Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
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BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq says it will stop more aircraft moving through its airspace and vehicles traveling overland to search for weapons being sent to the Syrian civil war, a senior Iraqi official said Friday. Government spokesman Ali al-Moussawi said Iraq would conduct more random searches to check for weapons heading for the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad or rebels seeking to topple his regime. In a telephone call to The Associated Press, al-Moussawi said Iraq refuses to be a “conduit for weapons for either side of the conflict.” “The g...
ATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has won over many hearts and minds with his simple style and focus on serving the world’s poorest, but he has devastated traditionalist Catholics who adored his predecessor, Benedict XVI, for restoring much of the traditional pomp to the papacy. Francis’ decision to disregard church law and wash the feet of two girls — a Serbian Muslim and an Italian Catholic — during a Holy Thursday ritual has become something of the final straw, evidence that Francis has little or no interest in one of the key prioritie...
BEATRICE (AP) — For 50 years beginning in 1937, residents and visitors of Beatrice had to go no further than Fifth and Court streets for a bag of fresh popcorn. That’s where you could find the Traubel’s Popcorn Stand, where it operated until 1987. The Beatrice Daily Sun reports (http://bit.ly/YUdXLP ) that today, you can find the retired five-by-eight-foot stand tucked away in a storage facility at the Gage County Historical Society, as it’s too large to fit through the main building’s doors. It’s been more than 25 years since popcorn was...
LINCOLN (AP) — There is no pomp and circumstance at the end of life for the very poor in Lancaster County. And a pauper’s burial is getting more meager — cremation and a plastic box. The Lincoln Journal Star reports advocates for the poor and some local funeral homes think the new rules, which eliminate a simple service, have gone too far. Indigent burials by the county always have been frugal affairs: No flowers, no organ music, no cards, no headstones. Nine years ago, the county stopped paying for burials, leaving cremation the only optio...
LINCOLN — Nebraska’s preliminary unemployment rate for February was unchanged at 3.8 percent, matching the revised rates for January and December, the state Labor Department said in a report released Friday. The rate was two-tenths of a point lower than in February 2012 and less than half this year’s national February rate of 7.7 percent. The 3.8 percent state rate is the second-lowest figure in the country, trailing only North Dakota’s 3.3 percent. Nonfarm employment rose by nearly 3,000 jobs since January and by 7,450 jobs since Februar...
SEOUL, South Korea — Across North Korea, soldiers are gearing up for battle and shrouding their jeeps and vans with camouflage netting. Newly painted signboards and posters call for “death to the U.S. imperialists” and urge the people to fight with “arms, not words.” But even as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is issuing midnight battle cries to his generals to ready their rockets, he and his million-man army know full well that a successful missile strike on U.S. targets would be suicide for the outnumbered, out-powered North Korean regime. D...
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — The crisp, stucco exterior of an Oklahoma dental clinic concealed what health inspectors say they found inside: rusty instruments used on patients with infectious diseases and a pattern of unsanitary practices that put thousands of people at risk for hepatitis and the virus that causes AIDS. State and local health officials planned to mail notices urging 7,000 patients of Dr. W. Scott Harrington to seek medical screenings for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. Inspectors allege workers at his two clinics used dirty e...
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Transit police in Philadelphia are calling a local man a hero for jumping onto subway tracks to help a man who fell off a platform. Christopher Knafelc, 32, was waiting for a train in north Philadelphia on Thursday afternoon when he saw a man walk off the platform and fall on the tracks. He jumped down to help the man, knowing that a train would be arriving in a few minutes. “I had a plan if a train came I was going to roll him underneath,” Knafelc told WPVI-TV, “or if I couldn’t, I was going to ask someone to jump down...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — When LaQuinton Ross found out Ohio State was using the Los Angeles Lakers’ dressing room this weekend, he immediately called dibs on Kobe Bryant’s locker for the first NCAA tournament game ever played at Staples Center. And with a dramatic flair that would make No. 24 proud, Ross sent the Buckeyes to the brink of another Final Four. Ross hit the tiebreaking 3-pointer on a pass from Aaron Craft with 2 seconds to play, and Ohio State advanced to the West Regional final with...
WASHINGTON — No list of great NCAA championship game moments is complete unless Keith Smart’s jumper for Indiana in 1987 is on it. Known by Hoosiers fans to this day as “The Shot,” and known in much less complimentary terms by Syracuse faithful, that 16-foot jumper from the left side with 5 seconds to play is a film clip staple throughout March. The memory of “The Shot,” which gave Indiana a 74-73 victory, is still with Smart, now the coach of the Sacramento Kings, while Jim Boeheim, still the coach at Syracuse, revisited it every day for 16...
NEW YORK (AP) — Government health officials launched the second round of a graphic ad campaign Thursday that is designed to get smokers off tobacco, saying they believe the last effort convinced tens of thousands to quit. The ads feature sad, real-life stories: There is Terrie, a North Carolina woman who lost her voice box. Bill, a diabetic smoker from Michigan who lost his leg. And Aden, a 7-year-old boy from New York, who has asthma attacks from secondhand smoke. “Most smokers want to quit. These ads encourage them to try,” said Dr. Tom F...
WASHINGTON (AP) — It would seem a lobbyist’s dream: rounding up votes for a proposal backed by more than 8 in 10 people in polls. Yet gun control supporters are struggling to win over moderate Democrats in their drive to push expanded background checks for firearms purchasers through the Senate next month. Backed by a $12 million TV advertising campaign financed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, gun control groups scheduled rallies around the country Thursday aimed at pressuring senators to back the effort. President Barack Obama was mee...
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — An arsenal of weapons including guns, more than a thousand rounds of ammunition, a bayonet and several swords was found in the home of the gunman who carried out the Newtown school shooting, according to search warrants released Thursday. Adam Lanza killed 26 people inside Sandy Hook Elementary School and took his own life within five minutes of shooting his way into the building, State’s Attorney Stephen J. Sedensky III said in a statement accompanying the release of...
NEW YORK (AP) — However the Supreme Court rules after its landmark hearings on same-sex marriage, the issue seems certain to divide Americans and states for many years to come. In oral arguments Tuesday and Wednesday on two cases involving gay couples’ rights, the justices left open multiple options for rulings that are expected in June. But they signaled there was no prospect of imposing a 50-state solution at this stage. With nine states now allowing same-sex marriages and other states banning them via statutes or constitutional amendments, t...
CHICAGO (AP) — The streak is over. The big prize is still out there. That’s what mattered most to LeBron James and the Miami Heat. The Heat’s bid for NBA history ended Wednesday night when their 27-game winning streak was snapped by the Chicago Bulls 101-97, setting off a raucous celebration inside United Center. Miami finished six shy of the 33-game record held by the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers. With 11 games remaining, there’s no time for Miami to take another shot at the record. A big run...
NEW YORK (AP) — A huge international effort involving more than 100 institutions and genetic tests on 200,000 people has uncovered dozens of signposts in DNA that can help reveal further a person’s risk for breast, ovarian or prostate cancer, scientists reported Wednesday. It’s the latest mega-collaboration to learn more about the intricate mechanisms that lead to cancer. And while the headway seems significant in many ways, the potential payoff for ordinary people is mostly this: Someday there may be genetic tests that help identify women with...
(AP) – Duke assistant Chris Collins has interviewed for the head coach opening at Northwestern, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The person said Collins spoke with Northwestern about the job on Monday. That person spoke on condition of anonymity because Northwestern is not publicly discussing the hiring process. Collins, a native of the Chicago suburb of Northbrook, Ill. — roughly 15 miles from the Northwestern campus in Evanston. He’s the son of Phila...
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Tiger Woods never questioned his ability, only his health. Woods returned to No. 1 in the world by winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational, not surprising except if you consider where he was a little more than a year ago. He had not won a PGA Tour in some 21⁄2 years. He missed most of the summer and two majors in 2011 because of injuries to his left leg and Achilles tendon. He walked off the course at Doral a year ago because of tightness in the same tendon. It wasn’t until June that he felt good enough to hit balls on th...
MIAMI (AP) — For the Miami Heat, it has been anything but an ordinary path along the way to this extraordinary 24-game winning streak. There have been blowouts, buzzer-beaters and now a pair of huge second-half rallies. Or, as Dwyane Wade would call it all ... “Fun,” the Heat guard said. These days, everything — even huge deficits — seems like fun for the reigning NBA champions, who haven’t lost a game in nearly two months. And this week has brought perhaps the two most scintillati...
LINCOLN (AP) — A long-shot attempt to repeal state-funded prenatal care services for illegal immigrants drew criticism Thursday from a variety of Nebraska groups. Advocates for children, immigrants and medical clinics convened at the Capitol to oppose a bill by Sen. Charlie Janssen of Fremont. Several people said Janssen, a Republican candidate for governor, was exploiting the issue for political gain. Janssen presented the repeal measure to the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee. Lawmakers restored coverage last year for the...
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Some people may have heard of the school that’s suddenly generating a bit of March Madness buzz. Harvard. Yep, Harvard —the school known for producing U.S. presidents, Supreme Court justices and Nobel Prize winners earned its first NCAA tournament victory Thursday night with a 68-62 upset of No. 3 seed New Mexico. Wesley Saunders scored 18 points and Laurent Rivard made five 3-pointers to give 14th-seeded Harvard (20-9) its first tournament victory in only three measl...
MIAMI (AP) — Major League Baseball on Friday sued a now-shuttered South Florida clinic and its operators, accusing them of scheming to provide banned performance-enhancing drugs to players in violation of their contracts. The lawsuit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court seeks unspecified damages from Coral Gables anti-aging clinic Biogenesis of America and its operator, Anthony Bosch. Several other Bosch associates are named in the lawsuit. A phone message left for a Bosch representative wasn’t imm...
VATICAN CITY (AP) — One of the Vatican’s main Twitter accounts and the website of its communications office were running stories about Batman on Thursday with the headline “Holy Switcheroo!” — raising concerns they might have been hacked. But two Vatican officials said the site hadn’t been hacked, and that the reason for the unusual posting was an “internal system failure” due to a non-native English speaker posting the story on the website. The story was from the Catholic News Service. It has as its headline: “Holy Switcheroo! Batma...
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian prosecutors have launched wide-ranging checks of hundreds of nongovernmental organizations, as part of what activists say is President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to stifle dissent and shield the nation from perceived Western influence. The inspections and searches have targeted up to 2,000 organizations since last month, said Pavel Chikov, a member of the presidential human rights council. The action followed Putin’s speech in February before senior officers of the FSB, the main KGB successor agency, in which he urged them...
PARIS (AP) — New results from looking at the split-second after the Big Bang indicate the universe is 80 million years older than previously thought and provide ancient evidence supporting core concepts about the cosmos — how it began, what it’s made of and where it’s going. The findings released Thursday bolster a key theory called inflation, which says the universe burst from subatomic size to its now-observable expanse in a fraction of a second. The new observations from the European Space Agency’s $900 million Planck space probe appear to r...
