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NFL Playoffs Colts win as post-season games are pretty much set
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Page B1 MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2013
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Terror hits Russia
GOOD MORNING Illinois woman missing in Indiana floodwaters MONTGOMERY (AP) — Indiana conservation officers are searching for an Illinois woman who vanished after the vehicle her husband was driving was swept away by floodwaters. Thirty-one-year-old Kathryn McGill of Des Plaines, Ill., went missing Sunday morning after floodwaters swept her husband’s vehicle off of Indiana 257 near southern Indiana’s Pike County and Daviess County line. That area is near the East Fork of the White River. Waterfowl hunters who saw the vehicle swept away raced their boat to the area and rescued 35-year-old Adam McGill after hearing his screams for help. But they couldn’t find his wife. Adam McGill was taken to an Evansville hospital for treatment of hypothermia. Conservation officers planned to search until nightfall Sunday for Kathryn McGill and resume their search for her today.
State trooper found dead died from heart attack TERRE HAUTE (AP) — An autopsy has determined that an Indiana State Trooper found dead in his home only weeks before his scheduled retirement had succumbed to a heart attack. A friend found Corporal Michael J. Capicik unresponsive in the bathroom of his Terre Haute home Friday afternoon and he was pronounced deceased at the scene. State Police said an autopsy had been scheduled to be performed Tuesday, but it was completed Saturday at Terre Haute Regional Hospital. The Tribune-Star reports that Vigo County Coroner Dr. Susan Amos determined that the 52-year-old Capicik had died from a heart attack. The manner of his death was listed as natural causes. Capicik had been scheduled to retire in mid-January after 28 years of service with State Police.
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Index • Classified.....................................................B7 Life.................................................................A5 Obituaries.....................................................A4 Opinion ........................................................B4 Sports.................................................... B1-B3 Weather........................................................A6 TV/Comics ..................................................B6 Vol. 156 No. 358
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bathrooms. The only spaces in his house not decorated are the attic and the basement. Collecting Christmas trees started innocently, but Kimpel said his love for Christmas came from his father. “My dad has gone overboard
MOSCOW (AP) — A suicide bomber struck a busy railway station in southern Russia on Sunday, killing at least 15 other people and wounding scores more, officials said, in a stark reminder of the threat Russia is facing as it prepares to host February’s Olympics in Sochi. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing in Volgograd, but it came several months after Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov called for new attacks against civilian targets in Russia, including the Sochi Games. Suicide bombings have rocked Russia for years, but many have been contained to the North Caucasus, the center of an insurgency seeking an Islamist state in the region. Until recently Volgograd was not a typical target, but the city formerly known as Stalingrad has now been struck twice in two months — suggesting militants may be using the transportation hub as a renewed way of showing their reach outside their restive region. Volgograd, which lies close to volatile Caucasus provinces, is 550 miles south of Moscow and about 400 miles northeast of Sochi, a Black Sea resort flanked by the North Caucasus Mountains. The bombing highlights the daunting security challenge Russia will face in fulfilling its pledge to make the Sochi Games the “safest Olympics in history.” The government has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers, police and other security personnel to protect the games.
SEE TANNENBAUM, PAGE A6
SEE TERROR, PAGE A6
OCTAVIA LEHMAN
Kevin Kimpel turns his rural Butler home into a Christmas tree forest each winter. He invites
friends, family members and co-workers to see his collection each year.
O TANNENBAUM Butler man shares Christmas tree collection BY OCTAVIA LEHMAN olehman@kcpmedia.com
BUTLER — Kevin Kimpel doesn’t want people to know exactly how many Christmas trees he keeps inside his rural Butler home. He’s not trying to keep it a secret. It’s just that when he says he has more than 1,000 trees, the images most people conjure up might be overwhelming. “They will picture chaos,” Kimpel said. His Christmas tree collection is organized, rather than “overwhelming chaos,” he said. Kimpel, a civil engineer with Nucor Building Systems, opens his indoor Christmas tree forest to friends, family and co-workers each winter.
NEIGHBORS DEKALB
COUNTY
When visitors come to his home, Kimpel greets them and hands out a scavenger hunt with clues to find select trees. “Avon 8” leads people to his collection of eight red-and-green Avon perfume bottles. Another clue, “Foreign Harvested,” take guests to his collection of trees purchased while traveling to Greece, Thailand and Africa. During the month of November, Kimpel removes boxes from the attic and starts decorating each room in his home, even the
See more trees You can see more of Kevin Kimpel’s Christmas tree collection in a video at kpcnews.com. Scan the QR code to watch it on your tablet or smartphone.
Obamacare passes one million signups HONOLULU (AP) — A December surge propelled health care sign-ups through the government’s rehabilitated website past the 1 million mark, the Obama administration said Sunday, reflecting new vigor for the problem-plagued federal insurance market. Combined with numbers for state-run markets due in January, that should put total enrollment in the new private insurance plans under President Barack Obama’s health law at about 2 million people through the end of the year, independent experts said. That would be about two-thirds of the administration’s original goal of signing up 3.3 million by Dec. 31, a significant improvement given the technical problems that crippled the federal market during
much of the fall. The overall goal remains to enroll 7 million people by March 31. “It looks like current enrollment is around 2 million despite all the issues,” said Dan Mendelson, CEO of Avalere Health, a market analysis firm. “It was a very impressive showing for December.” The administration said that of the more than 1.1 million people now enrolled in the federal insurance exchange, nearly 1 million signed up in December. The majority came days before a pre-Christmas deadline for coverage to start in January. Compare that with a paltry 27,000 in October, the federal website’s first, error-prone month. “We experienced a welcome surge in enrollment as millions
of Americans seek access to affordable health care coverage,” Marilyn Tavenner, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a blog post announcing the figures. The numbers don’t represent a full accounting for the country. The federal website serves 36 states. Yet to be reported are December results from the 14 states running their own sites. Overall, states have been signing up more people than the federal government. But most of that has come from high performers such as California, New York, Washington, Kentucky and Connecticut. Some states continue to struggle. Still, the end-of-year spike suggests that the federal insurance marketplace is starting to pull its
weight. The windfall comes at a critical moment for Obama’s sweeping health care law, which becomes “real” for many Americans on Jan. 1 as coverage through the insurance exchanges and key patient protections kick in. The administration’s concern now shifts to keeping the momentum going for sign-ups, and heading off problems that could arise when people who’ve already enrolled try to use their new insurance. “They’ve got the front end of the system working really well,” said insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski. “Now we can move on to the next question: Do people really want to buy this?” He also estimated 2 million will probably be enrolled this year.
GOP looking for majority in senate WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans count enough competitive races to challenge Democrats for control of the Senate in the 2014 elections, if only they can figure out what to do with the tea party. Crowded primaries in states such as Georgia, Iowa and North Carolina, where tea partyers and social conservatives are fighting for the nomination and pushing candidates farther right, worry many Republicans, especially after they saw their legitimate shots at a Senate majority slip away in 2010 and 2012. Republicans need a net gain of six seats to capture control from Democrats, who effectively hold a 55-45 advantage now. But Democrats will be defending 21 of 35 seats to be decided in
November, and President Barack Obama is looking like a major drag for them. Midterm elections are often tough for a president’s party in any event. “History is with us, geography is with us and the president’s signature legislative achievement is the most unpopular” law of his tenure, Rob Collins, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said of Obama and his health care overhaul. Republicans inside and outside the Senate speak confidently about snatching open seats in West Virginia and South Dakota. They like their chances against Democratic incumbents in Republican-leaning Arkansas, Louisiana and Alaska and remain SEE GOP, PAGE A6
KATHRYN BASSETT
Sailor’s surprise Friends and family members of U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Nick Nodine gathered at the Auburn American Legion post Saturday afternoon to welcome Nodine home to Auburn. Nodine is stationed in Norfolk, Va., and in November he returned from an eight-month deployment that took him to Spain, Dubai, Cyprus and Israel. With Nodine are his mother and stepfather, Jody and Jason Hefty of Auburn. For more information see the story on Page A3.