OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The head of a Nebraska company that designs scarves with a hidden pocket says consumers shopping online have to beware of counterfeit products.
Angela Lee Diaz, the founder of Sholdit, says other companies have been copying her patented scarf designs and selling them online. Sometimes the counterfeiters even steal pictures and other material directly from the Omaha-based company’s website and use it on their own.
Lee Diaz says consumers should examine the details of product listings online for clues that they are authentic like trademarks and patents.
Sticking to trusted websites can help, but consumers still have to be wary of offers that seem too good to be true.
HOLDREGE, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended the law license of a Holdrege attorney.
The Nebraska Counsel for Discipline says Kent Person repeatedly brushed off requests by a probate court and his client to administer an estate and made false statements about having taken action on the estate. His neglect of the case caused more than $1.1 million in federal, state and local penalties to accumulate. A second attorney had to be appointed by a probate court to administer the estate.
Person replied to the complaint by noting he was suffering from depression and was overwhelmed in his practice.
Under the high court’s decision Friday, Person can file for reinstatement after two years if he’s fully paid back the penalties and fees. He would be required to serve two years’ probation if he is reinstated.
This morning, listeners to ESPN 1410 and 98.1 FM were treated to a wonderful holiday treat! Reindeer Radio 1410 and 98.1 is playing Christmas music 24 hours a day through the holidays. Management of the radio station is tight lipped on what will happen on December 26th but they are assuring listeners and clients that local sports, Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Royals will still be a big part of what goes on the air.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Understaffing and other preventable issues left a Nebraska prison primed for a rebellion ahead of a 2015 riot that led to the death of two inmates and millions of dollars in damage, according to a previously unreleased report.
The existence of the report came to light this week during a trial for a former inmate’s lawsuit against the state over the riot at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution three years ago. John Wizinsky sued the state for trauma upon his release in 2016, alleging that prison guards were negligent in failing to protect inmates during the riot. Wizinsky testified that inmates were abandoned to fend for themselves while prisoners took over a housing unit, started fires and attacked other inmates.
The trial came to a halt Wednesday when a judge recused himself and declared a mistrial. But testimony earlier this week from a former Tecumseh warden revealed that there were two reports about the riot, though attorneys only knew of one.
The testimony led attorneys representing the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services to produce the previously unreleased report, according to Joy Shiffermiller, Wizinsky’s attorney.
The newly released report, which was written in 2015, was more critical of the department than the study that was released to the public.
The department declined to comment on why the report wasn’t released.
On the day of the riot, the Tecumseh prison was understaffed by four people and four program areas were closed, according to the report written by Dan Pacholke of the Washington State Department of Corrections and Bert Useem of Purdue University, an expert on prison riots.
The other study had said that the riot occurred as “a matter of chance.” But Pacholke and Useem’s report pointed to several conditions in the prison that should have been addressed and corrected.
Beyond understaffing, Pacholke and Useem cited pre-riot conditions such as housing protective custody inmates next to maximum-security inmates, subpar management of gangs and inmate unrest over perceived tightening of rules.
“The prison was under stress; inmates were unsettled; the ‘barometric pressure’ was high and rising,” the report said. “When the initial resistance took place, this stress permitted small acts of resistance to expand rapidly.”
According to state records, Pacholke and Useem’s report cost the department about $20,000, but there’s no mention of the report in any press releases about the riot.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha released a list Friday of 38 priests and other clergy members who have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct, a move prompted by a request from the state’s top prosecutor.
The archdiocese said 24 of the priests were under its control when the allegations surfaced but that all of the men have since died or been removed from the clergy. At least two men on the list where convicted and served prison sentences for molesting children.
The archdiocese said the allegations date back to 1956, but no cases were reported before 1978. Reports on 10 other visiting priests and four deacons were also submitted.
“We acknowledge this report with sorrow, and know that it will cause a great deal of pain,” Omaha Archbishop George Lucas said in a written statement. “We’re deeply saddened so many innocent minors and young adults were harmed by the church’s ministers. To victims and their families, I am sorry for the pain, betrayal and suffering you have experienced in the church.”
The Nebraska Attorney General’s Office requested the reports in August, shortly after a Pennsylvania grand jury report estimated that hundreds of priests in Pennsylvania molested more than 1,000 children since the 1940s and that senior church officials covered up the abuse.
A spokeswoman for Nebraska’s attorney general did not immediately answer questions from The Associated Press on Friday about whether it had seen the Omaha archdiocese’s list or whether it had received similar requested reports from the state’s other two Catholic dioceses.
Lucas said no one currently serving in the archdiocese’s ministry has been the subject of a substantiated allegation of sexual abuse against a young person. The archdiocese has 132 active priests and 215 active deacons.
He acknowledged failures by church leaders and promised transparency moving forward.
“When we see these numbers that go back many decades, we can see that there was a pattern of failure — both on the part of those who misused their office to abuse minors and vulnerable adults, and on the part of those who refused to listen to victims in a compassionate, just and forthright way,” the archbishop said.
Of the 38 clergy names submitted, the archdiocese said 34 had offended before 2002, when the U.S. Conference of Bishops created a charter requiring U.S. dioceses to protect children from abuse.
The list of credibly accused clergy, which is available at report.archomaha.org , includes John Fiala, who left the Omaha Archdiocese in 1996. He died last year in a Texas prison after being convicted of sexually abusing a teenage boy and of trying to hire a hit man to kill the victim. Fiala was ordained by the Omaha archdiocese in 1984. The archdiocese paid an undisclosed settlement to the victim in 2011.
The list also includes defrocked Omaha priest Daniel Herek, who was sentenced to prison in 1999 for sexually assaulting and videotaping a 14-year-old boy. He also served jail time several years later for exposing himself in an Omaha parking lot.
The list will be updated if the archdiocese receives additional substantiated allegations and after the archdiocese conducts a forensic audit of its historic clergy files, according to the archdiocese.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Officials at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium say an impala has died after briefly becoming entangled in fencing.
The Omaha World-Herald reports that the incident happened Nov. 21, when a 7-year-old male impala jumped over electrified and non-electrified cables at the edge of the exhibit. Zoo officials say the animal became caught between the cables and a chain-link fence for 18 seconds before it broke free.
It rejoined its herd for about 30 minutes before it collapsed. Zookeepers found the animal unconscious but still alive. It died before it could reach the zoo’s hospital.
The zoo is still trying to determine the cause of death.
George H.W. Bush (Wikimedia Creative Commons)HOUSTON (AP) — George H.W. Bush, a patrician New Englander whose presidency soared with the coalition victory over Iraq in Kuwait, but then plummeted in the throes of a weak economy that led voters to turn him out of office after a single term, has died. He was 94.
The World War II hero, who also presided during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the final months of the Cold War, died late Friday night at his Houston home, said family spokesman Jim McGrath. His wife of more than 70 years, Barbara Bush, died in April 2018.
The son of a senator and father of a president, Bush was the man with the golden resume who rose through the political ranks: from congressman to U.N. ambassador, Republican Party chairman to envoy to China, CIA director to two-term vice president under the hugely popular Ronald Reagan. The 1991 Gulf War stoked his popularity. But Bush would acknowledge that he had trouble articulating “the vision thing,” and he was haunted by his decision to break a stern, solemn vow he made to voters: “Read my lips. No new taxes.”
He lost his bid for re-election to Bill Clinton in a campaign in which businessman H. Ross Perot took almost 19 percent of the vote as an independent candidate. Still, he lived to see his son, George W., twice elected to the presidency — only the second father-and-son chief executives, following John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
The 43rd president issued a statement Friday following his father’s death, saying the elder Bush “was a man of the highest character.”
“The entire Bush family is deeply grateful for 41’s life and love, for the compassion of those who have cared and prayed for Dad,” the statement read.
After his 1992 defeat, George H.W. Bush complained that media-created “myths” gave voters a mistaken impression that he did not identify with the lives of ordinary Americans. He decided he lost because he “just wasn’t a good enough communicator.”
Once out of office, Bush was content to remain on the sidelines, except for an occasional speech or paid appearance and visits abroad. He backed Clinton on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which had its genesis during his own presidency. He visited the Middle East, where he was revered for his defense of Kuwait. And he returned to China, where he was welcomed as “an old friend” from his days as the U.S. ambassador there.
He later teamed with Clinton to raise tens of millions of dollars for victims of a 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean and Hurricane Katrina, which swamped New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005. During their wide-ranging travels, the political odd couple grew close.
“Who would have thought that I would be working with Bill Clinton, of all people?” Bush quipped in October 2005.
In his post-presidency, Bush’s popularity rebounded with the growth of his reputation as a fundamentally decent and well-meaning leader who, although he was not a stirring orator or a dreamy visionary, was a steadfast humanitarian. Elected officials and celebrities of both parties publicly expressed their fondness.
After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Bush quickly began building an international military coalition that included other Arab states. After liberating Kuwait, he rejected suggestions that the U.S. carry the offensive to Baghdad, choosing to end the hostilities a mere 100 hours after the start of the ground war.
“That wasn’t our objective,” he told The Associated Press in 2011 from his office just a few blocks from his Houston home. “The good thing about it is there was so much less loss of human life than had been predicted and indeed than we might have feared.”
But the decisive military defeat did not lead to the regime’s downfall, as many in the administration had hoped.
“I miscalculated,” acknowledged Bush. His legacy was dogged for years by doubts about the decision not to remove Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi leader was eventually ousted in 2003, in the war led by Bush’s son that was followed by a long, bloody insurgency.
George H.W. Bush entered the White House in 1989 with a reputation as a man of indecision and indeterminate views. One newsmagazine suggested he was a “wimp.”
But his work-hard, play-hard approach to the presidency won broad public approval. He held more news conferences in most months than Reagan did in most years.
The Iraq crisis of 1990-91 brought out all the skills Bush had honed in a quarter-century of politics and public service.
After winning United Nations support and a green light from a reluctant Congress, Bush unleashed a punishing air war against Iraq and a five-day ground juggernaut that sent Iraqi forces reeling in disarray back to Baghdad. He basked in the biggest outpouring of patriotism and pride in America’s military since World War II, and his approval ratings soared to nearly 90 percent.
The other battles he fought as president, including a war on drugs and a crusade to make American children the best educated in the world, were not so decisively won.
He rode into office pledging to make the United States a “kinder, gentler” nation and calling on Americans to volunteer their time for good causes — an effort he said would create “a thousand points of light.”
It was Bush’s violation of a different pledge, the no-new-taxes promise, that helped sink his bid for a second term. He abandoned the idea in his second year, cutting a deficit-reduction deal that angered many congressional Republicans and contributed to GOP losses in the 1990 midterm elections.
An avid outdoorsman who took Theodore Roosevelt as a model, Bush sought to safeguard the environment and signed the first improvements to the Clean Air Act in more than a decade. It was activism with a Republican cast, allowing polluters to buy others’ clean-air credits and giving industry flexibility on how to meet tougher goals on smog.
He also signed the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act to ban workplace discrimination against people with disabilities and require improved access to public places and transportation.
Bush failed to rein in the deficit, which had tripled to $3 trillion under Reagan and galloped ahead by as much as $300 billion a year under Bush, who put his finger on it in his inauguration speech: “We have more will than wallet.”
Seven years of economic growth ended in mid-1990, just as the Gulf crisis began to unfold. Bush insisted the recession would be “short and shallow,” and lawmakers did not even try to pass a jobs bill or other relief measures.
Bush’s true interests lay elsewhere, outside the realm of nettlesome domestic politics. “I love coping with the problems in foreign affairs,” he told a child who asked what he liked best about being president.
He operated at times like a one-man State Department, on the phone at dawn with his peers — Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, Francois Mitterrand of France, Germany’s Helmut Kohl.
Communism began to crumble on his watch, with the Berlin Wall coming down, the Warsaw Pact disintegrating and the Soviet satellites falling out of orbit.
He seized leadership of the NATO alliance with a bold and ultimately successful proposal for deep troop and tank cuts in Europe. Huge crowds cheered him on a triumphal tour through Poland and Hungary.
Bush’s invasion of Panama in December 1989 was a military precursor of the Gulf War: a quick operation with a resoundingly superior American force. But in Panama, the troops seized dictator Manuel Noriega and brought him back to the United States in chains to stand trial on drug-trafficking charges.
Months after the Gulf War, Washington became engrossed in a different sort of confrontation over one of Bush’s nominees to the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas, a little-known federal appeals court judge, was accused of sexual harassment by a former colleague named Anita Hill. His confirmation hearings exploded into a national spectacle, sparking an intense debate over race, gender and the modern workplace. Thomas was eventually confirmed.
In the closing days of the 1992 campaign, Bush fought the impression that he was distant and disconnected, and he seemed to struggle against the younger, more empathetic Clinton.
During a campaign visit to a grocers’ convention, Bush reportedly expressed amazement when shown an electronic checkout scanner. Critics seized on the moment, saying it indicated that the president had become disconnected from voters.
Later at a town-hall style debate, he paused to look at his wristwatch — a seemingly innocent glance that became freighted with deeper meaning because it seemed to reinforce the idea of a bored, impatient incumbent.
In the same debate, Bush became confused by a woman’s question about whether the deficit had affected him personally. Clinton, with apparent ease, left his seat, walked to the edge of the stage to address the woman and offered a sympathetic answer.
Bush said the pain of losing in 1992 was eased by the warm reception he received after leaving office.
“I lost in ’92 because people still thought the economy was in the tank, that I was out of touch and I didn’t understand that,” he said in an AP interview shortly before the dedication of his presidential library in 1997. “The economy wasn’t in the tank, and I wasn’t out of touch, but I lost. I couldn’t get through this hue and cry for ‘change, change, change’ and ‘The economy is horrible, still in recession.’
George Herbert Walker Bush was born June 12, 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts, into the New England elite, a world of prep schools, mansions and servants seemingly untouched by the Great Depression.
His father, Prescott Bush, the son of an Ohio steel magnate, made his fortune as an investment banker and later served 10 years as a senator from Connecticut.
George H.W. Bush enlisted in the Navy on his 18th birthday in 1942, right out of prep school. He returned home to marry his 19-year-old sweetheart, Barbara Pierce, daughter of the publisher of McCall’s magazine, in January 1945. They were the longest-married presidential couple in U.S. history. She died on April 17, 2018.
Lean and athletic at 6-foot-2, Bush became a war hero while still a teenager. One of the youngest pilots in the Navy, he flew 58 missions off the carrier USS San Jacinto.
He had to ditch one plane in the Pacific and was shot down on Sept. 2, 1944, while completing a bombing run against a Japanese radio tower. An American submarine rescued Bush. His two crewmates perished. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery.
After the war, Bush took just 2½ years to graduate from Yale, then headed west in 1948 to the oil fields of West Texas. Bush and partners helped found Zapata Petroleum Corp. in 1953. Six years later, he moved to Houston and became active in the Republican Party.
In politics, he showed the same commitment he displayed in business, advancing his career through loyalty and subservience.
He was first elected to Congress in 1966 and served two terms. President Richard Nixon appointed him ambassador to the United Nations, and after the 1972 election, named him chairman of the Republican National Committee. Bush struggled to hold the party together as Watergate destroyed the Nixon presidency, then became ambassador to China and CIA chief in the Ford administration.
Bush made his first bid for president in 1980 and won the Iowa caucuses, but Reagan went on to win the nomination.
In the 1988 presidential race, Bush trailed the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, by as many as 17 points that summer. He did little to help himself by picking Dan Quayle, a lightly regarded junior senator from Indiana, as a running mate.
But Bush soon became an aggressor, stressing patriotic themes and flailing Dukakis as an out-of-touch liberal. He carried 40 states, becoming the first sitting vice president to be elected president since Martin Van Buren in 1836.
He took office with the humility that was his hallmark.
“Some see leadership as high drama, and the sound of trumpets calling, and sometimes it is that,” he said at his inauguration. “But I see history as a book with many pages, and each day we fill a page with acts of hopefulness and meaning. The new breeze blows, a page turns, the story unfolds.”
Bush approached old age with gusto, celebrating his 75th and 80th birthdays by skydiving over College Station, Texas, the home of his presidential library. He did it again on his 85th birthday in 2009, parachuting near his oceanfront home in Kennebunkport, Maine. He used his presidential library at Texas A&M University as a base for keeping active in civic life.
He became the patriarch of one of the nation’s most prominent political families. In addition to George W. becoming president, another son, Jeb, was elected Florida governor in 1998 and made an unsuccessful run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.
The other Bush children are sons Neil and Marvin and daughter Dorothy Bush LeBlond. Another daughter, Robin, died of leukemia in 1953, a few weeks before her fourth birthday.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Meteorologists say heavy snowfall atop icy roadways and blowing snow could make travel exceptionally hazardous over the weekend in northern Nebraska and much of northern Iowa.
The National Weather Service said Friday in winter storm warnings that up to 16 inches of snow could be dumped in northern Nebraska with lesser amounts to the south, where higher temperatures are expected as the wintry storm passes to the east.
The Iowa warnings say as much as 7 inches is expected in Sioux City, with lesser amounts to the east and south. Rain, freezing drizzle or sleet is expected to precede any snow.
Wind gusts of up to 40 mph are forecast in parts of both states.
The Kearney Police Department would like to announce arrests in 2 recent shooting cases.
On November 18th, 2018, KPD officers responded to a call of shots fired at 1601 W. 39th Street. It was determined that a 21-year-old Kearney Resident had sustained a gunshot wound to the arm. The male subject was treated and released from CHI Good Samaritan Hospital the same day.
A 16-year-old male has been arrested and charged with Accessory to a felony for being the driver of the vehicle that 3 shots were fired from. There were 2 passengers in the vehicle, an 18-year-old male, who was not charged with a crime, and a 14-year-old male who has been identified as the shooter.
The 14-year-old male has been arrested and charged with 2nd-degree assault, use of a weapon to commit a felony, and discharge of a firearm in the city limits. The 14-year-old male is being held at the Juvenile Detention Facility in Madison, NE.
The investigation of this incident is still ongoing.
A second shooting was reported at 2919 5th Ave. on November 22, 2018. A 26-year-old Kearney resident suffered 4 pellet gun wounds to his hand, upper arm, and back. He was treated at CHI Good Samaritan hospital and released the same day.
A 15-year-old male has been arrested in this case and has been charged with 2nd-degree assault, use of a weapon to commit a felony and discharging a BB gun in the city limits. He is being held at the juvenile detention facility in Madison, NE.
In addition, an 18-year-old male was arrested and charged with 3rd-degree assault. He was issued a citation and released.
It is believed that these 2 shootings are related and stem from an incident involving drugs.
COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska’s largest utility is encouraging homeowners to use LED Christmas lights this year because they will use less energy.
