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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VATICAN CITY (AP) — One of the Vatican’s main Twitter accounts and the website of its communications office were running stories about Batman on Thursday with the headline “Holy Switcheroo!” — raising concerns they might have been hacked. But two Vatican officials said the site hadn’t been hacked, and that the reason for the unusual posting was an “internal system failure” due to a non-native English speaker posting the story on the website. The story was from the Catholic News Service. It has as its headline: “Holy Switcheroo! Batma...
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian prosecutors have launched wide-ranging checks of hundreds of nongovernmental organizations, as part of what activists say is President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to stifle dissent and shield the nation from perceived Western influence. The inspections and searches have targeted up to 2,000 organizations since last month, said Pavel Chikov, a member of the presidential human rights council. The action followed Putin’s speech in February before senior officers of the FSB, the main KGB successor agency, in which he urged them...
PARIS (AP) — New results from looking at the split-second after the Big Bang indicate the universe is 80 million years older than previously thought and provide ancient evidence supporting core concepts about the cosmos — how it began, what it’s made of and where it’s going. The findings released Thursday bolster a key theory called inflation, which says the universe burst from subatomic size to its now-observable expanse in a fraction of a second. The new observations from the European Space Agency’s $900 million Planck space probe appear to r...
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Tiger Woods has been winning at Bay Hill before he was old enough to drive a car. “It all started there,” Woods said Wednesday on the eve of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where he is the defending champion, a seven-time champion and has a chance to return to No. 1 in the world if he can win for an eighth time. He already has won eight times at Bay Hill if the 1991 U.S. Junior Amateur counted. Woods wound up winning against Brad Zwetschke on the first extra hole. He remembered just about all the details, except that his op...
Brad Stevens is amused by all this talk of parity in the NCAA tournament. The coach who guided little Butler to the national championship game two years in a row wonders why everyone seems to be saying all at once: Hey, there’s some pretty good teams beyond the glamour conferences. Stevens remembers his first basketball job, as Butler’s director of basketball operations in 2001, when the Bulldogs easily won their first-round game as a No. 10 seed. They cruised past Wake Forest, an entry from the mighty Atlantic Coast Conference, after leading 4...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment aid barely changed last week, while the average over the past month fell to a fresh five-year low. The decline in layoffs is helping strengthen the job market. Weekly unemployment benefit applications rose just 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 336,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Over the past four weeks, the average number of applications has dropped by 7,500 to 339,750. That’s the lowest since February 2008, just three months into the recession. Separately, sales of pre...
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Fran Warren, whose 1947 recording of “A Sunday Kind of Love” was one of the classic hits of the big band era, has died. Alan Eichler, a spokesman for the singer-actress, said Tuesday that Warren died March 4 of natural causes at her home in Brookfield, Conn. She was 87. Warren’s career spanned more than 50 years with hits that included the Tony Martin duet “I Said My Pajamas (and Put On My Prayers),” the Lisa Kirk duet “Dearie” and “It’s Anybody’s Heart.” Her films roles included “Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kid...
PITTSBURGH (AP) — In an unlikely partnership between longtime adversaries, some of the nation’s biggest energy companies and environmental groups have agreed on a voluntary set of standards for gas and oil fracking in the Northeast that appear to go further than existing state and federal pollution regulations. The program announced Wednesday will work a lot like Underwriters Laboratories, which puts its UL seal of approval on electrical appliances that meet its standards. In this case, drilling and pipeline companies will be encouraged to sub...
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus’ banks will remain closed Thursday and Friday as officials try to find a new plan to stave off bankruptcy. Aliki Stylianou, the central bank’s spokeswoman, confirmed the additional two-day closure on Wednesday. The cash-strapped lenders have been closed since Saturday to avoid a bank run. The Parliament this week rejected a plan to take a portion of bank deposits. That has left Cypriot officials looking for alternative ways to scrounge up some 5.8 billion euros ($7.51 billion) that the country’s euro area partner...
JERUSALEM (AP) — Renewing U.S. support for the difficult “work of generations,” President Barack Obama assured Israel on Wednesday that his administration would pursue an elusive Mideast peace that would allow residents of the Jewish state to live in peace and free from the threat of terror. “In this work, the state of Israel will have no greater friend than the United States,” the president declared after meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres during his first visit to Israel as president. Peres, in turn, said he welcomed Obama’s c...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Gail Goodrich knew Miami would beat Boston the other night. He knew even a 17-point deficit, the largest they had faced in six weeks, wouldn’t stop LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. “Once they got back in the game, there was no doubt in my mind they were going to win,” Goodrich said of the Heat’s 105-103 victory Monday. “They just are better than everybody else.” So were the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers. Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain and Goodrich were a Big Three to rival what Miami has, the core of a team that racked u...
LINCOLN (AP) — A bill to expand Nebraska Medicaid coverage has advanced for debate in the Legislature, and supporters presented their case Tuesday in anticipation that Gov. Dave Heineman will veto the measure. The committee vote sets up a likely confrontation between lawmakers and Heineman, a Republican who remains firmly opposed to the bill. Sen. Kathy Campbell, who led the introduction of the bill, said she’s “very confident” that the measure’s backers have at least 25 votes to push it through the Legislature. But Campbell said supporters wil...
BOSTON (AP) — The longest winning streak in NBA history is still 10 victories away for the Miami Heat. So it will be a while before Dwyane Wade really focuses on matching the 33-game run of the Los Angeles Lakers. “Not ‘til we get to 32,” he said with a smile after one of the greatest challenges to Miami’s run of success. LeBron James hit the go-ahead jumper with 10.5 seconds remaining to cap a 37-point performance and the Heat escaped with a 105-103 win over the Boston Celtics on Monday night for their 23rd straight win, breaking a tie for s...
LINCOLN (AP) — Officials from Lincoln and Lancaster County could allow the health director to access millions of dollars set aside for health emergencies under an ordinance being considered by the city’s leaders. The Community Health Endowment Fund was created with money from the city’s sale of Lincoln General Hospital 15 years ago to Bryan Memorial Hospital. The $37 million from that sale has since grown to more than $60 million, the Lincoln Journal Star reported Monday. City leaders at the time of the sale specified that only interest from th...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Jack Greene, a longtime Grand Ole Opry star who earned fame with the hit “There Goes My Everything,” has died in Nashville at 83. The song showed off his deep voice, made him a star and earned him the single of the year and male vocalist of the year awards from the Country Music Association in 1967. Grand Ole Opry spokeswoman Jessie Schmidt said Friday that Greene died in his sleep Thursday night at home from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. Greene performed regularly on the Grand Ole Opry beginning in 1967. H...
CHICAGO (AP) — Ben Brust scored 11 of his 14 points in the second half and No. 22 Wisconsin knocked off sixth-ranked Michigan 68-59 in the second round of the Big Ten tournament on Friday. Traevon Jackson had 16 points for the Badgers (22-10), who will play top-seeded Indiana in the semifinals on Saturday. Ryan Evans added 12 points, six rebounds and six assist. Trey Burke had 19 points and seven assists for Michigan (26-7), but the Big Ten player of the year was 8 for 22 from the field. Tim Hardaway Jr. shook off a leg injury in the first h...
TAMPA, Fla. — There were times in the low minors when Mariano Rivera felt totally lost on the mound. That was, before he got a good grasp of his cut fastball — and English. “The manager or coach would tell me something and I didn’t understand them,” the New York Yankees’ closer said. “You nod your head yes, but you have no idea what they are saying.” Major League Baseball is trying to ease the language barrier, adopting a new rule that permits interpreters to join mound conferences whe...
NEW YORK — She’s a leading candidate to be New York’s next mayor. She’s already one of its top Irish-American officials. Christine Quinn is also a lesbian and proud of it. And that’s why the City Council speaker won’t be marching in Saturday’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, an event so entrenched in New York tradition that it’s older than the United States. Quinn’s rising political prominence is bringing a decades-long dispute between parade organizers and gay activists back into sharp relief. And it’s raising the prospect of an unprecedented stan...
HERKIMER, N.Y. (AP) — Police SWAT teams navigated through a cluttered, abandoned bar to find the suspect in four fatal shootings holed up in a small room, and the man was killed a shootout with officers after a nearly 19-hour standoff that paralyzed an upstate New York village, authorities said Thursday. Why Kurt Myers went on the shooting rampage Wednesday remained a mystery. State police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico said state police and FBI tactical teams entered the first-floor of a building in Herkimer around 8 a.m. to end the sta...
GENEVA (AP) — The search is all but over for a subatomic particle that is a crucial building block of the universe. Physicists announced Thursday they believe they have discovered the subatomic particle predicted nearly a half-century ago, which will go a long way toward explaining what gives electrons and all matter in the universe size and shape. The elusive particle, called a Higgs boson, was predicted in 1964 to help fill in our understanding of the creation of the universe, which many t...
WASHINGTON (AP) – Michelle Obama is pushing back against the notion that she and President Barack Obama don’t socialize enough in Washington. The first lady says in an interview in the April issue of Vogue magazine that she and the president were straightforward when they said – before moving from Chicago to Washington in 2009 – that their family, including two young daughters, would be their priority. She said “the stresses and the pressures” of the White House are so real that they prefer to spend free time with their daughters, now 14 and...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration contradicted itself Thursday, acknowledging to Congress that it had, in fact, released more than 2,000 illegal immigrants from immigration jails due to budget constraints during three weeks in February. Four deemed especially dangerous have been placed back in jail. The administration had claimed only a “few hundred immigrants” were released for budgetary reasons, challenging as inaccurate an Associated Press report that 2,000 immigrants had been released and that 3,000 more would be released this...
CHICAGO (AP) — Indiana is standing tall again. Michigan and Michigan State are right there with the Hoosiers, and Ohio State and Wisconsin aren’t exactly backing down from anyone, either. The Big Ten tournament starts Thursday, and it’s not hard to see why Spartans coach Tom Izzo declared it one of the best ever. And by best ever, he didn’t just mean best Big Ten tournament. “We’re looking forward to one of the great conference tournaments of all time, if you ask me,” Izzo said. “When you loo...
DENVER (AP) — The Denver Broncos gave Peyton Manning a new target — Tom Brady’s favorite receiver. Wes Welker’s signing for $12 million over two years highlighted another busy day for the Broncos on Wednesday. In addition to bringing Welker on board, Denver also agreed to terms on a two-year deal with defensive tackle Terrance Knighton, formerly of Jacksonville, and a one-year contract with linebacker Stewart Bradley, who played with the Cardinals the past two seasons. Broncos boss John Elway wa... Full story
WASHINGTON (AP) — A record number of U.S. counties — more than 1 in 3 — are now dying off, hit by an aging population and weakened local economies that are spurring young adults to seek jobs and build families elsewhere. New 2012 census estimates released Thursday highlight the population shifts as the U.S. encounters its most sluggish growth levels since the Great Depression. The findings also reflect the increasing economic importance of foreign-born residents as the U.S. ponders an overhaul of a major 1965 federal immigration law. Without ne...
