Week in review
Another week has passed, and here is your chance to catch up on what you might have missed.
- “The Sopranos” won its second Emmy for best drama for its final season, only the second time a drama won once its run was finished.
- Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that if a proposal by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb were enacted requiring troops to spend as much time at home as they do on tours in
Iraq, it would force the Pentagon to extend military tours again. - Former Oklahoma State University basketball star Byron Houston, 37, was ordered to spend four years in prison for indecent exposure. He was on probation when a female driver reported seeing him without pants and masturbating in a car in Oklahoma City.
- The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe unveiled a plan to build the Seattle SuperSonics a new arena next to a horse racing track in Auburn, Wash. The study said the stadium would cost $452 million, but financing was not discussed.
- In the face of rising fuel bills, more Oklahomans are buying hybrid cars. The state saw a 143 percent increase in hybrid sales from January to July compared with 2006.
- Sept. 17 brought the 100-year anniversary of the date Oklahomans gathered in Guthrie to approve the state’s proposed constitution, which was sent to the president so the territories could become a state.
- A passenger jet crashed on the Thai island of Phuket, killing close to 200 people, including scores of foreign tourists.
- Greece’s conservative Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis won re-election, though with a diminished majority in parliament.
- An outage left about 18,000 north Oklahoma City, Piedmont and Edmond customers without power.
- The “hand-washing police” may have your bathroom staked out. According to a study that was reported to infectious disease scientists, one-third of men and 12 percent of women didn’t wash their hands after using the restroom — hygiene statistics that have grown worse for both genders since the last survey was done two years ago.
- Country music star/actress Reba McEntire, 53, was named to Billboard magazine’s first “Woman of the Year” award. A native Oklahoman, McEntire’s new album of duets — with such artists as Justin Timberlake, Don Henley, Kelly Clarkson, Kenny Chesney, Carole King and Faith Hill — came out the past week.
- Stephanie Canada, who teaches physical education at Will Rogers Elementary School in Shawnee, was named state Teacher of the Year during ceremonies at the Oklahoma State Fair Centennial Expo.
- St. Anthony Hospital has a four-person concierge staff offering many of the amenities to hospital patients and staff that can be found at hotels.
- Few suicide-prevention programs target the elderly — despite their being the highest-risk population in the country for suicide — because of lack of funding and lack of concern, advocates say.
- Formal charges filed against O.J. Simpson allege his participation in 10 felonies, including kidnapping, in the robbery of sports memorabilia collectors in
Las Vegas. - Syria and North Korea denied U.S. claims that they are cooperating on a Syrian nuclear program.
- Attorney Robert Behlen was arrested, accused of holding a pharmacist and his assistant at gunpoint and taking painkillers from an Edmond pharmacy.
- Oklahoma City drivers spend an average of 21 hours per year stuck in rush hour traffic, ranking 56th in a study of 85 U.S. by the Texas Transportation Institute.
- A throng of about 500 people mobbed a book store in New York giving the rock-star treatment to former Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan, whose recently released memoir “The Age of Turbulence” is selling well.
- The Sacramento River Cats beat the Richmond Braves 7-1 at AT&T Bricktown Ballpark to win the Bricktown Showdown, the Triple-A championship game.
- It was farewell to the C-130s as the last three of the Oklahoma Air National Guard’s cargo airplanes left Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers Air National Guard Base for a new mission in Pennsylvania. The local Air Guard unit will begin flying KC-135 refueling aircraft. One Guard airman said of the C-130s, “We’ve nearly flown the wings off them.”
- Hundreds of people gathered on the south plaza of the state Capitol to protest the treatment of six black students in Jena, La. The six were accused of attacking another student after nooses appeared in a school tree. One of the black students has been jailed for about a year and is awaiting an appearance in court. A similar rally was held in Jena.
- The Chickasaw Nation’s WinStar casino in southern Oklahoma has begun construction to transform itself into a destination casino with a 400-room hotel, a convention center and a doubling of gaming space.
- Sen. Jim Inhofe said Thursday that lawmakers need to look at all of the nation’s transportation needs and not just at devoting more resources to bridge repair. Three weeks after the Air Force began investigating the mistaken arming of a B-52 bomber with nuclear weapons, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked for an outside inquiry.
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