Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Sorted by date Results 51 - 75 of 111
These days, besides seeing American bombers attacking Iran, we're confronted with almost daily news about immigration raids and with court rulings about what ICE can, and cannot, do. We've been treated to the arrest of man whose three sons are U.S. Marines, and of sobbing mothers, wondering who will take care of their kids. One recent ruling allowed the U.S. to deport undocumented people to "third countries," meaning that someone who came from Guatemala might be deported to South Sudan, a...
Back in the day, I used to shake my head while watching state lawmakers work late into the night – sometimes till midnight – to get legislation passed at the end of a session. "You couldn't pay me enough to do that kind of work for 12- to 15 hours," I'd think to myself. Actually, the pay for state senators is $12,000-a-year, plus some per-diems for expenses and (as they say around Lincoln) "all you can eat and drink." The salary hasn't changed since 1988. It takes some patience and end...
State lawmakers went home recently, ending a 90-day session marked by reductions in spending and borrowing from cash reserves to close a projected budget gap that once topped $400 million. Hard to believe that just a couple of years ago, the state was sitting on a huge surplus of cash. It was enough to set legislators dreaming big dreams, like digging a massive lake between Omaha and Lincoln and financing new marinas and other tourism amenities. But that was then and this is now, and the...
As we're reminded over and over, Nebraska doesn't have mountains like Colorado and Wyoming, and doesn't have the beaches of California or Florida. That's one of the reasons, we're told, the Cornhusker State is among the least visited of all the states. I even heard this during a recent distillery tour out in Kentucky: "You're from Nebraska!" the tour guide exclaimed. "Isn't that the least-visited state in the union?" Geez. But we have an abundance of rivers in our state. From the "mile wide and...
Let's get this straight – 71% of Nebraskans voted in November to legalize the use of marijuana as medicine. But when the State Legislature got around to adopting regulations to dole it out, lawmakers decided "whoa," let's not get too hasty about this. It's a crazy world, right? But how crazy is it when the state's voters, by not just a slim margin but a landslide, approve new laws and the State Legislature decides 'nope.' Medical marijuana is now legal in 47 states. Nebraska, Kansas and Idaho t...
“Old soldiers don’t die, they just fade away.” Gen. Douglas MacArthur, a World War II hero, used that phrase in his farewell address to the U.S. Congress more than 70 years ago. But the comment doesn’t come within a country mile of describing one, old Nebraska soldier. Tom Brewer, a native of Gordon and a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, served six tours of duty in Afghanistan during his 36 years in the Army, earning a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. He served two terms in the Nebrask...
With the exception of being a state trooper, the toughest job in state government in my estimation is working as a corrections officer in a state prison. You're dealing with a population of men and women who, for the most part, are adept at manipulation and have some history in assaultive behavior. Corrections officers deal with a difficult group of people while trying to steer inmates to a better, law-abiding life. It's a tough job, made tougher by the decades-long overcrowding to state prisons...
A rarely discussed legal term is getting its day in the sun. "The rule of law" is the crazy idea that everyone in a democracy is accountable to the same laws and that everyone is entitled to their day in court (and to be represented by an attorney). The legal term took top billing in a recent episode of "60 Minutes" as well as in letters penned by a group of professors at the University of Nebraska College of Law and a collection of the state's legal groups. The professors' letter was directed...
Jack Benny used to say that "kids say the darndest things." But every time there's an election, we can honestly say that "political ads say the darndest things." A seemingly innocuous vote or comment by a campaign becomes a negative TV ad or campaign mailer. Forget about the issues and whether a controversial vote was cast for a good reason. It's all about whether a candidate is a scoundrel or not. You might remember a few years ago when a group of state senators were targeted for re-election...
As a kid, our grade school class was one of many that got to visit John Brown's Cave in Nebraska City. There was a cool log cabin, the Mayhew Cabin, hewn from local cottonwoods before Nebraska became a state. There was this kinda spooky, underground "cave" -- a hand-made tunnel to a nearby ravine that was billed as a hiding spot for slaves escaping bondage in nearby slave states (but was really an effort to increase tourism and the tunnel was never used by escaping slaves). Back then, John Brown...
When it comes to the whys and hows of state tax policy, it's hard to beat public hearings of the Revenue Committee at the Nebraska Legislature. There's a fascinating mix of folks testifying, from dark-suited corporate lawyers and accountants asking for tax cuts, to blue jean-wearing farmers wondering why property taxes are so high. But you always heard a common refrain from the state's business community: Our income and property tax rates are so high, we've got to remain competitive with...
In November, Nebraska voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative allowing workers to earn sick leave for personal or family needs. They also voted to legalize marijuana used for medical purposes. Passage of the two measures are the latest example of how politically popular issues – such as raising the minimum wage and expanding Medicaid to provide health care for the working poor – can easily pass when put to a vote of the people, after they didn't have a prayer of passage in the Sta...
The other day, I got a text from my uncle in California. He'd just watched a news report about the tumultuous, March 18 town hall held by U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, a Republican, in which shouts and boos dominated. "I thought Nebraskans were above this stuff," texted my uncle, who grew up across the river in northwest Iowa. Gotta admit, it wasn't a great look for "Nebraska Nice." But also gotta admit, I wasn't surprised - it wasn't the first time I'd seen an angry crowd in Nebraska confront a...
Mele Mason recalls the days when the newsroom at Omaha TV station KMTV had journalists covering city hall, the county courthouse, the statehouse and the “cop shop.” Reporters attended multiple other governmental meetings and community gatherings, said Mason, who worked as a news videographer at the station in the 1980s. But those days are gone, she said, with her old newsroom now about one-third the size. So when Mason saw that an effort was underway to address shrinking newsrooms by enl...
St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, but as always, you probably saw buttons reading "Kiss me, I'm Irish" from all sorts of people, Irish or not. We are all Irish on St. Paddy's Day, they say. But according to U.S. News & World Report, only about 9.4% of Americans are of Irish descent, yet 61% of us planned to celebrate on March 17. It all got me wondering, how Irish are Nebraskans? Back in the day, I did a story on this topic and found that, be gosh and begorrah, the "Irish Capital of...
It's tax season, and who doesn't dislike filing their taxes? It takes time away from things like checking on the latest Husker football recruit or seeing what new fight we're having with Canada. And it's a messy, mathematic-heavy task, requiring a lot of wading through regulations. But there's one thing I detest more, and that's when people don't pay their taxes, unlike you and me. If I gotta pay, I reason, so should everyone else. On the federal level, it's estimated that nearly $600 billion a...
It's daylight savings time, so let's turn back the clock ... to four years ago when the state was still contending with the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a silver lining of sorts to those awful days – a huge influx of federal funds to keep the economy going. And state senators met on how to spend that glut of money with plans to finally make Nebraska a more attractive destination for new residents, and a place where more tourists will spend their vacation cash. Lawmakers even had a flashy name f...
The old joke around the State Capitol is that legislators get paid "$12,000 a year and all you can eat and drink." That is a reference to all the free meals – and, OK, maybe a drink or two – dispensed at the almost daily events hosted by lobbying groups during legislative sessions. But in reality, it's no laughing matter that state senators in Nebraska get paid so little for representing us. George Norris, the founder of the one-house Unicameral Legislature in our state, argued that such a sys...
As a young reporter, I got the opportunity to cover, and learn a few things, from maybe the greatest state senator ever, Jerome Warner. He was the kind of state senator who just commanded respect, and unlike some politicians, had a well-formed group of beliefs that guided his decision making. For instance, one was that user fees should finance certain aspects of government. For example, roads. The primary users of roads and highways should pay for them, Warner reasoned. Thus, he believed that...
It's hard to overstate the impact agriculture has on the State of Nebraska. The production of crops contributes $25 billion a year to the state's economy, according to the University of Nebraska, and the impact extends to the cities, where suppliers, bankers and consultants make a living providing goods and services to farmers and ranchers. Few states are as dependent on agriculture as ours, a state that has farming in its title, the "Cornhusker State." About a third of farm income comes from fo...
Nebraska, I'll bet, is the only state in the union where the retirement of the volleyball coach is front-page news. And where the installation of a new coach is covered live on television with the governor in attendance. But that's what happened after legendary coach and cowboy John Cook announced recently that he was riding into the sunset and leaving a team that he'd guided to four national titles over 25 years. "It's better to burn out than fade out," Cook said at his retirement press...
I really enjoyed the film, "Groundhog Day." It starred Bill Murray – who is generally hilarious – as a TV weatherman covering Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, home of the famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil. But Murray is caught in some kind of time warp in which the day's events, and mis-adventures, keep repeating themselves. I lost track of how many times Murray's alarm clock rang to start one more, identical day. You might be feeling the same way about a couple bills just int...
George Norris must be rolling over in his grave. Norris, the father of the one-house Nebraska Unicameral Legislature and one of the greatest U.S. senators in history, sought a political body that would not be dominated by political parties. So state senators in Norris' Unicameral are elected on a non-partisan ballot, leaders of legislative committees are chosen by secret ballot and there's no closed-door, final crafting of legislation in conference committees. The idea is that legislators can...
As the State Legislature gets to work on its 90-day session, it's time to consider whether the Unicameral should resolve an important, and regularly overlooked matter - designating a state dessert. Face it, we all love dessert and naming an official state dessert is long overdue. It has to rank higher than designating an official state reptile or state fossil, which we already have (the box turtle and mammoth, respectively.) Eight states, our research indicates, have state desserts including, gu...
Years ago, I had the pleasure of covering the dedication of a new, $17-million bridge spanning the Missouri River east of Niobrara. The bridge was named after Chief Standing Bear, whose people, the Poncas, once ruled over that area of northeast Nebraska. Standing Bear, known for winning a federal judge's declaration that Native Americans were "persons" under the law, is buried nearby. But the structure, and another bridge built farther east across the Missouri, were dubbed the "Bridges to...
