Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
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Panelists at a gun violence discussion at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln agreed that a lack of access to mental health care and family dysfunction are the roots of American gun crime. Point Blank: A Conversation About Gun Violence in America featured seven experts in law enforcement, psychology, constitutional law and policy to address issues involved in gun violence Tuesday, March 5. Discussion moderator and UNL Law School Dean Susan Poser began the evening by citing United States gun violence statistics. According to the Centers for...
LINCOLN – Making sure employees under age 21 won’t serve alcohol to other minors was the purpose of a bill in the General Affairs Committee Monday, March 4. Another alcohol-related bill would increase beer taxes. Under the LB444, introduced by Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha, employees who sell alcohol would have to complete a training course to do so. Underage workers could sell in a licensed retail establishment as long as another authorized person who is at least 21 was on the premise, essentially supervising the sale. Krist said the leg...
LINCOLN – A bill that would help ensure reasonable fees for public records requests advanced in the Nebraska Unicameral on a 35-1 vote Monday. LB363, introduced by Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln, would close a loophole by which some state agencies and public entities have taken advantage of people by charging large amounts of money for public records, Avery said. Sen. Scott Price gave the example of a person in his hometown of Bellevue being charged more than $600 for 14 pieces of paper because of the legal costs that the entity said would be r...
LINCOLN – The offensive term “mentally retarded” would be replaced with “intellectual disability” in Nebraska’s laws under LB343. The Health and Human Services Committee listened to public testimony Wednesday, Feb. 20 at the hearing for the bill, which was introduced by Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln. In his opening statement, Coash told the committee that it’s time to update the language that was once used by the medical community. “If we didn’t do this from time to time, our statutes would be full of the words ‘idiot’, ‘moron’ and ‘imbecile,’” h...
LINCOLN – Supporting foster parents with adequate child care reimbursement was the forefront of discussion during the Health and Human Services Committee meeting Wednesday, Feb. 13. Sen. Annette Dubas of Fullerton introduced LB530, which if passed, would ensure reimbursement rates would keep up with the cost of fostering children. Dubas said the Foster Care Reimbursement Rate Committee of the Department of Health and Human Services calculated standard daily reimbursement rates to be $20 for children 0-5, $23 for ages 6-11 and $25 for c...
LINCOLN - Senators clashed with some testifiers at the General Affairs Committee meeting Feb. 11 about their knowledge of the horseracing industry and proposals to help it make more money. LB73, introduced by Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha, would change the number of live racing days required for a racetrack. Pat Loontjer, director of Gambling With The Good Life, said she was neutral on the bill but didn’t think the racing industry is really interested in the horses and just wants to hold a gambling license and to diminish the number of live r...