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Runaway zebra recaptured in Tennessee county

(NYT) — The search for a runaway pet zebra that had evaded capture for nearly a week in Rutherford County, Tennessee, came to an end.

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The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office, which had been searching for the animal that residents named Ed, said in a statement Sunday that the zebra had been recaptured and returned to its owner.

In a video the sheriff’s office posted on Facebook, the zebra’s head and legs can be seen dangling from inside a net as it spun in the sky while being airlifted by a yellow helicopter. Authorities said that the intrepid zebra was found in a pasture near Interstate 24.

The owner of the zebra — whose identity has not been released — got the animal May 30 and had it for less than a day before it escaped the next morning, the sheriff’s office said in an earlier statement.

How the zebra escaped or why the man owned it was still not immediately clear, but dispatchers received a report May 31 that a zebra had been spotted darting in traffic on Interstate 24.

“This is the first zebra to escape in Rutherford County as far as I know in the 43 years I lived here,” Lisa Marchesoni, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, said Sunday.

The zebra had escaped into a wooded area and disappeared until being spotted Thursday, authorities said.

On Friday, a police drone spotted the zebra dashing through a field near Christiana, a community about 40 miles south of Nashville.

Drivers on Interstate 24 also saw him scamper across east and westbound lanes Saturday, the sheriff’s office said.

On Sunday morning, deputies worked with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency to find the zebra, though it was not immediately clear how authorities captured it.

Salmonella outbreak linked to eggs sickens dozens

(NYT) — Dozens of people across seven states, most of them in the West, have become ill in a salmonella outbreak linked to a recall of 1.7 million eggs, federal safety regulators said.

The August Egg Co., of Hilmar, California, issued the recall of brown organic and brown cage-free eggs tied to multiple brands that were distributed to grocery stores from Feb. 3 to May 15 because of their potential to be contaminated with salmonella, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday.

At least 79 people have gotten ill from the outbreak linked to the eggs, with 21 people hospitalized, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a separate statement Friday.

Most of the those sickened (63) live in California, followed by Nevada and Washington state, with four illnesses each. Illnesses have also been reported in Arizona, Kentucky, Nebraska and New Jersey. No deaths have been reported.

The eggs, with sell-by dates between March 4 and June 4, were distributed at retail locations, including Save Mart, FoodMaxx, Raley’s, Ralphs and Safeway.

A list of brands and plant number codes associated with the outbreak are on the FDA and CDC websites.

“Do not eat any recalled eggs,” the CDC said. The agency said that consumers who had the eggs should throw them away or return them to the store where they were purchased.