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 239 - 263 of 487
BALTIMORE (AP) – Otis “Damon” Harris, a former member of the Motown group The Temptations, has died of prostate cancer. He was 62. Chuck Woodson, a cousin serving as family spokesman, confirmed that Harris died at a Baltimore hospice last week. Harris performed with the celebrated Motown act The Temptations from 1971 to 1975 and sang on hits including “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” and “Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are).” Woodson says joining The Temptations was “the realization of a dream” for Harris. Harris formed a new group...
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The second major snowstorm in a week battered the nation’s midsection Tuesday, dropping up to a foot or more of heavy, wet snow that strained power lines and cut electricity to more than 100,000 Midwesterners. At least three deaths were blamed on the blizzard. Gusting winds blew drifts more than 2 feet high and made driving treacherous for those who dared the morning commute. About 105,000 homes and businesses in northwest Missouri, northeast Kansas and western Oklahoma wer...
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Maserati driver who died after being peppered with gunfire from someone in a Range Rover SUV, sparking a fiery crash that killed two others, was identified Friday as an aspiring rapper originally from Northern California. The Clark County coroner confirmed that Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr. was killed, although the cause of death was still being investigated. It wasn’t clear Friday if Cherry died of gunshots or the crash. The coroner hasn’t identified the taxi driver and his female passenger who died when the cab exploded early...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and its NATO allies revealed Friday they may keep as many as 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after the combat mission ends next year, largely American forces tasked with hunting down remnants of al-Qaida and helping Afghan forces with their own security. Patience with the 11-year-old war has grown thin in the U.S. and Europe, yet Washington and its allies feel they cannot pick up and leave without risking a repeat of what happened in Afghanistan after Soviet troops withdrew in 1989: Attention turned elsewhere, the T...
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Gusty winds and iced-over roadways made for treacherous Midwest travel Friday as a major winter storm headed east over the Great Lakes. Four deaths have been linked to the storm, including three from traffic accidents. Hundreds of flights in and out of Chicago’s two airports were canceled Friday morning, and the city was clearing about 3 inches of snow from its streets, and the Kansas City and St. Louis, Mo., airports both reopened Friday morning but had numerous can...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — For a change, Michigan State and Ohio State aren’t playing for a trophy. After contesting Big Ten regular-season and tournament titles in two of their last three meetings, there’ll be no hardware up for grabs when the fourth-ranked Spartans square off with the No. 18 Buckeyes on Sunday. That does not mean there is nothing on the line. “It’s like there’s always a trophy on the line every time you play one of the top-tier teams in this conference,” Ohio State guard Lenzelle Smith Jr. said. “It’s clutch time now. It’s gu...
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The big boys brought their little girls to see NASCAR’s shining star. Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson all took their daughters to meet Danica Patrick this week at Daytona International Speedway. It was the ultimate backstage pass. Patrick dropped to one knee, wrapped her right arm around Ella Gordon’s waist and posed for pictures as the 5-year-old flashed an endless grin in Victory Lane last week. Every day since, Patrick’s crew has handed out dozens and dozens of lugnuts to little girls clamori...
GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — An 18-year-old told a 911 dispatcher last fall that he kidnapped and killed a missing suburban Denver school girl and had hidden her remains in a crawl space at his mother’s home, according to a recording played by a prosecutor in court Friday. The recording was played at a preliminary hearing at which a judge decided there’s enough evidence for Austin Sigg to stand trial in both the death of 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway in October and an attack on a jogger at nearby Ketner Lake in May. Sigg is charged with murder, kidna...
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — A South African magistrate allowed Oscar Pistorius to go free on bail Friday, capping hearings that foreshadow a dramatic trial in the Valentine’s Day killing of the star athlete’s girlfriend. Pistorius’ family members and supporters shouted “Yes!” when Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair made his decision after a more than 1 hour and 45 minute explanation of his ruling to a packed courtroom. Radio stations and a TV news network in South Africa broadcast the audio of the decision live, and even international channels lik...
LINCOLN (AP) — Police say a 53-year-old man was pronounced dead at a hospital after he was found in a snowy Lincoln parking lot. A worker clearing snow from the business lot a few blocks west of downtown spotted the man around 3:40 a.m. Friday. Efforts to revive the man at the lot and a Lincoln hospital failed. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. Lincoln police spokeswoman Katie Flood says there were no signs of physical injuries to the man. It’s unclear whether the man was a victim of weather exposure or of some other medical problem. His...
LINCOLN – The number of new irrigation wells registered in drought-stricken Nebraska last year surged past 1,000 for the first time in seven years, according to preliminary state figures. The Department of Natural Resources reported earlier this week that the 1,105 new wells were the most registered with the state since 2005 and more than 350 more than registered in 2011. Why the jump? “It’s a combination of drought and record commodity prices,” Dave Aiken said Thursday. The agriculture and water law specialist at the University of Nebrask...
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Las Vegas Strip became a scene of deadly violence early Thursday when someone in a Range Rover opened fire on a Maserati at a stoplight, sending it crashing into a taxi that went up in flames, leaving three people dead and at least six injured. Police were checking with nearby businesses to see whether a previous altercation prompted the car-to-car attack at Las Vegas and Flamingo boulevards, the site of several major casinos, including Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Bally’s. “This doesn’t happen where we come from, not on...
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer prices were flat in January from December for the second month in a row, the latest sign inflation is in check. That could give the Federal Reserve leeway to continue its efforts to stimulate growth. The consumer price index has risen 1.6 percent in the 12 months ending in January, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s down from a 2.9 percent pace a year ago. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 0.3 percent in January. Core pri...
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Blinding snow, at times accompanied by thunder and lightning, bombarded much of the nation’s midsection Thursday, causing whiteout conditions, making major roadways all but impassable and shutting down schools and state legislatures. Kansas was the epicenter of the winter storm, with parts of Wichita buried under 13 inches of still-falling snow, but winter storm warnings stretched eastern Colorado through Illinois. Freezing rain and sleet were forecast for southern Missouri, southern Illinois and Arkansas. St. Louis was expecte...
LINCOLN (AP) — Tim Miles had just wrapped up his postgame radio interview when a bunch of pep band members, cheerleaders and other students started chanting, “Coach Miles, Coach Miles, Coach Miles.” The kids were imploring him to join them in shooting a video of the latest dance craze, the “Harlem Shake.” Miles was in good spirits because Nebraska had just beaten Penn State, so he gladly obliged. It took all of 45 seconds. The YouTube video has almost 140,000 views in less than two weeks. On...
GOODYEAR, Ariz. (AP) — The Cincinnati Reds have blocked ace Johnny Cueto from pitching for the Dominican Republic in next month’s World Baseball Classic. Cueto strained his right oblique eight pitches into last October’s division series against San Francisco. Because he finished the year with an injury, the Reds had the right to block him from playing in the WBC. “I wanted to pitch for the Dominican but the team said no. It’s all right,” Cueto said Thursday. “I am going to work to get ready for...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Several Federal Reserve policymakers suggested last month that the Fed might have to scale back its efforts to keep borrowing costs low for the foreseeable future. Minutes of the Fed’s Jan. 29-30 policy meeting released Wednesday showed that some officials worried about the Fed’s plan to keep buying $85 billion in bonds each month until the job market has improved substantially. They expressed concern that the continued purchases could eventually escalate inflation, unsettle financial markets or cause the Fed to absorb losse...
Lou Myers, Mr. Gaines on ‘A Different World,’ dies CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) ‚Äî Actor Lou Myers, best known for his role as ornery restaurant owner Mr. Gaines on the television series “A Different World,” has died. Tonia McDonald of Myers’ nonprofit, Global Business Incubation Inc., said Myers died Tuesday night at Charleston Area Medical Center in West Virginia. She said he was 76. McDonald said Wednesday that Myers had been in and out of the hospital since before Christmas and collapsed recently. An autopsy was planned. A native of Chesapeake...
NORTH PLATTE (AP) – Nebraska has been installing colorful new tourism signs along Interstate 80 to replace old signs that had weathered, becoming hard to read. The Nebraska Tourism Commission and Department of Roads are coordinating the project, which began with the unveiling of a sign directing travelers to Scouts Rest Ranch in North Platte at Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park. William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Victorian house, built in 1886, and barn sit on 25 acres of what originally was Cody’s 4,000-acre ranch. The sign includes...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Barring any new, damaging information, Chuck Hagel has secured the necessary votes for the Senate to confirm him to be the nation's next defense secretary. A vote ending the bitter fight over President Barack Obama's Cabinet choice is expected next week. Hagel cleared the threshold when five-term Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama said he would vote for the former two-term GOP senator from Nebraska after joining other Republicans last week in an unprecedented filibuster of the Pentagon nominee. "He's probably as good a... Full story
CHICAGO (AP) — Take a walk through a human brain? Fly over the surface of Mars? Computer scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago are pushing science fiction closer to reality with a wraparound virtual world where a researcher wearing 3-D glasses can do all that and more. In the system, known as CAVE2, an 8-foot-high screen encircles the viewer 320 degrees. A panorama of images springs from 72 stereoscopic liquid crystal display panels, conveying a dizzying sense of being able to t...
OMAHA – Several Nebraska cities and schools are taking actions well ahead of the expected arrival of a powerful snowstorm that could dump up to a foot of snow in some parts of the state. The storm is expected to hit the southwest and south-central parts of the state on Wednesday evening, with the heaviest snowfall on Thursday as the storm moves east-northeast. The city of Grand Island declared a snow emergency beginning at noon Wednesday, forbidding parking along emergency snow routes. In K...
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — There was a spirit of cooperation that hovered throughout much of the NCAA’s long probe of Miami athletics, so much so that the sides used to call the proceedings a joint inquiry. That’s not the case anymore. And especially not now — not after a day during which the NCAA defended its mistakes and Miami demanded a speedy resolution. With the long-awaited notice of allegations against Miami looming — and possibly being prepared for delivery by the NCAA as early as Tuesda...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Staking out his ground ahead of a fiscal deadline, President Barack Obama lashed out against Republicans, saying they are unwilling to raise taxes to reduce deficits and warning that the jobs of essential government workers, from teachers to emergency responders, are on the line. Obama spoke as a March 1 deadline for automatic across-the-board spending cuts approached and with Republicans and Democrats in an apparent stalemate over how to avoid them. Obama cautioned that if the $85 billion in immediate cuts — known as the sequ...
LINCOLN (AP) — Officials at the Lincoln Children’s Museum say they have now attracted more than 2.5 million guests to the center. Jerry and Connie Barnett of Lincoln pushed the nearly 25-year-old museum past that mark when they visited Saturday morning with their grandchildren, Coco and Eddie. They were given gifts, including a five-year museum membership, museum store gift certificate and a free week at a museum summer camp. They told the Lincoln Journal Star they were “overwhelmed but excited....
