on May 31, 2008M at 10:47 pm
Sometimes it’s easy to miss an event, so here’s a look back at the past week or so to help bring you up to date:
Military veterans were honored at events nationwide during Memorial Day Weekend 2008. The state remembered its own military heroes, including the 15 Oklahomans who died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 12 months.
Oklahoma has the third-highest incarceration rate in the nation. More than 60,000 people were involved in Oklahoma’s correctional system, including 26,000 in prison.
Nearly one-fourth of Oklahoma’s bridges need to be replaced or overhauled.
Academy Award-winning director Sydney Pollack died. In his long career, his movies achieved commercial and critical success, from gender-bending “Tootsie” to period drama “Out of Africa.”
The catastrophic earthquake in Sichuan province may have created a new openness in China. In the past, access for foreign media had been strictly controlled, but the size of this disaster made that impossible. Officials said the death toll may reach as high as 80,000.
NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander successfully landed in the Red Planet’s polar region where it will dig into the permafrost to look for evidence of the building blocks of life.
Tornadoes killed six in Iowa and one in Minnesota. About 100 people have been killed by U.S. twisters so far this year. With the year not even half over, 2008 already is the deadliest tornado year since 1998 and is on track to break the record for the number of twisters in one year.
Scott McClellan, President Bush’s former press secretary, wrote in a memoir that Americans were subjected to a permanent campaign “all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president’s advantage.”
The Oklahoma Health Care Authority is trying to limit the number of needless emergency room visits. The authority has identified 13,447 participants in the state’s Medicaid program who visited the emergency room four or more times in the last three months.
Former state Sen. Gene Stipe is eligible to receive his full pension, including the $344,000 he should have received since his 2003 retirement, the Oklahoma Supreme Court said, ruling that the federal crimes to which Stipe pleaded guilty were not a violation of his oath of office.
From 6 p.m. Friday to midnight Monday over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol worked no fatal accidents.
With former politicians on one side and former teammates on the other, family and friends said goodbye to Jack Mildren.
Texoma State Lodge was sold to Pointe Vista Development LLC, which plans to demolish it and build an upscale resort and lakeside living complex.
Firefighters searched for Leonardo Avila, a junior at U.S. Grant High School, who went missing while swimming at Spring Creek Park Beach. About 70 people searched for four hours before recovering Avila’s body.
About 2,500 gallons of diesel fuel were stolen from a construction site along State Highway 74 north of Oklahoma City.
The number of people hospitalized with a dangerous superbug has been growing by more than 10,000 cases a year a study finds.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled that child welfare officials overstepped their bounds when they took more than 400 children from a polygamist sect’s ranch. The high court let stand an appeals court ruling that the children should be returned to their parents from foster care.
The Oklahoma Libertarian Party is launching a petition drive to get their presidential candidate, former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, on the ballot this fall. More than 43,000 signatures will be needed.
Oklahoma City residents are among the eighth-worst green city dwellers in the country, a study reports. Mayor Mick Cornett said he wasn’t surprised by Oklahoma City’s carbon footprint.
The number of illegal immigrants removed from the area that includes Oklahoma and north Texas has increased dramatically in recent months and may be as much as 40 percent higher by the end of the federal fiscal year, the Department of Homeland Security reported.
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