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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ALLIANCE (AP) — A 40-year-old man accused of setting his western Nebraska home on fire has pleaded not guilty to an arson charge. Authorities say Isaac Gonzalez ignited a fire Dec. 13 in the basement of a house he rented in Alliance. Alliance officers pulled Gonzalez to safety through a window. He was hospitalized in Scottsbluff. After his release he surrendered to police on Jan. 8. He’s free on bond. The Class 3 charge carries a maximum prison term of 20 years. Gonzalez is due back in court on April 1. Damage of $100,000 to the house and its...
WASHINGTON — They seem right out of a Hollywood fantasy, and they are: Cars that drive themselves have appeared in movies like “I, Robot” and the television show “Knight Rider.” Now, three years after Google invented one, automated cars could be on their way to a freeway near you. In the U.S., California and other states are rewriting the rules of the road to make way for driverless cars. Just one problem: What happens to the millions of people who make a living driving cars and trucks — jobs that always have seemed sheltered from the onslaug...
HASTINGS – Nebraska astronaut Clayton Anderson said plans for his future were up in the air after his retirement from a 30-year career with NASA. Over his time with the agency, Anderson spent almost 170 days in space, including nearly 40 hours on spacewalks. Anderson confirmed to the Hastings Tribune what he posted on his Twitter account: he’s leaving the national space agency. “Anything is a possibility,” the 53-year-old Anderson said. “No doors are closed.” He and his family will remain in Houston for now, he said, but they could move back t...
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — With a steady din coming from the sea of orange behind the visitors’ basket, No. 1 Duke had a tough time making a shot. The Blue Devils went more than 8 minutes without a field goal in the first half Wednesday night, and a sellout became a blowout for No. 25 Miami, which delighted a boisterous crowd with a 90-63 victory. The defeat was the third-worst ever for a No. 1 team. The last time Duke lost a regular-season game by a bigger margin was in January 1984. “It wasn...
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — When fire ravaged a Bangladeshi garment factory, killing 112 workers, dozens of their families did not even have a body to bury because their loved ones’ remains were burned beyond recognition. Two months later, the same families have yet to receive any of the compensation they were promised — not even their relatives’ last paychecks. An official with the country’s powerful garment industry said DNA tests must first be conducted to confirm the losses of more than 50 families. He would not say why the families have not...
(AP) – Add Junior Seau’s family to the thousands of people who are suing the NFL over the long-term damage caused by concussions. Seau’s ex-wife and four children sued the league Wednesday, saying the former linebacker’s suicide was the result of brain disease caused by violent hits he sustained while playing football. The wrongful death lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court in San Diego, blames the NFL for its “acts or omissions” that hid the dangers of repetitive blows to the head. I...
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Chicago Cubs scout Sam Hughes watches Colin Kaepernick nowadays and still wonders what the strong-armed NFL quarterback might look like on a pitching mound, as a power arm in the pros. It’s hard not to, seeing the zip and accuracy on each throw, the competitive fire and fierce focus. The Cubs never even watched Kaepernick throw a baseball before drafting him in the 43rd round almost four years ago. They did watch him throw a football for Nevada, and decided that college game told them more than enough. Ultimately, the...
NEW YORK (AP) — Amy Freeze can talk football and forecasts. So with the Super Bowl coming to New York next year, and with local temperatures stuck in the teens, the WABC-TV meteorologist was all set to look ahead. “Football fans like a little winter weather,” she offered on a windy Wednesday. OK, but exactly how wintry? Try this long-range reckoning for the matchup at MetLife Stadium, from the soon-to-be printed Farmers’ Almanac: “An intense storm, heavy rain, snow and strong winds. This could seriously impact Super Bowl XLVIII.” Predicts ed...
NEW YORK (AP) — Manufacturers have been using technology to cut blue-collar jobs for years. Now, they’re targeting their white-collar workers, too. Factory Automation Systems makes machines that help companies cut, bundle and load products faster and cheaper than humans can. But it didn’t realize how much technology could help its own business until the Great Recession hit. To save money, the Atlanta company cut nine workers doing administrative tasks, like booking flights, answering phones, managing employee benefits and ordering parts and s...
LINCOLN — A National Rifle Association lobbyist and gun owners on Wednesday came out in opposition to a Nebraska bill designed to keep firearms away from unsupervised juveniles. Omaha Sen. Brad Ashford’s proposal was met with criticism in a Legislature Judiciary Committee hearing at the Capitol. Members of the public were invited to share their opinions on two bills that would impose stricter state regulations on guns. The most opposition was against a bill that would hold adults civilly liable for “unreasonable placement” of firearms or leav...
WASHINGTON — Art Liscano knows he’s an endangered species in the job market: He’s a meter reader in Fresno, Calif. For 26 years, he’s driven from house to house, checking how much electricity Pacific Gas & Electric customers have used. But PG&E doesn’t need many people like Liscano making rounds anymore. Every day, the utility replaces 1,200 old-fashioned meters with digital versions that can collect information without human help, generate more accurate power bills, even send an alert if the po...
LINCOLN (AP) — Illinois shed tears during its previous visit to Nebraska. The Illini were all smiles after their 71-51 victory over the Cornhuskers on Tuesday night. D.J. Richardson scored 30 points, Brandon Paul added 14 and Illinois ended a three-game losing streak. Richardson’s career-best performance came after he called a players-only meeting over the weekend, on the heels of an embarrassing 14-point loss to Northwestern. He wouldn’t divulge what was said, but it’s safe to assume he and his fellow seniors drove home the point that Illinoi...
NEW YORK (AP) — Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o has told Katie Couric that he briefly lied about his online girlfriend after discovering she didn’t exist, while maintaining that he had no part in creating the hoax. Pressed by Couric to admit that he was in on the deception, Te’o said he believed that his girlfriend Lennay Kekua had died of cancer and didn’t lie about it until December. “Katie, put yourself in my situation. I, my whole world told me that she died on Sept. 12. Everybody knew that. This girl, who I committed myself to, died on...
NEW YORK (AP) — The NFL is looking into Tom Brady’s leg-up slide that hit Ravens safety Ed Reed in the AFC championship game. League spokesman Greg Aiello said Tuesday “any play of that nature is routinely reviewed.” Brady could be subject to a fine if the league believes he violated any player safety rules. During the final minute of the first half, Brady slid at the end of an impromptu run. The quarterback’s upraised leg hit the onrushing Reed, who temporarily limped away. Reed was not injured. Reed says Brady attempted to apologize this week...
NEW YORK (AP) — Five years after the start of the Great Recession, the toll is terrifyingly clear: Millions of middle-class jobs have been lost in developed countries the world over. And the situation is even worse than it appears. Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market. What’s more, these jobs aren’t just being lost to China and other developing countries, and they aren’t just factory work. Increasingly, jobs are disappearing in the service sector, home to...
WASHINGTON (AP) — International scientists who last year halted controversial research with the deadly bird flu say they are resuming their work as countries adopt new rules to ensure safety. The outcry erupted when two labs — in the Netherlands and the U.S. — reported they had created easier-to-spread versions of bird flu. Amid fierce debate about the oversight of such research and whether it might aid terrorists, those scientists voluntarily halted further work last January — and more than three dozen of the world’s leading flu researche...
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, at times emotional and fierce, insisted on Wednesday that the department is moving swiftly and aggressively to strengthen security at U.S. missions worldwide after the deadly Sept. 11 raid on the consulate in Libya. In her last formal testimony on Capitol Hill as America’s top diplomat — but perhaps not her last time on the political stage — Clinton once again took full responsibility for the department’s missteps leading up to an assault at the U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, that kill...
WASHINGTON — The House overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday to permit the government to borrow enough money to avoid a first-time default for at least four months, defusing a looming crisis setting up a springtime debate over taxes, spending and the deficit. The House passed the measure on a bipartisan 285-144 vote as majority Republicans back away from their previous demand that any increase in the government’s borrowing cap be paired with an equivalent level of spending cuts. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the chamber wou...
OMAHA (AP) — Berkshire Hathaway shareholders will now be able to work off all the See’s Candy and Dairy Queen treats they enjoy at the company’s annual meeting with a 5k run. Berkshire’s Brooks Running subsidiary announced plans for the fun run on Tuesday. The race will be held in Omaha on May 5 — one day after the annual meeting that routinely attracts more than 30,000 people. Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett says he is challenging the managers of all of the conglomerate’s 80-odd businesses to participate. The 82-year-old Buffett will fire the st...
LINCOLN (AP) — University of Nebraska students will pay more to live and eat on campus next school year if the Board of Regents approves a proposed increase Friday. Students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln would pay about $400 more under the proposal, the Lincoln Journal Star reported. The increase could add to another $600 in taxes if legislators were to approve Gov. Dave Heineman’s proposal to eliminate a sales tax exemption for college dorms as part of a state tax overhaul, Omaha Sen. Jeremy Nordquist said. The regents also will con...
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama devoted one word — “deficit” — to the issue that brought Washington to the brink of fiscal crises time and again during his first term. But it was the paragraph that followed in his inaugural address that foreshadowed what’s to come — more hard bargaining and more last-minute deals driven by Obama’s own conviction that he now wields an upper hand. “We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring fo...
LINCOLN – Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman approved a new route for the Keystone XL oil pipeline on Tuesday that avoids the state’s environmentally sensitive Sandhills region. Heineman sent a letter to President Barack Obama confirming that he would allow the controversial, Canada-to-Texas pipeline to proceed through his state. The project has faced some of its strongest resistance in Nebraska from a coalition of landowners and environmental groups who say it would contaminate the Ogallala aquifer, a massive groundwater supply. Canadian pip...
WASHINGTON — Supporters of President Barack Obama’s gun-control proposals are planning a methodical, state-by-state campaign to try to persuade key lawmakers that it’s in their political interest to back his sweeping effort to crack down on firearms and ammunition sales and expand criminal background checks. To succeed will require overturning two decades of conventional wisdom that gun control is bad politics. The National Rifle Association is confident that argument won’t sell. But with polls showing majorities supporting new gun laws a...
OMAHA (AP) — An Omaha woman serving a life sentence for strangling her landlord has died in prison. The Nebraska Correctional Center for Women in York says Monique Lee died Friday morning. The cause of death has not been determined. Officials say Lee collapsed in the center’s medical unit after complaining last night that she did not feel well. Lee was convicted in August of first-degree murder in the death of Karen Jenkins. Prosecutors say Lee used a vacuum cleaner cord to kill Jenkins, who had evicted Lee. Jenkins’ body was found near an ab...
LINCOLN (AP) — A Nebraska man must register as a sex offender despite never being convicted of a sex crime, the Nebraska Supreme Court said Friday in upholding a lower court’s ruling. The state’s high court asked the Buffalo County District Court in January 2012 to review all evidence from a hearing to decide whether 33-year-old Chad Norman’s crime involved sexual contact with his ex-girlfriend’s 11-year-old son. The high court said the district court found clear and convincing evidence that Norman’s crime involved sexual contact with the bo...
