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 371 - 395 of 487
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...
LINCOLN (AP) — Farmers, manufacturers and shipping companies could lose millions of dollars’ worth of sales tax breaks under plans announced Friday by Gov. Dave Heineman, but their income tax burden would also vanish. The Republican governor unveiled two possible tax-reform packages, both of which would eliminate corporate income taxes and make up the lost revenue by ending the state sales-tax exemptions. But the two measures differ in both their scope and who would benefit. Heineman said he submitted both to initiate a public discussion wit...
CHICAGO (AP) — Lance Armstrong finally cracked. Not while expressing deep remorse or regrets, though there was plenty of that in Friday night’s second part of Armstrong’s interview with Oprah Winfrey. It wasn’t over the $75 million in sponsorship deals that evaporated over the course of two days, or having to walk away from the Livestrong cancer charity he founded and called his “sixth child.” It wasn’t even about his lifetime ban from competition, though he said that was more than he deser...
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Three days after news broke about his fake dead girlfriend, Manti Te’o is still mum and Notre Dame has urged the star linebacker to speak up — and soon. Athletic director Jack Swarbrick said the school has encouraged the Heisman Trophy finalist to talk publicly about a hoax that turned the feel-good story of the college football season into one of the most bizarre in memory. During the taping of his weekly radio show, posted online Friday, Swarbrick called on Te’o to explain exactly how he was duped into an online...
LINCOL (AP) — Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman has unveiled two proposed tax reform measures that would eliminate or reduce state income taxes. The larger plan unveiled Friday would eliminate the state’s income tax on corporations and individuals, while getting rid of $2.4 billion in sales tax breaks that Nebraska currently allows. The second bill would eliminate corporate income taxes and provide an exemption for retirement income. Married couples would receive an exemption for the first $12,000 they earn, while single filers would see a $6,...
NFL draft consultant Gil Brandt believes the uncertainty surrounding Manti Te’o could affect when he is selected in April by a team. Brandt called the story that Notre Dame’s All-American linebacker was involved in a hoax “something I have never witnessed” in his half-century in pro football. “I think some teams will say it isn’t worth the problem” to draft Te’o, said Brandt, who has the linebacker rated 19th overall in the first round. The former Dallas Cowboys general manager added Thursday...
LINCOLN (AP) — The young guys started Purdue on its way to victory over Nebraska. The old guys finished the job. Senior D.J. Byrd and junior Terone Johnson combined for 17 straight Purdue points during a crucial stretch of the second half that allowed the Boilermakers to withstand the Cornhuskers’ comeback bid and post a 65-56 win Wednesday night. The Huskers cut the Boilers’ 20-point lead to five over a 10-minute stretch. But each time Nebraska looked ready to break through for its first Big Ten Conference win, Byrd or Johnson made big shots t...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lithium batteries that can leak corrosive fluid and start fires have emerged as the chief safety concern involving Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, a problem that apparently is far more serious than government or company officials acknowledged less than a week ago. The Federal Aviation Administration late Wednesday grounded Boeing’s newest and most technologically advanced jetliner until the risk of battery fires is resolved. The order applies only to the six Dreamliners operated by United Airlines, the lone U.S. carrier with 787s....
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. builders started work on homes in December at the fastest pace in 4 1⁄2 years and finished 2012 as their best year for residential construction since the early stages of the housing crisis. The Commerce Department said Thursday that builders broke ground on houses and apartments last month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 954,000. That’s 12.1 percent higher than November’s annual rate. And it is nearly double the recession low reached in April 2009. Construction increased last month for both single-family homes a...
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s ombudsman for children’s rights sought on Thursday to reassure American would-be adoptive parents that they will be allowed to take their children back to the United States. But some Americans with court rulings in their favor say they’re still in legal limbo. A Russian law banning adoptions by U.S. citizens was rushed through parliament in December, and sped to President Vladimir Putin’s desk in less than 10 days in retaliation over a U.S. law calling for sanctions on Russians identified as human-rights violators. Tens o...
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A Pennsylvania detective is trying to figure out how an apparent prankster was able to fill out a 2008 voter registration card signed “Barack H. Obama.” By the time Butler County elections officials processed the card, it went into the state’s computerized database with the last name “Obana” — that is, with an ‘n’ in place of the ‘m.’ But a detective tells The Associated Press that whoever did it was clearly trying to register using President Barack Obama’s name. The card was discovered last week when a jury commissioner in...
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Pauline Friedman Phillips, who under the name of Abigail Van Buren, wrote the long-running “Dear Abby” advice column that was followed by millions of newspaper readers throughout the world, has died. She was 94. Publicist Gene Willis of Universal Uclick said Phillips died Wednesday after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Phillips’ column competed for decades with the advice column of Ann Landers, written by her twin sister, Esther Friedman Lederer. Their relationship was stormy in their early adult years, but later they...
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — From Oregon to Mississippi, President Barack Obama’s proposed ban on new assault weapons and large-capacity magazines struck a nerve among rural lawmen and lawmakers, many of whom vowed to ignore any restrictions — and even try to stop federal officials from enforcing gun policy in their jurisdictions. “A lot of sheriffs are now standing up and saying, ‘Follow the Constitution,’” said Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilbertson, whose territory covers the timbered mountains of southwestern Oregon. But their actual powers to...
OMAHA (AP) — The Federal Reserve says U.S. farm income could decline in 2013, but it depends upon whether the drought continues. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo., said Thursday that if drought conditions persist, prices of corn and other crops would remain volatile because of tight supply. But if normal weather conditions return, crop prices would decline and lead to lower farm incomes. The USDA predicted farm income in 2012 would reach $114 billion, which would be the third-highest total on record. Crop insurance and high crop p...
LINCOLN (AP) — A new state program is showing early success in helping Nebraska juvenile offenders complete their probation by allowing them to serve it in their communities instead of in custody, the state Supreme Court’s chief justice said Thursday. Chief Justice Michael Heavican said about 80 percent of the 600 juveniles who have enrolled since the program began in July 1 have completed their probation successfully. That’s higher than the state average, he said. The program offers community-based treatment and keeps juveniles out of deten...
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Philadelphia Eagles have hired Chip Kelly after he originally chose to stay at Oregon. The 49-year-old Kelly becomes the 21st coach in team history and replaces Andy Reid, who was fired on Dec. 31 after a 4-12 season. Kelly, who was 46-7 in four years at Oregon, interviewed with the Eagles, Cleveland Browns and Buffalo Bills after leading the fast-flying Ducks to a victory over Kansas State in the Fiesta Bowl. But he opted to remain at Oregon before changing his mind. The Eagles are known to have interviewed 11 c...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A new government survey suggests the number of people seeking emergency treatment after consuming energy drinks has doubled nationwide during the past four years, the same period in which the supercharged drink industry has surged in popularity in convenience stores, bars and on college campuses. From 2007 to 2011, the government estimates the number of emergency room visits involving the neon-labeled beverages shot up from about 10,000 to more than 20,000. Most of those cases involved teens or young adults, according to a...
