Founded in 2010
News & Entertainment for Mason City, Clear Lake & the Entire North Iowa Region
By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times – ATLANTA — Global oil giant BP has reached a proposed settlement with the more than 120,000 plaintiffs in the massive civil lawsuit arising from the 2010
By Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times – SAN FRANCISCO — Cities and medical marijuana providers, facing a series of conflicting rulings, are likely to remain in legal limbo until the California Supreme Court
By Hannan Adely and Juliet Fletcher, The Record (Hackensack N.J.) – TRENTON, N.J. — Two days before a planned summit with top state and federal law enforcement officials and Muslim leaders, New Jersey
By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers – WASHINGTON — A Pentagon investigation has found five soldiers responsible for burning copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, which set off a spate of
By Christi Parsons, Tribune Washington Bureau – WASHINGTON — President Obama’s goal in coming talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to persuade him that the United States “has Israel’s back” so
By Patrick J. McDonnell and Alexandra Sandels, Los Angeles Times – BEIRUT — Syrian authorities blocked an aid convoy from entering the former rebel enclave of Baba Amr in the city of Homs,
By Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — At least three people were killed Friday in southern Indiana when tornadoes plowed through the region, officials reported. The deaths were all in
By Richard Fausset and Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times – ATLANTA — Apparent tornadoes destroyed homes, damaged a prison and injured about 10 people in Alabama on Friday as the South and Midwest
By Kim Geiger and Michael A. Memoli, Tribune Washington Bureau – WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama weighed in Friday on a mounting controversy over radio provocateur Rush Limbaugh’s crude comments about Georgetown University
By Ryan Haggerty, Alissa Groeninger and Ted Gregory, Chicago Tribune HARRISBURG, Ill. — Nowhere in this town of about 9,000 felt the heartbreak of six lives lost in Wednesday’s tornado more deeply than
Dave DeWitte, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa – A large group of Johnson County businesses and property owners filed suit Thursday to block an incentive-laden deal by the City of Coralville to bring
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times – BEIRUT — Syrian forces overran a longtime rebel enclave in the battleground city of Homs, the government said Thursday, as the United Nations Security Council
Tim Engstrom, Albert Lea Tribune, Minn. – The House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday heard a presentation on why $7.5 million ought to be included in the state bonding bill
By Bill Estep and Jim Warren, McClatchy Newspapers – LEXINGTON, Ky. — A storm system that caused death and destruction in Illinois and Missouri also barreled into Kentucky on Wednesday, roaring through Henderson,
By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers – WASHINGTON — The head of the Air Force on Wednesday disputed a report that some unidentified remains from the Sept. 11, 2001, plane crash site in
By Don Lee, Tribune Washington Bureau – WASHINGTON — U.S. consumers and the economy started the year with more financial pep than previously thought, but Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke cautioned that
By Nicholas J.C. Pistor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch – HARRISBURG, Ill. — With the walls torn off three rooms by a powerful tornado Wednesday morning and the windows blown out of four others, the
By Kim Bell, St. Louis Post-Dispatch – HARRISBURG, Ill. — At least six people were killed and about 100 were injured after an apparent tornado early Wednesday ripped through the southern end of
By Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy Newspapers – WASHINGTON — North Korea will suspend long-range missile launches, nuclear weapons tests and activities at its key nuclear site, including the enrichment of uranium, as part
By Carol Rosenberg, McClatchy Newspapers – GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — The military unveiled a new $744,000 soccer field on Tuesday, a dusty enclosure with two-toned gravel and fences topped by barbed
By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — Work has ended on a futuristic airborne missile defense system built mostly in Southern California after more than 15 years of development and
By Monique O. Madan, McClatchy Newspapers – MIAMI — The Secret Service has revealed the name of the West Miami man who it says made threats against President Barack Obama last week while
By Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — Ohio school shooting suspect T.J. Lane randomly chose the targets of his shooting rampage at a suburban high school, fired 10 shots from a
By Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times – SAN TAN VALLEY, Ariz. — As he walked into the cafeteria of Walker Butte Elementary School to help recruit local citizens as law enforcement volunteers, the
By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times – BEIJING — Chinese state media reported that 12 people were killed in rioting Tuesday in the outskirts of Kashgar, the westernmost city in the country and
By Kathleen Hennessey, Tribune Washington Bureau – WASHINGTON — All eyes were on Michigan Tuesday — including President Barack Obama’s. As his potential GOP rivals scurried for support on primary day, Obama tried
By Stefan Korshak – KIEV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian court sentenced a key political ally of jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to four years in prison Monday, dealing another blow to
By Hannah Allam, McClatchy Newspapers – BEIRUT — Amid reports of fresh atrocities in the besieged city of Homs, the Syrian government said Monday that an overwhelming majority of voters — 89 percent
By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers – WASHINGTON — As violence continued Monday in Afghanistan over the accidental burning of Qurans by U.S. troops last week, American military officials and analysts are beginning
By Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — Chemotherapy patients have long complained of the mental fog that tends to accompany treatment, but a new study suggests that certain combinations of
By Dalina Castellanos, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — After being brought back from the brink of extinction, sea otters are again in peril, with an unprecedented number of deaths along the
By Juan O. Tamayo, McClatchy Newspapers – MIAMI — Police briefly arrested more than 100 Cuban dissidents over the weekend in a multipronged campaign to prevent public demonstrations marking the anniversaries of the
By Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times – MOSCOW — Security services of Russia and neighboring Ukraine foiled a plan to assassinate Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin organized by an underground movement in
By Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times – What began as a routine start of the school day, breakfast in the cafeteria and students shuffling to class, turned into a scene of chaos and
WASHINGTON, DC—In this week’s address, President Obama spoke to the American people about the importance of taking an all-of-the-above approach to addressing our nation’s energy challenges. With only 2% of the world’s
By David G. Savage, Tribune Washington Bureau – WASHINGTON — Two years ago, the Supreme Court said corporations were like people and had the same free-speech rights to spend unlimited sums on campaigns
By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times – A shooting occurred at a northeastern Ohio high school Monday morning, with at least one suspect reportedly still at large. A local sheriff’s deputy told the
By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times – LONDON — The European Union slapped new sanctions on Syria on Monday, trying to tighten an economic vise around the violent regime of President Bashar Assad.
Rick Smith, CR Gazette – CEDAR RAPIDS — The heart of the downtown has made significant strides as the four-year mark of the June 2008 flood approaches, downtown leaders say. Doug Neumann,
By John Glionna, Los Angeles Times – SEOUL, South Korea—North Korea’s newly installed leader Kim Jong Un threatened Sunday to launch a powerful retaliatory strike against South Korea if provoked. It was the