WASHINGTON (AP) — Former&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">President Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;said Tuesday that he has received a letter informing him that he is a target of the Justice Department's investigation into efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election, an indication that he could soon be indicted by federal prosecutors.

Trump made the claim in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying he received the target letter while with his family on Sunday night. Such a letter can precede an indictment and is used to advise individuals that prosecutors have evidence linking them to a crime; Trump received one ahead of being charged last month in a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-classified-documents-judge-cannon-b4e51c8a2721cdf15d1b0cfaf02dcdd3">separate investigation into the mishandling of classified documents.</a>

A spokesman for special counsel Jack Smith, whose office is leading the investigation, declined to comment.

Smith's team has cast a broad net in its investigation into attempts by Trump and his allies to block the legitimate transfer of power to Democrat Joe Biden in the days leading up to the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege">Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol,</a>&nbsp;when Trump loyalists stormed the building in a bid to disrupt the certification of electoral votes in Congress. More than 1,000 people accused of participating in the riot have been charged.

Smith's probe has centered on a broad range of schemes from Trump and allies to keep him in power, including the use of slates of so-called fake electors in battleground states won by Biden and disputed by Trump.

Trump, who is currently the dominant early frontrunner for the Republican nomination, is scheduled to travel to Iowa Tuesday, where he is taping a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

One purpose of the target letter is to advise a potential defendant that he or she has a right to appear before the grand jury. Trump said in his post that he has been given “a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and indictment,” but aides did not immediately respond to questions seeking clarity.

Prosecutors in Georgia are conducting a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-georgia-grand-jury-election-485ca85e57fd80af7455a59174d10d4f">separate investigation into efforts by Trump</a>&nbsp;to reverse his election loss in that state, with the top prosecutor in Fulton County signaling that she expects to announce charging decisions next month.

In his post, Trump wrote that “they have now effectively indicted me three times.... with a probably fourth coming from Atlanta” and added in capital letters, “This witch hunt is all about election interference and a complete and total (political) weaponization of law enforTrump was indicted last month on 37 felony counts accusing him of illegally retaining hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. He has pleaded not guilty. A pretrial conference in that case was set for Tuesday in Fort Pierce, Fla.cement!”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/6/1686700913232.png" alt="&nbsp;One purpose of the target letter is to advise a potential defendant that he or she has a right to appear before the grand jury. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)" />
 <figcaption>&nbsp;One purpose of the target letter is to advise a potential defendant that he or she has a right to appear before the grand jury. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — Former&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">President Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;said Tuesday that he has received a letter informing him that he is a target of the Justice Department's investigation into efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election, an indication that he could soon be indicted by federal prosecutors.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1689691291162.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Trump made the claim in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying he received the target letter while with his family on Sunday night. Such a letter can precede an indictment and is used to advise individuals that prosecutors have evidence linking them to a crime; Trump received one ahead of being charged last month in a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-classified-documents-judge-cannon-b4e51c8a2721cdf15d1b0cfaf02dcdd3">separate investigation into the mishandling of classified documents.</a>A spokesman for special counsel Jack Smith, whose office is leading the investigation, declined to comment.Smith's team has cast a broad net in its investigation into attempts by Trump and his allies to block the legitimate transfer of power to Democrat Joe Biden in the days leading up to the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege">Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol,</a>&nbsp;when Trump loyalists stormed the building in a bid to disrupt the certification of electoral votes in Congress. More than 1,000 people accused of participating in the riot have been charged.Smith's probe has centered on a broad range of schemes from Trump and allies to keep him in power, including the use of slates of so-called fake electors in battleground states won by Biden and disputed by Trump.Trump, who is currently the dominant early frontrunner for the Republican nomination, is scheduled to travel to Iowa Tuesday, where he is taping a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.One purpose of the target letter is to advise a potential defendant that he or she has a right to appear before the grand jury. Trump said in his post that he has been given “a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and indictment,” but aides did not immediately respond to questions seeking clarity.Prosecutors in Georgia are conducting a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-georgia-grand-jury-election-485ca85e57fd80af7455a59174d10d4f">separate investigation into efforts by Trump</a>&nbsp;to reverse his election loss in that state, with the top prosecutor in Fulton County signaling that she expects to announce charging decisions next month.In his post, Trump wrote that “they have now effectively indicted me three times.... with a probably fourth coming from Atlanta” and added in capital letters, “This witch hunt is all about election interference and a complete and total (political) weaponization of law enforTrump was indicted last month on 37 felony counts accusing him of illegally retaining hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. He has pleaded not guilty. A pretrial conference in that case was set for Tuesday in Fort Pierce, Fla.cement!”

Read Trump's statement on expected indictment for 1/6

KANSAS CITY (AP) — The Powerball jackpot rose yet again to an estimated $1 billion after no winning ticket was sold for the latest drawing.

No ticket for Monday’s drawing matched the white balls 5, 8, 9, 17, 41 and red Powerball 2. The jackpot was estimated at $900 million.

The new jackpot for Wednesday’s drawing would be&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/washington-california-a11cb275a36848310e05ed56608c656c">the third highest</a>&nbsp;in U.S. history and will keep growing until someone wins. Ticket buyers have a chance at $1 billion paid out in yearly increments or a $516.8 million one-time lump sum before taxes.

Three people won $2 million after matching all five numbers plus the Power Play, lottery officials said. The winning tickets were sold in Arkansas, Georgia and Texas.

Five people won $1 million after matching all five numbers. The winning tickets were sold in Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, New York and Pennsylvania.

The&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/north-america-lottery-us-news-ap-top-news-ia-state-wire-b5572da1e5d74f6e974bea45c707b5cb">game’s abysmal odds</a>&nbsp;of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to build big prizes that draw more players. The largest Powerball jackpot was&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lotteries-iowa-36ef3aefbbc37a15e1c5f172129fa6a6">$2.04 billion Powerball</a>&nbsp;last November.

The&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/powerball-winner-ohio-252-million-5506023262d64fb54556fb454a478615">last time</a>&nbsp;someone won the Powerball jackpot was April 19 for a top prize of nearly $253 million. Since then, no one has won the grand prize in the past 38 consecutive drawings.

Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

KANSAS CITY (AP) — The Powerball jackpot rose yet again to an estimated $1 billion after no winning ticket was sold for the latest drawing.No ticket for Monday’s drawing matched the white balls 5, 8, 9, 17, 41 and red Powerball 2. The jackpot was estimated at $900 million.The new jackpot for Wednesday’s drawing would be&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/washington-california-a11cb275a36848310e05ed56608c656c">the third highest</a>&nbsp;in U.S. history and will keep growing until someone wins. Ticket buyers have a chance at $1 billion paid out in yearly increments or a $516.8 million one-time lump sum before taxes.Three people won $2 million after matching all five numbers plus the Power Play, lottery officials said. The winning tickets were sold in Arkansas, Georgia and Texas.Five people won $1 million after matching all five numbers. The winning tickets were sold in Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, New York and Pennsylvania.The&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/north-america-lottery-us-news-ap-top-news-ia-state-wire-b5572da1e5d74f6e974bea45c707b5cb">game’s abysmal odds</a>&nbsp;of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to build big prizes that draw more players. The largest Powerball jackpot was&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lotteries-iowa-36ef3aefbbc37a15e1c5f172129fa6a6">$2.04 billion Powerball</a>&nbsp;last November.The&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/powerball-winner-ohio-252-million-5506023262d64fb54556fb454a478615">last time</a>&nbsp;someone won the Powerball jackpot was April 19 for a top prize of nearly $253 million. Since then, no one has won the grand prize in the past 38 consecutive drawings.Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

 No Powerball winner yet, jackpot hits $1 billion

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa judge on Monday temporarily blocked the state’s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iowa-abortion-ban-special-session-506e5e3fcd5517024a94a8e3a52d627e">new ban on most abortions</a>&nbsp;after about six weeks of pregnancy, just days after Gov.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iowa-governor-kim-reynolds-2024-election-216e52ef9ba77deda0b59ba4c41b6406">Kim Reynolds</a>&nbsp;signed the measure into law.

That means abortion is once again legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy while the courts assess the new law’s constitutionality.

The new law prohibits almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant.

The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the measure in a rare, all-day special session last week, prompting a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iowa-abortion-ban-lawsuit-eeeec320fc6453e69075da5a118bf0c8">legal challenge</a>&nbsp;by the ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic. Judge Joseph Seidlin&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iowa-abortion-ban-signing-lawsuit-a93ee0bfd11e5ff40d3c8d815f846c5c">held a hearing</a>&nbsp;on the matter Friday, but said he would take the issue under advisement — just as Reynolds signed the bill into law about a mile away.

Abortion providers said they scrambled last week to fit in as many appointments as possible before the governor put pen to paper, preemptively making hundreds of calls to prepare patients for the uncertainty and keeping clinics open late.

Reynolds swiftly put out a statement underscoring her intention to fight the issue in the state Supreme Court.

“The abortion industry’s attempt to thwart the will of Iowans and the voices of their elected representatives continues today," she said.

The ruling Monday does specify that while the law is temporarily paused, the state's Board of Medicine should proceed with rules for enforcement so that specific rules for health care providers will be well defined if the law were to be in effect in the future.

There are limited circumstances under the law that would allow for abortion after the point in a pregnancy where cardiac activity is detected: rape, if reported to law enforcement or a health provider within 45 days; incest, if reported within 145 days; if the fetus has a fetal abnormality “incompatible with life;” or if the pregnancy is endangering the life of the pregnant woman.

Most&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-divide-republican-democratic-states-fd2e6fffffec2fdcf328d7bca1e6fd78">Republican-led states</a>&nbsp;have drastically limited abortion access in the year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and handed authority on abortion law to the states. More than a dozen states have bans with limited exceptions and one state, Georgia, bans abortion after cardiac activity is detected.

Several other states have similar restrictions that are on hold pending court rulings, as is now the case in Iowa.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1689627069496.png" alt="Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds celebrating the Heartbeat Bill last week-courtesy photo" />
 <figcaption>Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds celebrating the Heartbeat Bill last week-courtesy photo</figcaption>
 </figure>DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa judge on Monday temporarily blocked the state’s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iowa-abortion-ban-special-session-506e5e3fcd5517024a94a8e3a52d627e">new ban on most abortions</a>&nbsp;after about six weeks of pregnancy, just days after Gov.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iowa-governor-kim-reynolds-2024-election-216e52ef9ba77deda0b59ba4c41b6406">Kim Reynolds</a>&nbsp;signed the measure into law.That means abortion is once again legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy while the courts assess the new law’s constitutionality.The new law prohibits almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant.The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the measure in a rare, all-day special session last week, prompting a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iowa-abortion-ban-lawsuit-eeeec320fc6453e69075da5a118bf0c8">legal challenge</a>&nbsp;by the ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic. Judge Joseph Seidlin&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iowa-abortion-ban-signing-lawsuit-a93ee0bfd11e5ff40d3c8d815f846c5c">held a hearing</a>&nbsp;on the matter Friday, but said he would take the issue under advisement — just as Reynolds signed the bill into law about a mile away.Abortion providers said they scrambled last week to fit in as many appointments as possible before the governor put pen to paper, preemptively making hundreds of calls to prepare patients for the uncertainty and keeping clinics open late.Reynolds swiftly put out a statement underscoring her intention to fight the issue in the state Supreme Court.“The abortion industry’s attempt to thwart the will of Iowans and the voices of their elected representatives continues today," she said.The ruling Monday does specify that while the law is temporarily paused, the state's Board of Medicine should proceed with rules for enforcement so that specific rules for health care providers will be well defined if the law were to be in effect in the future.There are limited circumstances under the law that would allow for abortion after the point in a pregnancy where cardiac activity is detected: rape, if reported to law enforcement or a health provider within 45 days; incest, if reported within 145 days; if the fetus has a fetal abnormality “incompatible with life;” or if the pregnancy is endangering the life of the pregnant woman.Most&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-divide-republican-democratic-states-fd2e6fffffec2fdcf328d7bca1e6fd78">Republican-led states</a>&nbsp;have drastically limited abortion access in the year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and handed authority on abortion law to the states. More than a dozen states have bans with limited exceptions and one state, Georgia, bans abortion after cardiac activity is detected.Several other states have similar restrictions that are on hold pending court rulings, as is now the case in Iowa.

Abortion in Iowa is legal again after a judge blocks new restrictions

<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/07/17/changes-in-state-election-laws-have-little-impact-on-results-new-study-finds/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

In recent years, U.S. politics has been consumed by partisan fights over states’ election policies.

But a new study by two political scientists is&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/12/opinion/republicans-democrats-voters-elections.html">causing a stir</a>&nbsp;by finding that state legislators’ changes to election laws — both those that tighten election rules in the name of integrity, and those that loosen rules to expand access — have almost no impact on which side wins.

“Contemporary election reforms that are purported to increase or decrease turnout tend to have negligible effects on election outcomes,” write the authors, Justin Grimmer and Eitan Hersh, political scientists at Stanford University and Tufts University, respectively, in “How Election Rules Affect Who Wins,” which was&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.eitanhersh.com/uploads/7/9/7/5/7975685/effectslaws_062923.pdf">published online</a>&nbsp;June 29 as a working paper.

These laws, the authors write, “have small effects on outcomes because they tend to target small shares of the electorate, have a small effect on turnout, and/or affect voters who are relatively balanced in their partisanship.”

That doesn’t mean these laws don’t matter. Many advocates, as well as the authors themselves, say there are plenty of reasons beyond partisanship to care about voting policy — not least the effect some can have on non-white voters.

“If we can take the temperature down on some of these issues and separate the partisan consequences from some of the other consequences, the public discussion would actually be a lot better,” Hersh said in a phone interview. “Right now, it seems like one of the reasons this stuff is toxic is because every minor thing, from having mail voting to having voter ID, is treated as some democracy-ending reform. And I think that’s quite dangerous.”

Indeed, the conclusion reached by Grimmer and Hersh, which is largely supported by other recent research, is at odds with the behavior of much of the political and advocacy worlds.

In recent years, the political parties and outside groups have poured countless dollars and hours into the battles over voting, seeking to gain an electoral edge, stop their opponents from getting one or fight voter suppression. Now, some are asking: What does the emerging consensus that these laws have minimal effects on election outcomes mean for that ongoing work?

The study appears just as a heated debate is flaring again in Congress over the partisan and racial impact of recent voting laws.

On July 10, at a U.S. House Administration Committee field hearing in Atlanta, Republican lawmakers unveiled the<a target="_blank" href="https://mcusercontent.com/67fba463240fdd948eb636b35/files/4ae53739-96ba-8156-0c1c-a9dad2fb39cd/ACE_Act_Bill_Text.pdf">&nbsp;American Confidence in Elections Act,</a>&nbsp;new legislation that would tighten voting rules in numerous ways.

To make the case for the measure, the Republicans repeatedly criticized Democrats for predicting that Georgia’s&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://georgiarecorder.com/2021/06/30/new-absentee-voting-rules-take-effect-with-full-2021-georgia-election-law/">2021 election law,</a>&nbsp;which imposed stricter rules on several types of voting, would suppress votes, especially among minorities. (“The left lied,” declared a GOP video on the issue that was shown at the hearing.)

Republicans noted that the state’s turnout in fact went up last year — though Democrats countered that Black turnout had gone down relative to white turnout.

Grimmer, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, served as an expert witness for Georgia in its defense of the law after the state was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice and voting-rights groups.

Meanwhile, some in the trenches of the voting wars reject the new study’s conclusions out of hand.

“Republicans are targeting the rules of voting because they know they matter,” said the Democratic super-lawyer Marc Elias — who filed the first lawsuit against the Georgia measure — in a statement to States Newsroom. “Studies of cherry-picked practices from years and decades ago may be interesting to some political scientists but they don’t solve the problem of armed vigilantes at drop boxes or states changing laws to make voter registration more difficult.”

As the conventional wisdom has it, laws that restrict access tend to help Republicans, since those most likely to be blocked or deterred by stricter rules — often racial minorities, students, renters and low-income Americans — lean Democratic. And laws that make voting easier, the idea goes, tend to boost Democrats, since the people likely to be helped by them similarly lean Democratic.

Indeed, Republican-led states have lined up to pass restrictive new voting laws, while fighting Democratic efforts to pass expansive laws. Democrats have done the reverse — including raising hundreds of millions of dollars to file court challenges to the GOP’s measures. And at election time, both sides have mobilized vast armies of volunteers to hunt for fraud, or protect voting rights, at the polls.

Politicians have been quick to blame election rules for defeats. Hillary Clinton has&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/sep/19/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-wrong-again-wisconsin-voter-id/">said</a>, with little evidence, that between 27,000 and 200,000 Wisconsin voters “were turned away from the polls” in the 2016 presidential election because of the state’s ID requirement. Former President Donald Trump has gone much further, frequently blaming his 2020 loss on loose voting rules that, he falsely claims, enable fraud.

Advocates and much of the media have likewise prioritized the issue, seeing a chance to hold powerful actors accountable, protect or expand access to the political process, or spotlight a set of urgent challenges to U.S. democracy.

But Grimmer and Hersh describe this Sturm und Drang — at least the part that’s focused on partisan outcomes — as a tempest in a teapot.

“The caustic rhetoric that suggests the partisan stakes for election administration reform are very high is detached from empirical reality,” Grimmer and Hersh write. “Even very close elections are decided by margins larger than the magnitude of election reforms we examine in this paper.”

Though that finding may surprise political operatives, advocates, and journalists, academic experts say it’s very much in sync with existing research on the issue — making the Grimmer-Hersh study much harder to dismiss as an outlier.

Scholars have struggled to find evidence that changes like early voting and election-day registration have significantly boosted turnout. (One possible exception is mail voting, where at least one recent&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/elj.2022.0078">study</a>&nbsp;did find significant effects, while others didn’t.)

Nor have most studies found that even very controversial restrictive measures do much to lower voting rates. A 2019&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26206/w26206.pdf">paper</a>&nbsp;released by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that strict voter ID laws “are unlikely to have a meaningful impact on turnout or election outcomes.” And a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2217323120">paper</a>&nbsp;published this year by two Notre Dame political scientists found that ID laws “motivate and mobilize supporters of both parties, ultimately mitigating their anticipated effects on election results.”

The Grimmer-Hersh study tries to clarify why the partisan effects are so negligible. Unlike most earlier studies, it doesn’t look only at one type of law — voter ID laws, for example — but rather on the entire category of election laws that might affect turnout, including both those that make voting harder and those that make it easier.

The authors give an example of a hypothetical law that imposes additional requirements for voting, targeting Democratic-leaning groups.

The requirements target 4% of the electorate and cause a 3 percentage-point decline in turnout among this group — figures that the authors say are consistent with the effects of real laws. The result would be a 0.12 percentage point drop in overall turnout.

That’s already small, but because that group is likely to be around 60% Democratic, not 100%, the swing toward Republicans would be even smaller, just 0.011 percentage points. Only the very closest elections in history would be affected by a swing that tiny.

Even laws that contain several prongs that affect voting in different ways are still likely to affect results only in the very tightest elections, the authors write. North Carolina’s omnibus elections bill currently moving through the legislature there is an example, though it isn’t mentioned in the study.

In one section that may raise the hackles of voting-rights advocates, the authors note that there has been no significant turnout decline in the mostly Southern states that were affected by the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which removed the requirement for those states to have their election changes pre-approved by the federal government, to ensure they don’t hurt minority voting. In fact, they say, voting rates among non-whites have increased since the ruling.

<a target="_blank" href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/effects-shelby-county-v-holder">Advocates</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/25/shelby-county-anniversary-voting-rights-act-consequences">journalists</a>&nbsp;—&nbsp;including&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/texas-sees-surge-disenfranchised-voters-msna450481">this one</a>&nbsp;— have poured resources into documenting the slew of restrictive new rules, from voter ID laws to reductions in polling sites, that were imposed in the wake of Shelby, at times painting the onslaught as an urgent crisis of democracy.

Even far-reaching structural reforms that go beyond targeted measures like voter ID may not do much to affect election outcomes, the paper suggests.

Many predicted that the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which has added millions to the rolls by requiring motor vehicles departments and other state agencies to offer registration, would help Democrats, the authors note. (“Who wins under this bill?” asked Rep. Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican, during the debate over the measure. The law, he answered, “will result in the registration of millions of welfare recipients, illegal aliens, and taxpayer-funded entitlement recipients. They’ll win.”)

In fact, the authors write, the law had essentially no partisan impact.

Still, some critics note that many high-profile elections these days, including presidential elections, are decided by razor-thin margins. In both of the last two presidential elections, the winner won three pivotal states by 1.2 percentage points or less — in 2020, it was 0.7 percentage points or less. (And that’s leaving aside Florida 2000, a unicorn event that was so close that almost everything made a difference.)

“[U]sing the Hersh-Grimmer framework, some of these laws would’ve had a plausible chance of swinging the 2016 presidential election because the election was so close,” said Jacob Grumbach, a professor of political science at the University of Washington, via email. “ I could understand people might think that’s a big deal.”

Hersh acknowledged it’s possible that a multi-pronged law, or a set of laws acting together, could cause a swing that big. But he argued that because of the high level of uncertainty involved in the analysis, there’s no reliable way to predict what the partisan effects of a given law will be.

“Yeah, collectively these small policies could aggregate,” Hersh said. “But no one knows how they aggregate. Even the ones that liberals call suppression.”

“There’s no way lawmakers can sit around and be like, ‘OK, we’re going to do these six things and this is going to help Democrats or Republicans,’ and actually know what they’re talking about,” Hersh added.

The authors also acknowledge more than once that there are plenty of valid reasons to worry about election policies that have nothing to do with results —&nbsp; “such as whether they make voting convenient, more secure, more cost effective, and whether they are motivated by discriminatory intent.” All of those effects would be important to pay attention to, even if they didn’t have a partisan impact.

In fact, both Grimmer and Hersh stressed in interviews that one goal of the paper was to encourage a focus on these other issues by making questions of partisanship recede.

​”States should be seeking out policies that they think will improve the functioning of elections,” said Grimmer. “And they can be comforted knowing that when they make those changes, it’s not going to end up with wild swings in partisan balance.”

Others see a different take-away from the paper.

David Nickerson, a political science professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, was involved in a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://ash.harvard.edu/election-officials-teams-and-voters-agree-using-stadiums-polling-sites-win">project</a>&nbsp;that looked at the impact of stadium voting, which took place in the 2020 election at over 48 professional sports stadiums as a convenience measure during the pandemic. Nickerson said project organizers hoped that when they showed stadium voting has no partisan effect, Republican officials would drop their opposition to it.

But that didn’t happen, Nickerson said. The experience suggests to him that differences over how elections should be run — and in particular over how easy or hard voting should be — are as much about ideological principle as they are about political advantage.

“You’ll even hear Republicans openly say they think voting should be harder, and you should only vote if you really want to and care and are committed — which I can’t imagine a Democratic official saying,” Nickerson said. “It’s a different worldview.”

Michael Morse, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, said the study should lead advocates to focus relatively less on laws that affect the individual voting experience, like most voter ID laws, and more on structural issues, like getting more people on the voter rolls, or stopping gerrymandering.

“We have a limited amount of resources for reform,” Morse said. “The agenda for reform should be informed by this type of empirical political science.”

Indeed, the reality that election laws barely affect results is a good thing for building bipartisan coalitions for voting rights, Morse added.

“I would like the public discussion of these issues to be less partisan,” he said. “It’s the only way forward beyond the voting wars.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/4/1680605917852.jpeg" alt="Voting booths - Photo on File" />
 <figcaption>Voting booths - Photo on File</figcaption>
 </figure>By Zachary Roth<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/07/17/changes-in-state-election-laws-have-little-impact-on-results-new-study-finds/">Nebraska Examiner</a> In recent years, U.S. politics has been consumed by partisan fights over states’ election policies.But a new study by two political scientists is&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/12/opinion/republicans-democrats-voters-elections.html">causing a stir</a>&nbsp;by finding that state legislators’ changes to election laws — both those that tighten election rules in the name of integrity, and those that loosen rules to expand access — have almost no impact on which side wins.“Contemporary election reforms that are purported to increase or decrease turnout tend to have negligible effects on election outcomes,” write the authors, Justin Grimmer and Eitan Hersh, political scientists at Stanford University and Tufts University, respectively, in “How Election Rules Affect Who Wins,” which was&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.eitanhersh.com/uploads/7/9/7/5/7975685/effectslaws_062923.pdf">published online</a>&nbsp;June 29 as a working paper.These laws, the authors write, “have small effects on outcomes because they tend to target small shares of the electorate, have a small effect on turnout, and/or affect voters who are relatively balanced in their partisanship.”That doesn’t mean these laws don’t matter. Many advocates, as well as the authors themselves, say there are plenty of reasons beyond partisanship to care about voting policy — not least the effect some can have on non-white voters.“If we can take the temperature down on some of these issues and separate the partisan consequences from some of the other consequences, the public discussion would actually be a lot better,” Hersh said in a phone interview. “Right now, it seems like one of the reasons this stuff is toxic is because every minor thing, from having mail voting to having voter ID, is treated as some democracy-ending reform. And I think that’s quite dangerous.”Indeed, the conclusion reached by Grimmer and Hersh, which is largely supported by other recent research, is at odds with the behavior of much of the political and advocacy worlds.In recent years, the political parties and outside groups have poured countless dollars and hours into the battles over voting, seeking to gain an electoral edge, stop their opponents from getting one or fight voter suppression. Now, some are asking: What does the emerging consensus that these laws have minimal effects on election outcomes mean for that ongoing work?<h2>Elections bill in House&nbsp;</h2>The study appears just as a heated debate is flaring again in Congress over the partisan and racial impact of recent voting laws.On July 10, at a U.S. House Administration Committee field hearing in Atlanta, Republican lawmakers unveiled the<a target="_blank" href="https://mcusercontent.com/67fba463240fdd948eb636b35/files/4ae53739-96ba-8156-0c1c-a9dad2fb39cd/ACE_Act_Bill_Text.pdf">&nbsp;American Confidence in Elections Act,</a>&nbsp;new legislation that would tighten voting rules in numerous ways.To make the case for the measure, the Republicans repeatedly criticized Democrats for predicting that Georgia’s&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://georgiarecorder.com/2021/06/30/new-absentee-voting-rules-take-effect-with-full-2021-georgia-election-law/">2021 election law,</a>&nbsp;which imposed stricter rules on several types of voting, would suppress votes, especially among minorities. (“The left lied,” declared a GOP video on the issue that was shown at the hearing.)Republicans noted that the state’s turnout in fact went up last year — though Democrats countered that Black turnout had gone down relative to white turnout.Grimmer, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, served as an expert witness for Georgia in its defense of the law after the state was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice and voting-rights groups.Meanwhile, some in the trenches of the voting wars reject the new study’s conclusions out of hand.“Republicans are targeting the rules of voting because they know they matter,” said the Democratic super-lawyer Marc Elias — who filed the first lawsuit against the Georgia measure — in a statement to States Newsroom. “Studies of cherry-picked practices from years and decades ago may be interesting to some political scientists but they don’t solve the problem of armed vigilantes at drop boxes or states changing laws to make voter registration more difficult.”As the conventional wisdom has it, laws that restrict access tend to help Republicans, since those most likely to be blocked or deterred by stricter rules — often racial minorities, students, renters and low-income Americans — lean Democratic. And laws that make voting easier, the idea goes, tend to boost Democrats, since the people likely to be helped by them similarly lean Democratic.Indeed, Republican-led states have lined up to pass restrictive new voting laws, while fighting Democratic efforts to pass expansive laws. Democrats have done the reverse — including raising hundreds of millions of dollars to file court challenges to the GOP’s measures. And at election time, both sides have mobilized vast armies of volunteers to hunt for fraud, or protect voting rights, at the polls.Politicians have been quick to blame election rules for defeats. Hillary Clinton has&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/sep/19/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-wrong-again-wisconsin-voter-id/">said</a>, with little evidence, that between 27,000 and 200,000 Wisconsin voters “were turned away from the polls” in the 2016 presidential election because of the state’s ID requirement. Former President Donald Trump has gone much further, frequently blaming his 2020 loss on loose voting rules that, he falsely claims, enable fraud.Advocates and much of the media have likewise prioritized the issue, seeing a chance to hold powerful actors accountable, protect or expand access to the political process, or spotlight a set of urgent challenges to U.S. democracy.But Grimmer and Hersh describe this Sturm und Drang — at least the part that’s focused on partisan outcomes — as a tempest in a teapot.“The caustic rhetoric that suggests the partisan stakes for election administration reform are very high is detached from empirical reality,” Grimmer and Hersh write. “Even very close elections are decided by margins larger than the magnitude of election reforms we examine in this paper.”<h2>Little evidence of impact on results</h2>Though that finding may surprise political operatives, advocates, and journalists, academic experts say it’s very much in sync with existing research on the issue — making the Grimmer-Hersh study much harder to dismiss as an outlier.Scholars have struggled to find evidence that changes like early voting and election-day registration have significantly boosted turnout. (One possible exception is mail voting, where at least one recent&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/elj.2022.0078">study</a>&nbsp;did find significant effects, while others didn’t.)Nor have most studies found that even very controversial restrictive measures do much to lower voting rates. A 2019&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26206/w26206.pdf">paper</a>&nbsp;released by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that strict voter ID laws “are unlikely to have a meaningful impact on turnout or election outcomes.” And a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2217323120">paper</a>&nbsp;published this year by two Notre Dame political scientists found that ID laws “motivate and mobilize supporters of both parties, ultimately mitigating their anticipated effects on election results.”The Grimmer-Hersh study tries to clarify why the partisan effects are so negligible. Unlike most earlier studies, it doesn’t look only at one type of law — voter ID laws, for example — but rather on the entire category of election laws that might affect turnout, including both those that make voting harder and those that make it easier.The authors give an example of a hypothetical law that imposes additional requirements for voting, targeting Democratic-leaning groups.The requirements target 4% of the electorate and cause a 3 percentage-point decline in turnout among this group — figures that the authors say are consistent with the effects of real laws. The result would be a 0.12 percentage point drop in overall turnout.That’s already small, but because that group is likely to be around 60% Democratic, not 100%, the swing toward Republicans would be even smaller, just 0.011 percentage points. Only the very closest elections in history would be affected by a swing that tiny.Even laws that contain several prongs that affect voting in different ways are still likely to affect results only in the very tightest elections, the authors write. North Carolina’s omnibus elections bill currently moving through the legislature there is an example, though it isn’t mentioned in the study.In one section that may raise the hackles of voting-rights advocates, the authors note that there has been no significant turnout decline in the mostly Southern states that were affected by the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which removed the requirement for those states to have their election changes pre-approved by the federal government, to ensure they don’t hurt minority voting. In fact, they say, voting rates among non-whites have increased since the ruling.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/effects-shelby-county-v-holder">Advocates</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/25/shelby-county-anniversary-voting-rights-act-consequences">journalists</a>&nbsp;—&nbsp;including&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/texas-sees-surge-disenfranchised-voters-msna450481">this one</a>&nbsp;— have poured resources into documenting the slew of restrictive new rules, from voter ID laws to reductions in polling sites, that were imposed in the wake of Shelby, at times painting the onslaught as an urgent crisis of democracy.Even far-reaching structural reforms that go beyond targeted measures like voter ID may not do much to affect election outcomes, the paper suggests.Many predicted that the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which has added millions to the rolls by requiring motor vehicles departments and other state agencies to offer registration, would help Democrats, the authors note. (“Who wins under this bill?” asked Rep. Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican, during the debate over the measure. The law, he answered, “will result in the registration of millions of welfare recipients, illegal aliens, and taxpayer-funded entitlement recipients. They’ll win.”)In fact, the authors write, the law had essentially no partisan impact.<h2>‘Beyond the voting wars’</h2>Still, some critics note that many high-profile elections these days, including presidential elections, are decided by razor-thin margins. In both of the last two presidential elections, the winner won three pivotal states by 1.2 percentage points or less — in 2020, it was 0.7 percentage points or less. (And that’s leaving aside Florida 2000, a unicorn event that was so close that almost everything made a difference.)“[U]sing the Hersh-Grimmer framework, some of these laws would’ve had a plausible chance of swinging the 2016 presidential election because the election was so close,” said Jacob Grumbach, a professor of political science at the University of Washington, via email. “ I could understand people might think that’s a big deal.”Hersh acknowledged it’s possible that a multi-pronged law, or a set of laws acting together, could cause a swing that big. But he argued that because of the high level of uncertainty involved in the analysis, there’s no reliable way to predict what the partisan effects of a given law will be.“Yeah, collectively these small policies could aggregate,” Hersh said. “But no one knows how they aggregate. Even the ones that liberals call suppression.”“There’s no way lawmakers can sit around and be like, ‘OK, we’re going to do these six things and this is going to help Democrats or Republicans,’ and actually know what they’re talking about,” Hersh added.The authors also acknowledge more than once that there are plenty of valid reasons to worry about election policies that have nothing to do with results —&nbsp; “such as whether they make voting convenient, more secure, more cost effective, and whether they are motivated by discriminatory intent.” All of those effects would be important to pay attention to, even if they didn’t have a partisan impact.In fact, both Grimmer and Hersh stressed in interviews that one goal of the paper was to encourage a focus on these other issues by making questions of partisanship recede.​”States should be seeking out policies that they think will improve the functioning of elections,” said Grimmer. “And they can be comforted knowing that when they make those changes, it’s not going to end up with wild swings in partisan balance.”Others see a different take-away from the paper.David Nickerson, a political science professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, was involved in a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://ash.harvard.edu/election-officials-teams-and-voters-agree-using-stadiums-polling-sites-win">project</a>&nbsp;that looked at the impact of stadium voting, which took place in the 2020 election at over 48 professional sports stadiums as a convenience measure during the pandemic. Nickerson said project organizers hoped that when they showed stadium voting has no partisan effect, Republican officials would drop their opposition to it.But that didn’t happen, Nickerson said. The experience suggests to him that differences over how elections should be run — and in particular over how easy or hard voting should be — are as much about ideological principle as they are about political advantage.“You’ll even hear Republicans openly say they think voting should be harder, and you should only vote if you really want to and care and are committed — which I can’t imagine a Democratic official saying,” Nickerson said. “It’s a different worldview.”Michael Morse, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, said the study should lead advocates to focus relatively less on laws that affect the individual voting experience, like most voter ID laws, and more on structural issues, like getting more people on the voter rolls, or stopping gerrymandering.“We have a limited amount of resources for reform,” Morse said. “The agenda for reform should be informed by this type of empirical political science.”Indeed, the reality that election laws barely affect results is a good thing for building bipartisan coalitions for voting rights, Morse added.“I would like the public discussion of these issues to be less partisan,” he said. “It’s the only way forward beyond the voting wars.”

Changes in state election laws have little impact on results, new study finds

<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/07/16/southeast-community-college-president-board-member-push-back-on-criticism/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN — The president of Southeast Community College and a member of its elected board are pushing back on criticism from 23 state legislators about the college’s proposed tax rate increase.

The senators, in a letter released last week, called on the college board to reconsider a preliminary decision to raise the college’s tax levy from 9.37 cents per $100 valuation to 11.25 cents, the maximum allowed under state statute.

That, the senators said, would raise local taxes to support SCC up to 40%, if combined with recent increases in property valuation. The senators said, that runs counter to the Legislature’s goal of reducing taxes.

While it might not result in a tax increase, because property taxes paid to community colleges are 100% refundable via a state income tax credit, the lawmakers pointed out that not all taxpayers take advantage of the credit.

Both SCC President Paul Illich and Arlyn Uhrmacher of Lincoln, the vice chair of the SCC Board, pushed back on lawmakers’ criticism in separate interviews Friday, saying that the issue is complicated and a new law impacts community colleges very differently, and that the tax rate hike was necessary to sustain the college into the future.

Illich, speaking by phone while on vacation, said SCC has kept its tax rate low in recent years but, because of the passage of a new law that will shift community colleges off the property tax rolls, the college needed to increase its “baseline” rate to avoid a steep tuition increase and a shortage of funds for programs and staff salaries.

SCC, unlike some other community colleges, had unused taxing authority, and this year is the last time the college can capture it before the transition, Illich said.

“We have a skilled workforce crisis in Nebraska, and community colleges are posed to address that. And we have to set our taxing authority appropriately,” he said.

Uhrbacher was more blunt, saying the SCC Board is adhering to a law passed by state legislators this spring that allows community colleges to raise their tax levy to the top rate prior to the state taking over funding of community colleges.

“We aren’t doing anything that was not written into that bill. We’re not trying to pull the wool over their eyes,” Uhrmacher said. “If they didn’t realize what they passed, shame on them.”

This spring, as part of Legislative Bill 243, which was aimed at reducing property taxes, state lawmakers decided to shift the funding of community colleges off property taxes and onto the state, which gets most of its revenue from sales and income taxes.

It was hailed as a structural change that would ensure a reduction in local property taxes of perhaps 5-6%, according to the Platte Institute, an Omaha-based think tank.

Next year is the last year that community colleges can levy property taxes for operating expenses. After that, state funding increases are capped at no more than 3.5% a year — so the “baseline” set this year is important, the SCC officials said.

In June, the SCC board voted 10-0, with one abstention, on a preliminary basis to raise its tax rate to the maximum. A final vote will come in September.

The preliminary vote prompted criticism from the Platte Institute, a free-market think tank that advocates for lower taxes, and then generated the critical letter from the state senators.

Norfolk Sen. Rob Dover, who led drafting of the letter, did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment.

But the letter stated that SCC’s action “piles on taxes at a time when people cannot afford it.”

The letter stated it was disingenuous to say that while taxpayers may see a huge increase on their tax bills next year, that eventually they’ll see a tax break when funding for community colleges shifts to the state.

Illich and Uhrmacher said shifting community colleges off the property tax rolls is a big change that requires a transition and time.

SCC conducted a “needs study” to ensure that the baseline set will be enough to finance the college’s expenses into the future. The college, Illich said, has the highest number of full-time instructors among community colleges and recently inked a contract that provides a 5% increase for staff.

Plus, he said, there has been a recent push to “modernize” the three main campuses in Lincoln, Beatrice and Milford. That modernization includes a new health sciences building in Lincoln, a diesel mechanics training center in Milford and an “academic excellence” building in Beatrice.

Uhrbacher said the needs study indicated that unless the SCC board raised its tax rate, the college would be required to cut staff and programs and raise tuition.

He said the board plans to hold at least 15 meetings in its 15-county service area, beginning later this month, to explain its reasoning.

“We will listen to what people have to say,” Uhrmacher said, and then decide whether or not to change their decision.

“It might be the same decision. It might not be the same decision,” he said.

Illich said the issue is complicated. LB 234 impacted the state’s community colleges very differently, he said. Some will see automatic increases in funding via the bill; others, like SCC, were well below their taxing authority limit and needed to make adjustments so that, once state funding takes over, they can sustain their operations.

“We just landed at a spot where some had to do things differently than the others,” Illich said.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1689603893192.jpeg" alt="&nbsp;Community college provide instruction in many trades, including home construction, as these students at Omaha-based Metropolitan Community College are doing. (Courtesy of Arch Icon Development)

" />
 <figcaption>&nbsp;Community college provide instruction in many trades, including home construction, as these students at Omaha-based Metropolitan Community College are doing. (Courtesy of Arch Icon Development)

</figcaption>
 </figure>By Paul Hammel<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/07/16/southeast-community-college-president-board-member-push-back-on-criticism/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN — The president of Southeast Community College and a member of its elected board are pushing back on criticism from 23 state legislators about the college’s proposed tax rate increase.The senators, in a letter released last week, called on the college board to reconsider a preliminary decision to raise the college’s tax levy from 9.37 cents per $100 valuation to 11.25 cents, the maximum allowed under state statute.That, the senators said, would raise local taxes to support SCC up to 40%, if combined with recent increases in property valuation. The senators said, that runs counter to the Legislature’s goal of reducing taxes.While it might not result in a tax increase, because property taxes paid to community colleges are 100% refundable via a state income tax credit, the lawmakers pointed out that not all taxpayers take advantage of the credit.Both SCC President Paul Illich and Arlyn Uhrmacher of Lincoln, the vice chair of the SCC Board, pushed back on lawmakers’ criticism in separate interviews Friday, saying that the issue is complicated and a new law impacts community colleges very differently, and that the tax rate hike was necessary to sustain the college into the future.Illich, speaking by phone while on vacation, said SCC has kept its tax rate low in recent years but, because of the passage of a new law that will shift community colleges off the property tax rolls, the college needed to increase its “baseline” rate to avoid a steep tuition increase and a shortage of funds for programs and staff salaries.SCC, unlike some other community colleges, had unused taxing authority, and this year is the last time the college can capture it before the transition, Illich said.“We have a skilled workforce crisis in Nebraska, and community colleges are posed to address that. And we have to set our taxing authority appropriately,” he said.<h2>Not ‘pulling the wool’ over anyone</h2>Uhrbacher was more blunt, saying the SCC Board is adhering to a law passed by state legislators this spring that allows community colleges to raise their tax levy to the top rate prior to the state taking over funding of community colleges.“We aren’t doing anything that was not written into that bill. We’re not trying to pull the wool over their eyes,” Uhrmacher said. “If they didn’t realize what they passed, shame on them.”This spring, as part of Legislative Bill 243, which was aimed at reducing property taxes, state lawmakers decided to shift the funding of community colleges off property taxes and onto the state, which gets most of its revenue from sales and income taxes.It was hailed as a structural change that would ensure a reduction in local property taxes of perhaps 5-6%, according to the Platte Institute, an Omaha-based think tank.Next year is the last year that community colleges can levy property taxes for operating expenses. After that, state funding increases are capped at no more than 3.5% a year — so the “baseline” set this year is important, the SCC officials said.<h2>Approved 10-0 with one abstention</h2>In June, the SCC board voted 10-0, with one abstention, on a preliminary basis to raise its tax rate to the maximum. A final vote will come in September.The preliminary vote prompted criticism from the Platte Institute, a free-market think tank that advocates for lower taxes, and then generated the critical letter from the state senators.Norfolk Sen. Rob Dover, who led drafting of the letter, did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment.But the letter stated that SCC’s action “piles on taxes at a time when people cannot afford it.”The letter stated it was disingenuous to say that while taxpayers may see a huge increase on their tax bills next year, that eventually they’ll see a tax break when funding for community colleges shifts to the state.Illich and Uhrmacher said shifting community colleges off the property tax rolls is a big change that requires a transition and time.SCC conducted a “needs study” to ensure that the baseline set will be enough to finance the college’s expenses into the future. The college, Illich said, has the highest number of full-time instructors among community colleges and recently inked a contract that provides a 5% increase for staff.<h2>Modernization</h2>Plus, he said, there has been a recent push to “modernize” the three main campuses in Lincoln, Beatrice and Milford. That modernization includes a new health sciences building in Lincoln, a diesel mechanics training center in Milford and an “academic excellence” building in Beatrice.Uhrbacher said the needs study indicated that unless the SCC board raised its tax rate, the college would be required to cut staff and programs and raise tuition.He said the board plans to hold at least 15 meetings in its 15-county service area, beginning later this month, to explain its reasoning.“We will listen to what people have to say,” Uhrmacher said, and then decide whether or not to change their decision.“It might be the same decision. It might not be the same decision,” he said.Illich said the issue is complicated. LB 234 impacted the state’s community colleges very differently, he said. Some will see automatic increases in funding via the bill; others, like SCC, were well below their taxing authority limit and needed to make adjustments so that, once state funding takes over, they can sustain their operations.“We just landed at a spot where some had to do things differently than the others,” Illich said.

Southeast Community College president, board member push back on criticism

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview published Sunday that Russia has a “sufficient stockpile” of cluster munitions, and warned that Russia “reserves the right to take reciprocal action” if Ukraine uses the controversial weapons.

In his first comments on the delivery of cluster munitions to Ukraine from the U.S., Putin said that Russia has not used cluster bombs in its war in Ukraine so far. The use of cluster bombs by both Russia and Ukraine has been widely documented, including by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interactive/ap-russia-war-crimes-ukraine/">The Associated Press</a>&nbsp;and international humanitarian organizations, and cluster rounds have been found in the aftermath of Russian strikes.

“Until now, we have not done this, we have not used it, and we have not had such a need,” he said,

Rossiya TV reporter Pavel Zarubin published excerpts of the interview to his Telegram channel Sunday ahead of a scheduled broadcast Sunday night.

The Pentagon said Thursday that cluster munitions&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/cluster-bombs-ukraine-biden-russia-unexploded-ordnance-cc16c482d86b34102ffeac6ee682a524">provided by the United States</a>&nbsp;had arrived in Ukraine.

The munitions, which are bombs that open in the air and release scores of smaller bomblets, are seen by the U.S. as a way to get Kyiv critically needed ammunition to help bolster its offensive and push through Russian front lines. U.S. leaders debated&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-cluster-munition-war-7332fa86b3c52d1ea8d63f92a7d5c2cb">the thorny issue</a>&nbsp;for months, before President Joe Biden made the final decision last week.

Cluster bombs have long been criticized by humanitarian groups, and some U.S. allies, because those used in previous conflicts have had a high “dud rate,” meaning that they often leave behind unexploded bomblets that can harm civilians long after a battle has ended.

Proponents argue that Russia has already been using cluster munitions in Ukraine and that the weapons the U.S. is providing have been improved to leave behind far fewer unexploded rounds. Ukraine has promised to use them only away from densely populated areas.

The Ukrainian military said in a regular update Sunday morning that over the previous 24 hours Russia had launched two Iranian-made Shahed exploding drones, two cruise missiles and two anti-aircraft guided missiles, in addition to 40 airstrikes and 46 attacks from multiple rocket launchers.

The Ukrainian General Staff wrote that Russia continues to concentrate on offensive operations in Ukraine’s industrial east. Donetsk regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said Sunday that two residents of the region were killed on Saturday, and one other person was wounded.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Sunday that fighting in eastern Ukraine had “somewhat intensified,”&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-counteroffensive-explainer-ff774fce8608b464a406ae087b1a3607">amid a slow counteroffensive</a>&nbsp;in which Ukraine has made small territorial gains.

Writing on Telegram, she said that Russia had been “actively attacking” in the direction of Kupiansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region for two consecutive days, and that Ukrainian forces were “on the defensive” in the area.

“There are fierce battles, the positions of both sides change dynamically several times a day,” she wrote.

Maliar wrote that Ukrainian troops were trying to hold on to their positions on the northern flank around the destroyed city of Bakhmut, but reported that Ukrainian forces were “advancing daily” on the southern flank. Ukraine has been trying to encircle the city since losing control of it to Russia in May.

Putin claimed that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had been futile, in another excerpt published by Zarubin.

“All attempts by the enemy to break through our defenses (...) they were unsuccessful during the entire offensive. The enemy is having no success!” Putin said.

Elsewhere in the country, two boys, aged eight and 10, were wounded when an explosive device left by Russian forces detonated in the southern region of Kherson on Sunday, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office.

Regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said that Russia had launched 69 shelling attacks against Kherson region. A 59-year-old man died on Saturday when attempting to disarm a round in the regional capital, also called Kherson.

Yurii Malashko, governor of the neighboring, partly occupied, Zaporizhzhia region, said Russia had attacked 13 populated areas in the region, wounding seven people in the town of Stepnohirsk.

Moscow-installed authorities in Russian-occupied Crimea on Sunday reported “a massive and prolonged” drone attack overnight targeting Sevastopol, the peninsula’s largest port, which hosts Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. According to Moscow-installed Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhaev, air defense shot down all of the drones and there was no damage.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said that a woman was killed Sunday by shelling in the town of Shebekino near the border with Ukraine.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/9/1663760963726.jpeg" alt="Image from a video released by the Russian Presidential Press Service&nbsp; via AP)" />
 <figcaption>Image from a video released by the Russian Presidential Press Service&nbsp; via AP)</figcaption>
 </figure>KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview published Sunday that Russia has a “sufficient stockpile” of cluster munitions, and warned that Russia “reserves the right to take reciprocal action” if Ukraine uses the controversial weapons.In his first comments on the delivery of cluster munitions to Ukraine from the U.S., Putin said that Russia has not used cluster bombs in its war in Ukraine so far. The use of cluster bombs by both Russia and Ukraine has been widely documented, including by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interactive/ap-russia-war-crimes-ukraine/">The Associated Press</a>&nbsp;and international humanitarian organizations, and cluster rounds have been found in the aftermath of Russian strikes.“Until now, we have not done this, we have not used it, and we have not had such a need,” he said,Rossiya TV reporter Pavel Zarubin published excerpts of the interview to his Telegram channel Sunday ahead of a scheduled broadcast Sunday night.The Pentagon said Thursday that cluster munitions&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/cluster-bombs-ukraine-biden-russia-unexploded-ordnance-cc16c482d86b34102ffeac6ee682a524">provided by the United States</a>&nbsp;had arrived in Ukraine.The munitions, which are bombs that open in the air and release scores of smaller bomblets, are seen by the U.S. as a way to get Kyiv critically needed ammunition to help bolster its offensive and push through Russian front lines. U.S. leaders debated&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-cluster-munition-war-7332fa86b3c52d1ea8d63f92a7d5c2cb">the thorny issue</a>&nbsp;for months, before President Joe Biden made the final decision last week.Cluster bombs have long been criticized by humanitarian groups, and some U.S. allies, because those used in previous conflicts have had a high “dud rate,” meaning that they often leave behind unexploded bomblets that can harm civilians long after a battle has ended.Proponents argue that Russia has already been using cluster munitions in Ukraine and that the weapons the U.S. is providing have been improved to leave behind far fewer unexploded rounds. Ukraine has promised to use them only away from densely populated areas.The Ukrainian military said in a regular update Sunday morning that over the previous 24 hours Russia had launched two Iranian-made Shahed exploding drones, two cruise missiles and two anti-aircraft guided missiles, in addition to 40 airstrikes and 46 attacks from multiple rocket launchers.The Ukrainian General Staff wrote that Russia continues to concentrate on offensive operations in Ukraine’s industrial east. Donetsk regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said Sunday that two residents of the region were killed on Saturday, and one other person was wounded.Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Sunday that fighting in eastern Ukraine had “somewhat intensified,”&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-counteroffensive-explainer-ff774fce8608b464a406ae087b1a3607">amid a slow counteroffensive</a>&nbsp;in which Ukraine has made small territorial gains.Writing on Telegram, she said that Russia had been “actively attacking” in the direction of Kupiansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region for two consecutive days, and that Ukrainian forces were “on the defensive” in the area.“There are fierce battles, the positions of both sides change dynamically several times a day,” she wrote.Maliar wrote that Ukrainian troops were trying to hold on to their positions on the northern flank around the destroyed city of Bakhmut, but reported that Ukrainian forces were “advancing daily” on the southern flank. Ukraine has been trying to encircle the city since losing control of it to Russia in May.Putin claimed that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had been futile, in another excerpt published by Zarubin.“All attempts by the enemy to break through our defenses (...) they were unsuccessful during the entire offensive. The enemy is having no success!” Putin said.Elsewhere in the country, two boys, aged eight and 10, were wounded when an explosive device left by Russian forces detonated in the southern region of Kherson on Sunday, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office.Regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said that Russia had launched 69 shelling attacks against Kherson region. A 59-year-old man died on Saturday when attempting to disarm a round in the regional capital, also called Kherson.Yurii Malashko, governor of the neighboring, partly occupied, Zaporizhzhia region, said Russia had attacked 13 populated areas in the region, wounding seven people in the town of Stepnohirsk.Moscow-installed authorities in Russian-occupied Crimea on Sunday reported “a massive and prolonged” drone attack overnight targeting Sevastopol, the peninsula’s largest port, which hosts Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. According to Moscow-installed Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhaev, air defense shot down all of the drones and there was no damage.Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said that a woman was killed Sunday by shelling in the town of Shebekino near the border with Ukraine.

Putin issues threat as U.S. cluster bombs arrive in Ukraine

By STEFANIE DAZIO and LARRY FENN Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Slain at the hands of strangers or gunned down by loved ones. Massacred in small towns, in big cities, inside their own homes or outside in broad daylight. This year's unrelenting bloodshed across the U.S. has led to the grimmest of milestones: The deadliest six months of mass killings recorded since at least 2006.

From Jan. 1 to June 30, the nation endured 28 mass killings, all but one of which involved guns. The death toll rose just about every week, a constant cycle of violence and grief.

Six months. 181 days. 28 mass killings. 140 victims. One country.

"What a ghastly milestone," said Brent Leatherwood, whose three children were in class at a private Christian school in Nashville on March 27 when a former student killed three children and three adults. "You never think your family would be a part of a statistic like that."

Leatherwood, a prominent Republican in a state that hasn't strengthened gun laws, believes something must be done to get guns out of the hands of people who might become violent. The shock of seeing the bloodshed strike so close to home has prompted him to speak out.

"You may as well say Martians have landed, right? It's hard to wrap your mind around it," he said.

A mass killing is defined as an occurrence when four or more people are slain, not including the assailant, within a 24-hour period. A database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University tracks this large-scale violence dating back to 2006.

The 2023 milestone beat the previous record of 27 mass killings, which was only set in the second half of 2022. James Alan Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University, never imagined records like this when he began overseeing the database about five years ago.

"We used to say there were two to three dozen a year," Fox said. "The fact that there's 28 in half a year is a staggering statistic."

But the chaos of the first six months of 2023 doesn't automatically doom the last six months. The remainder of the year could be calmer, despite more violence over the July Fourthholiday weekend.

"Hopefully it was just a blip," said Dr. Amy Barnhorst, a psychiatrist who is the associate director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.

"There could be fewer killings later in 2023, or this could be part of a trend. But we won't know for sometime," she added.

Experts like Barnhorst and Fox attribute the rising bloodshed to a growing population with an increased number of guns in the U.S. Yet for all the headlines, mass killings are statistically rare and represent a fraction of the country's overall gun violence.

"We need to keep it in perspective," Fox said.

But the mass violence most often spurs attempts to reform gun laws, even if the efforts are not always successful.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, had urged the General Assembly in the wake of the Nashville school shooting to pass legislation keeping firearms away from people who could harm themselves or others, so-called "red flag laws," though Lee says the term is politically toxic.

Getting such a measure passed in Tennessee is an uphill climb. The Republican-led Legislature adjourned earlier this year without taking on gun control, prompting Lee to schedule a special session for August.

Leatherwood, a former executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party and now the head of the influential Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm, wrote a letter to lawmakers asking them to pass the governor's proposal.

Leatherwood said he doesn't want any other family to go through what his children experienced at the time of the shooting when they were in kindergarten, second grade and fourth grade. One of his kids, preparing for a recent sleepaway camp, asked whether they would be safe there.

"Our child was asking, 'Do you think that there will be a gunman that comes to this camp? Do I need to be worried about that?'" Leatherwood said.

The Nashville shooter, whose writings Leatherwood and other parents are asking a court to keep private, used three guns in the attack, including an AR-15-style rifle. It was one of at least four mass killings in the first half of 2023 involving such a weapon, according to the database.

Nearly all of the mass killings in the first half of this year, 27 of 28, involved guns. The other was a fire that killed four people in a home in Monroe, Louisiana. A 37-year-old man was arrested on arson and murder charges in connection with the March 31 deaths.

Despite the unprecedented carnage, the National Rifle Association maintains fierce opposition to regulating firearms, including AR-15-style rifles and similar weapons.

"Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' constant efforts to gut the Second Amendment will not usher in safety for Americans; instead, it will only embolden criminals," NRA spokesman Billy McLaughlin said in a statement. "That is why the NRA continues our fight for self-defense laws. Rest assured, we will never bow, we will never retreat, and we will never apologize for championing the self-defense rights of law-abiding Americans."

Tito Anchondo's brother, Andre Anchondo, was among 23 people killed in a 2019 mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. The gunman was sentenced last week to 90 consecutive life sentences but could face more punishment, including the death penalty. The prosecution of the racist attack on Hispanic shoppers in the border city was one of the U.S. government's largest hate crime cases.

Andre Anchondo and his wife, Jordan, died shielding their 2-month-old son from bullets. Paul, who escaped with just broken bones, is now 4 years old.

Tito Anchondo said he feels like the country has forgotten about the El Paso victims in the years since and that not nearly enough has been done to stem the bloodshed. He worries about Paul's future.

"I hope that things can drastically change because this country is going down a very, very slippery slope; a downward spiral," he said. "It's just a little unnerving to know that he's eventually going to go to school with kids that also may bring a gun to school."

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/6/1687710602889.png" alt="KC Police on the scene of&nbsp; the mass shooting at&nbsp; an after hours club near 57th and Prospect Avenue June 26-photo courtesy KCTV" />
 <figcaption>KC Police on the scene of&nbsp; the mass shooting at&nbsp; an after hours club near 57th and Prospect Avenue June 26-photo courtesy KCTV</figcaption>
 </figure>By STEFANIE DAZIO and LARRY FENN Associated PressNEW YORK (AP) — Slain at the hands of strangers or gunned down by loved ones. Massacred in small towns, in big cities, inside their own homes or outside in broad daylight. This year's unrelenting bloodshed across the U.S. has led to the grimmest of milestones: The deadliest six months of mass killings recorded since at least 2006.From Jan. 1 to June 30, the nation endured 28 mass killings, all but one of which involved guns. The death toll rose just about every week, a constant cycle of violence and grief.Six months. 181 days. 28 mass killings. 140 victims. One country."What a ghastly milestone," said Brent Leatherwood, whose three children were in class at a private Christian school in Nashville on March 27 when a former student killed three children and three adults. "You never think your family would be a part of a statistic like that."Leatherwood, a prominent Republican in a state that hasn't strengthened gun laws, believes something must be done to get guns out of the hands of people who might become violent. The shock of seeing the bloodshed strike so close to home has prompted him to speak out."You may as well say Martians have landed, right? It's hard to wrap your mind around it," he said.A mass killing is defined as an occurrence when four or more people are slain, not including the assailant, within a 24-hour period. A database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University tracks this large-scale violence dating back to 2006.The 2023 milestone beat the previous record of 27 mass killings, which was only set in the second half of 2022. James Alan Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University, never imagined records like this when he began overseeing the database about five years ago."We used to say there were two to three dozen a year," Fox said. "The fact that there's 28 in half a year is a staggering statistic."But the chaos of the first six months of 2023 doesn't automatically doom the last six months. The remainder of the year could be calmer, despite more violence over the July Fourthholiday weekend."Hopefully it was just a blip," said Dr. Amy Barnhorst, a psychiatrist who is the associate director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis."There could be fewer killings later in 2023, or this could be part of a trend. But we won't know for sometime," she added.Experts like Barnhorst and Fox attribute the rising bloodshed to a growing population with an increased number of guns in the U.S. Yet for all the headlines, mass killings are statistically rare and represent a fraction of the country's overall gun violence."We need to keep it in perspective," Fox said.But the mass violence most often spurs attempts to reform gun laws, even if the efforts are not always successful.Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, had urged the General Assembly in the wake of the Nashville school shooting to pass legislation keeping firearms away from people who could harm themselves or others, so-called "red flag laws," though Lee says the term is politically toxic.Getting such a measure passed in Tennessee is an uphill climb. The Republican-led Legislature adjourned earlier this year without taking on gun control, prompting Lee to schedule a special session for August.Leatherwood, a former executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party and now the head of the influential Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm, wrote a letter to lawmakers asking them to pass the governor's proposal.Leatherwood said he doesn't want any other family to go through what his children experienced at the time of the shooting when they were in kindergarten, second grade and fourth grade. One of his kids, preparing for a recent sleepaway camp, asked whether they would be safe there."Our child was asking, 'Do you think that there will be a gunman that comes to this camp? Do I need to be worried about that?'" Leatherwood said.The Nashville shooter, whose writings Leatherwood and other parents are asking a court to keep private, used three guns in the attack, including an AR-15-style rifle. It was one of at least four mass killings in the first half of 2023 involving such a weapon, according to the database.Nearly all of the mass killings in the first half of this year, 27 of 28, involved guns. The other was a fire that killed four people in a home in Monroe, Louisiana. A 37-year-old man was arrested on arson and murder charges in connection with the March 31 deaths.Despite the unprecedented carnage, the National Rifle Association maintains fierce opposition to regulating firearms, including AR-15-style rifles and similar weapons."Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' constant efforts to gut the Second Amendment will not usher in safety for Americans; instead, it will only embolden criminals," NRA spokesman Billy McLaughlin said in a statement. "That is why the NRA continues our fight for self-defense laws. Rest assured, we will never bow, we will never retreat, and we will never apologize for championing the self-defense rights of law-abiding Americans."Tito Anchondo's brother, Andre Anchondo, was among 23 people killed in a 2019 mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. The gunman was sentenced last week to 90 consecutive life sentences but could face more punishment, including the death penalty. The prosecution of the racist attack on Hispanic shoppers in the border city was one of the U.S. government's largest hate crime cases.Andre Anchondo and his wife, Jordan, died shielding their 2-month-old son from bullets. Paul, who escaped with just broken bones, is now 4 years old.Tito Anchondo said he feels like the country has forgotten about the El Paso victims in the years since and that not nearly enough has been done to stem the bloodshed. He worries about Paul's future."I hope that things can drastically change because this country is going down a very, very slippery slope; a downward spiral," he said. "It's just a little unnerving to know that he's eventually going to go to school with kids that also may bring a gun to school."___Dazio reported from Los Angeles.

Grim milestone: New U.S. record for deadliest 6 months of mass killings

TOPEKA (AP)—Another Powerball drawing ended with no winner Saturday night, sending the jackpot soaring to an estimated $900 million.

No ticket for Saturday's drawing matched the winning combination: white balls 2, 9, 43, 55, 57 and red Powerball 18. The jackpot was estimated at $875 million.

Ticket buyers for Monday’s drawing have a chance at either $900 million paid out in yearly increments or a $465.1 million, one-time lump sum before taxes.

The top prize is the third biggest Powerball jackpot and the seventh largest in U.S. lottery history, Powerball said in a statement early Sunday.

While there was no jackpot winner, Powerball said three tickets that matched all five white balls Saturday are eligible to claim $1 million prizes, including two in Texas and one in Colorado.

The jackpot will keep growing until someone wins.

The&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/north-america-lottery-us-news-ap-top-news-ia-state-wire-b5572da1e5d74f6e974bea45c707b5cb">game’s abysmal odds</a>&nbsp;of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to build big prizes that draw more players. The largest Powerball jackpot was&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lotteries-iowa-36ef3aefbbc37a15e1c5f172129fa6a6">$2.04 billion</a>&nbsp;in November.

The&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/powerball-winner-ohio-252-million-5506023262d64fb54556fb454a478615">last time</a>&nbsp;someone won the Powerball jackpot was April 19 for a top prize of nearly $253 million. Since then, no one has won the grand prize in the past 37 consecutive drawings.

TOPEKA (AP)—Another Powerball drawing ended with no winner Saturday night, sending the jackpot soaring to an estimated $900 million.No ticket for Saturday's drawing matched the winning combination: white balls 2, 9, 43, 55, 57 and red Powerball 18. The jackpot was estimated at $875 million.Ticket buyers for Monday’s drawing have a chance at either $900 million paid out in yearly increments or a $465.1 million, one-time lump sum before taxes.The top prize is the third biggest Powerball jackpot and the seventh largest in U.S. lottery history, Powerball said in a statement early Sunday.While there was no jackpot winner, Powerball said three tickets that matched all five white balls Saturday are eligible to claim $1 million prizes, including two in Texas and one in Colorado.The jackpot will keep growing until someone wins.The&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/north-america-lottery-us-news-ap-top-news-ia-state-wire-b5572da1e5d74f6e974bea45c707b5cb">game’s abysmal odds</a>&nbsp;of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to build big prizes that draw more players. The largest Powerball jackpot was&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lotteries-iowa-36ef3aefbbc37a15e1c5f172129fa6a6">$2.04 billion</a>&nbsp;in November.The&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/powerball-winner-ohio-252-million-5506023262d64fb54556fb454a478615">last time</a>&nbsp;someone won the Powerball jackpot was April 19 for a top prize of nearly $253 million. Since then, no one has won the grand prize in the past 37 consecutive drawings.Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Powerball prize grows to $900 million after no jackpot winner drawn

By AARON SANDERFORD <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/woman-who-shouted-shame-following-critical-gun-bill-passage-is-banned-from-nebraska-capitol/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN — State tax receipts finished the fiscal year in the black, barely beating the projections of a state advisory board and sending an extra $3 million to Nebraska’s rainy day fund.

General fund receipts for the 2022-23 fiscal year came in at $6.37 billion, within 0.05% of what the Nebraska Economic Forecasting Advisory Board had projected in April.

tate Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Omaha, chair of the Legislature’s Revenue Committee, said getting a projection that close is “like getting a 37 on the ACT.”

“To be that close is amazing,” she said of the forecasters. “They had to kind of swim against the waves because they were kind of told and guided in a different direction.”

The final tally rebounded from recent economic trends that tightened toward the end of the 2023 legislative session. The change was fed in part by June receipts that jumped 9%.&nbsp;

Gov. Jim Pillen celebrated the “great news.” He said the state would “continue to work with state agencies to constrain spending” and make room for the tax relief the Legislature passed.

“Those measures, combined with the increase in tax receipts, bode well for the stability of our state’s economy,” Pillen said in a statement Friday afternoon.

Critics of a massive tax relief package the Legislature passed, which is set to start kicking in, said it is too soon for Pillen, a former Husker, to spike the football.

Rebecca Firestone, executive director of OpenSky Policy Institute, a progressive local think tank, said tax collections above projections are a good sign of the economy’s resilience.

But she said cuts to income tax rates and new state spending to offset local property taxes, plus one-time spending out of the state’s cash reserve, could put Nebraska in a pinch.

“Lawmakers removed some of the cushion available for a potential economic downturn,” she said in a statement. “As a result, paying for the tax cuts passed in 2023 without impacting state services remains a concern.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1689472180064.png" alt="tate Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Omaha speaks on the floor of the Legislature. (Courtesy of Unicameral Information Office)" />
 <figcaption>tate Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Omaha speaks on the floor of the Legislature. (Courtesy of Unicameral Information Office)</figcaption>
 </figure>By AARON SANDERFORD <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/woman-who-shouted-shame-following-critical-gun-bill-passage-is-banned-from-nebraska-capitol/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN — State tax receipts finished the fiscal year in the black, barely beating the projections of a state advisory board and sending an extra $3 million to Nebraska’s rainy day fund.General fund receipts for the 2022-23 fiscal year came in at $6.37 billion, within 0.05% of what the Nebraska Economic Forecasting Advisory Board had projected in April.tate Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Omaha, chair of the Legislature’s Revenue Committee, said getting a projection that close is “like getting a 37 on the ACT.”“To be that close is amazing,” she said of the forecasters. “They had to kind of swim against the waves because they were kind of told and guided in a different direction.”The final tally rebounded from recent economic trends that tightened toward the end of the 2023 legislative session. The change was fed in part by June receipts that jumped 9%.&nbsp;Gov. Jim Pillen celebrated the “great news.” He said the state would “continue to work with state agencies to constrain spending” and make room for the tax relief the Legislature passed.“Those measures, combined with the increase in tax receipts, bode well for the stability of our state’s economy,” Pillen said in a statement Friday afternoon.Critics of a massive tax relief package the Legislature passed, which is set to start kicking in, said it is too soon for Pillen, a former Husker, to spike the football.Rebecca Firestone, executive director of OpenSky Policy Institute, a progressive local think tank, said tax collections above projections are a good sign of the economy’s resilience.But she said cuts to income tax rates and new state spending to offset local property taxes, plus one-time spending out of the state’s cash reserve, could put Nebraska in a pinch.“Lawmakers removed some of the cushion available for a potential economic downturn,” she said in a statement. “As a result, paying for the tax cuts passed in 2023 without impacting state services remains a concern.”

Neb. state tax receipts hit the mark projected by forecasting board

Lisa Marie Presley&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/lisa-marie-presley">died</a>&nbsp;after developing a small bowel obstruction, a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lisa-marie-presley-death-cause-cbf0039dd8251a870f3ad8431dc78093">severe complication</a>&nbsp;of bariatric surgery years ago, according to an autopsy report released Thursday.

Experts say these types of complications are a known but rare risk after having weight-loss surgery. Here’s what to know:

The 54-year-old singer-songwriter and daughter of Elvis Presley was rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital on Jan. 12 after being found unresponsive at home and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lisa-marie-presley-dies-9fc02552f6f31e270647897a2e4104e9">died hours later</a>.

The cause of death was from complications of a small bowel obstruction tied to previous bariatric surgery, the autopsy showed. Portions of Presley’s bowel became trapped, or “strangulated,” from scar tissue that formed following surgery, and she also had developed a severe buildup of acids in her blood.

WHAT IS BARIATRIC SURGERY? HOW COMMON IS IT?

Bariatric surgeries are operations performed on the stomach or intestines to spur weight loss. They’re usually done in cases of moderate or severe obesity when other methods haven’t worked.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/1/1674489309670.png" alt="More than a thousand people gathered on the front lawn of Graceland on a gray, chilly Memphis morning to mourn the death and remember the life of Lisa Marie Presley, who died Jan. 12 after she was taken to a hospital in California. photo by John Amis, Associated Press" />
 <figcaption>More than a thousand people gathered on the front lawn of Graceland on a gray, chilly Memphis morning to mourn the death and remember the life of Lisa Marie Presley, who died Jan. 12 after she was taken to a hospital in California. photo by John Amis, Associated Press</figcaption>
 </figure>Lisa Marie Presley&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/lisa-marie-presley">died</a>&nbsp;after developing a small bowel obstruction, a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lisa-marie-presley-death-cause-cbf0039dd8251a870f3ad8431dc78093">severe complication</a>&nbsp;of bariatric surgery years ago, according to an autopsy report released Thursday.Experts say these types of complications are a known but rare risk after having weight-loss surgery. Here’s what to know:WHAT HAPPENED TO LISA MARIE PRESLEY? The 54-year-old singer-songwriter and daughter of Elvis Presley was rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital on Jan. 12 after being found unresponsive at home and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lisa-marie-presley-dies-9fc02552f6f31e270647897a2e4104e9">died hours later</a>.The cause of death was from complications of a small bowel obstruction tied to previous bariatric surgery, the autopsy showed. Portions of Presley’s bowel became trapped, or “strangulated,” from scar tissue that formed following surgery, and she also had developed a severe buildup of acids in her blood.WHAT IS BARIATRIC SURGERY? HOW COMMON IS IT? Bariatric surgeries are operations performed on the stomach or intestines to spur weight loss. They’re usually done in cases of moderate or severe obesity when other methods haven’t worked.There are several types of bariatric procedures, including those in which a portion of the stomach is removed or rerouted or when a band is placed around a part of the stomach to make it smaller.It’s not clear from the autopsy report which type of surgery Presley had, though experts said it was not a sleeve gastrectomy, which is the most common procedure.About 263,000 bariatric surgeries were done in 2021, according to Dr. Marina Kurian, the president of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. Only about 1% of people who qualify for the surgery receive it.HOW RISKY ARE THESE OPERATIONS? In general, bariatric surgery is “very safe,” Kurian said. The risk of major complications is about 4% overall and the risk of death is about 0.1%, according to ASMBS.“It’s safer than gallbladder surgery,” Kurian said.WHAT COMPLICATIONS CAN HAPPEN? Scar tissue, known as adhesions, can form after surgery or other trauma to the abdomen. That can lead to kinks and blockages in the intestine, said Dr. Thomas Inge, chief surgeon and a bariatric surgery expert at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.In Presley’s case, it appeared that “she had a twist of her entire intestine,” said Inge, who reviewed the autopsy report.If that's not quickly fixed, the blockage cuts off the flow of blood to the intestine, causing the bowel to become “strangulated” and creating a cascade of potentially deadly problems. In Presley’s case, it led to a toxic build-up of acids in her body and her heart stopped, the autopsy report said.Presley reported abdominal pain and not feeling well the morning of her death, the report said. It’s not clear if the pain was new.Anyone who has had abdominal surgery to seek prompt treatment for pain, Inge said. If diagnosed early, it’s possible to treat the problem.