Obituaries

Looming across-the-board budget cuts present the U.S. military with the most significant readiness crisis in more than a decade and quick action is needed to avoid the spending reductions, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned during testimony today before the Senate Armed Services Committee.If the billions of dollars in cuts are allowed to stand, Panetta said, he would have to throw the country?s national ...

1st Fridays Art Walk board member and director of accounting at Hawthorne Direct, Novena Cole (right) hands Hawthorne Direct?s sponsorship check to Dania De Bortoli, art walk executive director. In back, from left, are 1st Fridays Art Walk board members Sheila Peck, DeeDee Banks, Tim Hawthorne and Hawthorne Direct employees Charles Brader and Lauren Schaeffer.

The following traffic tickets were processed by Jefferson County Clerk of Court.Stanley Willis Biddle of 803 S. 33rd St., failure to yield upon entering through highwayRachel Ann Wilson of 603½ S. Fifth St., speeding.Michel James Downing of Prairie City, speeding.Jesse Ray Holubeck of 57½ N. Court St., speeding.Satinderjit Singh Sandhu of Davis Calif., speeding.Heather Michelle Philips of Ottumwa, speeding....

Authorities in Illinois and Indiana searched today for a convicted murderer who was mistakenly released from custody in Chicago, with the two sides differing over whether a paperwork error could be to blame.Steven L. Robbins, 44, was released Wednesday evening from a jail in Chicago, where he had been taken to answer to drug and armed violence charges in Cook County Circuit Court.Those charges were dropped, and ...

Fairfield Police Department received a report at 7:25 a.m. Wednesday of a gas drive-off from 500 N. Second St. of 31.86 gallons of fuel valued at $114.66.Police received a report at 1:42 p.m. Thursday of vandalism/fifth degree theft in the 400 block of East Hempstead Avenue.

President Barack Obama is hoping for a close game in this year?s Super Bowl.White House spokesman Jay Carney says the president will watch Sunday?s game and expects it to be highly entertaining, even though his beloved Chicago Bears aren?t playing. Obama hasn?t said who he?s rooting for when the 49ers and the Ravens square off.Last year, when Obama was running for re-election, he didn?t pick sides, although he ...

A key Democratic senator says a deal on reforming immigration could stall over how to define border security and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a leader in bipartisan negotiations, says another major obstacle is reaching agreement on a guest worker program ? something business wants and organized labor has concerns about.Schumer and the other seven senators who ...

President Barack Obama will let his jobs council expire this week without renewing its charter, winding down one source of input from the business community even as unemployment remains stubbornly high.When Obama in January 2011 formed his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, unemployment was hovering above 9 percent.Two years later, more than 12 million people in the U.S. are out of work.The unemployment rate ...

People with severe food allergies have a new tool in their attempt to find menus that fit their diet: federal disabilities law.And that could leave schools, restaurants and anyplace else that serves food more vulnerable to legal challenges over food sensitivities.A settlement stemming from a lack of gluten-free foods available to students at a Massachusetts university could serve as a precedent for people with ...

Jefferson County Engineer Scott Cline said the county is still processing 23 claims submitted for windshields damaged while driving on Salina Road between early August after the first chip and seal to mid-October, after a second seal coat.?Those are claims submitted that someone hasn?t followed through with repairs or turned in a bill for repairs,? he told the Jefferson County Board of Supervisors Monday.At a ...