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) — A measure of U.S. wholesale prices rose in February by the most in five months, pushed higher by more expensive gas and pharmaceuticals. But outside those increases, inflation was mild. The producer price index grew a seasonally adjusted 0.7 percent in February from January, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s up from 0.2 percent in the previous month. Wholesale gas prices increased 7.2 percent. Even with the increase, wholesale prices have risen just 1.7 percent in the past 12 months. That’s below the Federal Reserve’s...
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis put his humility on display during his first day as pontiff Thursday, stopping by his hotel to pick up his luggage and pay the bill himself in a decidedly different style of papacy than his tradition-minded predecessor, who tended to stay ensconced in the frescoed halls of the Vatican. The break from Benedict XVI’s pontificate was evident even in Francis’ wardrobe choices: He kept the simple pectoral cross of his days as bishop and eschewed the red cape that Bened...
OMAHA (AP) — An Omaha man who hit and killed a 26-year-old mother after a night of drinking last June has been sentenced to 15 to 20 years in prison. A judge sentenced 35-year-old Joseph Brosnihan Tuesday after he tearfully apologized to the family of Ashley Rodriguez, who had two sons. Brosnihan told Rodriguez’ family that he wishes he could take their pain away. Brosnihan pleaded no contest in December to vehicular homicide while driving drunk and failing to stop and render aid. Prosecutors say Brosnihan struck Rodriguez around 2 a.m. on Jun...
Ready. Set. Spend! The NFL’s free agent frenzy began Tuesday, with Mike Wallace, Paul Kruger and Dannell Ellerbe among the big names to switch teams for big paychecks. Several other stars, including Nnamdi Asomugha, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Antoine Winfield, are looking for jobs after they were cut in cost-saving moves on a busy opening day of free agency. The Baltimore Ravens are paying the price for winning a Super Bowl. The NFL champions lost two key components of their defense in Kruger and Ellerbe. On Monday, they traded star receiver A...
MIAMI (AP) — Gio Gonzalez gave Team USA its best start yet, and David Wright provided a big finish. Gonzalez pitched five scoreless innings and the Americans beat Puerto Rico 7-1 in the World Baseball Classic on Tuesday night. Wright drove in five runs, the last three with a bases-loaded double in the eighth. That prompted chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” from the crowd of 32,872. “Obviously the adrenalin gets pumping for this tournament,” Wright said. “You wear that uniform, you want to go out there and represent your country. Hitting in this lineup...
LINCOLN (AP) — John Garrison walks into Nebraska’s indoor practice facility every day and draws his motivation from what he sees in the rafters. Hanging up there is a red banner listing the years the Cornhuskers won conference championships. The last one was in 1999. Garrison was the freshman long snapper on that team. He’s 32 now and recently named head offensive line coach in a program that for more than a decade has been trying to recapture its past glory. “This is a personal deal,” Garrison said. Garrison, the player, showed up at Nebras...
ST.. LOUIS (AP) — Mark Mihal was having a good opening day on the links when he noticed an unusual depression on the 14th fairway at Annbriar Golf Club in southern Illinois. Remarking to his friends how awkward it would be to have to hit out of it, he went over for a closer look. One step onto the pocked section and the 43-year-old mortgage broker plunged into a sinkhole. He landed 18 feet down with a painful thud, and his friends managed to hoist him to safety with a rope after about 20 minutes. But Friday’s experience gave Mihal quite a fri...
NEW YORK (AP) — Despite Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s bullishness, political realities and legal questions make for an uncertain future for one of the premier pieces of his legacy: a now-blocked ban on supersized sugary drinks. The city lost no time Tuesday getting started on the next round of the fight after a judge nixed the first-of-its-kind regulation. Bloomberg called the strongly worded court ruling a “temporary setback” and emphasizing that the city is confident about winning an appeal. He predicted that in the meantime, the novel regulat...
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — The judge in the deadly Colorado movie theater shooting case entered a not guilty plea on behalf of James Holmes on Tuesday after the former graduate student’s defense team said he was not ready to enter one. If Holmes is convicted, he could be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison. Judge William Sylvester said Holmes, 25, can change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity later, if he chooses. Such a change could be the only way Holmes could avoid life in prison or execution. Prosecutors, for their par...
SIDNEY (AP) — Cabela's Inc. says demand for its outdoor gear and sporting goods has been strong at the start of the year, so the company is boosting its first-quarter outlook. Cabela's CEO Tommy Millner says business has been strong so far in 2013 at the company's retail stores and in catalog and online sales. So the Sidney, Neb., company now expects first-quarter earnings to be 10 cents to 15 cents higher than Wall Street expected. The analysts surveyed by FactSet expected Cabela's to report first quarter earnings per share of 46 cents on $...
WHITMAN, Mass. (AP) — The late-winter storm that buried parts of the country was forecast to be little more than a nuisance for most of New England. Try telling that to Connecticut and Massachusetts residents who spent two days shoveling as much as 2 feet snow. “The forecast was 4 to 6 inches and I think I’m looking at about 12 to 14 inches,” West Roxbury resident Mark Spillane said as snow continued to fall Friday. “I did not expect to have to bring out the snow blower.” The storm was centered far out in the Atlantic Ocean, and by the time it...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The American job market isn’t just growing. It’s accelerating. Employers added 236,000 jobs in February and drove down the unemployment rate to 7.7 percent, its lowest level in more than four years. The gains signal that companies are confident enough in the economy to intensify hiring even in the face of tax increases and government spending cuts. Last month capped a fourth-month hiring spree in which employers have added an average of 205,000 jobs a month. The hiring has been fueled by steady improvement in housing, auto...
WEEPING WATER, Neb. (AP) — The family of a woman seriously injured in an eastern Nebraska school gym accident has issued a statement. The husband of Lori Williams issued the statement Friday through The Nebraska Medical Center, saying Williams has undergone several operations since being taken to the Omaha hospital on Sunday. Tim Williams also expressed gratitude for the “thoughts, prayers and kind gestures from family members and friends during such a trying time for our family.” The statement does not give Lori Williams’ age or residen...
MCCOOK — McCook Community College has done its part in preserving a piece of history. The logo of McCook Community College on the gym floor at True Hall, the college’s original gymnasium, has a place of honor in the lobby at the new, state-of-the-art, $10 million MCC Event Center. Darin Morgan, director of physical resources at MCC, said he and his staff spent about 45 days dismantling the gym floor piece by piece to preserve the logo. “It was very tedious, it didn’t want to come up very easy,” he told the McCook Daily Gazette. The floor was...
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (AP) — AJ Allmendinger has a new part-time job with a familiar team. On Friday, Roger Penske hired the former open-wheel racer to drive two IndyCar races this season including the Indianapolis 500 on May 26. Allmendinger also will compete April 7 in Birmingham, Ala. It’s a big move for Allmendinger’s career. NASCAR suspended the driver in July after he failed a random drug test and was released by Penske when a backup “B’’ sample also tested positive for a banned substance. After completing the “Road to Recovery” pro...
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A furious Denny Hamlin said he won’t pay the $25,000 fine leveled on him by NASCAR on Thursday after his criticism of the Gen-6 race car. The fine also left many of his fellow drivers wondering what they can say about their new cars without incurring NASCAR’s wrath. Hamlin couldn’t understand why he was at the center of NASCAR’s latest tempest over its drivers’ media comments. He compared the new race car unfavorably to last year’s car, along with lamenting the overall quali...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — After coming in $400 million over budget following last year’s busy fire season, the Forest Service is altering its approach and may let more fires burn instead of attacking every one. The move, quietly made in a letter late last month by Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell, brings the agency more in line with the National Parks Service and back to what it had done until last year. It also answers critics who said the agency wasted money and endangered firefighters by bat...
DENVER (AP) — The judge in the deadly Colorado theater shootings has denied a request by defense lawyers to declare a state law on the insanity plea unconstitutional. In a ruling released Friday, state District Judge William Sylvester granted one defense request, for a written explanation of the consequences of pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. The ruling appears to clear the way for suspect James Holmes to enter a plea as scheduled on Tuesday. His lawyers had said they could not responsibly advise Holmes how to plead because of q...
NEW YORK (AP) — A senior al-Qaida leader and son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, captured in Jordan in the past week, pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court in New York to plotting against Americans in his role as the terror network’s top spokesman. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith was brought into the largest courtroom at the federal courthouse shortly after 10 a.m. and entered the plea through a lawyer to one count of conspiracy to kill Americans in a case that marks a legal victory for President Barack Obama’s administration. Black cuffs bound his hands...
IDITAROD, Alaska (AP) — Four-time champion Lance Mackey is the first musher to reach the halfway mark in the 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Mackey last won in 2010. He pulled into the ghost town of Iditarod at 8:36 p.m. Wednesday and was awarded $3,000 in gold. Sonny Lindner was second into the checkpoint, and another four-time champion, Jeff King, was third. None of the race leaders has satisfied a mandatory 24-hour break except for four-time champion Martin Buser who was in the l...
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Thursday for tough new sanctions to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test, a move that sparked a furious Pyongyang to threaten a nuclear strike against the United States. The vote by the U.N.’s most powerful body on a resolution drafted by North Korea’s closest ally, China, and the United States sends a powerful message that the international community condemns the ballistic missile and nuclear tests — and repeated violation of Security Council resolutions. Immedia...
ROME (AP) — These are crazy days in Rome, where limbo reigns in parliament and papacy. Italy is usually a pretty anarchic place, with people bucking rules on everything from crossing the street to paying taxes. But the anarchy’s going a bit far: Who’s running the country? Who’s running the church? For now, at least, nobody really knows. We Romans are living truly surreal times when a bearded comedian is now one of the nation’s most powerful leaders, and aging cardinals from around the world are mobbed by paparazzi as if they were Hollywood...
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez died of a massive heart attack after great suffering and inaudibly mouthed his desire to live, the head of Venezuela’s presidential guard said late Wednesday. “He couldn’t speak but he said it with his lips ... ‘I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die,’ because he loved his country, he sacrificed himself for his country,” Gen. Jose Ornella told The Associated Press. The general said he spent the last two years with Chavez, including his final...
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The former lead detective in South Africa’s investigation of the murder case against Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has resigned from the police force, police said Thursday. The decision by detective Hilton Botha to quit followed criticism for his bungling of the investigation into Pistorius’ shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Feb. 14, as well as the revelation that he faced attempted murder charges for a 2011 case in which he fired at a vehicle. The police force as a whole came under scrutiny for the initi...
(AP) – Indiana was the NCAA’s last undefeated men’s team in 1976. North Carolina had Michael Jordan and James Worthy while winning the national championship in 1982, a decade before Duke won the tournament on the back of Christian Laettner’s buzzer-beating basket. So which is the best team in NCAA tournament history? Or is it one of Kentucky’s squads — the 34-win team in 1996, or the freshman-filled one that won a record 38 games last season? All are among are some of the top vote-getters so far as part of the NCAA’s celebration of the 75th a...
