Founded in 2010
News & Entertainment for Mason City, Clear Lake & the Entire North Iowa Region
By Michael Gordon, The Charlotte Observer – SPINDALE, N.C. — A 22-year-old man has accused his former Rutherford County church of holding him for four months against his will while he was
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – BROOKFIELD, Wis. — Three women were killed and four were wounded in a shooting rampage Sunday morning at a spa in Brookfield, a suburb of Milwaukee. Radcliffe F.
Susan Feyder, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) – The competition between discount behemoths Wal-Mart and Target is about to escalate in the south metro area with this month’s opening of Wal-Mart stores in Lakeville and
By Juan O. Tamayo, The Miami Herald – MIAMI — Fidel Castro, the former ruler of Cuba, appeared at Havana’s Hotel Nacional and met with Venezuela’s former vice president, according to reports Sunday,
By Paul Richter and Christi Parsons, Tribune Washington Bureau – WASHINGTON — Iran is preparing for a new round of negotiations about its disputed nuclear program after the U.S. presidential election determines whether
By Roy Gutman, McClatchy Newspapers – VATICAN CITY — Tens of thousands of pilgrims, including Native Americans in tribal regalia, Hawaiians with leis and Bavarians in lederhosen, packed St. Peter’s Square on Sunday
By Patrick J. O’Donnell, Los Angeles Times – BEIRUT—A car bomb exploded Sunday at one of the entrances to Damascus’ Old City, killing 13 people and injuring 29, as an international peace envoy
By Raja Abdulrahim, Los Angeles Times – BEIRUT — More than 70 bodies have been discovered in an eastern Syrian city, in what opposition activists say was a massacre committed by government forces
By Nehal El-Sherif – TRIPOLI, Libya — A son of toppled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has been killed in fighting between militias, broadcaster Libya TV reported Saturday, the anniversary of the dictator’s
By Cindy Chang, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — Gang violence in Central America has led to a startling increase in the number of children who make the dangerous journey across the
By Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers – WASHINGTON — When President Barack Obama and GOP rival Mitt Romney square off Monday for a foreign policy debate, the question of whether sanctions on Iran
By Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times – JERUSALEM — Israeli navy commandos Saturday intercepted a ship carrying about 30 pro-Palestinian activists as it tried to break through a maritime blockade of the impoverished
By Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — The question of whether or not global warming influences the strength or frequency of hurricanes is a matter of heated scientific debate. Though
By Todd C. Frankel, St. Louis Post-Dispatch – ST. LOUIS — Tina Meier woke up at 6:45 a.m. Wednesday, the memory of what happened six years ago never far from her mind.
By Yvonne Wenger and Scott Dance, The Baltimore Sun – BALTIMORE — Singer Art Garfunkel, a real estate magnate and an investor are putting $2 million in gold bullion on the line
By Carol M. Ostrom, The Seattle Times – SEATTLE — The most common method of extracting cells from unrelated donors for patients needing bone-marrow transplants should change in light of new research revealing
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times – BEIRUT — Lebanon’s military was out in force Saturday as authorities struggled to maintain order amid outrage about a deadly bombing here that many Lebanese
By Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times – WASHINGTON — A New York grave site, a Kansas battlefield, the Ohio home of an Alcoholics Anonymous founder and Los Angeles’ downtown federal courthouse are among
By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times – LAS VEGAS — Researchers in Grand Canyon National Park have discovered a prehistoric-looking sucker fish once thought to be extinct from the area. The fish,
By Ken Dilanian and Shashank Bengali, Tribune Washington Bureau – WASHINGTON — The assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi last month appears to have been an opportunistic attack rather than
By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times – LONDON — Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenage education-rights campaigner who was shot in the head by the Taliban, has been able to stand for the first
By Richard A. Serrano, Tribune Washington Bureau – FORT MEADE, Md. — Top officials in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, including the two presidents themselves, repeatedly pronounced a group of alleged
By Hannah Allam, McClatchy Newspapers – WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday threw its support behind a U.N.-led proposal for a brief cease-fire in Syria during a Muslim holiday next week, the
By Carol Rosenberg, The Miami Herald – GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — All five alleged 9/11 plotters skipped Friday’s legal arguments framing their eventual death-penalty tribunal. While they were gone, lawyers
By Jon Hilkevitch, Chicago Tribune – ABOARD AMTRAK TEST TRAIN — The fierce, unresolved debate over whether the U.S. can afford to invest billions of dollars on high-speed passenger rail seemed to
By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES—With the toll from the fungal meningitis outbreak up to 21 dead and 247 sickened, and as the compounding facility responsible for fungus-tainted drugs
By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Newspapers – WASHINGTON — The publication Thursday of 20 years worth of secret records kept by the Boy Scouts of America reveal a widespread effort by the organization to
By Roy Gutman, McClatchy Newspapers – ROME — The seventh-grader whose recovery from a deadly bacterial infection was deemed a miracle by the Roman Catholic Church, cementing the decision to name the first
By Jason Felch and Kim Christensen, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — More than 1,200 files on suspected sexual molesters in the Boy Scouts of America were made public Thursday, lifting the
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times – KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that Afghan security forces were ready to protect the country if the U.S.-led NATO force speeds up its
Steve Woodhouse, The Knoxville Journal-Express, Iowa – Knoxville — The main courtroom in the Marion County Courthouse was filled with hugs and praise moments after former Pella Pastor Patrick Edouard was sentenced
DENVER—United States Attorney John Walsh announced today that Assistant United States Attorney Thomas O’Rourke will lead the efforts of the Colorado U.S. Attorney’s Office in connection with the Justice Department’s nationwide Election
Vanessa Miller, CR Gazette – The driver of a car that hit and killed 13-year-old Ian McFate during cross-country practice in Tama on Oct. 1 glanced down momentarily before looking up to
By Michael Vasquez, The Miami Herald – MIAMI—Sunset Lakes Elementary School in Miramar is not your typical school — opened 10 years ago with a “U.S. History” theme, just about every hallway is
Drought conditions are straining Minnesota’s water resources. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is urging everyone to adopt water conservation measures. “Water is essential to our economy, our natural resources, and
By Richard A. Serrano, Tribune Washington Bureau – FORT MEADE, Md. — Government prosecutors in the Sept. 11 conspiracy case broadened their request for secrecy Thursday by asking for more restrictions against
By Kim Murphy and Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times – SEATTLE — After finding a “small anomaly,” TransCanada Corp. said Thursday that it has shut down its Keystone pipeline, which has become a
By Amy Pavuk, Arelis R. Hernandez and Bianca Prieto, Orlando Sentinel – CASSELBERRY, Fla. — Bradford Baumet stormed into a salon in the Central Florida town of Casselberry on Thursday, shot his estranged
By Amy Pavuk and Jeff Weiner, Orlando Sentinel – ORLANDO, Fla. — Four women at a central Florida hair salon were shot Thursday — three of them fatally — before the shooter
By William Murphy and Sarah Crighton, Newsday – NEW YORK_A Bangladeshi man who came to the United States to wage jihad was arrested in an elaborate FBI sting on Wednesday after attempting