Nebraska

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A “highly impactful” winter storm is expected to dump as much as a foot of snow Monday across the country’s midsection, where blizzard and winter storm warnings are in effect.

The storm has the potential to bring 8 to 12 inches (20 to 30 centimeters) of snow to a broad area stretching from southeastern Colorado and western Kansas, through eastern Nebraska, large parts of Iowa, northern Missouri and northwestern Illinois, up toward the upper peninsula of Michigan, said Bob Oravec, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway says the billionaire Haslam family tried to bribe at least 15 executives at the Pilot truck stop chain with millions of dollars to get them to inflate the company’s profits this year because that would force Berkshire to pay more for the Haslams’ remaining 20% stake in the company.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Federal inspectors have twice found hundreds of defects in the locomotives and railcars Union Pacific uses at the world’s largest railyard in Nebraska, but none of those seem to explain why a shipping container filled with toxic acid exploded there this fall.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wants the nation’s freight railroads to immediately act to improve safety while regulators try to strengthen safety rules in the wake of a fiery derailment in Ohio that forced evacuations when toxic chemicals were released and burned.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — 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 and nine people — all Republicans — were interviewed. He said he chose Ricketts based on their shared conservatism and Ricketts’ promise that he would later run to be elected to the seat.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Business and government officials are bracing for the possibility of a nationwide rail strike at the end of this week while talks carry on between the largest U.S. freight railroads and their unions.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — On a quiet Saturday in an Omaha hotel, about 50 people gathered in a ballroom to learn about elections.

The subject wasn’t voter registration drives or poll worker volunteer training. Instead, they paid $25 each to listen to panelists lay out conspiracy theories about voting machines and rigged election results. In language that sometimes leaned into violent imagery, some panelists called on those attending to join what they framed as a battle between good and evil.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska Republicans worked through a crowded primary for governor on Tuesday in a race upended in recent weeks by groping allegations lodged against a candidate endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

The winner of the race will emerge as a strong favorite against state Sen. Carol Blood, who won the Democratic nomination for governor. The incumbent, Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts, is prohibited by term limit laws from running again.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska Republicans will pick a nominee for governor Tuesday in a bitter primary race that was upended in recent weeks after a leading candidate endorsed by former President Donald Trump was accused of groping at least eight women over the last few years.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Firefighters were taking advantage of higher humidity and calmer winds Monday to work toward containing a wildfire in rural southwestern Nebraska that has killed one person, injured at least 15 firefighters and destroyed at least six homes, an official said.