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:
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama sealed his party’s presidential nomination, giving him a chance to become the nation’s first black president. As the Democratic rivals split the last two primaries in South Dakota and Montana, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton angled to be Obama’s running mate. Obama’s victory in the delegate count opens a five-month campaign against Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Campaign officials began negotiating for a series of town hall meetings between McCain and Obama.
In state politics, the filing period for federal and state offices finished with a lighter-than-usual turnout, but every congressional incumbent drew an opponent. About a third of the state House of Representatives drew no opponent.
High winds knocked two men from a boat in Lake Hefner, and one of them drowned. The winds also downed power lines in the Oklahoma City area and fanned grass fires across the state.
Four small earthquakes were reported in the Oklahoma City area. The largest measured at 2.5 on the Richter scale and was centered near the junction of Interstates 44 and 40.
Maj. Scott A. Hagerty, 24, of Stillwater was one of two soldiers who died when a roadside bomb exploded next to their military vehicle in Zormat, Afghanistan.
Wheat farmers and cattle ranchers in the Panhandle are feeling the effects of extreme drought. Local conservation officials want Cimarron County declared a disaster area.
An outbreak of salmonella lined to large tomatoes has been reported in nine states, including Texas, New Mexico and Kansas.
In a study of college savings, 2,700 families have been selected to participate in a test: Half received $1,000 for their newborns invested in the Oklahoma College Savings Plan; half will complete the periodic interviews about their saving habits.
Tyson Foods Inc. killed 15,000 hens in northwest Arkansas after they tested positive for exposure to bird flu. No humans have been sickened.
General Motors Corp. announced it will close four pickup and sport utility factories, make a new small car that would get 45 miles per gallon and shed 10,000 jobs.
After weeks of chaos and uncertainty resulting from the May 12 earthquake, some Chinese were reluctant to move again despite the threat of a flood from the waters of a quake-formed lake along the Tongkou River. More than 69,000 people died in the quake and millions were homeless. Parents of children killed in the quake pressed the Chinese government for answers about why so many schools collapsed when other buildings did not.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, traveling in the Middle East, said there is no quick way to remedy high oil prices, which he called an issue of supply and demand.
Surprising research says childhood cancer is most common in the Northeast, results that caught experts off-guard. The large government study bolstered results from smaller studies that found that cancer is more rare in young children than in older kids. Older, white boys were most at risk. Regionally, the Northeast had the highest rate, with 179 cases per million children. The lowest rate was in the South with 159 cases per million.