Homeland Security boss visits Omaha, talks tough on immigration, touts disaster response strides

By Joan von Kampen | Editor-in-Chief

By Cindy Gonzalez

The head of U.S. Homeland Security was in Omaha Monday nurturing partnerships he said helped send roughly $120 million in federal disaster aid to Nebraska since 2025, and to seek feedback on cutting costly “red tape” in the reimbursement process.

At another stop in the state’s most populous city, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin switched to tough-talking about illegal immigration. He hosted a press conference with the family of Sarah Root, the 21-year-old killed a decade ago in an Omaha crash with an undocumented migrant who fled the country but was found and sentenced in February to up to 22 years in prison. 

By Paul Hammel

WALTHILL — For 37 years, Vida Stabler raised a family and carefully maintained a two-and-a-half story, Folk Victorian home in this reservation town.

It was a fixer-upper, she said, but ideal for her and her husband, newly married.

But the house also had a presence, she said. Not a ghost, but the original occupant of the home — a physician and leader in the Omaha Tribe — whom Stabler could visualize walking up stairs, holding tribal meetings or seeing patients in the living room.

By Jacob Fischler

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday kept in place a lower court’s order blocking President Donald Trump’s embattled plan to place new restrictions on mail ballots for this year’s midterm elections.

The unsigned, one-paragraph order upheld a Massachusetts federal court’s injunction on a U.S. Postal Service rule until after Nov. 3 and did not decide whether the rule itself was lawful. But a majority of the court said the Democratic state officials and voting rights groups challenging the rule were likely to succeed.

By Juan Salinas II

The Democratic-led Lincoln City Council is going on the defensive with charter amendments offering alternatives to three conservative-backed measures that aim to reshape local elections in the second-largest city in Nebraska.

The City Council voted unanimously Monday to approve both its alternatives and the Good Government Lincoln initiatives to appear on the Nov. 3 ballot. The initiatives with the most votes will be adopted if two competing initiatives both pass.

By Jacob Fischler

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will revoke limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that run on coal and natural gas, according to regulatory documents Administrator Lee Zeldin signed Monday.

The administration framed the action to repeal 2024 limits on greenhouse gas emissions from virtually all power plants other than wind, solar or hydro-powered as lowering energy costs, which the war with Iran has driven up, as energy producers will save at least $310 million on compliance. The move could produce a tenfold increase in coal power, the agency said.

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