Stories from Tuesday, October 25, 2011

First, Gov. Dave Heineman was opposed to a special session to deal with the Keystone XL pipeline. Then, Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk said he would not support a special session. Now, the governor has called for a special session beginning a week from today, to determine whether the state can force TransCanada to reroute the pipeline...

Not enough food to satisfy rising worldwide populations, tighter water supplies, a possible slowing of the rate of crop-yield increases -- there's a growing amount of buzz surrounding these and other predictions of future ag-related conditions. An obvious question often follows: How adequate are current water-management policies to address these challenges?...

We were just a couple of pilots flying cross country in a private airplane. The takeoff, approach and landing portions of such flights are busy times. In fact, professional airline crews are enjoined to suppress any extraneous conversation, they call it a "sterile cockpit," and concentrate only on the business at hand during those critical phases of every flight. ...

CAMBRIDGE, Nebraska -- The Furnas County, Nebraska, Sheriff's Department is looking for two teenagers who committed an armed robbery at 4:14 p.m., Monday at Bailey's Liquor Store in Cambridge. Sheriff Kurt Kapperman describes the first subject as a 16-year-old white male with sandy blond hair, wearing a blue shirt, dark pants and glasses. The second subject is a 14-year-old white male with black hair, wearing a white T-shirt and dark jeans...

McCOOK, Nebraska -- The lack of rental properties in McCook, Nebraska, is "desperate." Barb Ostrum, community service coordinator of the McCook office of Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska, asked Red Willow County commissioners to consider the plight of seven more families looking for rental housing if the county purchases and then demolishes the two two-story apartment houses at 520 Norris as the county makes way for the possible construction of a jail north of the courthouse...

LINCOLN -- Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman called Monday afternoon for a special legislative session beginning Nov. 1 to explore giving the state authority to change the route of TransCanada's controversial Keystone XL pipeline as well as future oil pipelines...