MONDAY December 30, 2013
Downtown Decorations Page A5 Boy Scouts spruce up Auburn planters
NFL Playoffs Page B1 Post-season games nearly set
Weather Partly cloudy skies with a 20 percent chance of snow. High of 22. Low of 9. Page A6
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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
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Classifieds........................................B7 Life..................................................... A5 Obituaries......................................... A4 Opinion .............................................B4 Sports.........................................B1-B3 Weather............................................ A6 TV/Comics .......................................B6 Vol. 101 No. 358
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.
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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.
Surprise party greets homecoming sailor BY KATHRYN BASSETT kbassett@kpcmedia.com
AUBURN — “It was a true homecoming,” U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Nick Nodine said Saturday afternoon as he looked around a room filled with family members and friends at the American Legion post in Auburn. Just minutes before, Nodine had arrived at the post, accompanied by his mother and stepfather, Jody and Jason Hefty of Auburn. Members of the American Legion Riders stood on both sides of the driveway approaching the post, holding large American flags. As Nodine climbed out of the car, tears spilled from his eyes. One by one, members of the large crowd that had gathered to greet Nodine stepped up and hugged him. Nodine and his wife, Emily, both are 2007 graduates of DeKalb High School. The couple had arrived in Auburn early Saturday morning for a weeklong visit
after traveling from Nodine’s Naval base in Norfolk, Va. In November, Nodine returned to the United States from an eight-month deployment on the U.S.S. Kearsarge that took him to Spain, Dubai, Cyprus and Israel. “Having everybody there was a really nice experience,” Nodine said of his Auburn welcome. “It was exciting.” Nodine said he was looking forward to relaxing while at home with his family, which also includes his twin sisters, Heather and Tori Chapman. “It just means a lot to have him home,” Nodine’s wife said. “Everybody I needed to see is here,” Nodine said, gesturing to the room at the legion post. “I greatly appreciate everything and all the support I had.” Nodine also expressed his gratitude to the American Legion Riders who gathered to greet him. After completing his most recent term of service, Nodine
KATHRYN BASSETT
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.
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
Happy New Year!
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 SEE OBAMACARE, PAGE A6
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