LINCOLN - The Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska has announced plans to significantly reduce its reliance on fossil fuels over the next 30 years.
The nonprofit supplier of wholesale electricity to 69 communities in four states announced last week that its board of directors voted to work toward having a totally carbon neutral power resource portfolio by 2050.
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LINCOLN - School representatives urged support Monday for a legislative proposal to confront what they said is a growing problem of nicotine vaping in schools and among Nebraska youth.
"There's been a steep increase in vaping" in Nebraska schools, Waverly High School principal Dr. Megan Myers said, and it is now growing among students as young as 14.
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LINCOLN - As the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services gets ready to open a new youth treatment facility in Lincoln, state senators are having hearings to provide oversight to the system.
Department CEO Dannette Smith is moving forward with the opening of the Lincoln center, believing it is the best avenue to house youth who need significant behavioral and mental health treatment.
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OMAHA - Americans who have traveled to China and may have been exposed to the coronavirus could be brought to Nebraska for observation.
The federal Department of Health and Human Services is working on a plan to bring Americans back to the United States, University of Nebraska Medical Center Chancellor Jeffrey Gold said Saturday afternoon. One place they might end up is Nebraska.
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LINCOLN - Sen. John McCollister of Omaha argued Thursday that it's time to apply Nebraska's state sales tax to purchases of candy and soft drinks and direct that new revenue to the state's health care cash fund.
Only 11 states do not tax those products now, he told the Legislature's Revenue Committee during a public hearing on his proposal.
McCollister removed a provision from his bill (LB810) that would have also applied the sales tax to bottled water.
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LINCOLN - A proposed cigarette and tobacco products tax hike that would have raised an estimated $90 million a year, providing funding largely devoted to health care needs, including Medicaid expansion, remained stuck in the Legislature's Revenue Committee on Wednesday on a 4-4 vote.
The bill (LB710), introduced last year by Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha, would increase the cigarette tax by $1.50 a pack and impose tax hikes on other tobacco products.
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LINCOLN - The proposal granting state lawmakers the authority to expand to 55 senators could be debated by the full Legislature as early as next week.
Speaker Jim Scheer's proposed constitutional amendment (LR279CA) advanced from the Legislature's Executive Board to general file Thursday morning on a 6-1 vote.
Two senators, Ernie Chambers and Tony Vargas, both of Omaha, abstained. Lincoln Sen. Kate Bolz cast the lone dissenting vote during a brief executive session.
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LINCOLN — Mark Hansen always knew that 54 years ago, he was conceived via artificial insemination.
But six years ago, the Urbandale, Iowa, man was shocked to discover, through an over-the-counter DNA test, that his dad wasn’t his biological father — his mother’s doctor was.
Hansen said his mother was distraught and felt violated, and his emotions ran the gamut, from confusion to wondering if his family would still consider him “family.”
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LINCOLN — A leading Nebraska business group broke new ground Thursday by taking a stand against workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry adopted the policy change to align itself with Blueprint Nebraska, a statewide economic development plan released last fall, officials said.
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LINCOLN - Children donning yellow scarves filled the state Capitol’s Warner Chamber on Wednesday for the annual school choice rally promoting the latest bill to offer tax credits for donors to a scholarship fund for private and parochial school students.
“I’m sure lots of you are on scholarship,” said Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn, who introduced the Opportunity Scholarships Act (LB1202). “But we run out every year. It’s not enough.”
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IOWA - After a bad workplace accident in 2001, Rick Parham wound up with steel plates and rods in his spine.
He also found himself dealing with ongoing pain, including cramps in his legs that woke him up at night.
A little less than a year ago, Parham turned to a newly opened medical cannabis dispensary on the edge of Council Bluffs. He now uses a combination of cannabis tinctures, creams and vapor to keep himself moving during the day and to get adequate sleep at night. Recently, he’s been putting siding on his home in Pacific Junction, Iowa, which took a hit from flooding last spring.
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LINCOLN - School-age Nebraskans who are deaf or hard of hearing rely upon interpreters to give them access to the same education as their peers who are able to hear.
But access to interpreters fluent in American Sign Language or services aimed at helping young Nebraskans who experience hearing loss prepare to even enter school is not equal across the state.
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LINCOLN — The unnamed retiree was highly respected in his central Nebraska community, an elected official with a wife, children and grandchildren to keep him active and connected.
He also was absolutely convinced that he had won the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes and had sent off nearly $10,000 to claim his winnings.
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LINCOLN - There are still a few knots to work out of a bill that would ease licensing requirements for practitioners of reflexology, who touch pressure points on hands, feet and outer ears.
Legislative Bill 347, introduced by State Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil, would allow reflexologists to sidestep a Nebraska law that requires them to be licensed as massage therapists, who have to log 1,000 hours of coursework and training.
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LINCOLN — The Willa Cather Foundation is making a final push for donations to enhance Cather’s hometown of Red Cloud as a literary landmark and destination for “heritage” tourists.
The nonprofit foundation will announce Tuesday that it is seeking to raise $6.5 million to restore and upgrade eight historic buildings related to Cather’s novels in Red Cloud, develop a boutique hotel there and amass an endowment to maintain structures owned by the organization.
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OMAHA - John Kerry, former U.S. secretary of state and former presidential candidate, will speak Feb. 26 at the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Hagel Forum in Global Leadership.
This will be the second Hagel Forum, which debuted last year. The 2019 forum featured Chuck Hagel, a UNO graduate, and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president. Hagel is a former U.S. defense secretary and a former senator from Nebraska.
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LINCOLN - Nebraska lawmakers gave first-round approval Monday to a bill that would build a framework — but provide no money — to help survivors of sex trafficking turn their lives around.
As introduced, Legislative Bill 518 would have put $450,000 a year into programs providing such support as housing, economic stability, education, counseling, legal aid, transportation and victim advocacy.
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LINCOLN - Rebekah Schmitz didn't set out to make "The Teal Oasis" a short-term rental when she bought the tumbledown bungalow on South 27th Street in 2018.
But Schmitz, who flips houses, realized the renovation needed in the basement made it a better investment if she marketed the home for Airbnb guests rather than sell it or try to rent it to long-term tenants, she said.
So she overhauled the home and transformed its backyard from a jungle to a cozy, landscaped hangout with porch swings, a gazebo and a fire pit.
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LINCOLN — Reformed criminal offenders are being denied “a fresh start” because of a dramatic drop in meetings by a state board that grants pardons, a legislative committee was told late last week.
The State Board of Pardons — which consists of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state — held only 13 hearings over the past three fiscal years, compared with 345 hearings during the three years previous to that. The board, which used to meet six to eight times a year for multiple hearings, met only twice during 2019.
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LINCOLN - A lot of moving parts now in the Legislature's ever-changing 2020 tax story.
A new property tax relief and state school aid reform package is headed to the floor from the Revenue Committee.
A 35% property tax reduction initiative petition drive is ongoing out there across the state and it would mandate more than $1 billion in instant relief lifted from revenue used to fund state government programs and services.
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