By Erin Bamer | Reporter
President Donald Trump’s Medicaid director, Dr. Oz, visited Nebraska on Saturday to praise the state’s rollout of a federal rural health program. Nebraska received $218.5 million for the first year of the program — $177 million of which has been deployed, officials said.
Dr. Mehmet Oz speaks at a press conference Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, in the Governor’s Office of the Nebraska State Capitol. Oz, administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is flanked on his left by Gov. Jim Pillen and Steve Corsi, who heads the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. To the right, Ashley Newmyer, DHHS director of public health, and Laura McDougall, director of Four Corners Health Department in York. (Courtesy of the Governor’s Office)
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
By Cindy Gonzalez
LINCOLN — Nebraska officials were joined Saturday by a top Trump administration official, Dr. Mehmet Oz, to announce updates in Medicaid and public rural health programs.
At a news conference at the State Capitol, Oz helped Gov. Jim Pillen tout the state’s rollout of the Rural Health Transformation Program, a national five-year, $10 billion-a-year federal grant program aimed at filling health care gaps in rural communities.
A sign at a University of Utah health clinic warns visitors about the spread of measles. The state has had 535 reported cases this year, among the largest counts in the country. (Photo by McKenzie Romero/Utah News Dispatch)
HEALTH
By Tim Henderson
Measles cases for the calendar year surpassed 4,000 for the first time in decades, with as many as five deaths in Pennsylvania, as the federal government steps in with financial help for states but also fans vaccination fears and skepticism.
George Orwell’s novel “1984” is displayed at The Last Bookstore on Jan. 25, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
COMMENTARY
By George Ayoub
Lost in the din of a presidential visit to Nebraska, the ongoing glut of political campaign ads, a slew of prediction market come-ons and the sports world’s busiest month was Banned Books Week, which readers from bibliophiles to the casual celebrate annually.
The main gate at Fort Hood can be seen on South Fort Hood Street in Killeen, Texas. (Photo credit: U.S. Army)
D.C. BUREAU
By Jonathan Shorman
President Donald Trump on Friday appeared to leave open the possibility that the federal government won’t livestream a military execution planned for December that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had said would be public.
The Chi Phi fraternity house at the center of a rape allegation stands on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Nineteen states, including New York, limit mental incapacity under sexual assault law to cases of involuntary intoxication, such as being drugged against one’s will. (Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)
PUBLIC SAFETY
By Amanda Watford
A former Cornell University student’s allegations of gang rape in 2024 have renewed attention on a difficult area of sexual assault law.
A person can be awake, responsive and even able to move during a sexual encounter while still being so intoxicated or impaired that they cannot understand what is happening or make an informed decision about sex.
But whether that person is considered legally incapable of consenting can depend on the state and, in some cases, on how the person became intoxicated.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
COMMENTARY
Nebraskan in Greece: Voting connects citizens born abroad to US | Jeanne Bourne
Nebraska voters should ask better questions | Jesse E. Stanley
EDITOR'S CHOICE
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