By Erin Bamer | Reporter
“My parents told me the reason they came here was to give us a good future and not suffer like they did … They had no roads and had to walk, like miles, to go to the plazas or anywhere.” - Oldest son of Isabel Quinilla Pu.
Isabel Quinilla Pu, shown with her youngest six children, faces deportation and decisions about her eight U.S.-born children. (Cindy Gonzalez/Nebraska Examiner)
LABOR & GROWTH
By Cindy Gonzalez
OMAHA — The Guatemalan mom left the Omaha immigration office, a monitor attached to her ankle, and immediately called her teenage son who was at home watching seven younger siblings.
She was coming home, Isabel Quinilla Pu told her kids.
For now at least.
Gov. Jim Pillen leads a town hall on his property tax reform ideas in his hometown of Columbus at the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
By Zach Wendling
LINCOLN — Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen unveiled a new property tax “hotline” Wednesday meant to pressure state lawmakers to act, but some senators don’t yet know if it will have an impact.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship ring on the White House South Lawn on Thursday, June 11, 2026. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
COMMENTARY
By Gina Ligon, Austin Doctor
“..to set this off we need an event or events that cause people to realize the revolution has officially begun.” So said an Ohio man arrested last week with several other co-conspirators.
Mylissa McNeill, sitting outside her home in Jacksonville, Ark., earlier this year, says she was denied prompt miscarriage care in August 2022. It was the beginning of a cascade of health problems that she blames, at least in part, on hospitals’ reluctance to provide miscarriage management care that might run afoul of state abortion bans. (Photo by Katie Adkins/Arkansas Advocate)
ABORTION POLICY
By Sofia Resnick
Mylissa McNeill never expected to be a mother. But when she learned she was pregnant in the spring of 2022, at age 41, she and her partner were happy and excited at the prospect of parenting a little girl they planned to name Maeve.
Ahead of the May 2024 primary, a drop box for mail-in ballots sits outside the Shelby County Courthouse Annex in Shelbyville, Kentucky. (Photo by McKenna Horsley/Kentucky Lantern)
ELECTION 2026
By Jonathan Shorman
The U.S. Postal Service won’t deliver mail ballots in states that refuse to turn over lists of voters under a proposed rule, the agency’s chief executive said Wednesday, angering Democrats who warn the decision will disenfranchise voters.
President Donald Trump speaks to the media as U.S. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., look on after a meeting at the U.S. Capitol on June 24, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
D.C. BUREAU
By Jennifer Shutt, Ariana Figueroa and Shauneen Miranda
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans walked into a lunch with the president on Wednesday looking for ways to unify, but they left the closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill as fractured as ever about policy goals.
Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol on June 24, 2026. The hall was set up for a ceremony in which President Donald Trump would sign into law a broadly bipartisan housing bill, but Trump abruptly canceled the event. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
HOUSING
By Jacob Fischler and Jennifer Shutt
President Donald Trump derailed a housing overhaul that he was set to sign into law Wednesday, canceling a signing ceremony for the broadly popular bipartisan bill until Congress passes an election security measure.
A 250th anniversary flag on the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, location of the vice president’s office, on 17th Street NW in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
D.C. BUREAU
By Ashley Murray
WASHINGTON — Parties, protests, displays of historic documents, odes to the Founding Fathers — and a massive political rally by the president — will mark a deeply polarized nation’s 250th anniversary on this Fourth of July.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Nebraska barred from restricting soda purchases from SNAP | Juan Salinas II
All 18 UNMC hantavirus patients return home | Cindy Gonzalez
Commission OKs legal planting of marijuana in Nebraska | Zach Wendling
COMMENTARY
EDITOR'S CHOICE
RNC sues Nebraska over state election law | Juan Salinas II
Planned grocery store aims to feed, uplift Omaha’s Black community | Cindy Gonzalez
Why are there so many independent candidates in Nebraska? | Juan Salinas II
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