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:
A salmonella outbreak linked to some varieties of tomatoes has grocery stores and restaurants pulling produce from their shelves and menus. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned consumers not to eat raw red plum, red Roma and round red tomatoes expect from certain sources. Since mid-April scores of people have been sickened.
Two Weleetka girls were found shot to death beside a rural road. The girls, Taylor Dawn Paschal-Placker, 13, and Skyla Jade Whitaker, 11, had decided to take a walk on a dirt road a quarter-mile from the older girl’s home. Law enforcement officials had no suspects and closed off the road again to take another look at the crime scene.
As the sprint to the November elections begins, here’s the math: To win the White House, Sen. John McCain is likely to work on retaining the 31 states won by President Bush. Sen. Barack Obama, however, will try to take away one or more of those 31 states. The two are liable to focus on about 15 competitive states.
Rep. Dan Boren, the only Democrat among the state’s congressional delegation, plans to vote for Obama, but he won’t endorse him, saying they are too different.
Army Sgt 1st Class David R. Hurst, 31, of Fort Sill died after his vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Baghdad. He was the 67th Oklahoma resident to die in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003.
President Bush raised the possibility of a military strike to thwart Iran’s presumed nuclear intentions. At a meeting in Germany, Bush also talked of Iraq. He said he does not regret going to war but said he perhaps could have better handled the pre-invasion rhetoric.
The hundreds of foreigners held at Guantanamo Bay for up to six years have rights under the U.S. Constitution and may ask civilian courts for relief, the Supreme Court said.
State officials will give $10 million to Oklahoma County for its plan to buy the General Motors plant and lease it to Tinker Air Force Base. Oklahoma County voters have approved a bond issue that will pay the rest of the cost. The U.S. Air Force has announced it will spend up to $100 million to get the plant ready for base operations as early as Sept. 1. Oklahoma County commissioners unanimously authorized issuing up to $71.5 million in bonds for the purchase of the plant.
The two Asian elephants from the Oklahoma City Zoo have been moved to Tulsa for two years or more while the zoo works on a new exhibit and the sisters get to know a Tulsa elephant named Sneezy. Zookeepers hope to build an elephant herd in the new exhibit.
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is raising expectations that the central bank could raise interest rates if high oil and food prices threaten to bring on more inflation. He played down May’s spike in unemployment, saying the danger that the economy has fallen into a substantial downturn has faded.
At the pump, gasoline prices rose to a national average more than $4 a gallon. Visa and MasterCard have raised the limit for motorists who pay at the pump from $50 to $75.
For the first time, Americans’ life expectancy has surpassed 78 years, the federal government reported, but the U.S. still lags behind about 30 other countries. Japan has the longest, 83 years, for children born in 2006.