Founded in 2010
News & Entertainment for Mason City, Clear Lake & the Entire North Iowa Region
By Ali Safi, McClatchy Newspapers – KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban-led insurgents killed two New Zealand soldiers and four Afghan intelligence officers Saturday in an ambush in the central province of Bamiyan, local officials
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times – BEIRUT — Iran said Sunday that it was seeking the aid of Turkey and Qatar, nations with close ties to the Syrian opposition, in securing
By Dan Hinkel, Rosemary R. Sobol and John P. Huston, Chicago Tribune – OAK CREEK, Wis.—Members of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin were gathering for services Sunday morning when their peaceful world was
Rick Smith, CR Gazette – Westdale Mall’s future seems as murky and grim as ever. John Frew — the developer and project manager of the city’s high-profile convention complex and hotel projects
Martin Kuz, Stars and Stripes – HASAN, Afghanistan — The suspect thwarted his Afghan and U.S. interrogators with vague replies for a half-hour, his voice soft and melodic, his brown eyes wide
Diane Heldt, CR Gazette – Sixteen-year-old D.J. Meyer plays quarterback on his high school football team, point guard for the basketball team, serves on the student council and had a role in
Los Angeles Times – ALEPPO, Syria — The car slams to a halt in front of the rebel field hospital on Shariyeh Street in the Salahuddin neighborhood, and a young man, his
By Rex Crum, MarketWatch – SAN FRANCISCO — Fighting for control of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, intensified Saturday as rebels and government forces reportedly battled for control of state-run television and radio
RAMALLAH, Palestine — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is to renew the call for recognition as a non-member state at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 27, Foreign Minister
By Alex Rodriguez and Hashmat Baktash, Los Angeles Times – KABUL — Parliament on Saturday ordered Afghan President Hamid Karzai to replace the country’s defense and interior ministers, dealing his administration a
By Kevin Spear, The Orlando Sentinel – ORLANDO, Fla. — Bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico washed up dead along the shores of four states early last year in one of
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times – BEIRUT — Gunmen kidnapped dozens of Iranian pilgrims on a trip to strife-torn Syria on Saturday, the latest in a series of abductions that
By Kim Hone-McMahan, Akron Beacon Journal – AKRON, Ohio — Baby boomers came of age when muscle cars and in-your-face styling were cool. Manufacturers now sell copycat machines that allow boomers to recapture
By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — Israeli and U.S. politicians lately have been bandying about the prospect of an airstrike on Iranian nuclear facilities, stirring fear that another
By Cassandra Spratling, Detroit Free Press – DETROIT — In one day, 9-year-old Joshua Smith of Detroit became something of a news media and civic darling. Joshua has set up a lemonade stand
By Marc Caputo, McClatchy Newspapers – MIAMI — For an elderly political junkie who needs money on the side, it’s the perfect job with an exotic-sounding name: Boletero. It literally means “balloteer,” but
The Justice Department announced today that it reached an out-of-court agreement with the Escambia County School District in Alabama to end the use of race-based selection criteria for homecoming courts and other
By Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times – MOSCOW — Amid the continued uprising in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry on Friday issued somewhat contradictory statements about a group of its naval warships
By Anne Danahy, McClatchy Newspapers – STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Saying the NCAA has handled the Penn State sanctions in “a fundamentally inappropriate” way, the Paterno family plans to appeal the penalties against
By Paul Richter, Tribune Washington Bureau – WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday warned China against further moves to tighten control over a disputed section of the South China Sea, as tensions
By Hannah Allam And Austin Tice, McClatchy Newspapers – WASHINGTON — Syrian insurgents fighting to unseat President Bashar Assad face a growing list of accusations that they’ve carried out executions and torture, muddying
Diane Heldt, CR Gazette – UPDATE: Protesters outside the state Board of Regents meeting Friday held signs calling for the firing of Regent Bruce Rastetter, and later came into the meeting and
KANSAS CITY, MO—A Roman Catholic priest in Missouri pleaded guilty in federal court today to producing child pornography, announced David M. Ketchmark, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. “Today’s
By Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — The coasts are for dining, but America’s heartland is all about drinking. The metropolitan areas with the deepest concentration of restaurants are
MCT FORUM, By Darryl Lorenzo Wellington – On the 67th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we need to call an end to the nuclear experiment. At 8:15 a.m. on
By Alan Boswell, McClatchy Newspapers – NAIROBI, Kenya — On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will become the most senior U.S. official to visit South Sudan since its birth last summer, a
Diane Heldt, CR Gazette – The Federal Emergency Management Agency has officially sided with the University of Iowa in a federal dispute about funding for some flood replacement projects at the university.
By Sinikka Tarvainen – MADRID — Spanish police have detained three al-Qaida suspects who allegedly were planning to use explosives to stage an attack in Spain or elsewhere in Europe, Interior Minister
By David Pierson, Los Angeles Times – BEIJING — China’s army of builders can seemingly raise buildings and cities overnight. But deadly rains in the nation’s capital have revived questions about how much
By Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — The Federal Aviation Administration has launched an investigation into how three jets barely avoided a midair collision over Washington’s Reagan National Airport earlier
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times – BEIRUT — Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary-general who has been the point man for a failing international peace plan for strife-torn Syria, is
By Patrick J. McDonnell and Alexandra Sandels, Los Angeles Times – BEIRUT — Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday exhorted his military to maintain “continued preparedness,” as human rights groups condemned an apparent
By Rosie Mestel and Eryn Brown, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — When cancers are treated, tumors may shrink but then come roaring back. Now studies on three different types of tumors
By Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — The Earth’s ability to soak up man-made carbon dioxide emissions is a crucial yet poorly understood process with profound implications for climate change.
By Patrick May, San Jose Mercury News – WASHINGTON — In an effort to bring outdated 20th-century federal rules protecting children’s online privacy into the smartphone era, the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday
By Hannah Allam, McClatchy Newspapers – WASHINGTON — The Obama administration quietly has cleared the way for U.S. residents to buy weapons for the rebels who are fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar
By Lisa Mascaro, Tribune Washington Bureau – WASHINGTON — House Republicans voted to keep tax rates at their current level through next year, using one of their last votes before recessing for
By Jamie Goldberg, Tribune Washington Bureau – WASHINGTON — The Transportation Security Administration suffers from an image problem, and recent criminal and negligent behavior by airport screeners has made matters worse. Rep.
By Jon Bardin, Los Angeles Times – Of all the obstacles athletes have had to overcome to compete in the Olympics, perhaps the most controversial has been the gender test. Originally designed
Gregg Hennigan, CR Gazette – IOWA CITY – The City Council Tuesday night gave its approval for an ordinance allowing urban chickens to be drawn up. The council’s unanimous consent, at a