SECOND WEST NILE DEATH REPORTED IN EASTERN NEBRASKA

NEBRASKA- An eastern Nebraska public health department reported a West Nile death Wednesday, which is the second death reported by the department in less than one week.

Terra Uhing, executive director of the Three Rivers Public Health Department, reported the first death of the year from the mosquito-borne virus on Monday.

Both individuals were older adults with underlying health conditions and both lived in counties served by the Three Rivers Public Health Department, which includes Dodge, Saunders and Washington Counties, according to a press release from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

The state department began its West Nile virus surveillance at the beginning of June. As of Wednesday, 26 mosquito pools had tested positive from 12 counties in Nebraska.

Most people exposed to the virus don’t get sick. About 20% become ill, and less than 1% experience serious illness that can lead to death.

Those who are older or have underlying medical conditions or depressed immune systems are at higher risk of severe infections.

People can reduce their risk of West Nile by taking precautions to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.

Residents of the district can obtain free mosquito dunks from the Health Department office at 2400 N. Lincoln Ave. in Fremont. Mosquito dunks are discs that, when placed in bodies of water, kill mosquito larvae.

Nebraska’s first human case this year was discovered in July.

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VOTING RIGHTS GROUPS FORM COALITION OPPOSING VOTER ID PETITION IN NEBRASKA

LINCOLN- A coalition of voting rights groups says it’ll work to oppose a ballot initiative seeking to ask Nebraskans to approve voter ID next year.

Decline to Sign Nebraska, which announced its campaign opposing the petition drive at a rally at the Capitol on Tuesday, said the proposal would be costly to the state and further complicate the voting process.

The coalition includes Civic Nebraska, Black Votes Matter, the League of Women Voters of Nebraska, the ACLU of Nebraska and the Nebraska Poor People’s Campaign.

Brad Christian-Sallis, the statewide voting rights field director for Civic Nebraska, called the voter ID petition “dangerous and hurtful” and said Decline to Sign will “fight it with all our power.”

The voter ID petition was filed with the Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office in August. It is sponsored by Sen. Julie Slama of Sterling, Nebraska Republican Party National Committeewoman Lydia Brasch and former Douglas County GOP Chairwoman Nancy McCabe under the name Citizens for Voter ID.

The proposed constitutional amendment would need to net an estimated 124,000 signatures, including 5% of registered voters in 38 of Nebraska’s 93 counties, to appear on the 2022 general election ballot.

Slama said she launched the petition drive in order to have Nebraskans’ voices heard on the matter, after voter ID proposals have been introduced in nine of the past 10 legislative sessions but failed to advance to a vote of the Legislature.

Opponents of the petition on Tuesday said it would enact “voter restrictions.”

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STATE SEN. CAROL BLOOD BECOMES FIRST DEMOCRAT IN 2022 RACE FOR NEBRASKA GOVERNOR

LINCOLN — State Sen. Carol Blood of Bellevue on Monday formally launched a bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2022.

She’s the first Democrat to enter the race to lead a state that’s been led by Republicans for the last two decades, and she centered her message on overcoming partisan divides.

On the State Capitol’s steps in Lincoln on Monday, Blood praised the state’s unique one-house legislative body, in which she serves. It works, she said, because it depends on collaboration among policymakers.

Unlike the state’s cooperative unicameral, Blood said “many” in Nebraska’s government have taken an “us vs. them” stance similar to what has been seen across the U.S., which she said is “killing our democracy.”

“I know we can do better and see opportunities for effective change,” she said. “We can begin to make things better by building relationships and bridging these divides. We can transform division and contempt into understanding and connection.“

Jane Kleeb, chair of the state’s Democratic Party, told The World-Herald that she’s not aware of any other Democrats who plan to seek the nomination.

“As I travel across the state of Nebraska, the one thing I hear over and over again from rural and urban Nebraskans is that they want somebody that is gonna govern again,” Kleeb said.

Current Gov. Pete Ricketts is term-limited and cannot run for reelection in 2022.

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DESANTIS, CRUZ, AND PENCE PROMISE A REPUBLICAN 'REVIVAL' AT RICKETTS EVENT

NEBRASKA CITY — Three leading Republican prospects for president in 2024 took turns Sunday bashing the current occupant of the White House — and promising a GOP “revival” — at the annual steak fry hosted by Gov. Pete Ricketts.

Amid the trees at Arbor Lodge State Historical Park, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and former Vice President Mike Pence condemned “weak” Democratic President Joe Biden as pushing the liberal agenda of “rich, coastal elites.”

Whether it was because of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the surge of immigrants at the southern border or the mandate that federal employees be vaccinated against COVID-19, the trio said Americans are “waking up” to Biden’s “failed leadership,” and will return Congress and the presidency to Republican control.

“Fight, fight, fight, and we will win,” DeSantis said.

“I think Joe Biden is Jimmy Carter 2.0,” Cruz said. “A revival is coming.”

“I’ve been patient, but my patience is running thin,” Pence said. “It’s time for Nebraskans to say ‘enough is enough’ and take back the Congress in 2022, and take back America in 2024.”

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THOUSANDS LINE OMAHA STREETS TO HONOR MARINE CPL. DAEGAN PAGE

OMAHA- Cpl. Daegan Page received the kind of welcome home no warrior’s family wants — the kind with black limousines and flag-draped caskets, slow salutes and tears.

But on Friday afternoon, thousands of Nebraskans and Iowans made Page’s mournful homecoming an occasion to remember.

Holding flags and signs saying “God Bless You, Cpl. Daegan Page” and “Welcome Home,” they lined streets from Eppley Airfield to southwest Omaha to watch the passage of a vehicle carrying the remains of the Marine to Braman Mortuary.

Few of them would have known the name of the 23-year-old Millard South High School graduate before his death Aug. 26 — along with 12 other U.S. service members and at least 169 Afghans — in a terrorist bombing at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

Page’s homecoming represented a convergence of tragedies. His death came in the final days of America’s War in Afghanistan, while the return of his body to Omaha occurred one day before the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that launched the U.S. into that war.

Page’s casket arrived at Eppley from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware about 1:20 p.m. and was transferred from the aircraft to a hearse out of public view. His family followed in several black SUVs as the procession — escorted by Omaha motorcycle police — traversed the city.

In a statement via email, Page’s family said they were touched by the warm tribute.

“Omaha, you never looked better,” they said. “It was an amazing honor to bring Daegan home to the open arms of his hometown today.

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NEBRASKA'S DOUG PETERSON, 23 OTHER AGs THREATEN TO SUE BIDEN OVER VACCINE DRIVE

LINCOLN — Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson joined 23 other attorneys general Thursday in warning President Joe Biden to drop his proposed mandate of COVID-19 vaccinations for private-sector workers, or risk a lawsuit.

The warning came four days after Gov. Pete Ricketts got a loud ovation at his annual steak fry after saying that he was working with other governors and attorneys general on a strategy to attack “the egregious overreach” of Biden’s vaccine mandate.

A seven-page letter from the coalition of Republican attorneys general, led by Attorney General Alan Wilson of South Carolina, calls the president’s mandate “illegal” and says it is likely to increase skepticism about the vaccines.

“Your plan is disastrous and counterproductive,” it says. “From a policy perspective, this edict is unlikely to win hearts and minds ... “

Peterson did not comment in a press release from his office announcing the threatened lawsuit.

The attorneys general, in their letter, outlined their legal and policy concerns. They said courts have been “highly skeptical” of OSHA emergency temporary standards. Seven of the 10 issued in recent decades have been challenged, and the courts upheld only one of the standards, with another yet to be decided, they wrote.

“Your vaccine mandate represents not only a threat to individual liberty, but a public health disaster that will displace vulnerable workers and exacerbate a nationwide hospital staffing crisis, with severe consequences for all Americans,” the attorneys general wrote.

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CHUCK HAGEL SAYS AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL WAS A GOOD DECISION EXECUTED POORLY

WASHINGTON D.C.- President Joe Biden “made the right decision” to withdraw U.S. military forces from Afghanistan and bring an end to America’s longest war, but “there’s no question that a lot went wrong in the execution of that exit,” former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said.

“We stayed way, way too long,” Nebraska’s former two-term Republican senator said in a weekend interview.

“We were never going to win that war,” Hagel said, not in a tribal country where “the Afghan government was losing and getting weaker while the Taliban was growing stronger.’’

“Biden could have put 50,000 more U.S. troops in there,” and it would not have changed the outcome, Hagel said.

“They are elusive,” he said. “There is no surrender.”

“I admire Biden for making the tough decision,” Hagel said. “He did the difficult thing; he knew he’d have tremendous backlash.

“It was not going to be pretty; it was going to be chaos.

“It was going to be very, very difficult even if we had been much better prepared. But this was not a surprise.

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BUSINESSWOMAN RAYBOULD SEEKS LINCOLN LEGISLATIVE SEAT

LINCOLN — Jane Raybould, a Lincoln businesswoman and City Council member, announced plans Tuesday to run for central Lincoln's District 28 legislative seat.

The seat is now held by State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, who cannot run again because of term limits.

Raybould said she wants to bring her experience with local government to focus on state-level policies. She named her priorities as funding public education, criminal justice reform, mental health services, environmental resiliency, and restoring state aid to cities and counties.

Raybould and her brother run B & R Stores, a family grocery business started by her father. She has been elected twice to the Lincoln City Council since 2015 and previously spent five years on the Lancaster County Board. In 2018, she was the Democratic challenger to U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer.

She joins Chris Bruns, a Lincoln County Board member, as among the earliest candidates to announce legislative bids. Bruns, a rancher near North Platte, is seeking the District 42 seat now held by Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte, who is term-limited.

Bruns, a North Platte native, returned to the area in 2018. He is a former Marine with a degree in entrepreneurship.

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GOV. PETE RICKETTS HAS A LOT TO SAY LATELY. IS HE RUNNING FOR SOMETHING?

LINCOLN — Political observers have noticed a change in Gov. Pete Ricketts, who has ramped up his public criticism of policy changes coming out of Washington in recent months.

In his weekly columns, press statements and public appearances, the Republican has taken President Joe Biden to task for the chaotic exit from Afghanistan, “trampling” on gun rights, canceling the Keystone XL pipeline and rescinding a prohibition on using U.S. foreign aid for abortion.

Ricketts and some of his key supporters swatted down the presidential talk like so many flies in a feedlot, saying there are just a lot of things to criticize coming out of Washington these days.

When asked whether he is positioning himself for a run at the White House or a Cabinet post by weighing in on more federal issues, the 57-year-old millionaire said what he’s been saying for months — he’s working only on being “the best governor I can be” for the remaining 16 months of his second term.

Other political observers see a method to Ricketts’ madness about Biden’s policies. They see some calculation in the political hits and see the invitation of three GOP heavy hitters to his steak fry as a clear indication that he is looking toward his political future after he leaves office in January 2023 because of term limits.

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NEBRASKA STATE FAIR SUES NONPROFIT, ALLEGING MISUSE OF AKSARBEN STOCK SHOW NAME

LINCOLN — For decades, the Aksarben Stock Show was an Omaha fixture, operated by the titans of the city through the Knights of Aksarben.

But now there’s a showdown in central Nebraska over who owns the rights to the stock show name and logo.

The Nebraska State Fair, which took over management of the stock show after its move to Grand Island four years ago, has sued two central Nebraska men, including an associate of Gov. Pete Ricketts, over ownership of the name Aksarben Stock Show, which is billed as the nation’s largest 4-H livestock show.

The federal lawsuit claims that Trent Loos, the governor’s associate; his wife, Kelli; and Greg Harder, a former State Fair employee, have wrongly claimed the name and the stock show’s unique logo for their own use via a nonprofit corporation they formed a year ago called Nebraskans 4 Youth Livestock Inc.

Harder, of Phillips, used to manage the stock show for the State Fair. But he was fired in September 2020, just a couple days after that year’s show ended. His role in forming the Nebraskans 4 Youth Livestock entity to stage livestock shows was cited as a sign of disloyalty and an effort to “seize control” of the fair’s assets.

The State Fair wants the name and logo back and, in the lawsuit, says Harder and the Looses have refused to relinquish them. The fair claims that deceives the public, violates the state’s deceptive trade practices act and harms the event, which is slated to be held at the fair’s barns in Grand Island on Sept. 24-26.

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DOOR TO DOOR EFFORT IN SOUTH OMAHA SUCCEEDS IN BOOSTING VACCINATIONS

OMAHA- OneWorld has made vaccination as easy and omnipresent as possible to the residents in three South Omaha ZIP codes. It has invested time, money, creativity and sweat equity to convince a sizable chunk of residents, many of them dubious and some downright hostile, to get vaccinated.

This summer, vaccination in Nebraska has morphed into a public health version of hand-to-hand combat, where medical providers go person to person, holding intensely personal conversations and trying to correct rampant vaccine misinformation.

Since mid-May, the area served by OneWorld has moved the needle more on vaccinations than almost anywhere else in Nebraska, according to data released by the Douglas County Health Department and the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

More than one of every eight residents in the area OneWorld serves were newly vaccinated between May 15 and Aug. 15.

“We simply weren’t going to sit behind the scenes and wait for people to come to us,” says Jennifer Mayhew, OneWorld’s director of operations. “Not when we can be proactive and do something to prevent this loss of life.”

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SARPY FARMERS WHO VALUE CONSERVATION EASEMENT DISAPPOINTED BY RICKETTS' CRITIQUE

SARPY COUNTY- Dean and Wayne Fedde know their Sarpy County farm like it’s a family member. They know the land’s stories, the names of people who’ve laid claim to it since the mid-1800s, the animal and tree species that survive on it.

“Wayne and I grew up on this farm and the farm of our grandparents,” Dean Fedde said. “We were taught a deep respect for the land and for the nature upon it.”

The brothers purchased the farm, which borders Schramm Park just south of Gretna, from their aunt in the early ‘90s.

As development crept closer to home, they turned to a conservation easement to ensure their land retains its rural identity. Now, they’re watching with alarm and disbelief as Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts campaigns against conservation programs and tools they’ve relied on for years.

“It’s just harming a lot of potential farmers and ranchers that would do a conservation easement,” Dean Fedde said. “He’s got them all in fear of any government programs.”

Conservation easements, which have been used in Nebraska and the U.S. for decades, are voluntary agreements that keep land in private ownership while an organization, typically a nonprofit or government entity, monitors the land and can enforce the easement’s requirements.

The Feddes were offered a permanent conservation easement, which permanently limits how land can be used, by the Nebraska Land Trust in 2010, according to Dean Fedde.

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INVESTMENT IN CALIFORNIA ETHANOL MARKET AIMS TO BENEFIT NEBRASKA CORN GROWERS

NEBRASKA- Agriculture officials from Nebraska and two other states have decided to put more investment into the California ethanol-based fuel market.

The Nebraska Corn Board announced this week that it and corn checkoff organizations in Kansas and Missouri will provide California fuel retailers $1.25 million over the next year to increase availability of gasoline with an 85% ethanol blend, known commercially as E-85. The fuel will be supplied by Pearson Fuels, the largest E-85 distributor in California, which has nearly 250 retail stations located throughout the state.

It’s the second investment in E-85 in California by the Nebraska Corn Board, which earlier this year provided two grants to Pearson to pay for E-85 pumps at two gas stations in the Los Angeles area.

“These stations are moving a tremendous volume of E-85,” said John Greer, the Corn Board’s District 2 Director. “One station alone would use about 50,000 bushels of corn in the form of ethanol in just a year. The investment is already proving worthwhile for our corn growers.”

California is by far the largest E-85 market in the country, accounting for over 40 million gallons in 2020 and on track to reach 50 million gallons in 2021. Despite that, it has fewer E-85 stations than either Iowa or Minnesota, which combined have less than one-fourth the population.

“The ceiling is high for E-85,” Greer said.

He said both E-85 fueling stations and flex-fuel vehicles need to be made more widely available in California.

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UNL, UNO REPORT ENROLLMENT DECREASES; UNMC, UNK SEE INCREASES

NEBRASKA- The University of Nebraska experienced a 2% decline in overall enrollment this fall as its two largest campuses — UNL and UNO — experienced declines.

Total enrollment across all four campuses, plus the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture, is 50,653 this fall, with gains coming at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the Kearney campus.

With NU managing “a COVID-19 world,” officials pointed to a 7.2% dip in international student enrollment as part of the reason for the overall enrollment decline. Speaking with The World-Herald, NU President Ted Carter pointed to a decline in the number of international visas issued and other challenges related to the virus.

“Eventually, I think we’ll be able to get that corrected,” he said.

Despite the challenges in recruiting international students, NU was still able to achieve its most diverse student body ever this fall. More than one in five students identify as minority.

Nearly half of the university system’s enrollment is at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which reported that 24,431 students are enrolled. The University of Nebraska at Omaha reported that 15,328 students are enrolled. UNL experienced a 2.7% decline from last fall, while UNO experienced a 3.5% decline.

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PROPOSED CONGRESSIONAL MAP WOULD SPLIT NEBRASKA'S BLUE DOT

LINCOLN — A Republican redistricting proposal unveiled Wednesday would cleave off northwest Douglas County from a Nebraska congressional district that has been won by presidential and congressional Democrats at various points over the past decade.

State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn, the GOP chairwoman of the Legislature’s Redistricting Committee, distributed the proposed district boundaries at a morning committee meeting.

The map would divide Douglas County, all of which currently sits in the state’s 2nd Congressional District. The district became known as Nebraska’s “blue dot” following Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral victory there in the 2020 presidential election.

The committee is slated to meet again Thursday to discuss her map and an alternative proposed by the committee’s vice chairman, Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha, a Democrat.

Wayne’s map would leave Douglas County whole while putting Bellevue back into the 2nd District. The result would be similar to the district’s boundaries following the 2001 redistricting.

The Linehan map, by contrast, would split Douglas County along Interstate 680 and West Dodge Road. Everything north and west of those main thoroughfares would move into the 1st Congressional District, which is dominated by Lincoln. The district is represented by U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry.

The revamped 2nd District would include the rest of Douglas County, all of Sarpy County and all of Saunders County. The district now is represented by U.S. Rep. Don Bacon.

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NEBRASKA DOCTOR CALLED 23 HOSPITALS BEFORE FINDING ICU BED FOR SERIOUSLY ILL PATIENT

LINCOLN — It was clear soon after Mark McConnaughey arrived at the Nemaha County Hospital, seriously ill from a suspected COVID-19 infection, that he needed to be transferred to a bigger hospital, one with ventilators, a trauma team and an intensive care unit.

But what happened next had never happened in the 25-year career of Dr. Michael Zaruba, who was staffing the emergency room that night.

Call after call, to hospitals from Lincoln to North Platte, from Omaha to Topeka, ended with the same response: We don’t have a bed in our ICU. As the doctor and an assistant worked to stabilize McConnaughey, they kept calling. Same response.

Zaruba said that, in all, 23 hospitals were called. All full.

Finally, at about 3 a.m. on Aug. 18 — about five hours after the 57-year-old farmer and metalworker had arrived at the Auburn hospital — he was life-flighted to Des Moines, where Mercy One Medical Center had agreed to admit him. He died there.

Zaruba said Thursday that he still struggles to talk about what happened — a problem the state moved to address earlier this week.

“I’ve practiced medicine for 25 years. I never dreamed I’d be in a situation where I couldn’t transfer a patient to a hospital that was close,” he said. “Worse, Mark was one of my very best friends.”

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PRESIDENT BIDEN APPROVES NEBRASKA DISASTER DECLARATION FOR JULY WINDSTORM

NEBRASKA- President Joe Biden on Monday approved a disaster declaration in Nebraska related to severe storms and straight-line winds in July, opening up federal aid to help the state recover.

Federal assistance is available for state, tribal, local governments and some nonprofits in 14 counties for “emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe storms and straight-line winds,” according to a White House press release.

The counties are: Box Butte, Cass, Clay, Douglas, Fillmore, Grant, Hall, Hamilton, Madison, Sarpy, Saunders, Sheridan, Washington and York. Funds are also available through the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, according to the Governor’s Office — that money can help with public projects anywhere in Nebraska that aim to cut down on the risk for damage in natural disasters.

During a preliminary assessment, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was able to validate about $30.8 million in damage from the July 9-10 storms across the affected counties, a report from the agency shows.

Sens. Deb Fischer and Ben Sasse and Reps. Jeff Fortenberry, Don Bacon and Adrian Smith penned the letter in support of Gov. Pete Ricketts’ request for federal disaster assistance.

“We supported Governor Ricketts in his request for this aid and were glad to see the administration act quickly in response,” the state’s congressional delegation said Tuesday in a joint statement. “This disaster declaration will provide Nebraskans with the resources to rebuild and recover.”

The governor declared a disaster on July 22. That declaration allowed the state to use the Governor’s Emergency Fund to address damage from the storms, according to the Governor’s Office, and was necessary to request the federal aid.

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UTAH ATTORNEY SUES NEBRASKA STATE EPIDEMIOLOGIST IN PUBLIC-RECORDS FIGHT OVER COVID TESTING

LINCOLN- Nebraska's acting state epidemiologist is being sued by a Utah attorney after he denied her request for an unredacted validation report regarding COVID-19 tests administered by Test Nebraska.

At issue is whether the blacked-out information qualifies as trade secrets or should be released under public-records laws.

In the lawsuit filed in Lancaster County District Court, Suzette Rasmussen's attorney, Andre Barry, said: "The public has an interest in knowing whether the COVID-19 tests provided by Nomi Health are (or were) reliable or accurate as claimed, and whether the state's contract with Nomi Health was worth the cost."

In April 2020, near the start of the pandemic, Nebraska announced a $26.9 million, no-bid contract with Nomi Health, a Utah company, to establish mobile testing centers and provide up to 540,000 tests over six months, with an option to pay more for additional testing after that.

By the time Test Nebraska stopped testing July 18, 2021, the program had cost the state about $45 million and resulted in the completion of roughly 800,000 COVID-19 tests, according to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

In the lawsuit filed in late June, Barry said Rasmussen started making public-records requests with HHS on April 9, 2021, and, in response, received a redacted copy of a validation report, with several lines and 14 entire pages blacked out.

When she asked for an unredacted copy, she was denied and told it contained Nomi Health's "proprietary and trade secret information."

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MEDICAL MARIJUANA GROUP PREPARES TO GATHER SIGNATURES FOR PAIR OF BALLOT INITIATIVES

LINCOLN- A group in Nebraska is preparing to gather signatures for a pair of ballot initiatives to legalize medical cannabis.

The group, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, announced on Wednesday that it recently filed drafts of its two measures. If it gathers enough signatures by a July deadline, voters will weigh in on both next November.

State Sen. Anna Wishart, one of two legislators involved in the effort, said one of the petitions will relate to protecting patients’ rights to have access to cannabis through a doctor’s recommendation. The other, she said, would set up a regulated, private industry to produce cannabis for the patients who qualify under the first initiative.

“It’s heartbreaking and senseless that politicians are standing in the way of families and patients who desperately need safe, legal access to medical cannabis,” Sen. Adam Morfeld, the other state senator involved in the effort, said in a prepared statement. “But we will not stop fighting for them. We hope that every Nebraskan will stand with us and help our campaign succeed by getting involved and supporting the effort however they can.”

The same group unsuccessfully attempted to get a medical marijuana initiative on the November 2020 ballot. Though it surpassed the required number of signatures, that initiative was disqualified by the State Supreme Court, which ruled that it contained more than one subject.

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COVID CASES IN NEBRASKA UP FOR THE 11TH WEEK, BUT NOT AS MUCH AS LAST WEEK

NEBRASKA- COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths continued to climb in Nebraska last week as the state’s summer surge pushes toward fall.

The state recorded 5,649 new cases for the week ending Thursday, up from 4,916 the previous week and 3,464 the week before that. It was the 11th straight week of rising cases in Nebraska.

Nebraska’s two-week case growth rate of 63% was down somewhat from last week’s but still ranked eighth highest in the nation.

That recent growth in cases now is translating into additional deaths. The 48 deaths recorded in the past two weeks are the most recorded in five months.

Hospitalizations, too, continue to rise. The state’s seven-day average of 337 as of Thursday was up from 309 the previous week.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts last week announced that the state is bringing back a statewide transfer center to help overstretched Nebraska hospitals find places to send patients.

The move is aimed at helping hospitals cope with a new wave of COVID patients, driven by the spread of the delta variant. The center will help relieve some of the stress on hospital staff by taking over the job of making call after call for an available bed. Hospitals now are dealing with an increase in the number of patients with ailments other than COVID-19 in addition to the influx of COVID patients.

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