on April 19, 1995, when a truck bomb exploded, killing 168 people, including 18 children at a second-floor day-care center.

Those who visit the recently opened Oklahoma National Memorial Center are asked to step back in time - to April 19, 1995, a date made infamous by a terrorist's bomb. Called a "learning center" by its designers, the building combines elements of a museum, a memorial and a library. In it, the story of what happened that day unfolds in 10 "chapters," or galleries that focus on the moments just after the blast, the efforts of those who raced to the rescue, those who died and those who didn't.

OKLAHOMA CITY - Three of the Orioles' most impressive players this spring combined to give them a 3-1 win against the St. Louis Cardinals in their last exhibition game in Oklahoma last night. With the score tied at 1, hot-hitting Jay Gibbons led off the ninth with a single. Pinch runner David Newhan stole second and scored on Luis Matos' triple. Matos, who is batting nearly .400 this spring, dashed home when the relay throw from second baseman Mark Grudzielanek bounced off Matos' back and rolled away.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- They came to court carrying pictures of their dead, more than 100 of them braving zero temperatures and crowding before dawn yesterday into the federal courthouse here, determined to show a judge that Oklahoma citizens should decide the Oklahoma bombing case.Doris Jones clutched a studio portrait of her daughter, Carrie Lenz, a federal drug agency employee who was six months pregnant when the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building took her life."Her picture goes with me everywhere I go," her mother said.

On a sunny April morning just days after the Oklahoma City bomb had ripped a crater in the federal building, rescue teams digging methodically through the rubble. They prayed for survivors but more often found bodies.Arriving on the scene, consultant Mark Loizeaux was struck by the calm of the crowds on the streets. Hundreds of onlookers stood like statues, cast in disbelief. Some gripped the chain-link fence that kept them out, peering in for a closer look, clinging to hope."They were looking at this blackened, hollowed-out slab of a structure," said Loizeaux, 49-year-old president of Controlled Demolition Inc., which later demolished the remains of the Alfred P. Murrah building.

In Montana earlier this year, a legislator introduced a bill urging all citizens to "own, possess and maintain firearms and ammunition suitable for service in the militia."In Florida, the Santa Rosa County Commission last year recognized the militia as a way to protect citizens' rights.In Nevada, a Nye County commissioner bulldozed open a road on federal land and helped enact a law to jail and fine federal agents who violate citizen rights.It's not just men in camouflage espousing the anti-government sentiments that have been widely publicized since an explosion ripped through an Oklahoma City federal building April 19.Those views can be heard in town halls, in some statehouses and even a few congressional offices as the public's frustration with government intensifies.

OKEMAH, Okla. -- Imagine looking like John Doe No. 2, the elusive confederate of Timothy McVeigh, the suspect in the Oklahoma bombing.By yesterday, the FBI had received more than 10,000 calls from people offering clues and had interviewed more than a dozen men resembling the sketch of the dark-haired, square-jawed, tattooed man the FBI calls John Doe No. 2.And while agents have not yet found their man, the hunt has sent jolts -- ranging from annoying inconvenience...

McALESTER, Okla. - A jury convicted Terry L. Nichols of 161 state murder counts yesterday, rejecting defense claims that he had been an unwitting accomplice to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The jury, which deliberated for five hours, instead branded him a full partner of executed bomber Timothy J. McVeigh. Next week, prosecutors will try to persuade the same 12 jurors to do what a federal jury would not six years ago: sentence Nichols to death. As District Judge Steven Taylor announced the decision, Nichols, 49, looked wan but remained stone-faced.

RARELY in American history has it been so crucial and difficult for the Republic to conduct a criminal trial both effectively and fairly as in the case against Timothy McVeigh that is scheduled to begin today in Denver.Defense requests for postponements, based on these difficulties, continued till the last. The alleged accomplice in the April 1995 bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people and wounded 500, Terry Nichols, will be tried separately.The bombing was a crime of anarchy against the state.