PETE RICKETTS

Restoring the voting rights of felons is one of the few election-related changes that has strong bipartisan support.

Former Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts was sworn into the U.S. Senate on Monday, replacing Republican Sen. Ben Sasse as the Senate returns from several weeks of recess and begins a new session of closely-divided government.

He lost a Senate campaign in 2006 by 28 points — one of the biggest defeats on record for someone who would later join the chamber.

Pete Ricketts (R), whose second and final term as governor just ended, will replace former senator Ben Sasse (R), who resigned from his seat earlier this week.

In one of his first acts as Nebraska’s governor, Republican Jim Pillen named his predecessor to the state’s vacant U.S. Senate seat on Thursday. Pillen surprised no one in naming fellow Republican Pete Ricketts to the seat vacated Sunday by Ben Sasse. The governor said 111 people applied for the vacant seat.

Outgoing Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts is expected to be appointed to the state's U.S. Senate seat being vacated by fellow Republican Ben Sasse.

Outgoing Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts is expected to be appointed to the state's U.S. Senate seat being vacated by fellow Republican Ben Sasse.

When Republican Jim Pillen becomes Nebraska’s governor next month, one of his first acts will likely be to name his predecessor and biggest supporter to fill an open U.S. Senate seat. Pillen was elected in November in large part because of current Gov. Pete Ricketts ’ backing, and now he can return the favor by appointing him to the Senate, more than 15 years after Ricketts spent $12 million of his own money on a failed bid for the office.

Nebraska voters approved a new photo identification requirement for upcoming elections. Proponents of the measure contended it was necessary to prevent future abuse.

Nebraska Republicans are facing a challenge to get enough votes in the Legislature to enact an abortion ban, even though they are expected to easily retain control.

Voters across the country are deciding ballot measures that could reshape the ways they cast ballots in coming elections.

Gov. Pete Ricketts spent $1.3M to help Jim Pillen win GOP gubernatorial primary to replace him. If he wins the election, Pillen may appoint Ricketts as next senator from Nebraska.

Voters in some battleground states will be deciding ballot proposals this November that could reshape the way they vote in the 2024 presidential election.

Speculation is rampant that Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts is the most likely person to replace U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, who appears ready to resign to become president of the University of Florida.

With Ben Sasse apparently ready to resign his Nebraska U.S. Senate seat to become president of the University of Florida, speculation is rampant that his temporary replacement could be Gov. Pete Ricketts. Ricketts, who like Sasse is a Republican, would otherwise be out of a political job due to term limits at the end of the year. Scenarios of how Ricketts would ascend to the U.S. Senate run the gamut from his presumptive successor naming him as Nebraska’s newest U.S. senator to Ricketts appointing himself to fill the seat.

At the 7th annual Basque Fry in Gardnerville, a lineup of GOP national heavyweights and local Nevada politicians fired up a crowd of 1,500 Republicans with a message of urgency.

When the U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a right to abortion, it sparked legal changes and court challenges in states nationwide.

Nebraska Republicans fired their longtime party chairman at a tumultuous state convention that highlighted divisions within the party driven by activists who support former President Donald Trump and want to take the party further to the right. After convention delegates voted to remove Chairman Dan Welch on Saturday, most of the other state party leaders, including Executive Director Taylor Gage, resigned, the Omaha World-Herald reported. Republicans were sharply divided during this spring's gubernatorial primary battle between two conservative candidates: the eventual winner, Jim Pillen, and businessman Charles Herbster, who was endorsed by Trump.

Nebraska state Sen. Mike Flood has won a special election to replace former U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a fellow Republican who was sentenced to two years of probation earlier in the day for a conviction on charges that he lied to federal agents.

At least a half-dozen GOP presidential prospects are planning Iowa visits this summer now that the state's June primary has come and gone.

Former President Donald Trump’s crusade for vengeance suffered two devastating blows when Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger won their primaries despite rejecting Trump’s entreaties to reverse his 2020 election loss.

Two Republican frontrunners are hoping to clinch primary victories in Georgia.

The megadrought fueled by climate change that has long gripped the western U.S. is moving eastward.

Charles Herbster Nebraska gubernatorial candidate speaks during the fourth day of the Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC on Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022 in Orlando, FL. Former President Donald Trump's preferred candidate is projected to lose Nebraska's GOP gubernatorial primary, signaling that Trump's influence in the party has its limits — even in Republican stronghold states. Herbster, a first-time gubernatorial candidate who poured millions into his campaign, has denied the allegations made by eight women, including a Republican state senator. Nebraska's GOP primary was an uncommonly competitive three-way fight between Herbster, Pillen and State Sen. Brett Lindstrom. Donald Trump Jr., the former president's oldest son, had also campaigned with Herbster at multiple stops in Nebraska in the run-up to the event.

University of Nebraska regent Jim Pillen has won the state’s crowded Republican primary race for governor over a candidate endorsed by Donald Trump.

In the Republican primary for governor, a Trump-backed executive accused of groping eight women is being challenged by two rivals.

The top race in Tuesday’s primary elections in Nebraska and West Virginia is a heavily contested Republican primary for Nebraska governor.

The former president is campaigning for Charles Herbster for governor in the primary.

In Nebraska, the winner of a crowded Republican primary race for governor will be the overwhelming favorite to win in November.

The former White House adviser and Donald Trump are working for Charles Herbster's election as governor despite allegations he groped eight women.

Former President Donald Trump’s persistent flirtation with another White House run is doing little to discourage other potential Republican candidates from stepping up their activity in Iowa, the state that will formally launch the nomination process.

"All these nonprofits, when people come to them asking for help, the bucket will be empty," a United Way president said.

A debate is playing out across the country as the Treasury Department begins reallocating some of the $46.5 billion in rental assistance from places slow to spend to others that are running out of funds.

Nebraska voters will elect a new member of Congress on the same day a judge in California is scheduled to sentence the Republican who resigned from the position to a possible federal prison sentence.

Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska says he will resign from office, effective March 31, after a California jury convicted him of lying to federal authorities about an illegal campaign donation from a foreign national.

Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry is facing growing pressure from congressional leaders and Nebraska’s GOP governor to resign after a California jury found him guilty of lying to federal authorities about an illegal $30,000 campaign donation from a Nigerian billionaire.

A jury of eight women and four men has been seated in the trial of a little-known Republican congressman from Nebraska who’s accused of lying to federal authorities about illegal campaign contributions from a Nigerian-born billionaire.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska has typically been a low-profile Republican politician who easily won in his district and rarely made headlines.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in letters to seven governors, is reaffirming the need for members of their states' Army and Air National Guards to get the mandatory COVID-19 vaccine or lose their Guard status.

Martha Raddatz reports on President Joe Biden's push for voting rights legislation.

President Joe Biden on Friday tried to put behind recent setbacks on voting rights and his economic agenda by outlining progress made in implementing his $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package. (Jan. 14)

Here's the latest for Friday January 14th: Biden expresses doubt about fate of voting rights bills; North Korean missile launch; Oath Keepers leader arrested in January 6th Capitol attack; Supreme Court rules on vaccine mandates.

Colorado's governor is warning he will “protect and aggressively assert” his state's water rights after Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts announced a plan to spend $500 million on a canal and reservoir project that includes claiming access to land in Colorado under a 99-year-old compact between the states. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said he will work with Nebraska but wants more details about what the state has planned. “We will continue to protect and aggressively assert Colorado’s rights under all existing water compacts," Polis said in a statement Wednesday evening.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts announced a $500 million plan Monday to divert water out of Colorado under a 99-year-old compact between the states that allows Nebraska to seize access to Colorado land along the South Platte River and build canals. Ricketts said Nebraska would invoke its rights under the South Platte River Compact amid concerns that Colorado's plans for the river could reduce water flows into his state by as much as 90%, taking a potentially huge toll on Nebraska's agricultural and power industries and likely affecting water supplies in the state's two largest cities, Omaha and Lincoln.

Nebraska has held one of the nation's lowest unemployment rates for years, with fewer than two million people and plenty of jobs to go around.

Even in normal times Nebraska has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, with fewer than two million people and plenty of jobs to go around. Now Gov. Pete Ricketts, who frequently expounds on the value of work, is confronting an intriguing question: Can a governor force citizens to work, even if they apparently aren’t eager or able to do so? Ricketts is certainly trying every option imaginable to get Nebraskans into jobs, including requiring people to confer with job coaches before seeking unemployment benefits.

Republican governors, lawmakers and attorneys general are forming a wall of opposition to President Joe Biden's plan to require vaccinations or COVID-19 testing at all private employers of 100 workers or more.

Officials in the northeast China city of Harbin say national level health officials have been sent to the city to deal with what may be a coronavirus outbreak.

Australia’s capital will remain locked down for a second month after the local government reported 22 new coronavirus infections.

Kids in Nebraska must be vaccinated against diseases such as chickenpox and measles, but Gov. Pete Ricketts has come out against mandating COVID-19 shots.

Three Republican presidential prospects have sharply condemned President Joe Biden’s handling of the end of the war in Afghanistan.

Conservative activists in Nebraska are turning to voters to enact a voter identification requirement, an issue that state lawmakers have blocked multiple times even though it's now common in other Republican-led states.

Multiple Republican governors rejected the CDC's mask guidance renewal Tuesday that recommends some vaccinated individuals in locations with greater rates of infection, as well as everyone in K-12 schools, resume mask-wearing in certain indoor venues.

In a story published July 24, 2021, about changes in the way states are reporting on coronavirus cases, The Associated Press erroneously reported that Florida changed to weekly reporting on virus cases earlier this month.

Declaring that the federal government was “taking on the bad actors doing bad things to our communities,” President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced a series of efforts to stem a rising national tide of violent crime.

Fifteen Republican governors have sent a letter to the U.S. Commerce Secretary, urging that the U.S. Census bureau release redistricting data as soon as possible.

Nebraska will send state troopers down to the United States-Mexico border to help law enforcement in Texas respond to high illegal immigration levels, the governor announced this weekend.

A German court on Friday officially declared billionaire Karl-Erivan Haub dead, more than three years after the head of retail group Tengelmann went missing in the Swiss Alps. Haub, who was 58, was training for a ski mountaineering race when he disappeared under Switzerland’s famous Matterhorn peak, located on the southern border with Italy.

Nebraska prosecutors have been successful in getting death sentences for convicted murderers, but as the state adds to its death row population, many who oversee the state's capital punishment largely ignore the fact that Nebraska has no lethal injection drugs and very likely won’t get any for years, if ever.

Republicans are increasingly using food — especially beef — as a cudgel in the culture war.

The governor of Nebraska is wading into the race to replace him, criticizing a fellow Republican millionaire and Trump backer.

FILE - In this Friday, Oct. 25, 2019, file photo guards observe inmates at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, in Lincoln, Neb. Nebraska officials are pushing for a new, $230 million prison to relieve inmate overcrowding, even as prison officials in other states close prisons. Similar attempts to reduce Nebraska's prison population have repeatedly stalled because of opposition from prosecutors and law enforcement. At a minimum, he said, the state needs to replace its oldest prison, the Nebraska State Penitentiary, built in 1869. Nebraska's inmate population grew 27% between 2009 and 2019, while the state's overall population rose by 7%.

The state crossed that mark Monday, exactly a year after officials reported the first case of a coronavirus infection in Massachusetts. — Maryland’s acting health secretary says the state’s hospitals have received less than half of their expected allocations of second doses of the coronavirus vaccine for front-line health workers this week. Schrader says state officials were talked with the federal Department of Health and Human Services all weekend trying to figure out what happened. The CDC says Iowa has delivered 190,689 first vaccine doses to individuals, or 6,044 per 100,000 people, the third lowest rate in the nation. Ad___PRAGUE — The Czech Republic is not planning to limit use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for elderly people like some other European Union nations.

Pete Ricketts warned that he could impose tighter social-distancing restrictions before Thanksgiving if hospitalizations continue to rise. In Washington state, elective procedures such as joint and heart valve replacements and some cancer surgeries could be postponed to make room for coronavirus patients, said Washington State Hospital Association CEO Cassie Sauer. Even so, health officials are trying everything they can to slow the spread and address an even worse surge that many say is inevitable. New York Gov. New York state has averaged nearly 5,500 new cases per day over the past seven days.

“If our health care system exceeds capacity, it’s not just COVID-19 we’ll be fighting. GOP governors in Ohio and West Virginia have also recently strengthened existing mask mandates, while Mississippi's governor expanded the state’s partial mandate to cover more counties. Still, 13 other states with GOP governors still have no statewide mask mandates, and many of them have affirmed their opposition in recent days even as cases, hospitalizations and deaths rise in their states. “I don’t think mask mandates are appropriate,” Nebraska Gov. “Mask mandates will likely have the opposite effect of what was intended,” Rep. Steven Holt, chair of the Iowa House Judiciary committee, wrote on his Facebook page.

Cases per day are on the rise in 49 states, and deaths per day are climbing in 39. A month ago, the U.S. was seeing about 730 COVID-19 deaths per day on average; that has now surpassed 970. He said this summer’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota was “absolutely unnecessary” and helped spread the virus beyond that state. — North Carolina reported its highest single-day increase in coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, with 3,119 people — 8% of those tested — testing positive for the virus. — Kentucky posted a record daily high for new confirmed cases, at 2,700, as the governor implored people to wear masks to counter the accelerating outbreak.

Gary Herbert speaks as he joins state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn at a press conference at the Capitol in Salt Lake City, clarifying the state's mask mandate on Monday, Nov. 9, 2020. Minnesota’s per-capita new case counts are better than neighboring Wisconsin and the Dakotas, which have some of the country’s highest transmission rates, but have still raised alarm with the state's health officials. In Idaho, where 1 of every 223 residents tested positive for the virus over the last week, Republican Gov. With Trump still not conceding the race, some Republican governors have greeted Biden’s efforts in a more measured way. In Oklahoma, where cases also are on the rise, Republican Gov.

Larry Hogan warned of a major surge in coronavirus cases and urged residents Thursday to wear masks to prevent the virus’s spread. State Health Officer and Department of Health Services Interim Division of Public Health Administrator Stephanie Smiley is the second state health officer to resign in the last six months. Lujan Grisham says people can’t get numb to the troubling data or the threat of the state’s health care system being overwhelmed. State health officials added 45 more coronavirus-related deaths Thursday, raising the overall toll to 4,511 including confirmed and presumed infections. Spain has a 14-day average of 527 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people, one of the highest in Europe.

Midwest governors credit their lack of restrictions for low unemployment rates, but economists and others say other factors might be more important in the states low jobless rates. That would be very deadly and push unemployment rates back up,” said Ernie Goss, an economist at Creighton University in Omaha. That contrasts with states that rely on tourism, such as California, Nevada and Hawaii, which have the nation’s highest unemployment rates. More recently, though, many of those rural areas have seen some of the nation’s highest virus rates. Despite the low unemployment figures, all of the states now have fewer jobs than before the pandemic hit.

That means health care professionals account for about 15% of all Mexico’s confirmed coronavirus cases, and about 18% of all COVID-19 deaths. Active-service health care workers largely mirrored Mexico’s over-all fatality rate of almost 67 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. The state’s average number of confirmed COVID-19 cases increased from 476 cases a day on Sept. 29 to 685 cases on Oct. 13. Before then, the only confirmed coronavirus death in a Missouri veterans home was in April in north St. Louis County. There were an additional 1,121 confirmed cases, bringing the total to 102,614 since the pandemic began.

Pete Ricketts will end nearly all of his state's social-distancing restrictions on Monday even as the number of new coronavirus cases has trended upward over the last few months. “We are loosening the restrictions further on Sept. 14,” Ricketts said at a news conference. Nebraska will also allow smaller indoor facilities, such as bars, restaurants, churches, gyms and hair salons, to operate with no formal restrictions. For several days before that, the state's public health data system wasn't receiving results even though laboratories were processing tests. Nebraska ranks 15th highest in the rate of positive cases as of this week, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

FILE - This July 7, 2010, file photo shows Nebraska's lethal injection chamber at the State Penitentiary in Lincoln, Neb. Nebraska prison officials cannot withhold public records that reveal where they purchased their supply of lethal injection drugs, the state's highest court ruled Friday, May 15, 2020, as it ordered the documents to be disclosed for public scrutiny. At the time, the agency was under mounting pressure to obtain lethal injection drugs as death-penalty critics questioned whether Nebraska would ever carry out another execution. Pete Ricketts sent $54,400 in state money to a broker in India who promised to deliver lethal injection drugs. German drugmaker Fresenius Kabi told the AP in 2017 that one of its products had ended up in Nebraska's lethal injection supply.

Hundreds of people who'd never met Korean War veteran Dale Quick turned out to honor the 91-year-old at his Nebraska funeral. "I know the strong bond that Lincoln has with its veterans," Roper told InsideEdition.com Tuesday. Quick's great niece and about 300 strangers gave Quick a respectful send off at his funeral Monday morning. Happening now in Lincoln: a memorial and burial service for 91-year-old Korean War veteran & Lincoln man Dale Quick. RELATED STORIESHundreds Attend Funeral for Decorated WWII VeteranSoldier Stands in Pouring Rain to Salute Passing Funeral Procession for Military Veteran200 Strangers Attend Funeral of WWII Veteran With No Living Relatives: 'Thank You For Your Service'