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 – 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...
WASHINGTON – When it comes to the nation’s budget challenges, congressional leaders are fond of saying dismissively they don’t want to kick the can down the road. But now, a deadline hard ahead, even derided half-measures are uncertain as President Barack Obama and lawmakers struggle to avert across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts that comprise an economy-threatening fiscal cliff. Congressional officials said Wednesday they knew of no significant strides toward a compromise over a lon...
WASHINGTON – U.S. holiday sales so far this year have been the weakest since 2008, when the nation was in a deep recession. That puts pressure on stores that now hope for a post-Christmas burst of spending. This year’s holiday season was marred by bad weather and uncertainty about the economy in the face of possible tax hikes and spending cuts early next year. Some analysts say the massacre of schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn., earlier this month may also have chipped away at shoppers’ enthu...
BEREA, Ohio – Preparing to play Peyton Manning was challenging enough for the Cleveland Browns even before losing three more starters. Coach Pat Shurmur said Friday that wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi, tight end Jordan Cameron and defensive back Tashaun Gipson will not travel to Denver to play the Broncos (11-3). With playoff hopes dashed and a losing season assured, the Browns (5-9) will try to halt Denver’s nine-game winning streak. Going in with a depleted defense isn’t the best way. “It’s definitely not what you hope for, but it seems lik... Full story
NEW YORK – The next round of NHL cuts could be the deepest yet. With no deal in sight and no negotiations planned, the NHL chopped another two weeks off the schedule and moved closer to canceling the entire hockey season. No drop-dead date has been announced, but it is clear the sides are running out of time to reach a deal. The NHL said Thursday that all games through Jan. 14 have been canceled. More than 50 percent of the schedule has been lost, and the rest is now in danger, too. “I don’t want to characterize what today’s cancell...
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama issued a stern summons to congressional leaders Friday to approve legislation before year’s end to prevent tax increases on millions of middle class Americans and prevent an expiration of long-term unemployment benefits for the jobless. One day after House anti-tax rebels torpedoed Republican legislation because it would raise rates on million-dollar-earners, Obama said he still wants a bill that requires the well-to-do to pay more. “Everybody’s got to give a little bit in a sensible way” to prevent t...
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama on Friday will nominate Sen. John Kerry as his next secretary of state, a senior administration official said, making the first move in an overhaul of his national security team heading into a second term. If confirmed, Kerry would take the helm at the State Department from outgoing Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has long stated her intention to leave early next year. Kerry, a longtime Massachusetts senator, is expected to be easily approved for the Cabinet post by his Capitol Hill colleagues. Tha...
CHICAGO (AP) – Travelers facing canceled flights and closed roads were hoping to finally head to their holiday destinations Friday as a widespread snowstorm that dumped more than a foot of snow in parts of the Midwest moved across the Great Lakes toward Canada. The storm, part of a system that began in the Rockies earlier in the week, led airlines to cancel more than 1,000 flights Thursday and caused whiteout conditions that left roads dangerous to drive on. It was blamed for deaths in at least five states, with parts of Iowa, Wisconsin and M...
WASHINGTON (AP) – House Speaker John Boehner signaled on Friday he’s still open to negotiations with President Barack Obama on avoiding across-the-board tax increases set to hit taxpayers Jan. 1, but sounded pessimistic about reaching a grand deal with the president. “How we get there, God only knows,” Boehner told a Capitol Hill news conference just hours after his rank-and-file handed him a stunning tactical defeat. The Republican leader spoke the morning after he was forced by his members to abandon legislation that would have raised taxes o...
LINCOLN – Nebraska is still smarting from that 39-point loss to Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game, and few people outside the state believe the No. 23 Cornhuskers are capable of beating sixth-ranked Georgia in the Capital One Bowl. The challenge for Bo Pelini and his coaches between now and Jan. 1 is to make sure the players have moved on emotionally. “If we have a hangover,” offensive coordinator Tim Beck said, “it’s going to get ugly.” The Huskers (10-3) have begun preparing i...
When Gabby Douglas allowed herself to dream of being the Olympic champion, she imagined having a nice little dinner with family and friends to celebrate. Maybe she’d make an appearance here and there. “I didn’t think it was going to be crazy,” Douglas said, laughing. “I love it. But I realized my perspective was going to have to change.” Just a bit. The teenager has become a worldwide star since winning the Olympic all-around title in London, the first African-American gymnast to claim gymnastics’ biggest prize. And now she has earned anothe...
NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) – The chiming of bells reverberated throughout Newtown on Friday, commemorating one week since the crackle of gunfire in a schoolhouse killed 20 children and six adults in a massacre that has shaken the community – and the nation – to its core. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy gathered with other officials in rain and wind on the steps of the Edmond Town Hall as the bell rang 26 times in memory of each life lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The gunman also killed his mother befor...
WASHINGTON – The nation’s largest gun-rights lobby called Friday for armed police officers to be posted in every American school to stop the next killer “waiting in the wings.” The National Rifle Association broke its silence on last week’s shooting rampage at a Connecticut elementary school that left 26 children and staff dead. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” the group’s top lobbyist, Wayne LaPierre, said at a Washington news conference. LaPierre said “the next Adam Lanza,” the man responsible for...
