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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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will meet Friday with the top leaders in the House and Senate, several hours past the deadline for averting automatic budget cuts, to discuss how to proceed on divisive tax-and-spend issues. Because the meeting is set to take place well after Friday’s deadline for the so-called sequester to kick in, it appears both sides are operating under an assumption that a deal to avert the cuts ahead of the deadline is now out of the question. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the session will foc...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Wal-Mart is putting special labels on some store-brand products to help shoppers quickly spot healthier items. Millions of schoolchildren are helping themselves to vegetables from salad bars in their lunchrooms, while kids’ meals at Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants automatically come with a side of fruit or vegetables and a glass of low-fat milk. The changes put in place by the food industry are in response to the campaign against childhood obesity that Michelle Obama began waging three years ago. More changes are in...
WASHINGTON — Chuck Hagel was sworn in Wednesday as defense secretary — President Barack Obama’s third in just over four years — and said that one of his highest priorities will be ensuring fair treatment of troops, veterans and their families. He called the automatic budget cuts due to take effect on Friday — to include $46 billion in Pentagon reductions — “a reality” that “we need to deal with.” In 15 minutes of remarks to Pentagon employees shortly after becoming the nation’s 24th secre...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan incorrectly reported a decline in Taliban attacks last year, and officials said Tuesday that there was actually no change in the number of attacks on international troops from 2011 to 2012. The corrected numbers — from the original reports of a 7 percent decline to one of no change — could undercut the narrative promoted by the international coalition and the Obama administration of an insurgency in steep decline. A coalition spokesman, Jamie Graybeal, attributed the misco...
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — President Barack Obama is arguing that looming government-wide spending cuts could idle military resources like naval aircraft carriers, while Republicans are criticizing the president for taking his arguments outside Washington instead of staying to work out a plan before Friday’s deadline. The president planned to appear Tuesday at Virginia’s largest industrial employer, Newport News Shipbuilding, which would be affected by cuts to naval spending. Obama warned Monday that if the so-called sequester goes into effec...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and his officials are doing their best to drum up public concern over the shock wave of spending cuts that could strike the government in just days. So it’s a good time to be alert for sky-is-falling hype. Over the last week or so, administration officials have come forward with a grim compendium of jobs to be lost, services to be denied or delayed, military defenses to be let down and important operations to be disrupted. Obama’s new chief of staff, Denis McDonough, spoke of a “devastating list of horr...
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI will be known as “emeritus pope” in his retirement and will continue to wear a white cassock, the Vatican announced Tuesday, again fueling concerns about potential conflicts arising from having both a reigning and a retired pope. The pope’s title and what he would wear have been a major source of speculation ever since Benedict stunned the world and announced he would resign on Thursday, the first pontiff to do so in 600 years. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev...
Centenarian marathon runner Fauja Singh, 101, center, originally from Beas Pind, in Jalandhar, India but who now lives in London, runs in a 10-kilometer race, part of the annual Hong Kong Marathon, in Hong Kong Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Singh will retire from public racing after competing in the marathon....
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate cleared the way Tuesday for confirmation of Chuck Hagel to be the nation’s next defense secretary after Republicans dropped their unprecedented delay of President Barack Obama’s choice to head the Pentagon. On a vote of 71-27, the Senate ended a Republican filibuster, setting the stage for the widely expected confirmation of the former two-term Republican senator from Nebraska later in the day. Eighteen Republicans joined 51 Democrats and two independents to move forward with the contentious nomination. If confi... Full story
BALTIMORE (AP) – Otis “Damon” Harris, a former member of the Motown group The Temptations, has died of prostate cancer. He was 62. Chuck Woodson, a cousin serving as family spokesman, confirmed that Harris died at a Baltimore hospice last week. Harris performed with the celebrated Motown act The Temptations from 1971 to 1975 and sang on hits including “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” and “Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are).” Woodson says joining The Temptations was “the realization of a dream” for Harris. Harris formed a new group...
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The second major snowstorm in a week battered the nation’s midsection Tuesday, dropping up to a foot or more of heavy, wet snow that strained power lines and cut electricity to more than 100,000 Midwesterners. At least three deaths were blamed on the blizzard. Gusting winds blew drifts more than 2 feet high and made driving treacherous for those who dared the morning commute. About 105,000 homes and businesses in northwest Missouri, northeast Kansas and western Oklahoma wer...
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Maserati driver who died after being peppered with gunfire from someone in a Range Rover SUV, sparking a fiery crash that killed two others, was identified Friday as an aspiring rapper originally from Northern California. The Clark County coroner confirmed that Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr. was killed, although the cause of death was still being investigated. It wasn’t clear Friday if Cherry died of gunshots or the crash. The coroner hasn’t identified the taxi driver and his female passenger who died when the cab exploded early...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and its NATO allies revealed Friday they may keep as many as 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after the combat mission ends next year, largely American forces tasked with hunting down remnants of al-Qaida and helping Afghan forces with their own security. Patience with the 11-year-old war has grown thin in the U.S. and Europe, yet Washington and its allies feel they cannot pick up and leave without risking a repeat of what happened in Afghanistan after Soviet troops withdrew in 1989: Attention turned elsewhere, the T...
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Gusty winds and iced-over roadways made for treacherous Midwest travel Friday as a major winter storm headed east over the Great Lakes. Four deaths have been linked to the storm, including three from traffic accidents. Hundreds of flights in and out of Chicago’s two airports were canceled Friday morning, and the city was clearing about 3 inches of snow from its streets, and the Kansas City and St. Louis, Mo., airports both reopened Friday morning but had numerous can...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — For a change, Michigan State and Ohio State aren’t playing for a trophy. After contesting Big Ten regular-season and tournament titles in two of their last three meetings, there’ll be no hardware up for grabs when the fourth-ranked Spartans square off with the No. 18 Buckeyes on Sunday. That does not mean there is nothing on the line. “It’s like there’s always a trophy on the line every time you play one of the top-tier teams in this conference,” Ohio State guard Lenzelle Smith Jr. said. “It’s clutch time now. It’s gu...
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The big boys brought their little girls to see NASCAR’s shining star. Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson all took their daughters to meet Danica Patrick this week at Daytona International Speedway. It was the ultimate backstage pass. Patrick dropped to one knee, wrapped her right arm around Ella Gordon’s waist and posed for pictures as the 5-year-old flashed an endless grin in Victory Lane last week. Every day since, Patrick’s crew has handed out dozens and dozens of lugnuts to little girls clamori...
GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — An 18-year-old told a 911 dispatcher last fall that he kidnapped and killed a missing suburban Denver school girl and had hidden her remains in a crawl space at his mother’s home, according to a recording played by a prosecutor in court Friday. The recording was played at a preliminary hearing at which a judge decided there’s enough evidence for Austin Sigg to stand trial in both the death of 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway in October and an attack on a jogger at nearby Ketner Lake in May. Sigg is charged with murder, kidna...
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — A South African magistrate allowed Oscar Pistorius to go free on bail Friday, capping hearings that foreshadow a dramatic trial in the Valentine’s Day killing of the star athlete’s girlfriend. Pistorius’ family members and supporters shouted “Yes!” when Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair made his decision after a more than 1 hour and 45 minute explanation of his ruling to a packed courtroom. Radio stations and a TV news network in South Africa broadcast the audio of the decision live, and even international channels lik...
LINCOLN (AP) — Police say a 53-year-old man was pronounced dead at a hospital after he was found in a snowy Lincoln parking lot. A worker clearing snow from the business lot a few blocks west of downtown spotted the man around 3:40 a.m. Friday. Efforts to revive the man at the lot and a Lincoln hospital failed. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. Lincoln police spokeswoman Katie Flood says there were no signs of physical injuries to the man. It’s unclear whether the man was a victim of weather exposure or of some other medical problem. His...
LINCOLN – The number of new irrigation wells registered in drought-stricken Nebraska last year surged past 1,000 for the first time in seven years, according to preliminary state figures. The Department of Natural Resources reported earlier this week that the 1,105 new wells were the most registered with the state since 2005 and more than 350 more than registered in 2011. Why the jump? “It’s a combination of drought and record commodity prices,” Dave Aiken said Thursday. The agriculture and water law specialist at the University of Nebrask...
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Las Vegas Strip became a scene of deadly violence early Thursday when someone in a Range Rover opened fire on a Maserati at a stoplight, sending it crashing into a taxi that went up in flames, leaving three people dead and at least six injured. Police were checking with nearby businesses to see whether a previous altercation prompted the car-to-car attack at Las Vegas and Flamingo boulevards, the site of several major casinos, including Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Bally’s. “This doesn’t happen where we come from, not on...
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...
