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) — 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...
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Classroom teachers could stop school shootings by carrying concealed weapons, say gun-rights advocates who plan to offer the required training Thursday for 200 Utah teachers. The Utah Shooting Sports Council said it would waive its $50 fee for concealed-weapons training for the teachers. Instruction featuring plastic guns is set to begin at noon Thursday inside a conference room at Maverick Center, a hockey arena in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Valley. It’s an idea gaining traction in the aftermath of the Con...
HOUSTON (AP) – Former President George H.W. Bush is being treated in the intensive care unit at a Houston hospital after suffering “a series of setbacks,” including a stubborn fever, his spokesman said. In a brief email Wednesday, Jim McGrath, Bush’s spokesman in Houston, said the 88-year-old former leader had been admitted Sunday to the ICU at Methodist Hospital. McGrath said Bush, the oldest living former U.S. president, was alert and talking to medical staff. He said doctors are cautiously optimistic about Bush’s treatment and that the forme...
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – A powerful winter storm brought snow to inland parts of the Northeast and driving rain and wind to areas along the coast Thursday, a day after it swept through the nation’s middle, dumping a record snowfall in Arkansas and wrecking post-holiday plans for thousands of travelers. The storm, which was blamed for 15 deaths, pushed through the Upper Ohio Valley and made its way into the Northeast Wednesday night. By Thursday morning, there was anywhere from a few inches of sno...
LOS ANGELES (AP) – With a proposed payout of more than $1 billion, one major chapter of a nearly four-year legal saga that left Toyota Motor Corp. fighting hundreds of lawsuits and struggling with a tarnished image has ended, though another remains. The settlement – unprecedented in its size according to a plaintiff’s attorney – brings an end to claims from owners who said the value of their vehicles plunged after recalls over sudden and unintended acceleration. Lawsuits claiming that the defects caused injury or death remain, with the first t...
WASHINGTON – Efforts to save the nation from going over a year-end “fiscal cliff” were in disarray as lawmakers fled the Capitol for their Christmas break. “God only knows” how a deal can be reached now, House Speaker John Boehner declared. President Barack Obama, on his way out of town himself, insisted a bargain could still be struck before Dec. 31. “Call me a hopeless optimist,” he said. A look at why it’s so hard for Republicans and Democrats to compromise on urgent matters of taxes and spending, and what happens if they fail to meet th...
NEW YORK – In 2013, small business owners will contend with many of the same issues that made it hard to run their companies over the last 12 months. They’re also heading into the new year with a lot of uncertainty. It’s unlikely that negotiations in Congress will resolve all of lawmakers’ disagreements over tax and budget issues that affect small businesses. And there are still many questions about the implications of the health care law for small companies. That points to continued caution – and perhaps slow hiring – among the nation’s sm...
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) – Rarely one to talk publicly about the big picture or much beyond winning the next game, Denver coach John Fox weighed in on the interesting race for Most Valuable Player. That race could come down to Peyton Manning of the Broncos vs. old rival Tom Brady of the Patriots and Adrian Peterson of the Vikings. “Obviously, I’m going to be a little biased,” Fox said Monday. His vote, of course, would go to Manning, not so much for the numbers he’s put up as for the obstacles he’s overcome – namely, a season off, four neck sur...
LINCOLN – It was homecoming 1991. Ninth-ranked Nebraska was favored by 35 points over Kansas State, still thought of as a woebegone program at the time and whose best days were still far on the horizon. A quarterback named Paul Watson was shredding the Huskers’ secondary, and the Wildcats led by a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Rob Zatechka, a redshirt freshman who later would play on Nebraska’s famed “Pipeline” offensive line, remembers pandemonium on the sideline. Teammates were yelling a... Full story
Jack Klugman 1922 to 2012 LOS ANGELES (AP) – For many, Jack Klugman will always be the messy one. His portrayal of sloppy sportswriter Oscar Madison on TV’s “The Odd Couple” left viewers laughing but it also gave Klugman the leverage to create a more serious character, the gruff medical examiner in “Quincy M.E.” His everyman ethos and comic timing endeared him to audiences and led to a prolific, six-decade acting career that spanned stage, screen and television. Klugman died Monday at age 90 i...
Charles Durning 1923 to 2012 LOS ANGELES (AP) – Charles Durning grew up in poverty, lost five of his nine siblings to disease, barely lived through D-Day and was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge. His hard life and wartime trauma provided the basis for a prolific 50-year career as a consummate Oscar-nominated character actor, playing everyone from a Nazi colonel to the pope to Dustin Hoffman’s would-be suitor in “Tootsie.” Durning, who died Monday at age 89 in New York, got his start a...
