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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NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The early start to flu season that’s sweeping the country hasn’t spared Louisiana and Mississippi. While the outlook for the rest of the season isn’t clear, experts are encouraging people to take precautions such as getting a flu shot and making it a practice to wash hands often to prevent the spread of germs. Both states are among 29 reporting high levels of flu-like illness. Although 18 children nationwide have died from the flu since early October, none was in Mississippi or Louisiana. State epidemiologists in Louisia...
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) – A hearing laying out the evidence against the accused gunman in the Colorado theater shooting ended Wednesday with the defense deciding not to call witnesses to attest to James Holmes’ mental health. The judge said he will rule by Friday on whether Holmes should stand trial. If the judge decides he should be tried, Holmes could enter a plea at a hearing scheduled that day. Cases rarely advance to this stage without a judge agreeing to set a trial. Prosecutors argued that they had shown that Holmes acted with del...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday heard personal stories of gun violence from representatives of victims groups and gun-safety organizations as he drafts the Obama administration’s response to the shooting at a Connecticut elementary school. He pledged that action would be taken. “I want to make it clear that we are not going to get caught up in the notion (that) unless we can do everything we’re going to do nothing,” Biden said. “It’s critically important (that) we act.” T...
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Barely taking time to celebrate their latest national championship, Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide are ready to get back to work. That’s how they make it look so easy. In what must be an increasingly frustrating scene for the rest of college football, another season ended with Saban and his players frolicking in the middle of a confetti-strewn field. Eddie Lacy ran all over Notre Dame, AJ McCarron turned in another dazzling performance through the air, and the Tide defense shut down the Fighting Irish whe...
LINCOLN (AP) – A Lincoln city councilman wants police officers assigned to public middle schools in the wake of the Connecticut school shooting that left 20 students and six educators dead. Councilman Gene Carroll and Mayor Chris Beutler, in a letter to Lincoln school board President Ed Zimmer, said the city wants to continue discussions about school safety and how the city can help. “We believe the issue is a joint responsibility of the city of Lincoln and Lincoln Public Schools,” the city officials wrote, according to the Lincoln Journal Star...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama may round out his new national security leadership team next week, with a nomination for defense secretary expected and a pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency possible. Former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is the front-runner for the top Pentagon post. Acting CIA director Michael Morell and Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan are leading contenders to head the spy agency. White House aides said the president has not made a final decision on either post and won't until he r... Full story
ARLINGTON, Texas – Johnny Manziel stretched out both of his arms and ran off the field as if he was flying. With the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback known as Johnny Football, Texas A&M certainly is soaring in the SEC. Manziel tiptoed the sideline for a 23-yard touchdown on the first drive of the Cotton Bowl, the first of his four touchdowns as part of his bowl-record 516 total yards and the Aggies capped their first SEC season with a 41-13 win over 12th-ranked Oklahoma on Friday night. “To come in and go against a Big 12 rival and do eve...
CLEVELAND (AP) — The courtship of Chip Kelly is underway. The Browns and at least two other NFL teams are expected to interview Oregon’s offensive-minded coach, who said following Thursday night’s Fiesta Bowl win over Kansas State that he hopes to have the process “wrapped up quickly.” Along with the Browns, the Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles are reportedly in Arizona and have scheduled meetings over the next two days with Kelly. The 49-year-old said he’s entering the interview open-minded. He turned down an offer from Tampa Bay last yea...
NFL teams have no fear of playing in the wild-card round. Recent history shows the playoff bye isn’t such a big deal anymore. In six of the last seven years, one of the Super Bowl participants didn’t get a bye to begin the postseason. And five of those teams wound up winning the NFL title. So Green Bay’s blowing the bye by losing to Minnesota last Sunday might not be such a setback. Same for Houston, which had an even bigger fall, fumbling away home-field advantage throughout the AFC playo... Full story
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sidelined for almost a month by a string of medical problems, is upbeat and planning to return to work next week, the State Department said Thursday. One day after being released from the New York hospital that was treating a blood clot in her head, Clinton was at home resting, but was far from idle. She spent the day engaging with senior staff, reviewing paperwork and calling in to a meeting of her foreign policy advisory board, said her spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland. “She’s looking forwa...
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than two months after Superstorm Sandy struck, the House on Friday overwhelmingly approved $9.7 billion to pay flood insurance claims for the many home and business owners flooded out by the storm. The 354-67 vote came days after Northeast Republicans erupted over House Speaker John Boehner’s decision to delay a vote earlier in the week; all of the no votes were cast by Republicans. The Senate was expected to pass the bill later in the day. “It’s the right step,” said Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., a member of the Ho...
MONROE, Conn. (AP) – For her son’s first day of school since last month’s massacre at his Sandy Hook Elementary, Sarah Caron tried to make Thursday as normal as possible. She made his favorite pancakes, and she walked the second-grader to the top of the driveway for the school bus. But it was harder than usual to say goodbye. “I hugged him a lot longer than normal, until he said, ‘Mommy, please,’” she said. “And then he got on the bus, and he was OK.” Her 7-year-old son, William, was among more than 400 students who escaped a gunman’s rampage...
WASHINGTON – U.S. employers added 155,000 jobs in December, a steady gain that shows hiring held up during the tense negotiations to resolve the fiscal cliff. The solid job growth wasn’t enough to reduce the unemployment rate, which remained 7.8 percent last month, the Labor Department said Friday. The rate for November was revised up from an initially reported 7.7 percent. Each January, the government updates the monthly unemployment rates for the previous five years. The rates for most months don’t change. The government said hiring was s...
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te’o found it “easy” to get past college football’s award season and get focused on the BCS championship against Alabama. No. 1 Notre Dame will play the second-ranked Crimson Tide on Monday night for the national title. On Thursday morning, Alabama’s stars on offense and Notre Dame’s defensive leaders spoke to reporters. Te’o was the Heisman Trophy runner-up and won a bevy of other awards in mid-December, requiring him to travel a...
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — The NCAA imposed landmark sanctions against Penn State over the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal in a cynical ploy to weaken the university and enhance its own dismal reputation, Pennsylvania’s governor claims in an unprecedented federal antitrust lawsuit against college sports’ governing body. Gov. Tom Corbett said the NCAA veered dramatically from its own disciplinary rules and procedures when it decreed last summer that Penn State would pay a $60 million fine, and the football team would suffer a four-year posts...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — In only his first season as Nebraska’s coach, Tim Miles already knows what he’s up against. He took one look at the schedule — trips to three ranked opponents in the first 11 days of Big Ten play — and knew it could be trouble. “Let’s just say the Big Ten office didn’t get a Christmas card from me,” Miles joked. In his first conference game on Wednesday night, his Cornhuskers had difficulty getting anything going on offense while Deshaun Thomas outscored Nebraska in the opening half of No. 8 Ohio State’s 70-44 vic...
BAGHDAD (AP) — A car bomb explosion tore through a crowd of Shiite pilgrims returning home Thursday from a religious commemoration, killing at least 20 and reinforcing fears of renewed sectarian violence, according to Iraqi officials. The blast erupted late in the afternoon in the town of Musayyib, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of the Iraqi capital. It targeted worshippers returning from the Shiite holy city of Karbala following the climax of the religious commemoration known as Arbaeen. Children were among the 20 people confirmed killed...
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Call her the girl with no name. A 15-year-old is suing the Icelandic state for the right to legally use the name given to her by her mother. The problem? Blaer, which means “light breeze” in Icelandic, is not on a list approved by the government. Like a handful of other countries, including Germany and Denmark, Iceland has official rules about what a baby can be named. In a country comfortable with a firm state role, most people don’t question the Personal Names Register, a list of 1,712 male names and 1,853 female...
NEW YORK (AP) – A last-minute surge in spending may have saved Christmas for stores. Major retailers such as Costco and Nordstrom on Thursday reported better-than-expected revenue in December. That comes as a relief for stores that can make up to 40 percent of their annual revenue during the winter holiday shopping period that runs from November through the end of December. Consumers had a lot to worry about this holiday, including cleanup after Superstorm Sandy and the possibility of the U.S. economy falling off the “fiscal cliff,” trigg...
GRAND FORKS, N.D. – Leaders of many farm groups in the Upper Midwest aren’t pleased that Congress has extended the current farm bill rather than pass new legislation. The one-year extension of portions of the expired 2008 farm bill is one of the measures introduced to avert the “fiscal cliff” of major tax increases and spending cuts that were due to take effect Jan. 1. The extension prevents milk prices from rising but excludes other farm provisions such as disaster aid for producers. “This is disappointing,” North Dakota Farmers Union Presi...
WASHINGTON — Past its own New Year’s deadline, a weary Congress sent President Barack Obama legislation to avoid a national “fiscal cliff” of middle class tax increases and spending cuts late Tuesday night in the culmination of a struggle that strained America’s divided government to the limit. The bill’s passage on a bipartisan 257-167 vote in the House sealed a hard-won political triumph for the president less than two months after he secured re-election while calling for higher taxes on the wealthy. Moments later, Obama strode into the Wh...
WASHINGTON (AP) – The student’s attack began with a shotgun blast through the windows of a California high school. Rich Agundez, the El Cajon policeman assigned to the school, felt his mind shift into overdrive. People yelled at him amid the chaos but he didn’t hear. He experienced “a tunnel vision of concentration.” While two teachers and three students were injured when the glass shattered in the 2001 attack on Granite Hills High School, Agundez confronted the assailant and wounded him before he could get inside the school and use his secon...
WASHINGTON – Amid partisan bluster, top members of Congress and President Barack Obama were holding out slim hopes for a limited fiscal deal before the new year. But even as congressional leaders prepared to convene at the White House, there were no signs that legislation palatable to both sides was taking shape. The Friday afternoon meeting among congressional leaders and the president – their first since Nov. 16 – stood as a make-or-break moment for negotiations to avoid across-the-board first of the year tax increases and deep spend...
Jerry Sandusky will spend the rest of his life in prison, Penn State football played under NCAA sanctions and Joe Paterno passed away. Lance Armstrong abandoned his fight against doping allegations. Roger Clemens won his court battle, despite lingering skepticism over whether he used steroids. The impact of early-stage dementia forced Pat Summitt to step down from her coaching perch. Again and again, it seemed, the sports world in 2012 saw the end of long tales with tragic or, at best,... Full story
WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. consumer confidence tumbled in December, driven lower by fears of sharp tax increases and government spending cuts set to take effect next week. The Conference Board said Thursday that its consumer confidence index fell this month to 65.1, down from 71.5 in November. That’s the second straight decline and the lowest level since August. The survey showed consumers are slightly more optimistic about current business conditions and hiring. But their outlook for the next six months deteriorated to its lowest level since 201...
