A quick look at some of the biggest talkers of the day, numerically speaking.
7
Stormy!
Powerful storms that rolled across the Midwest on Wednesday and Thursday brought heavy rain, strong winds and spawned several apparent tornadoes, damaging homes and businesses, tossing railcars off their tracks and knocking out power to thousands in at least seven states.
$15M
Delivery payback
The parents of a murdered Domino’s Pizza delivery driver have filed a $15 million wrongful death suit against the company in Springfield, Mass. Corey Lind, 20, was stabbed to death in 2007.
$19 billion
Holy smokes!
State tobacco taxes range from 6 cents per pack in South Carolina to $3.46 per pack in Rhode Island. States generated more than $19 billion in revenues from sales and excise taxes on tobacco last year.
31
You’re free
A group of Carlsbad, Calif., students and teachers — 26 students and 5 teachers — was released Thursday after being quarantined for a week in China because some of their classmates tested positive for swine flu, school officials said.
20 to 30 feet
Yee-ha! Gotcha!
When 7-year-old Jonathan Easter fell into an abandoned water well near Doddridge, Ark., cowboy Reed Nations lassoed him out. He was stuck between 20 and 30 feet down and emerged with just a cut on his arm.
$583 million
To the moon!
NASA launched an unmanned rocket to the moon Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Fla., the first such mission in a decade. The robotic moon probes will hunt for hidden ice and cost $583 million.
2 for 1
Sale to die for
There’s a buy-one, get-one-free sale in Indianapolis that people might not want to rush into. It’s for plots on one particular side of Memorial Park Cemetery.
$1M
Tough road
The Department of Veterans Affairs is about to hit a depressing milestone: 1 million claims to process. The agency is scrambling to hire and train new claims processors, which can take two years. Currently, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan wait more than four months on average for a claim to be processed.
