From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Dec. 11, 1972:

• Lawrence firefighters had battled a $175,000 blaze in three-degree weather at the INTERx Corp., west of 21st and Iowa, yesterday. Fire Chief F. C. Sanders said that the fire had started in a research laboratory on the ground floor of the building. A blast, heard three or four blocks from the site, had sent a refrigerator door crashing through an exterior window. Fire investigators were still determining the cause of the fire.
• The Lawrence area was locked in its ninth straight day of below-freezing temperatures and had been warned to expect more snow soon. Sleet had been falling on the area since about mid-morning today, further complicating driving conditions already made hazardous by recent snowfall.
• Republican National Chairman Robert J. Dole announced his resignation today and said that United Nations Ambassador George Bush of Texas had been picked to replace him.
• An American spacecraft landed on the Moon today for the sixth and perhaps final time this century. Apollo 17’s lunar craft Challenger touched town in a box canyon where astronauts Eugene A. Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt were to make three excursions and collect about 200 pounds of rocks.