Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Sorted by date Results 251 - 275 of 487
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer prices were flat in January from December for the second month in a row, the latest sign inflation is in check. That could give the Federal Reserve leeway to continue its efforts to stimulate growth. The consumer price index has risen 1.6 percent in the 12 months ending in January, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s down from a 2.9 percent pace a year ago. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 0.3 percent in January. Core pri...
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Blinding snow, at times accompanied by thunder and lightning, bombarded much of the nation’s midsection Thursday, causing whiteout conditions, making major roadways all but impassable and shutting down schools and state legislatures. Kansas was the epicenter of the winter storm, with parts of Wichita buried under 13 inches of still-falling snow, but winter storm warnings stretched eastern Colorado through Illinois. Freezing rain and sleet were forecast for southern Missouri, southern Illinois and Arkansas. St. Louis was expecte...
LINCOLN (AP) — Tim Miles had just wrapped up his postgame radio interview when a bunch of pep band members, cheerleaders and other students started chanting, “Coach Miles, Coach Miles, Coach Miles.” The kids were imploring him to join them in shooting a video of the latest dance craze, the “Harlem Shake.” Miles was in good spirits because Nebraska had just beaten Penn State, so he gladly obliged. It took all of 45 seconds. The YouTube video has almost 140,000 views in less than two weeks. On...
GOODYEAR, Ariz. (AP) — The Cincinnati Reds have blocked ace Johnny Cueto from pitching for the Dominican Republic in next month’s World Baseball Classic. Cueto strained his right oblique eight pitches into last October’s division series against San Francisco. Because he finished the year with an injury, the Reds had the right to block him from playing in the WBC. “I wanted to pitch for the Dominican but the team said no. It’s all right,” Cueto said Thursday. “I am going to work to get ready for...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Several Federal Reserve policymakers suggested last month that the Fed might have to scale back its efforts to keep borrowing costs low for the foreseeable future. Minutes of the Fed’s Jan. 29-30 policy meeting released Wednesday showed that some officials worried about the Fed’s plan to keep buying $85 billion in bonds each month until the job market has improved substantially. They expressed concern that the continued purchases could eventually escalate inflation, unsettle financial markets or cause the Fed to absorb losse...
Lou Myers, Mr. Gaines on ‘A Different World,’ dies CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) ‚Äî Actor Lou Myers, best known for his role as ornery restaurant owner Mr. Gaines on the television series “A Different World,” has died. Tonia McDonald of Myers’ nonprofit, Global Business Incubation Inc., said Myers died Tuesday night at Charleston Area Medical Center in West Virginia. She said he was 76. McDonald said Wednesday that Myers had been in and out of the hospital since before Christmas and collapsed recently. An autopsy was planned. A native of Chesapeake...
NORTH PLATTE (AP) – Nebraska has been installing colorful new tourism signs along Interstate 80 to replace old signs that had weathered, becoming hard to read. The Nebraska Tourism Commission and Department of Roads are coordinating the project, which began with the unveiling of a sign directing travelers to Scouts Rest Ranch in North Platte at Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park. William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Victorian house, built in 1886, and barn sit on 25 acres of what originally was Cody’s 4,000-acre ranch. The sign includes...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Barring any new, damaging information, Chuck Hagel has secured the necessary votes for the Senate to confirm him to be the nation's next defense secretary. A vote ending the bitter fight over President Barack Obama's Cabinet choice is expected next week. Hagel cleared the threshold when five-term Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama said he would vote for the former two-term GOP senator from Nebraska after joining other Republicans last week in an unprecedented filibuster of the Pentagon nominee. "He's probably as good a... Full story
CHICAGO (AP) — Take a walk through a human brain? Fly over the surface of Mars? Computer scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago are pushing science fiction closer to reality with a wraparound virtual world where a researcher wearing 3-D glasses can do all that and more. In the system, known as CAVE2, an 8-foot-high screen encircles the viewer 320 degrees. A panorama of images springs from 72 stereoscopic liquid crystal display panels, conveying a dizzying sense of being able to t...
OMAHA – Several Nebraska cities and schools are taking actions well ahead of the expected arrival of a powerful snowstorm that could dump up to a foot of snow in some parts of the state. The storm is expected to hit the southwest and south-central parts of the state on Wednesday evening, with the heaviest snowfall on Thursday as the storm moves east-northeast. The city of Grand Island declared a snow emergency beginning at noon Wednesday, forbidding parking along emergency snow routes. In K...
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — There was a spirit of cooperation that hovered throughout much of the NCAA’s long probe of Miami athletics, so much so that the sides used to call the proceedings a joint inquiry. That’s not the case anymore. And especially not now — not after a day during which the NCAA defended its mistakes and Miami demanded a speedy resolution. With the long-awaited notice of allegations against Miami looming — and possibly being prepared for delivery by the NCAA as early as Tuesda...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Staking out his ground ahead of a fiscal deadline, President Barack Obama lashed out against Republicans, saying they are unwilling to raise taxes to reduce deficits and warning that the jobs of essential government workers, from teachers to emergency responders, are on the line. Obama spoke as a March 1 deadline for automatic across-the-board spending cuts approached and with Republicans and Democrats in an apparent stalemate over how to avoid them. Obama cautioned that if the $85 billion in immediate cuts — known as the sequ...
LINCOLN (AP) — Officials at the Lincoln Children’s Museum say they have now attracted more than 2.5 million guests to the center. Jerry and Connie Barnett of Lincoln pushed the nearly 25-year-old museum past that mark when they visited Saturday morning with their grandchildren, Coco and Eddie. They were given gifts, including a five-year museum membership, museum store gift certificate and a free week at a museum summer camp. They told the Lincoln Journal Star they were “overwhelmed but excited....
PINE RIDGE, S.D. (AP) — A Nebraska man has claimed a $1 million jackpot at Pine Ridge’s Prairie Wind Casino, where he’d spent part of Valentine’s Day with his wife of 60 years. Gordon “Bud” Thompson, a retired railroad conductor from Alliance, Neb., said his wife Donna was the one playing at the casino. He decided to try a few spins on a nearby Freedom Rings machine as he waited for her to finish. He put about $9 worth of quarters into the three-reel machine and hit a jackpot worth about $1,037,000. “I didn’t even realize what had happened ri...
LEXINGTON (AP) — A western Nebraska man has pleaded guilty to child abuse for shaking an infant hard enough to cause brain damage. The Kearney Hub reports that Cameron Hovey’s decision to change his plea was part of an agreement with prosecutors. The 23-year-old Hovey is accused of shaking a 41/2-month-old child vigorously last summer. Hovey told police that he shook the child last July because he panicked when it appeared the baby had stopped breathing. Hovey faces up to 20 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 6....
OMAHA (AP) – A powerful winter storm system is heading for Nebraska and Iowa, promising a foot or more of snow and high winds. The National Weather Service says in a winter storm watch that snow will begin falling in western Nebraska on Wednesday evening and then hamper morning traffic in Omaha and other cities as the system heads east. Accumulations of more than a foot are possible east of a line from Hayes Center in southwest Nebraska north through Valentine in the north. In Iowa, up to a foot is expected in some spots west of Interstate 3...
SULLIVAN, Ind. (AP) — A quiet Indiana community known for its parks and corn festival has become the latest setting for the debate over gay rights and bullying after several area residents, including some high schoolers, proposed holding a non-school sanctioned “traditional” prom that would ban gay students. School officials and many residents of Sullivan, a city of about 4,200 near the Illinois border, have scrambled to distance themselves from the controversy caused by the group’s plans and some strong, anti-gay remarks made by one of its...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was charged Friday with scheming to spend $750,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses. His wife was charged with filing false income tax forms. Federal prosecutors filed a charge of conspiracy against the former congressman and charged his wife, Sandra, with one count of filing false joint federal income tax returns for the years 2006 through 2011. Both agreed to plead guilty in plea deals with federal prosecutors. The charges represent a dramatic fall from political prominence for the c...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The weeklong Senate recess gives outside interest groups opposed to Chuck Hagel’s nomination to become defense secretary more time to sharpen their attack against President Barack Obama’s choice. And they’re not wasting any of it, promising to redouble their efforts to scour Hagel’s record and to pressure senators to vote against him. While Senate Republicans have succeeded in delaying a confirmation vote on Hagel’s nomination, they signaled that they would eventually...
LINCOLN (AP) — Gov. Dave Heineman says he plans to fill an open seat on the University of Nebraska Board of Regents based on the person’s views on agriculture, college affordability and the university’s role in spurring economic growth. The new board opening has drawn the attention of abortion opponents, who want Heineman to fill the seat with a candidate who opposes embryonic stem cell research. Heineman said Friday that the stem-cell issue is important to him as well, but he plans to focus on a broader set of factors when making his decis...
COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) — It’s about the little victories, right? Traci Wickham’s small win was being able to make it up the short flight of stairs leading to Scotus Central Catholic’s gymnasium where her daughter was playing in a basketball tournament recently. The Columbus Telegram reports (http://bit.ly/VmBWIJ ) that making it up the steps is actually a pretty huge step for Wickham, whose van was T-boned by a semitrailer at the junction of highways 81 and 30 the morning of Dec. 11. Wickham had just dropped off her children when her vehicle...
HASTINGS — Reported mountain lion sightings in Nebraska are far more common than actual sightings. Much like UFOs, a good percentage of the sightings are simply a case of mistaken identity. A mangy coyote, stray dog, or even a bobcat can look uncannily like a big cat from a passing car. But spotting one isn’t out of the question. The Hastings Tribune reports that just last week, a landowner in Pine Ridge in northern Sheridan County shot and killed an 88-pound female mountain lion after he and his family unsuccessfully tried to scare it awa...
DENVER (AP) — A Democratic gun control package began its lengthy and emotional route through Colorado’s Legislature on Friday, with the House approving limits on the size of ammunition magazines after hours of fiery debate on gun violence and how to stop it. The Democratic chamber was poised to stay late into the night giving preliminary approval to other parts of the Democrats’ gun agenda, including expanded background checks for gun purchasers and a new ban on concealed weapons on college camp...
LINCOLN — Lincoln police can now search for bad guys using the state’s face recognition technology. The state has used the technology for years to prevent people from getting multiple driver’s licenses under different names, said Tom Casady, the city’s public safety director. The Lincoln Journal Star reports (http://bit.ly/XKmK6n ) that now local police trained by the state can use the same database, Casady told the Lincoln City Council last week. Police can compare video images from a crime — someone passing a bad check or using someone e...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is wrapping up his post-State of the Union tour by talking about how government can build “ladders of opportunity” into the middle class. During remarks Friday at Hyde Park Academy in Chicago, his hometown, Obama takes up proposals to raise the federal minimum wage and pair businesses with recession-battered communities to help them rebuild and provide job training. He also was to talk about creating jobs for young people from poor families, and encouraging fatherhood and low-income couples to marry...
