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• Tricia Lammers made her first public statements Tuesday since the arrest last week of her 20-year-old son, Blaec. Authorities said he admitted planning to attack the theater in Bolivar and then a nearby Wal-Mart store, where he'd been arrested in 2009 after following around a clerk while armed with a knife.
• Investigators determined he recently purchased two assault rifles and 400 rounds of ammunition.
• During a news conference at the National Alliance for Mental Illness in Springfield, Tricia Lammers said her son had undergone inpatient treatment. She said her son has shown signs of Asperger's syndrome, borderline personality disorder and other conditions.
• "He didn't ask to be born different. He grew up his whole life in (his sister) Kristyn's shadow. He wanted to be successful and be somebody," she said, KLOR-TV reported. "Just two weeks ago he asked me -- both my kids still call me mommy -- he said, 'Mommy, do you think I'm a failure?' I said, 'No, Blaec, I don't.'"
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Slow economic recovery forces Thanksgiving travelers to make sacrifices, rely on relatives
• CHICAGO (AP) -- Feeling the pinch of the sluggish economic recovery, many Americans setting out on the nation's annual Thanksgiving migration had to sacrifice summer vacations, rely on relatives for airfare or scour the Web for travel deals to ensure they made it home.
• It's not just tight family finances making travel tough. Airlines struggling to save on jet fuel and other expenses have cut the number of flights, leading to a jump in airfares. Those hitting the roads face high gas prices and rising tolls. Now, with talk of the nation sliding off a "fiscal cliff" come January, many travelers said they're accepting that sacrifices for pricy holiday journeys have become the norm.
• "You become immune to it, I guess," said Chris Zukowski, a 43-year-old locomotive engineer from the Chicago suburb of Huntley, as he hugged his wife and three children goodbye at Chicago's O'Hare Airport and lamented he could not afford to join them on the holiday trip to New Jersey.
• "You have to cut back on things just to make sure that you can afford to do stuff like this, so they can go visit grandma," he said, referring to his son and two daughters.
• If the nation's travel patterns are any kind of barometer for the state of the economy, the travel forecast for Thanksgiving week suggested a slight upward nudge as people and businesses recover slowly from the 2007-09 recession in which Ameri (Continued on page 32)
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