LINCOLN — The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday upheld a juvenile court’s decision to put troubled teenagers in the state’s adult psychiatric hospital.
The ruling came in a pair of cases involving an Omaha-area youth, identified only as Giavonni P. He was placed in the Lincoln Regional Center in November 2018 after officials were unable to find a residential treatment facility to take him.
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LINCOLN - After detailed testimony outlined how fingerprints are processed and analyzed, the answer of whether a Lincoln political activist and university employee vandalized a U.S. senator’s office came down to a question of probability.
Attorney Marc Delman asked Lincoln Police fingerprint analyst Launa Groves if she could be 100% sure the prints pulled from a sign taped to the door of Sen. Deb Fischer’s campaign office last year belonged to Patricia Wonch Hill.
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BEATRICE — Gage County officials are considering a change to their local wind-energy regulations at the request of a group that opposes the growing presence of wind farms in rural areas.
The Gage County Board of Supervisors will hold a meeting next month to discuss the changes proposed by Prairie Wind Watchers.
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LINCOLN - The Nebraska State Fair Board on Friday approved a new budget that will require cutting as much as half of the fair's staff.
Jeremy Jensen, chairman of the board's finance committee, said the budget that was approved will likely result in a reduction of anywhere from eight to 11 staff members, and those cuts will have to be achieved through layoffs. The fair has a full-time staff of about 20 people.
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LINCOLN — State Sen. Joni Albrecht of Thurston announced Thursday that she will seek a second term in the Nebraska Legislature.
A registered Republican, she represents District 17, which includes Dakota, Thurston and Wayne Counties in northeast Nebraska. She was first elected to the office in 2016.
During her first term, Albrecht got controversial legislation passed to require that women seeking medication abortions be told that they may be able to continue their pregnancies if they have not taken the second of two drugs.
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LINCOLN — A legal challenge to the constitutionality of appointing election commissioners for some Nebraska counties has been moved to a lower court.
Attorney General Doug Peterson filed the case in Lancaster County District Court after it was rejected by the Nebraska Supreme Court.
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SCOTTSBLUFF - A former state senator, Gering council member and community leader has passed at the age of 83.
Joyce Hillman-Kortum died Wednesday according to an online posting by the Dugan-Kramer Funeral Home in Scottsbluff.
She spent eight years in the Nebraska Legislature starting with her election to the District 48 seat in 1990 and re-election in 1994, followed by nearly eight years on the Gering City Council following election in 2004, having to step down in 2012 after moving to Scottsbluff.
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OMAHA - Known to friends and colleagues as quiet yet capable of making tough decisions, Dr. Charles Andrews also is recognized for his key role in setting the University of Nebraska Medical Center on many of the pathways it continues to follow today.
Andrews, UNMC’s fifth chancellor, was instrumental in establishing UNMC as a leader in solid organ and bone marrow transplantation. He also targeted cancer, rural health, geriatrics and biotechnology as areas of excellence.
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OMAHA - The House of Representatives is pushing back this week against the Trump administration’s under-the-radar efforts to pull the United States out of the Open Skies Treaty. The withdrawal would permanently ground two Offutt-based jets associated with the pact.
Republican Reps. Don Bacon and Jeff Fortenberry, whose districts include the greater Omaha area and Offutt Air Force Base, are co-sponsoring a bill proposed by a California Democrat that would require the White House to give Congress 180 days’ notice before suspending, terminating or withdrawing from the treaty.
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WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Wednesday halted all four scheduled federal executions, finding that Attorney General William Barr's July proposal that sought to resume the death penalty after a 16-year moratorium appears to be at odds with federal law.
The four men were scheduled to be executed in December and January 2020. But U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of the District of Columbia ruled Wednesday that the inmates were likely to succeed in their argument that Barr's proposal to execute all four using one type of lethal injection contradicts the Federal Death Penalty Act.
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LINCOLN — A legislative committee struggling to craft a property tax relief plan hasn’t agreed on an exact proposal yet, but it has at least agreed on an approach to the problem.
The Legislature’s Revenue Committee voiced agreement on Friday that a multi-year plan to address high property taxes should first target help for farmers and ranchers, with a particular emphasis on relief in school districts with high property tax levies, such as in bedroom communities like Seward, York and Blair.
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LINCOLN — The September announcement of the Blue Hill Care Center’s planned closing hit Brenda Trumble hard. The home’s closure would have forced her 90-year-old mother, Lois Mohlman, to leave the south-central Nebraska town where she had lived for more than 30 years.
A total of 34 Nebraska nursing homes have closed during the past eight years. All but two were in rural counties. The trend worries nursing home associations and advocacy groups alike, especially as they look ahead to the baby boom generation reaching advanced age. And some state senators say Nebraska needs to be looking at ways to keep rural homes open.
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LINCOLN - Overall state tax collections were up in October, when compared with Nebraska Economic Forecasting Advisory Board predictions, although net sales tax receipts were down slightly.
The Nebraska Department of Revenue reported that while net tax collections overall of $290 million for the month were 8.8% above the forecast of $266 million, sales and use taxes were down 2.4%.
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LINCOLN - It's not easy for urban and rural senators to reach consensus on broad tax reform.
So the members of the Legislature's Revenue Committee — four rural senators and four senators who represent metropolitan Omaha — have settled for unanimous agreement on the need for additional property tax relief now and established relief for agriculture as the initial priority.
A plan endorsed by the committee would reduce the value of ag land for tax purposes from 75 percent to 55 percent of market value and provide $100 million in additional state school aid to replace local tax revenue.
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OMAHA — Omaha-area CEOs are generally optimistic about sales and growth in the coming year, with almost half expecting to add employees and most others expecting stable employment, according to a recent survey.
The results of the annual economic outlook survey of the Greater Omaha Chamber generally seemed to reflect the positive view for the U.S. economy as a whole. But there were also concerns expressed that could limit growth locally, including labor shortages, state taxes and incentives, and the possibility of a recession in the coming year.
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OMAHA - Charles Schwab is buying Omaha-based TD Ameritrade for $26 billion, Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo reported Thursday. Other national news media outlets have been reporting that the two were discussing a deal.
The move, which Fox Business said is expected to be announced Thursday morning, will allow Charles Schwab to better compete with the likes of BlackRock. The combined firm will be run by Schwab CEO Walter Bettinger, and TD Ameritrade's chief financial officer, Steve Boyle, will lead the target company until the deal is completed, Fox Business reported.
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LINCOLN — A Holt County supervisor is being advised not only to abstain from voting on issues related to the Keystone XL pipeline but also not to lobby or advise fellow board members about the controversial project.
Holt County Board member Bill Tielke of Atkinson declared a conflict of interest this summer after signing a right-of-way agreement with TC Energy for the pipeline to cross his farmland, and stating that he’ll receive a $49,000 “cooperation bonus” from the company if the crude oil pipeline is built.
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OMAHA - The president of Creighton University disagreed Wednesday with 2,093 students who voted last week to ask Creighton to divest from fossil fuels. The students requested through a formal referendum that Creighton’s administration stop new investments in the fossil fuel industry.
The Rev. Daniel Hendrickson, Creighton’s president, sent a letter to the university community Wednesday saying that he supports those who are passionate about sustainability efforts. But he said the aim of the nonbinding student referendum “does not align with our goal of a properly diversified endowment, and could negatively impact Creighton and our students.”
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Read President Hendrickson’s letter HERE
LINCOLN - A Lincoln man was arrested for burglary after police said he broke into a church, stole a desk and tried to drag it up the stairs of the State Capitol building. Lincoln police were called to 14th and K Streets around 6 a.m. Wednesday. They found a 36-year-old man, seemingly under the influence of alcohol or drugs, pulling the desk. The church, located directly across from the Capitol was found in disarray.
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After pushing U.S. oil and natural-gas production to record levels, some shale companies plan to pump less.
The pullback is sharpest among the country’s largest natural-gas drillers. Several producers, including EQT Corp. EQT and Chesapeake Energy Corp. have said during third-quarter earnings that they may shrink output next year.
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