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) – The financially struggling U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday it will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to disburse packages six days a week, an apparent end-run around an unaccommodating Congress. The service expects the Saturday mail cutback to begin the week of Aug. 5 and to save about $2 billion annually, said Postmaster General and CEO Patrick R. Donahoe. “Our financial condition is urgent,” Donahoe told a press conference. The move accentuates one of the agency’s strong points – package delivery has incre...
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Hezbollah is behind an attack on a bus filled with Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year, investigators said Tuesday, describing a sophisticated bombing carried out by a terrorist cell that included Canadian and Australian citizens. In the first major announcement in the investigation into the July 18 bombing that killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian driver, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said one of the suspects entered the country with a Canadian passport, and another with one from Australia. “We have wel...
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — For the second time in less than two weeks, the Greek government invoked rarely used emergency laws to order strikers back to work Tuesday — in a move designed to end a seamen’s walkout that has left islands without ferry services and supplies for six days. The decision by conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to declare ferry crews under civil mobilization came after their unions voted to extend the strike until early Friday. Seamen who refuse to comply risk arrest and jail time of up to five years — althoug...
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The tenacious wolverine, a snow-loving carnivore sometimes called the “mountain devil,” could soon join the list of species threatened by climate change — a dubious distinction putting it in the ranks of the polar bear and several other animals the government says will lose crucial habitat as temperatures rise. Federal wildlife officials Friday proposed Endangered Species Act protections for the wolverine in the Lower 48 states. That’s a step twice denied under the Bush administration, then delayed in 2010 when the Obama...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Goodbye candy bars and sugary cookies. Hello baked chips and diet sodas. The government for the first time is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful, a change that would ban the sale of almost all candy, high-calorie sports drinks and greasy foods on campus. Under new rules the Department of Agriculture proposed Friday, school vending machines would start selling water, lower-calorie sports drinks, diet sodas and baked chips instead. Lunchrooms that now sell fatty “a la car...
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Landing in Nigeria’s largest city, one of the first thing visitors see as they peer out of their airplane’s windows is the moss-covered metal carcasses of what used to fly in Africa’s most populous nation. Workers at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos call it “the graveyard,” an overgrown field filled with about a dozen cargo and passenger airplanes long since abandoned and left to rot by insolvent airlines. At least 65 abandoned airplanes, ranging from small commuter jets to one massive Boeing 747, sit at air...
LONDON (AP) — A Pakistani girl whose defiance of the Taliban turned her into an international icon is headed toward a full recovery once she undergoes a final surgery to reconstruct her skull, doctors said Wednesday. Dr. Dave Rosser of Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital said that 15-year-old Malala Yousufzai needs the operation to replace the bone shattered when a Taliban gunman, angered at her objection to the group’s restrictions on girls’ education, sent a bullet through her skull. Rosser said that Malala had made a “remarkable recovery....
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — French-led forces have wrested control of three key cities in northern Mali from al-Qaida-linked militants, but the fighters have escaped with their weapons into a desert region the size of Texas and are poised to mount counterattacks. New military strategies will be needed to rout the jihadists from their desert hideouts. When the French leave their former colony, armed extremists are still likely to remain. No one has yet publicly announced a campaign to hunt them down in the Sahara and in Mali’s villages, where they are...
SANTA MARIA, Brazil (AP) — The owner of a nightclub in southern Brazil where more than 230 people died in a fire last weekend deflected blame to “the whole country,” as well as to architects and inspectors charged with making sure the building was safe, his lawyer said Wednesday. Attorney Jader Marques said his client, Elissandro Spohr, “regretted having ever been born” because of his grief over the fire, but still blamed Sunday’s tragedy on “a succession of errors made by the whole country.” Police investigating the blaze have said it likely...
NEW YORK (AP) — Passing another milestone on the nation’s long journey back from the Great Recession, the Standard and Poor’s 500 index closed above 1,500 for the first time in more than five years Friday after a wave of good earnings reports. It took scores of incremental gains, several stalled rallies and a few sickening falls, but the widely watched S&P, one of the broadest measures of the American stock market, finished at 1,502.96, up 8.14 points. The index had not closed above 1,500 since December 2007, the start of the worst econo...
A sheriff who released a radio ad urging Milwaukee-area residents to learn to handle firearms so they can defend themselves while waiting for police said Friday that law enforcement cutbacks have changed the way police can respond to crime. In the 30-second commercial, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. says personal safety is no longer a spectator sport. “I need you in the game,” he says. “With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option,” he adds. “You can beg for mercy from a violent...
From France’s Joan of Arc to female resistance fighters in World War II and the black-clad women warriors of the Viet Cong, history is filled with stories of women fighting alongside men. In many modern armies, however, ground infantry combat is still largely a male preserve — either by regulation, practical issues such as physical requirements of living space or personal preference in volunteer forces. But change is afoot. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where supply troops, clerks and military police have ended up in battle regardless of gen...
LONDON (AP) — The British government published a bill to legalize same-sex marriage Friday, and said lawmakers will get their first vote on it in Parliament next month. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill extends marriage to gay couples but excludes clergy in the Church of England — the country’s official faith — from having to carry out the ceremonies. That is intended to placate religious opponents of same-sex unions — though it has not stopped criticism of the bill from religious leaders. “We feel that marriage is a good thing and we shou...
NORFOLK (AP) — Some northeast Nebraska farmers are facing new irrigation rules. The rules were adopted Thursday night by the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District Board at its meeting in Norfolk. The district includes parts of Madison, Pierce and Wayne counties. The rules bar expansion of irrigation to new areas as well as bar offseason irrigation. There are irrigation educational requirements, and irrigators must install groundwater water monitors. Some of the irrigators will have annual limits on how much water they can pump. The board h...
ALLIANCE (AP) — A 40-year-old man accused of setting his western Nebraska home on fire has pleaded not guilty to an arson charge. Authorities say Isaac Gonzalez ignited a fire Dec. 13 in the basement of a house he rented in Alliance. Alliance officers pulled Gonzalez to safety through a window. He was hospitalized in Scottsbluff. After his release he surrendered to police on Jan. 8. He’s free on bond. The Class 3 charge carries a maximum prison term of 20 years. Gonzalez is due back in court on April 1. Damage of $100,000 to the house and its...
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — When fire ravaged a Bangladeshi garment factory, killing 112 workers, dozens of their families did not even have a body to bury because their loved ones’ remains were burned beyond recognition. Two months later, the same families have yet to receive any of the compensation they were promised — not even their relatives’ last paychecks. An official with the country’s powerful garment industry said DNA tests must first be conducted to confirm the losses of more than 50 families. He would not say why the families have not...
NEW YORK (AP) — Five years after the start of the Great Recession, the toll is terrifyingly clear: Millions of middle-class jobs have been lost in developed countries the world over. And the situation is even worse than it appears. Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market. What’s more, these jobs aren’t just being lost to China and other developing countries, and they aren’t just factory work. Increasingly, jobs are disappearing in the service sector, home to...
OMAHA (AP) — Berkshire Hathaway shareholders will now be able to work off all the See’s Candy and Dairy Queen treats they enjoy at the company’s annual meeting with a 5k run. Berkshire’s Brooks Running subsidiary announced plans for the fun run on Tuesday. The race will be held in Omaha on May 5 — one day after the annual meeting that routinely attracts more than 30,000 people. Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett says he is challenging the managers of all of the conglomerate’s 80-odd businesses to participate. The 82-year-old Buffett will fire the st...
LINCOLN (AP) — University of Nebraska students will pay more to live and eat on campus next school year if the Board of Regents approves a proposed increase Friday. Students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln would pay about $400 more under the proposal, the Lincoln Journal Star reported. The increase could add to another $600 in taxes if legislators were to approve Gov. Dave Heineman’s proposal to eliminate a sales tax exemption for college dorms as part of a state tax overhaul, Omaha Sen. Jeremy Nordquist said. The regents also will con...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lithium batteries that can leak corrosive fluid and start fires have emerged as the chief safety concern involving Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, a problem that apparently is far more serious than government or company officials acknowledged less than a week ago. The Federal Aviation Administration late Wednesday grounded Boeing’s newest and most technologically advanced jetliner until the risk of battery fires is resolved. The order applies only to the six Dreamliners operated by United Airlines, the lone U.S. carrier with 787s....
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. builders started work on homes in December at the fastest pace in 4 1⁄2 years and finished 2012 as their best year for residential construction since the early stages of the housing crisis. The Commerce Department said Thursday that builders broke ground on houses and apartments last month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 954,000. That’s 12.1 percent higher than November’s annual rate. And it is nearly double the recession low reached in April 2009. Construction increased last month for both single-family homes a...
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s ombudsman for children’s rights sought on Thursday to reassure American would-be adoptive parents that they will be allowed to take their children back to the United States. But some Americans with court rulings in their favor say they’re still in legal limbo. A Russian law banning adoptions by U.S. citizens was rushed through parliament in December, and sped to President Vladimir Putin’s desk in less than 10 days in retaliation over a U.S. law calling for sanctions on Russians identified as human-rights violators. Tens o...
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A Pennsylvania detective is trying to figure out how an apparent prankster was able to fill out a 2008 voter registration card signed “Barack H. Obama.” By the time Butler County elections officials processed the card, it went into the state’s computerized database with the last name “Obana” — that is, with an ‘n’ in place of the ‘m.’ But a detective tells The Associated Press that whoever did it was clearly trying to register using President Barack Obama’s name. The card was discovered last week when a jury commissioner in...
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Pauline Friedman Phillips, who under the name of Abigail Van Buren, wrote the long-running “Dear Abby” advice column that was followed by millions of newspaper readers throughout the world, has died. She was 94. Publicist Gene Willis of Universal Uclick said Phillips died Wednesday after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Phillips’ column competed for decades with the advice column of Ann Landers, written by her twin sister, Esther Friedman Lederer. Their relationship was stormy in their early adult years, but later they...
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — From Oregon to Mississippi, President Barack Obama’s proposed ban on new assault weapons and large-capacity magazines struck a nerve among rural lawmen and lawmakers, many of whom vowed to ignore any restrictions — and even try to stop federal officials from enforcing gun policy in their jurisdictions. “A lot of sheriffs are now standing up and saying, ‘Follow the Constitution,’” said Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilbertson, whose territory covers the timbered mountains of southwestern Oregon. But their actual powers to...
