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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WATERTOWN, Mass. — A 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings was taken into custody Friday evening after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralyzed and his older brother and accomplice dead. Police announced via Twitter that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was in custody. His brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan, was killed Friday in a furious attempt to escape police. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been holed up in a boat in a Watertown neighborhood. The crowd gathered near the scene let out a cheer when spectators saw officers clapping. ... Full story
BOSTON (AP) — Moments after investigators went before television cameras to broadcast photos of the two men in ball caps wanted for the Boston Marathon bombing, queries from viewers started cascading in — 300,000 hits a minute that overwhelmed the FBI’s website. It marked a key turning point in a search that, for all the intensity of its first 72 hours, had failed to locate the suspects. While it’s unclear how much the tips that resulted helped investigators zero in, experts say it instantly turned up already intense pressure on the two men...
OMAHA (AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the dismissal of an Omaha woman’s invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against a Massachusetts bookseller. Helen Abdouch had claimed that Ken Lopez and his online book store improperly used her name and position as executive secretary on John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign to sell an autographed hardcover copy of “Revolutionary Road” she says was stolen from her. The book included a personal note of best wishes from author Richard Yates to Abdouch, dated Aug. 19, 1963. The lawsuit cited a 1979 Nebr...
LINCOLN — Nebraska’s preliminary March unemployment rate of 3.8 percent matched the revised rates for the three previous months, state officials said in a report released Friday. The rate was two-tenths of a point lower than in March 2012 and half the national March rate of 7.6 percent for this year, the Nebraska Labor Department said in a news release. The 3.8 percent was the second-lowest figure in the country, trailing only North Dakota’s 3.3 percent for March. Nonfarm employment rose by nearly 4,000 jobs in March. According to the state...
BOSTON — The Red Sox and the Bruins both scrapped their games. The famous Bull Market at Faneuil Hall was closed, and there were more pigeons than tourists on City Hall Plaza. Even the Starbucks at Government Center was shuttered. The killing of one suspected Boston Marathon bomber and the manhunt for another brought life in large swaths of the notoriously gridlocked Beantown to a screeching halt, leaving residents and tourists alike frustrated and angry. “It took me an hour and a half to find a coffee this morning,” Daniel Miller, a finan...
WATERTOWN, Mass. — With Boston virtually paralyzed, thousands of officers with rifles and armored vehicles swarmed the streets in and around the city on Friday, hunting for a 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombing after his older brother and alleged accomplice was killed in a furious getaway attempt overnight. During the long night of violence, the brothers killed an MIT police officer, severely wounded another lawman and hurled explosives at police in a car chase a...
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — It sounded more like a bad episode of a bad reality series than the NFL. The Denver Broncos had agreed to a new contract with Elvis Dumervil. Then they hadn’t. The culprit — well, that all depends on whose version of events you want to believe. But a fax machine was definitely involved. Back together for offseason workouts without the man who has accumulated 631⁄2 sacks for the franchise over his six healthy seasons in Denver, Dumervil’s ex-teammates all agreed that they’ll miss their erstwhile pass rusher, team captai...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Hudson are among the singers set to pay tribute to this year’s eclectic group of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. Aguilera and Hudson are scheduled to perform in honor of late disco queen Donna Summer at Thursday night’s 28th annual induction ceremony at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. Summer is among this year’s eight inductees, which also include rockers Heart and Rush, singer-songwriter Randy Newman, rap group Public Enemy and bluesman Albert King, as well as Lou Adler and Quincy Jone...
NEW YORK (AP) — If you love a good burger, you might think George Motz has the best job ever. He crisscrosses the country as the host of Travel Channel’s new series “Burger Land,” looking for the best burgers in America. He consumed 70 burgers in the three months it took to shoot the first season, exercising regularly to accommodate his indulgence. Now he’s temporarily staying away from burgers to give his system a break. Still, he said in a recent interview, “I crave a burger every single day.” One thing he stressed, however, is that all burg...
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Several labor unions say more than $400,000 in contributions by Walmart Stores Inc. since 2010 helped bring about the creation of an unusual taxpayer-paid subsidy last month to help employers offset a higher minimum wage in New York. Senate Republicans, who had long opposed an increase in the minimum wage along with some business groups, called the unions’ claim “complete and utter nonsense.” Republicans senators never had any conversation with Walmart on the issue, spokesman Scott Reif said. In March, the Legisla...
LINCOLN (AP) — Some University of Nebraska-Lincoln students have joined a NASA competition in Huntsville Ala., where they will launch a rocket they built. The UNL Rocket Team is competing in its second University Student Launch Initiative contest. The Nebraska team is vying against more than 30 college and university teams. Last year the team placed third for altitude closest to the goal. Launch day is Saturday. NASA plans to provide live coverage on the social web service UStream, including embedded Twitter feed (hashtag (hash)1MileHigh) s...
GRAND ISLAND (AP) — Opponents of a massive Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline converged on a snowy Nebraska town Thursday for a critical hearing on the project, but they already were preparing possible acts of civil disobedience should President Barack Obama ultimately approve it. Despite a spring storm that brought sleet and snow to Nebraska, the U.S. State Department hearing in Grand Island drew more than 1,000 people from the around state, as well as activists from outside the region who consider Nebraska a key battleground over the Keystone XL pi...
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Champ Bailey is cranky. He’s also as confident as ever. And no, he’s not going to admit his body is creaking as he approaches his 35th birthday and prepares to face rookie receivers who were just learning their ABCs when he entered the NFL in 1999. He’s still irked by that loss to Baltimore in the playoffs and the way he got burned by Ravens receiver Torrey Smith. He’s heard the whispers that he should move to safety and how quarterbacks now won’t shy away from him anymore. With nearly three dozen candles about to ad...
COLUMBUS -- The 32 teens gathered in Youth for Christ Tuesday laughed dismissively when Ricky Simmons caricatured the marijuana smoker: squint-eyed, giggling, puffing an imaginary joint and grinning widely. “I used to tell my mom, ‘Man, this don’t do nothing else to you but make you happy and hungry,’” Simmons said. “And sleepy,” someone from the audience offers. Everyone laughs. There is less bonhomie as Simmons moved further down his drug history, a frightening toxicology report that included...
LINCOLN – Jack Hoffman provided the nation with a heartfelt touchdown run. Now he has his own trading card. Upper Deck, best known for its production of baseball cards, announced Tuesday it will release a special “Star Rookie” trading card to honor Hoffman. Hoffman, a 7-year-old from Atkinson who is battling brain cancer, brought 60,000 fans to their feet when he took a handoff from Husker quarterback Taylor Martinez and ran 69 yards for a touchdown during Nebraska’s spring football game on...
MILWAUKEE (AP) — The federal government has launched a new livestock identification program to help agriculture officials to quickly track livestock in cases of disease. It is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s second attempt at implementing such a system, which officials say is critical to maintaining the security of the nation’s food supply. An earlier, voluntary program failed because of widespread opposition among farmers and ranchers who described it as a costly hassle that didn’t help control disease. There has been talk for years a...
LINCOLN — Experts have checked out and cleared a suspicious bag that was found outside U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer’s office in Lincoln. A passer-by in the Haymarket district on the west edge of downtown reported the package Wednesday morning. Bomb experts say the bag contained only trash. Chief fire inspector Bill Moody told the Lincoln Journal Star that such reports multiply “after a major incident in the country,” referring to the Boston Marathon bombing on Monday. Moody has no problem responding to calls about suspicious packages. He says he’d ra... Full story
LONDON (AP) — From London to Sochi to Rio de Janeiro, the deadly bomb attacks on the Boston Marathon raised new concerns Tuesday over safety at major sports events around the world, including the Olympics and World Cup. The twin bombings near the marathon finish line that killed three people and injured more than 170 people brought into sharp focus the security challenges facing next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and the 2016 Summer Games in Rio. “We are very, very concerned,” senior IOC member Gerhard...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican opposition is growing to a bipartisan Senate plan for expanding background checks for firearms buyers, enough to put the proposal’s fate in jeopardy. But the measure may change as both sides compete for support in one of the pivotal fights in the battle over curbing guns. The Senate continued debating a wide-ranging gun control bill Tuesday, with the focus on a background check compromise struck last week between Sens. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. Manchin said the vote on that amendment was lik...
OMAHA (AP) — Federal regulators are planning to meet next week with the utility that owns the troubled Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska, but some of the discussion will be private because security information will be discussed. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said Monday that the April 22 meetings will focus on flood protection and security for the plant 20 miles north of Omaha. Part of the discussion will be public before the private meeting. Fort Calhoun has been shut down for more than two years. Initially, the plant w...
BOSTON (AP) — Neighbors and friends remembered 8-year-old Boston bombing victim Martin Richard on Tuesday as a vivacious boy who loved to run, climb, and play sports like soccer, basketball and baseball. Family friend Jack Cunningham spoke of how as a pint-sized preschooler, Martin had insisted on getting out of a stroller his mom was pushing during a 5K race in South Boston about five years ago. But once she let him out to run with the rest of the family, Martin had other plans for the rainy race course. “He was just having a ball, spl...
BOSTON — The bombs that ripped through the crowd at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and wounding more than 170, were fashioned out of pressure cookers and packed with shards of metal, nails and ball bearings to inflict maximum carnage, a person briefed on the investigation said Tuesday. The details on the apparently crude but deadly explosives emerged as investigators appealed to the public for amateur video and photos that might yield clues. The chief FBI agent in Boston vowed ... Full story
LINCOLN — Gov. Dave Heineman said Monday that a $2.2 million budget request to buy an airplane from the University of Nebraska Foundation is needed to reach rural parts of the state quickly. Heineman said the plane ensures he and other state officials are accessible to residents when needed. He argued that a state-owned plane is more cost-efficient than relying on a charter service. “This is about having access to the governor for every citizen of the state of Nebraska,” Heineman said during a news conference on an unrelated subject. “It’s...
(AP) – Every time Northwestern’s football players slip on their workout shirts, they see just how close they came to an undefeated season in 2012. Stamped on the back of each one is “5:03.” It stands for the total of 5 minutes, 3 seconds the Wildcats trailed at the end of their three losses. “I knew we were close,” defensive end Tyler Scott said Wednesday on the Big Ten Legends Division spring teleconference. “It just really brought it to top of your mind when it said 5:03 and how little time that was we had to execute a couple more times to...
GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado teen pleaded not guilty Friday to murder and kidnapping in the kidnap-slaying and dismemberment of a 10-year-old girl that panicked Denver-area residents last fall — despite police testimony that the suspect confessed to the crime. Austin Sigg, 18, stunned a courtroom by entering the not guilty pleas in the death of Jessica Ridgeway in the Denver suburb of Westminster. Sigg also pleaded not guilty to a May attack on a 22-year-old jogger at a lake in Jessica’s neighborhood. Sigg’s not guilty pleas came despite his...
