By Erin Bamer | Reporter
“If there’s any year that a third party is going to stand out and shine … I think that this is the year more than any other year that we’ve had in the past.” - Rick Beard, on his campaign as the Legal Marijuana NOW nominee for Nebraska governor.
Rick Beard of Omaha, the Legal Marijuana NOW nominee for Nebraska governor, meets with voters at a developmental disabilities community listening event on April 30, 2026, in Lincoln a couple weeks before the May 12 primary election. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
ELECTION 2026
By Zach Wendling
LINCOLN — Rick Beard knows the uphill climb he faces to be elected Nebraska’s next governor but feels his third-party status and ideas for a state-run medical cannabis program to generate new tax revenue could appeal to voters.
A server waits on customers at a café. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
COMMENTARY
By George Ayoub
Even though Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret pumped the brakes on Lincoln setting its own minimum wage, the story is more than an accounting of dollars and cents. It also includes whether voters’ voices are being muted or which branch of state government gets to decide.
A nurse vaccinates a child at the Latino Community Development Agency on July 9, 2026, in Oklahoma City. As vaccination rates decline nationwide, measles cases have surpassed 2025 to the highest since the disease was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. (Photo by Courtney Bell/Oklahoma Voice)
HEALTH
By Tim Henderson
Measles cases this year have surpassed all of 2025 to become the worst since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000, with cases now in 44 states and the District of Columbia, according to a federal report released Friday.
Police block off a road in downtown Minneapolis after a police pursuit of a man on suspicion of homicide. Last year’s decline in the homicide rate among more than 30 cities was widespread but not universal; Minneapolis was among four cities with rates above their 2019 levels, according to a recent report. (Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer)
PUBLIC SAFETY
By Amanda Watford
Crime rates continued falling across a sample of large U.S. cities in the first half of 2026, with homicide rates dropping enough to put the nation on track for another historic low in killings.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Omaha moviemaker says state-funded film venture is paralyzed | Cindy Gonzalez
Denise Powell outraises Brinker Harding in NE-02 race | Juan Salinas II
COMMENTARY
OPINION: ‘E pluribus unum’ is not a slogan. It’s a choice | Tim Storey, Sue Urahn
EDITOR'S CHOICE
Nebraska sees sharp drop in participation in public food aid | Cindy Gonzalez
Husker legend Tom Osborne inducted into Nebraska Hall of Fame | Zach Wendling
Douglas County sees spike in cyclospora infections | Cindy Gonzalez
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