Stories from Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Nebraska was a "fly over" state long before airliners were invented, but most of the traffic ran east and west, rather than north and south. That's not the situation now, when Highway 83 has become a major "hay corridor" for huge semi trucks hauling big round bales of fodder to drought-ravaged Texas...

LINCOLN, Nebraska -- For most Nebraskans, the fall season is a relatively calm time -- the kids are back in school, Husker football provides the excitement on Saturdays, the leaves are changing. With the controversy surrounding the proposed Keystone XL pipeline this fall, however, the atmosphere around the state wasn't so calm. Just in time for Thanksgiving, though, good news has arrived with the decision to move the pipeline away from the Sandhills...

"Oh, I love Mac's Drive Inn. I guess I'll never get to eat there again," was the lament of a former McCook resident who broke all ties with the community when she divorced her husband. She texted the remark to her 8-year-old daughter who was eating at Mac's at the time, her ties unbroken by the broken pledge between her mother and father...

LINCOLN -- Nurses are in short supply in Nebraska, and that shortage is only expected to grow in severity in the next decade, right when the aging population requires more medical care than ever before. That's what members of two legislative committees were told Tuesday at a hearing on the state's nursing shortage...

Emergency responders from McCook, Nebraska, plan their strategy gathered around the rear end of the southbound hay truck and trailer that tipped onto its right side as it turned east at the junction of Highways 6&34 and 83 about 11 a.m., Tuesday. City of McCook heavy equipment operator Rick Provence used a front-end loader to move the bales away before a crew from Tri-State Towing of Benkelman -- Jeremy Borchard, standing left, and Joe Hubl -- set the trailer and cab upright about 1:30 p.m. ...

WASHINGTON -- Today, Sen. Ben Nelson asked why the State of Nebraska requested more than $5 million from the federal government to create state-based health insurance exchanges which it opposes and refuses to implement in Nebraska. "Why, in this time of constrained budgets, would the Governor ask for $5 million more for an idea he opposes, refuses to implement and wants to repeal? Perhaps he should send it back," Senator Nelson said today during his weekly conference call with members of the Nebraska news media.. ...

"... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. ..." -- the American Declaration of Independence...