LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – 2024 was a big year in politics. It saw Donald Trump re-elected to the White House, and in Nebraska, there was no shortage of drama. 10/11 NOW wanted to take a look at some of the top moments from the last 366 days.

Some major bills took to the Unicameral floor in the 2024 legislative session, like the controversial Sports and Spaces Act, which would have banned trans athletes from participating in high school athletics. That failed to get a filibuster-proof majority.

“As they say on the farm, it’s a hammer looking for a nail,” said State Sen. Merv Riepe after he declined to support it. “I support girls sports, but I don’t think we’ve got a problem to solve.”

A similar bill will likely come up again in 2025. Gov. Jim Pillen was dissatisfied with the movement on the property tax relief front.

“Enjoy half time,” Pillen said to state senators at the very end of the 2024 session. “We’ll see you here again soon.”

Pillen called a special session and rolled out his playbook, but as senators rolled up their sleeves in the heat of August, things didn’t go to Pillen’s plan. Only modest relief trickled out.

“I think this is good progress,” said Sen. Lou Ann Linehan at the end of the special session. “Not enough, but good progress.”

A shock visit from U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham at a closed-door meeting raised the specter of a last-minute change to the state’s splitting of electoral votes.

It was also busy year at the ballot box, with voters weighing in on a number of measures mandating paid sick leave and legalizing medical marijuana. Nebraska also kicked a “school choice” law to the curb and enshrined a 12-week abortion ban into the state’s constitution.

A surprisingly close race for the U.S. Senate pitted industrial mechanic Dan Osborn against incumbent Deb Fischer.

“I want to be a voice for workers because less than 2% of our elected officials come from in the House and Senate come from the working class, so I want to change that dynamic,” Osborn said.

Now, Fischer, with a roughly 7 point lead in the end, looks ahead to her third term facing a turbulent world.

“We’ve seen an increase in chaos around this world, not just in the Middle East, not just in Ukraine, but at our southern border,” Fischer said.

Some notable Nebraskans immersed themselves in that chaos. State Sen. Tom Brewer toured the battered Ukraine frontlines for his fourth time, relaying his finding to the U.S. Congress.

“The fight here is a fight for democracy,” Brewer said. “If we let democracy die here in Ukraine, nobody’s safe.”

And students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln protested the continuing war in Gaza.

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LINCOLN, Neb. (WOWT) – The Nebraska Department of Agriculture confirmed another HPAI case on Tuesday.

The latest case of highly pathogenic avian influenza, known as HPAI, was found in a a commercial broiler flock in Johnson County, located in southeast Nebraska.

The latest report — the state’s sixth case detected this year — comes almost two weeks after the Nebraska officials reported two cases in backyard flocks. All but one of the Nebraska cases have been reported this month; the first case of the year was reported in Februrary.

Iowa also recently reported an additional case, found in a commercial egg-laying flock in O’Brien County, located in the northwest part of the state, near Sioux Center. The case, reported on Dec. 14, was Iowa’s fourth H5N1 HPAI case detected this month. A total of eight cases have been reported in the state this year.

HPAI symptoms can include birds that aren’t drinking water, are suffering from incoordination, or lacking energy or appetite; decreased egg production or laying eggs that are soft-shelled or misshapen; or birds with nasal discharge, coughing, sneezing, and diarrhea.

Wild birds can also be succeptible to the virus, but Nebraska officials have previously noted that migratory birds can carry the virus without becoming sick at all.

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Copyright 2024 WOWT. All rights reserved.

LINCOLN — Rod Worrell calls it a “Christmas miracle,” but just hours before he was ready to print the final edition of the Ainsworth Star-Journal on Dec. 25, a new owner emerged.

Now both the Star-Journal and the Valentine Midland News, two weekly papers that Worrell and his wife Kathy had owned for more than 40 years, will not close.

“I wasn’t holding out much hope,” Worrell said.

Potential owners in Ainsworth, he said, were having trouble finding someone to staff the paper — workforce is a major issue in many sectors across Nebraska, including in Ainsworth, a ranching community 140 miles west of Norfolk.

Graig Kinzie, the owner of the local radio station in Ainsworth, said he’d been trying to put together a group to buy the paper for two to three months, but each group couldn’t come up with someone to run the operation.

Kinzie said he’d even told Worrell, a long-time golfing buddy, “Sorry,” his efforts had failed.

But then the owners of an Ainsworth car dealership, Clint and Katie Painter stepped forward to tell Kinzie their daughter, Erin, wanted to move back to her hometown and was willing to manage the paper.

The Worrells now plan to work for a couple of months to help the new owners — the Painters, Graig and Stephanie Kinzie, and Kirk and Chelsea Peterson — get acclimated.

“I’m really excited,” Rod Worrell said. “I wasn’t looking forward to being the one to shut down a newspaper that’s been around in one form or another for 142 years.”

The same goes for Valentine, a north-central Nebraska community where Dana Anderson, a longtime employee of the Midland News, and her husband, Ken, have purchased the newspaper there, as was first reported by News Channel Nebraska.

Changes at rural Nebraska newspaper raise subscribers — and hope for the future

In Ainsworth, Kinzie, who has owned KBRB for 15 years, said that he hated to see the newspaper close, even though it competed with his radio station for advertising.

“You hate to see a pillar of your community close,” he said. “From a community standpoint it’s not something we wanted to see go away.”

“It actually all worked out at the very, very last minute,” Kinzie said.

He added that his advertising representatives and accounting personnel can handle a lot of what needs to be done at the newspaper, and he already covers a lot of local meetings and ballgames, which also will be an asset.

The saving of the Ainsworth and Valentine papers comes when community papers have been hit with a loss of advertising to social media, higher production costs, a decline in mailing service and challenges in hiring staff.

Last year, an average of about 2.5 newspapers closed each week nationally, according to the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. More than 211 American counties now have no newspapers, creating so-called “news deserts.”