The Husker basketball team secured its second Division I transfer for the 2012 recruiting class. 6’10” forward Walter Pitchford has committed to the Huskers after visiting over the weekend. Pitchford appeared in 13 games for Florida as a true freshman last season, but opted to transfer so that he could be closer to his sick grandfather in Michigan. The Grand Rapids native was a three-star prospect out of high school. His commitment is the fourth that new head coach Tim Miles has secured this summer, with one scholarship still remaining.
Month: June 2012
Nicasio Placed on Disabled List with Knee Injury
Before their victory on Sunday afternoon, the Colorado Rockies placed pitcher Juan Nicasio on the 15-day disabled list with a sprained left knee. Nicasio suffered the injury while trying to avoid a comebacker in the second inning of Saturday night’s game. The young right-hander is 2-3 with a 5.28 ERA this season. Guillermo Moscoso, who went 0-2 in a pair of starts with the Rockies earlier this season, was recalled from AAA Colorado Springs to replace Nicasio on the roster, and likely on the rotation.
NP Woman sentenced in Social Security Fraud case
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A North Platte woman will have to pay back almost $29,000 in Social Security benefits she took from her ward.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Omaha says 51-year-old Peggie Robinson was also sentenced Thursday to four years’ probation for the fraud.
The prosecutor says Robinson was appointed in 2006 by Scotts Bluff County Court to be the legal guardian of an incapacitated woman who lived in a Gothenburg nursing home. Robinson was to have set up a trust account to receive the woman’s Social Security benefits but instead deposited the money into her own bank account.
The prosecutor says Robinson passed those regular benefits onto the woman but used $29,000 in Social Security money that was awarded to the woman for a previous underpayment for her own expenses.
6 get charged in Federal Court over un-taxed cigarettes
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Six people face federal charges for allegedly smuggling cigarettes from Vietnam and unlawfully selling them in Nebraska.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Omaha says the group had more than 10,000 cigarettes shipped from Vietnam to Lincoln addresses in December and March. The prosecutor says the group sold the cigarettes, disguised as presents, and didn’t collect state or federal cigarette taxes.
An 18-count indictment against the suspects was announced Friday. The charges relate to the importation, possession, distribution and sale of untaxed cigarettes. Maximum sentences for each count range from five to 20 years.
U.S. Attorney Deb Gilg says the investigation into the smuggling ring is still under way.
Richard Dawson, host of “Family Feud” dead at 79
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Richard Dawson, the wisecracking British entertainer who was among the schemers in the 1960s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” and a decade later began kissing thousands of female contestants as host of the game show “Family Feud” has died. He was 79.
Dawson, also known to TV fans as the Cockney POW Cpl. Peter Newkirk on “Hogan’s Heroes,” died Saturday night from complications related to esophageal cancer at Ronald Reagan Memorial hospital, his son Gary said.
The game show, which initially ran from 1976 to 1985, pitted families who tried to guess the most popular answers to poll questions such as “What do people give up when they go on a diet?”
Dawson won a daytime Emmy Award in 1978 as best game show host. Tom Shales of The Washington Post called him “the fastest, brightest and most beguilingly caustic interlocutor since the late great Groucho bantered and parried on ‘You Be Your Life.'” The show was so popular it was released as both daytime and syndicated evening versions.
He was known for kissing each woman contestant, and at the time the show bowed out in 1985, executive producer Howard Felsher estimated that Dawson had kissed “somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000.”
“I kissed them for luck and love, that’s all,” Dawson said at the time.
He reprised his game show character in a much darker mood in the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film “The Running Man,” playing the host of a deadly TV show set in a totalitarian future, where convicts try to escape as their executioners stalk them. “Saturday Night Live” mocked him in the 1970s, with Bill Murray portraying him as leering and nasty, even slapping one contestant (John Belushi) for getting too fresh.
The British-born actor already had gained fame as the fast-talking Newkirk in “Hogan’s Heroes,” the CBS comedy about prisoners in a Nazi POW camp who hoodwink their captors and run the place themselves.
Despite its unlikely premise, the show made the ratings top 10 in its first season, 1965-66, and ran until 1971.
Both “Hogan’s Heroes” and “Family Feud” have had a second life in recent years, the former on DVD reissues and the latter on GSN, formerly known as the Game Show Network.
On Dawson’s last “Family Feud” in 1985, the studio audience honored him with a standing ovation, and he responded: “Please sit down. I have to do at least 30 minutes of fun and laughter and you make me want to cry.”
“I’ve had the most incredible luck in my career,” he told viewers.
“I never dreamed I would have a job in which so many people could touch me and I could touch them,” he said. That triggered an unexpected laugh.
Producers brought out “The New Family Feud,” starring comedian Ray Combs, in 1988. Six years later, Dawson replaced Combs at the helm, but that lasted only one season.
According to the Internet Movie Database, Dawson was born Colin Lionel Emm in 1932 in Gosport, England. His first wife was actress Diana Dors, the blond bombshell who was Britain’s answer to Marilyn Monroe.
Desperate Housewives actress Kathryn Joosten dead at 72
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kathryn Joosten, a veteran character actress who played the crotchety, nosey Karen McCluskey on ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” has died. She was 72.
Publicist Nadine Jolson said Joosten, who had battled lung cancer for years, died Saturday in Los Angeles.
A veteran Emmy-winning character actor, Joosten was lauded for her portrayal of Mrs. McCluskey, who kept a close eye on her Wisteria Lane neighbors. The hit show ended its run on ABC last month with a series finale in which Joosten’s character passed away.
Joosten also appeared on “The West Wing” as Mrs. Landingham, the president’s secretary.
Weekend Weather Update:
The week ahead…an upper level ridge of high pressure will form across Nebraska producing persistent south winds…above normal temperatures and a chance of thunderstorms…mainly late in the day across Western Nebraska.
Today: Mostly sunny, with a high near 92. South southwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming north northwest.
Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 61. North northeast wind between 10 and 13 mph becoming calm.
Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 90. Light wind becoming east southeast between 10 and 13 mph.
Native American Art Exhibit open at UNL
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — An exhibition of contemporary Native American art has opened at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Great Plains Art Museum.
The exhibit includes works from 26 artists chosen from submissions by nearly 130 artists. The artwork expresses some element indigenous culture in the Great Plains.
People who attend the exhibition may participate in the “Viewer’s Choice” awards. An awards ceremony is scheduled for July 6.
47 year old man killed in construction mishap at Offutt AFB
OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. (AP) — Authorities are investigating a fatal construction accident at Offutt Air Force Base south of Omaha.
A base spokesman told KETV-TV in Omaha that a 47-year-old man died in Thursday’s accident. He was working along the parade grounds on General’s Row at the time.
The man was a subcontractor for a project on the base. His name and details of the accident have not been released.
5 injured in horse racing accident
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Five people have been hurt in a freak accident during a horse race at a Lincoln track.
Pat Borer of the Lincoln fire department told local mediathat three horses fell during a race Saturday afternoon at the Lincoln Race Course and landed in a pile. Three jockeys and two people near the pileup were injured.
The three jockeys have been taken to hospitals. Borer says their injuries don’t appear to be life threatening. The other two people were treated at the track.