By CELIA LLOPIS-JESPEN <a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2023-02-09/keystone-pipeline-operator-says-faulty-welding-and-other-problems-led-to-the-kansas-oil-spill">Kansas News Service</a>

Canadian oil company TC Energy said Thursday that faulty welding 
caused an “instantaneous rupture” in its Keystone pipeline that gushed 
hundreds of thousands of gallons of extra sticky tar sands crude oil 
onto Kansas native prairie, cropland and into a creek.

Meanwhile, 
the pipeline operator now estimates less oil escaped than originally 
thought. And it revealed that it expects the cleanup and investigation 
will cost about $480 million.

The
 federal government required TC Energy to have a third party conduct 
metallurgy tests. TC Energy says it can’t make the full report public. 
The Kansas News Service has filed an open records request to the federal
 government seeking the full document.

TC Energy gets three months
 to complete an analysis of the cause of the spill. That report must be 
“supplemented or facilitated by” a third party. The analysis isn’t 
finished, but TC Energy said in <a href="https://www.tcenergy.com/incident/milepost-14-incident/" target="_blank">an online post</a> early Thursday that the mechanical and metallurgy results had come back.

It says those tests point to factors including “bending stress on the pipe and a weld flaw.”

TC Energy seemed to point a finger outside its own ranks, saying the weld flaw was made at a “fabrication facility.”

“The
 weld flaw led to a crack that propagated over time as a result of 
bending stress fatigue, eventually leading to an instantaneous rupture,”
 TC Energy wrote in its press release. “The cause of the bending stress 
remains under investigation.”

The company said welding inspection and testing had complied with “applicable codes and standards.”

It also said the pipe itself showed no defects.

And it said the Keystone was operating at a legal pressure level when it burst.

The
 Kansas News Service submitted an open records request in December for a
 report that shows the precise pressure levels at the time of the 
rupture.

In late December, the federal government allowed TC 
Energy to restart the pipeline, on the condition that it operate for the
 time being at a lower pressure than when the rupture occurred.

“Our focus continues to be the safe operation of the pipeline system,” TC Energy wrote in its press release.

The
 federal government is also requiring TC Energy to look for other 
potential weak points within the 96-mile stretch of the Keystone system 
that includes the site of the spill in Washington County near the 
Nebraska border.

That stretch runs from Jefferson County in Nebraska through Washington, Clay and Dickinson counties in Kansas.

TC Energy now says it believes less oil spilled out of the Keystone than its original estimate of 588,000 gallons.

The new estimate is about 543,000 gallons, the bulk of which has been recovered.

It says the new figure is based on the volume of crude oil that the company injected to refill the pipeline when restarting it.

As
 for cost, the company said cleaning and remediating the area and 
investigating what happened will cost an estimated $480 million.

“This
 estimate may be adjusted as we continue to progress work on site,” it 
said. “We are working with our insurers to maximize cost recoveries.”

It’s not clear whether federal or state spending factors into this estimate. The company is required to <a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2023-01-13/the-keystone-operator-must-repay-some-not-all-of-the-tax-dollars-spent-on-its-kansas-oil-spill" target="_blank">repay some (but not all)</a> of the public taxpayer money spent on cleaning up its mess.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/2/1675962271596.png" alt="Mill Creek downstream of the 4-mile stretch of creek that TC Energy bypassed in January to contain contamination and assist the cleanup. Celia Llopis-Jepsen / Kansas News Service" />
 <figcaption>Mill Creek downstream of the 4-mile stretch of creek that TC Energy bypassed in January to contain contamination and assist the cleanup. Celia Llopis-Jepsen / Kansas News Service</figcaption>
 </figure>By CELIA LLOPIS-JESPEN <a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2023-02-09/keystone-pipeline-operator-says-faulty-welding-and-other-problems-led-to-the-kansas-oil-spill">Kansas News Service</a>Canadian oil company TC Energy said Thursday that faulty welding 
caused an “instantaneous rupture” in its Keystone pipeline that gushed 
hundreds of thousands of gallons of extra sticky tar sands crude oil 
onto Kansas native prairie, cropland and into a creek.Meanwhile, 
the pipeline operator now estimates less oil escaped than originally 
thought. And it revealed that it expects the cleanup and investigation 
will cost about $480 million.<h2>Investigation into the spill</h2>The
 federal government required TC Energy to have a third party conduct 
metallurgy tests. TC Energy says it can’t make the full report public. 
The Kansas News Service has filed an open records request to the federal
 government seeking the full document.TC Energy gets three months
 to complete an analysis of the cause of the spill. That report must be 
“supplemented or facilitated by” a third party. The analysis isn’t 
finished, but TC Energy said in <a href="https://www.tcenergy.com/incident/milepost-14-incident/" target="_blank">an online post</a> early Thursday that the mechanical and metallurgy results had come back.It says those tests point to factors including “bending stress on the pipe and a weld flaw.”TC Energy seemed to point a finger outside its own ranks, saying the weld flaw was made at a “fabrication facility.”“The
 weld flaw led to a crack that propagated over time as a result of 
bending stress fatigue, eventually leading to an instantaneous rupture,”
 TC Energy wrote in its press release. “The cause of the bending stress 
remains under investigation.”The company said welding inspection and testing had complied with “applicable codes and standards.”It also said the pipe itself showed no defects.And it said the Keystone was operating at a legal pressure level when it burst.The
 Kansas News Service submitted an open records request in December for a
 report that shows the precise pressure levels at the time of the 
rupture.In late December, the federal government allowed TC 
Energy to restart the pipeline, on the condition that it operate for the
 time being at a lower pressure than when the rupture occurred.“Our focus continues to be the safe operation of the pipeline system,” TC Energy wrote in its press release.The
 federal government is also requiring TC Energy to look for other 
potential weak points within the 96-mile stretch of the Keystone system 
that includes the site of the spill in Washington County near the 
Nebraska border.That stretch runs from Jefferson County in Nebraska through Washington, Clay and Dickinson counties in Kansas.<h2>Oil volume estimates and cleanup</h2>TC Energy now says it believes less oil spilled out of the Keystone than its original estimate of 588,000 gallons.The new estimate is about 543,000 gallons, the bulk of which has been recovered.It says the new figure is based on the volume of crude oil that the company injected to refill the pipeline when restarting it.As
 for cost, the company said cleaning and remediating the area and 
investigating what happened will cost an estimated $480 million.“This
 estimate may be adjusted as we continue to progress work on site,” it 
said. “We are working with our insurers to maximize cost recoveries.”It’s not clear whether federal or state spending factors into this estimate. The company is required to <a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2023-01-13/the-keystone-operator-must-repay-some-not-all-of-the-tax-dollars-spent-on-its-kansas-oil-spill" target="_blank">repay some (but not all)</a> of the public taxpayer money spent on cleaning up its mess.

Operator determines problem that led to Kansas oil spill

By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/02/08/tax-credits-for-children-and-child-care-touted-as-helping-many-nebraskans/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN — If Nebraska wants to help address its workforce shortage, 
it needs to provide more help to families dealing with inflation and&nbsp; 
expensive child care bills, a legislative committee was told Wednesday.

Over and over, members of the Legislature’s Revenue Committee were 
told stories of parents being forced to quit their jobs and remain at 
home to care for young children because their income wasn’t enough to 
pay for child care.

Maghie Miller-Jenkins of Lincoln, a married mother of three, said 
that despite having a degree in human services, she couldn’t find a job 
that would finance child care bills, which a 2021 state survey pegged at
 up to $1,500 to $1,600 a month. So she stays home now while her husband
 works.

Miller-Jenkins said she also cares for an 18-month-old child of a 
friend, a single mother, who cannot afford child care costs on her 
fast-food restaurant wages.

“If I didn’t watch her child for free, she couldn’t work,” she said. “Parenting is extremely expensive.”

A trio of bills were presented Wednesday that are designed to help 
families deal with child care expenses, as well as unexpected expenses, 
and cost increases caused by inflation.

<a target="_blank" href="https://nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=49822">Legislative Bill 318</a>,
 introduced by Sen. Eliot Bostar of Lincoln, would provide a tax credit 
of between $1,000 and $5,000 a year per child, based on family income, 
for child care costs. The bill also would also provide tax credits for 
businesses or individuals who contribute to the enhancement of child 
care operations and a tax break for child care workers.

The high cost of child care, and the loss of providers, is forcing 
some people out of the workforce, Bostar said, “which is the opposite of
 what we should be doing.”

Single parents can expend more than half of their income on child care, he said.

<a target="_blank" href="https://nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=50356">LB 294</a>,
 sponsored by Lincoln Sen. Danielle Conrad, would provide income tax 
credits of $1,000 per child, depending on a family’s income. The bill is
 patterned after a federal tax credit provided to families during the 
COVID-19 pandemic that supporters said was proven successful in raising 
millions of children out of poverty.

Conrad said 81% of all children in Nebraska would see benefits from 
her proposal, which would help families with unexpected expenses as well
 as child rearing costs.

“I’m not sure we’ll find a better bang for our buck in terms of supporting our families and the economy,” she said.

<a target="_blank" href="https://nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=50577">LB 295</a>,
 also introduced by Conrad, would increase the state’s current earned 
income tax credit for working families from the current 10% of the 
federal credit to 17%.

The senator said it would bring Nebraska more in line with similar 
tax credits in neighboring states. The credit for one qualifying child 
would increase from $373 to $635 a year, according to estimates provided
 by Conrad.

“It makes work pay,” she said, calling it a “fairly moderate but meaningful investment” in families.

Bostar’s bill was backed by First Five Nebraska, which advocates for 
early childhood education programs, and was supported by the state’s 
major business and agriculture organizations.

The state has a high percentage of working parents, according to 
First Five, with an estimated 75% of Nebraska’s children under age 6 in 
families with both parents employed.

LB 318 provides a targeted investment for children during a 
“developmentally important time,” said Elizabeth Everett of First Five.

She and others described the state’s child care system as “broken” 
because of the loss of providers and 40% turnover of employees.

“Nebraska’s public and private sectors have a common stake in fixing 
Nebraska’s broken, severely underfunded child care system,” Everett 
said.&nbsp; “LB 318 is a meaningful step in that direction.”

Conrad’s child tax credit was backed by Nebraska Appleseed, the 
OpenSky Policy Institute, the Holland Children’s Movement and the 
Nebraska State Education Association. At least 10 other states have 
similar credits, the senator said.

“There is no better way to use the state’s current fiscal surplus 
than to give it back to our children,” said Diane Amdor of Nebraska 
Appleseed.

The Nebraska Catholic Conference and the Women’s Fund of Omaha supported all three bills, which saw no opposing testimony.

Among the talking points in support of the bills was that increasing 
tax breaks for families and children could inspire couples to start 
families.

Concern was expressed over the cost of LB 294, which had an eventual fiscal impact of about $370 million a year.

Conrad, though, said she was open to amendments that would reduce the
 financial impact by narrowing and reducing the child tax credit.

A similar, pending proposal by Montana’s governor, for instance, 
provides a $500 credit, and only for children under 6 years of age.

The other two bills had much lower costs. LB 295 had an expected cost
 of $20 million a year, while the child care tax credit proposal was 
projected to cost about $34 million annually.

The Revenue Committee took no action on the three bills after their public hearings on Wednesday.

But Elkhorn Sen. Lou Ann Linehan said she hopes to hold an executive 
session Thursday to begin deciding which tax bills to advance to the 
full Legislature this year.

By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/02/08/tax-credits-for-children-and-child-care-touted-as-helping-many-nebraskans/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN — If Nebraska wants to help address its workforce shortage, 
it needs to provide more help to families dealing with inflation and&nbsp; 
expensive child care bills, a legislative committee was told Wednesday.Over and over, members of the Legislature’s Revenue Committee were 
told stories of parents being forced to quit their jobs and remain at 
home to care for young children because their income wasn’t enough to 
pay for child care.Maghie Miller-Jenkins of Lincoln, a married mother of three, said 
that despite having a degree in human services, she couldn’t find a job 
that would finance child care bills, which a 2021 state survey pegged at
 up to $1,500 to $1,600 a month. So she stays home now while her husband
 works.<h2>‘Parenting is extremely expensive’</h2>Miller-Jenkins said she also cares for an 18-month-old child of a 
friend, a single mother, who cannot afford child care costs on her 
fast-food restaurant wages.“If I didn’t watch her child for free, she couldn’t work,” she said. “Parenting is extremely expensive.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/2/1675957047030.jpeg" alt="State Sen. Eliot Bostar of Lincoln (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)" />
 <figcaption>State Sen. Eliot Bostar of Lincoln (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)</figcaption>
 </figure>A trio of bills were presented Wednesday that are designed to help 
families deal with child care expenses, as well as unexpected expenses, 
and cost increases caused by inflation.<a target="_blank" href="https://nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=49822">Legislative Bill 318</a>,
 introduced by Sen. Eliot Bostar of Lincoln, would provide a tax credit 
of between $1,000 and $5,000 a year per child, based on family income, 
for child care costs. The bill also would also provide tax credits for 
businesses or individuals who contribute to the enhancement of child 
care operations and a tax break for child care workers.The high cost of child care, and the loss of providers, is forcing 
some people out of the workforce, Bostar said, “which is the opposite of
 what we should be doing.”Single parents can expend more than half of their income on child care, he said.<a target="_blank" href="https://nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=50356">LB 294</a>,
 sponsored by Lincoln Sen. Danielle Conrad, would provide income tax 
credits of $1,000 per child, depending on a family’s income. The bill is
 patterned after a federal tax credit provided to families during the 
COVID-19 pandemic that supporters said was proven successful in raising 
millions of children out of poverty.Conrad said 81% of all children in Nebraska would see benefits from 
her proposal, which would help families with unexpected expenses as well
 as child rearing costs.“I’m not sure we’ll find a better bang for our buck in terms of supporting our families and the economy,” she said.<a target="_blank" href="https://nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=50577">LB 295</a>,
 also introduced by Conrad, would increase the state’s current earned 
income tax credit for working families from the current 10% of the 
federal credit to 17%.The senator said it would bring Nebraska more in line with similar 
tax credits in neighboring states. The credit for one qualifying child 
would increase from $373 to $635 a year, according to estimates provided
 by Conrad.<h2>‘It makes work pay’</h2>“It makes work pay,” she said, calling it a “fairly moderate but meaningful investment” in families.Bostar’s bill was backed by First Five Nebraska, which advocates for 
early childhood education programs, and was supported by the state’s 
major business and agriculture organizations.The state has a high percentage of working parents, according to 
First Five, with an estimated 75% of Nebraska’s children under age 6 in 
families with both parents employed.LB 318 provides a targeted investment for children during a 
“developmentally important time,” said Elizabeth Everett of First Five.She and others described the state’s child care system as “broken” 
because of the loss of providers and 40% turnover of employees.“Nebraska’s public and private sectors have a common stake in fixing 
Nebraska’s broken, severely underfunded child care system,” Everett 
said.&nbsp; “LB 318 is a meaningful step in that direction.”Conrad’s child tax credit was backed by Nebraska Appleseed, the 
OpenSky Policy Institute, the Holland Children’s Movement and the 
Nebraska State Education Association. At least 10 other states have 
similar credits, the senator said.“There is no better way to use the state’s current fiscal surplus 
than to give it back to our children,” said Diane Amdor of Nebraska 
Appleseed.The Nebraska Catholic Conference and the Women’s Fund of Omaha supported all three bills, which saw no opposing testimony.<h2>Could inspire more children</h2>Among the talking points in support of the bills was that increasing 
tax breaks for families and children could inspire couples to start 
families.Concern was expressed over the cost of LB 294, which had an eventual fiscal impact of about $370 million a year.Conrad, though, said she was open to amendments that would reduce the
 financial impact by narrowing and reducing the child tax credit.A similar, pending proposal by Montana’s governor, for instance, 
provides a $500 credit, and only for children under 6 years of age.The other two bills had much lower costs. LB 295 had an expected cost
 of $20 million a year, while the child care tax credit proposal was 
projected to cost about $34 million annually.The Revenue Committee took no action on the three bills after their public hearings on Wednesday.But Elkhorn Sen. Lou Ann Linehan said she hopes to hold an executive 
session Thursday to begin deciding which tax bills to advance to the 
full Legislature this year.

Child, child care tax credit touted as helping many Nebraskans

By ZACH WENDLING <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/02/08/proposed-gender-alteration-ban-for-minors-draws-hundreds-to-nebraska-capitol/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN — Supporters and opponents 
testified for about seven hours Wednesday on State Sen. Kathleen Kauth’s
 proposal to ban gender-altering care for minors in Nebraska.

<a target="_blank" href="https://nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=49961">Legislative Bill 574</a>
 — the “Let Them Grow Act” — would prohibit health care providers from 
administering to patients younger than 19 medical interventions such as 
puberty blockers, hormone treatments and genital or non-genital 
surgeries for gender dysphoria. The proposal would also ban providers 
from offering referrals and would allow for a civil penalty against 
physicians who offer the care.

Gender-affirming counseling or other therapies would not be banned, according to Kauth.

Kauth told the Health and Human 
Services Committee that her bill is designed to protect kids with gender
 dysphoria from “irreversible, destructive, experimental” medical care 
until they reach adulthood, offering support during adolescence.

“Once the intensity of the treatment 
and surgeries are complete, these individuals are still dealing with 
issues that the surgeries have only made more complex,” Kauth said.

Opponents of Kauth’s bill, such as 
Mike Hornacek, who is the parent of a transgender child, said the 
legislation would be an “extreme intrusion” into his family’s medical 
decisions.

“It says that we do not have a right 
to decide how best to care for and support each other as a family. Those
 decisions are not yours,” Hornacek said. “They are not anybody else’s, 
they are my family’s and nobody else’s.”

A handful of people who had 
previously received, sought or considered gender-affirming care 
testified in support of Kauth’s proposal.

Luka Hein, who said she went through 
gender-affirming care as a minor, said she had a history of mental 
health issues and was “groomed” to hate herself and her body. She 
received a double mastectomy at age 16 and cross-sex hormones a few 
months later.

“At 21 I deal with constant joint 
pain, my breasts are gone and I do not know if I will ever be able to 
carry a child someday,” Hein testified. “I will deal with these 
consequences for possibly the rest of my life, never knowing if it will 
go away and feeling abandoned by the medical professionals who did this 
to me.”

Cat Cattinson said she 
detransitioned, seeking care initially as a result of anorexia. Erin 
Brewer, who said she was enticed to transition but didn’t, said her 
dysphoria came after a sexual assault.

Cattinson and Brewer said support would be better aimed at therapies or counseling treatments.&nbsp;

Mario Presents, director of chapters for Gays Against Groomers, who is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.losangelesblade.com/2023/02/07/conspiracy-theorists-right-wing-created-gays-against-groomers/">believed</a> to have ties to the Proud Boys and has contributed to QAnon conspiracy theories, also testified in support.

Several of those testifying in support of the bill have testified on similar legislation around the country.

Opponents of the legislation packed 
the State Capitol Rotunda for a rally hosted by OutNebraska and the ACLU
 of Nebraska, arguing before the hearing that the legislation was part 
of “unprecedented attacks” against the “very lives” of transgender 
youths and adults.

Dr. Elizabeth Constance, an OB/GYN 
and reproductive endocrinologist who testified for the&nbsp; American College
 of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said 29 organizations, including 
the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and 
American Psychiatric Association, have physician statements and best 
practice guidelines for what is “life-saving care.”

“Today, we come together to remind 
our elected officials that our transgender and gender diverse family and
 neighbors have heartbeats, too,” Constance said during the rally. “They
 deserve the same rights to self-determination and bodily autonomy as 
every other Nebraskan.”

Dr. Elizabeth Weedin, an OB/GYN and 
reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist, said she and 
other physicians refer patients regularly to experts in the field and 
urged the committee to leave medical decisions to the experts.

Dr. Jean Amoura with Nebraska 
Medicine and Dr. Alex Dworak with OneWorld Community Health Centers in 
Omaha, both in their individual capacities, told the committee and the 
Nebraska Examiner in an interview that parents are always involved in 
gender-affirming care and the child, parent and physician would all need
 to provide written consent before treatment.

State Sens. Megan Hunt and John Fredrickson (the Legislature’s two openly LGBTQ members) also spoke in support at the rally.

Former State Sen. John McCollister 
urged the committee not to turn the Legislature into a “professional 
medical panel,” which he said it is not equipped to become.

Kauth said in an interview that she 
wants trans youth to know “we care deeply” about them but do not want 
them to go through “irreversible” medical procedures.

She and multiple supporters 
emphasized the need to support youth with gender dysphoria. While there 
is no legislation this session to allocate funds to those areas, Kauth 
said she could “absolutely” look at funding and how to increase services
 next session.

“We need to protect the innocence of 
kids for just a little bit,” Kauth said. “Let them get the therapy that 
they need. Let them work with loving, supportive people. Nobody in 
Nebraska wants them to fail or not be here.”

Kauth told the committee that 
children are already restricted from other actions such as use of 
alcohol or tobacco, getting tattoos or attending adult-rated movies. 
Gender-altering care should be treated the same, she said.

Isabella Manhart, an 18-year-old 
nonbinary Nebraskan whose 10-year-old brother is transgender, told the 
committee their brother has known he was a boy “since he could speak” 
and worries every day whether he will be bullied for who he is.&nbsp;

“The fact that anyone could look at 
my baby brother and think he deserves anything less than the basic human
 right to access health care that supports his needs absolutely breaks 
my heart,” Manhart said.

Rachel Ogborn said that when her 
daughter’s voice dropped, her “world went dark,” and after many 
emergency room visits, gender-affirming care has helped save her 
daughter’s life.&nbsp;

“If it makes you feel any better, 
neither myself nor my daughter have ever considered surgery for her as a
 minor, but it’s absolutely no one else’s business anyway,” Ogborn 
testified.

Hornacek, the CEO of a nonprofit that
 tries to combat homelessness, said at the rally that if Kauth’s 
legislation passed, it would force families — his included — to leave 
the state, &nbsp;leading to fewer resources, finances, skills and knowledge.&nbsp;

Ash Homan, a trans minor, said youth 
already have enough mental health challenges without continuing to live 
with their assigned gender at birth if they don’t feel that way.

“Whatever age a trans person starts 
to feel that way is the age that person should be able to live as they 
want to be,” Ash said, adding the legislation underestimates how much 
children know about their bodies.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/2/1675956871125.png" alt="tate Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha introduces her bill to restrict gender-altering care to those older than 19. She appears at a hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023, in Lincoln, Neb. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)" />
 <figcaption>tate Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha introduces her bill to restrict gender-altering care to those older than 19. She appears at a hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023, in Lincoln, Neb. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)</figcaption>
 </figure>By ZACH WENDLING <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/02/08/proposed-gender-alteration-ban-for-minors-draws-hundreds-to-nebraska-capitol/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN — Supporters and opponents 
testified for about seven hours Wednesday on State Sen. Kathleen Kauth’s
 proposal to ban gender-altering care for minors in Nebraska.<a target="_blank" href="https://nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=49961">Legislative Bill 574</a>
 — the “Let Them Grow Act” — would prohibit health care providers from 
administering to patients younger than 19 medical interventions such as 
puberty blockers, hormone treatments and genital or non-genital 
surgeries for gender dysphoria. The proposal would also ban providers 
from offering referrals and would allow for a civil penalty against 
physicians who offer the care.Gender-affirming counseling or other therapies would not be banned, according to Kauth.Kauth told the Health and Human 
Services Committee that her bill is designed to protect kids with gender
 dysphoria from “irreversible, destructive, experimental” medical care 
until they reach adulthood, offering support during adolescence.“Once the intensity of the treatment 
and surgeries are complete, these individuals are still dealing with 
issues that the surgeries have only made more complex,” Kauth said.Opponents of Kauth’s bill, such as 
Mike Hornacek, who is the parent of a transgender child, said the 
legislation would be an “extreme intrusion” into his family’s medical 
decisions.“It says that we do not have a right 
to decide how best to care for and support each other as a family. Those
 decisions are not yours,” Hornacek said. “They are not anybody else’s, 
they are my family’s and nobody else’s.”<h2>Supporters who’ve received care</h2>A handful of people who had 
previously received, sought or considered gender-affirming care 
testified in support of Kauth’s proposal.Luka Hein, who said she went through 
gender-affirming care as a minor, said she had a history of mental 
health issues and was “groomed” to hate herself and her body. She 
received a double mastectomy at age 16 and cross-sex hormones a few 
months later.“At 21 I deal with constant joint 
pain, my breasts are gone and I do not know if I will ever be able to 
carry a child someday,” Hein testified. “I will deal with these 
consequences for possibly the rest of my life, never knowing if it will 
go away and feeling abandoned by the medical professionals who did this 
to me.”Cat Cattinson said she 
detransitioned, seeking care initially as a result of anorexia. Erin 
Brewer, who said she was enticed to transition but didn’t, said her 
dysphoria came after a sexual assault.Cattinson and Brewer said support would be better aimed at therapies or counseling treatments.&nbsp;Mario Presents, director of chapters for Gays Against Groomers, who is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.losangelesblade.com/2023/02/07/conspiracy-theorists-right-wing-created-gays-against-groomers/">believed</a> to have ties to the Proud Boys and has contributed to QAnon conspiracy theories, also testified in support.Several of those testifying in support of the bill have testified on similar legislation around the country.<h2>‘Life-saving care’</h2>Opponents of the legislation packed 
the State Capitol Rotunda for a rally hosted by OutNebraska and the ACLU
 of Nebraska, arguing before the hearing that the legislation was part 
of “unprecedented attacks” against the “very lives” of transgender 
youths and adults.Dr. Elizabeth Constance, an OB/GYN 
and reproductive endocrinologist who testified for the&nbsp; American College
 of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said 29 organizations, including 
the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and 
American Psychiatric Association, have physician statements and best 
practice guidelines for what is “life-saving care.”“Today, we come together to remind 
our elected officials that our transgender and gender diverse family and
 neighbors have heartbeats, too,” Constance said during the rally. “They
 deserve the same rights to self-determination and bodily autonomy as 
every other Nebraskan.”Dr. Elizabeth Weedin, an OB/GYN and 
reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist, said she and 
other physicians refer patients regularly to experts in the field and 
urged the committee to leave medical decisions to the experts.Dr. Jean Amoura with Nebraska 
Medicine and Dr. Alex Dworak with OneWorld Community Health Centers in 
Omaha, both in their individual capacities, told the committee and the 
Nebraska Examiner in an interview that parents are always involved in 
gender-affirming care and the child, parent and physician would all need
 to provide written consent before treatment.State Sens. Megan Hunt and John Fredrickson (the Legislature’s two openly LGBTQ members) also spoke in support at the rally.Former State Sen. John McCollister 
urged the committee not to turn the Legislature into a “professional 
medical panel,” which he said it is not equipped to become.<h2>‘Innocence of kids’</h2>Kauth said in an interview that she 
wants trans youth to know “we care deeply” about them but do not want 
them to go through “irreversible” medical procedures.She and multiple supporters 
emphasized the need to support youth with gender dysphoria. While there 
is no legislation this session to allocate funds to those areas, Kauth 
said she could “absolutely” look at funding and how to increase services
 next session.“We need to protect the innocence of 
kids for just a little bit,” Kauth said. “Let them get the therapy that 
they need. Let them work with loving, supportive people. Nobody in 
Nebraska wants them to fail or not be here.”Kauth told the committee that 
children are already restricted from other actions such as use of 
alcohol or tobacco, getting tattoos or attending adult-rated movies. 
Gender-altering care should be treated the same, she said.<h2>Trans people, families testify</h2>Isabella Manhart, an 18-year-old 
nonbinary Nebraskan whose 10-year-old brother is transgender, told the 
committee their brother has known he was a boy “since he could speak” 
and worries every day whether he will be bullied for who he is.&nbsp;“The fact that anyone could look at 
my baby brother and think he deserves anything less than the basic human
 right to access health care that supports his needs absolutely breaks 
my heart,” Manhart said.Rachel Ogborn said that when her 
daughter’s voice dropped, her “world went dark,” and after many 
emergency room visits, gender-affirming care has helped save her 
daughter’s life.&nbsp;“If it makes you feel any better, 
neither myself nor my daughter have ever considered surgery for her as a
 minor, but it’s absolutely no one else’s business anyway,” Ogborn 
testified.Hornacek, the CEO of a nonprofit that
 tries to combat homelessness, said at the rally that if Kauth’s 
legislation passed, it would force families — his included — to leave 
the state, &nbsp;leading to fewer resources, finances, skills and knowledge.&nbsp;Ash Homan, a trans minor, said youth 
already have enough mental health challenges without continuing to live 
with their assigned gender at birth if they don’t feel that way.“Whatever age a trans person starts 
to feel that way is the age that person should be able to live as they 
want to be,” Ash said, adding the legislation underestimates how much 
children know about their bodies.

Gender-alteration ban bill draws hundreds to Nebraska Capitol

NEW YORK (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/burt-bacharach">Burt Bacharach,</a>&nbsp;the singularly gifted and popular composer who delighted millions with the quirky arrangements and unforgettable melodies of "Walk on By," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" and dozens of other hits, has died at 94.

The Grammy, Oscar and Tony-winning Bacharach died Wednesday at home in Los Angeles of natural causes, publicist Tina Brausam said Thursday.

Over the past 70 years, only Lennon-McCartney, Carole King and a handful of others rivaled his genius for instantly catchy songs that remained performed, played and hummed long after they were written. He had a run of top 10 hits from the 1950s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-music-virus-outbreak-burt-bacharach-3c75337777bf897b635fbf518d200a13">into the 21st century,</a>&nbsp;and his music was heard everywhere from movie soundtracks and radios to home stereo systems and iPods, whether “Alfie” and “I Say a Little Prayer” or “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and “This Guy’s in Love with You.”

Dionne Warwick was his favorite interpreter, but Bacharach, usually in tandem with lyricist Hal David, also created prime material for Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and many others. Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Frank Sinatra were among the countless artists who covered his songs, with more recent performers who sung or sampled him including White Stripes, Twista and Ashanti. “Walk On By” alone was covered by everyone from Warwick and Isaac Hayes to the British punk band the Stranglers and Cyndi Lauper.

Bacharach was both an innovator and throwback, and his career seemed to run parallel to the rock era. He grew up on jazz and classical music and had little taste for rock when he was breaking into the business in the 1950s. His sensibility often seemed more aligned with Tin Pan Alley than with Bob Dylan, John Lennon and other writers who later emerged, but rock composers appreciated the depth of his seemingly old-fashioned sensibility.

“The shorthand version of him is that he’s something to do with easy listening,” Elvis Costello, who wrote the 1998 album “Painted from Memory” with Bacharach, said in a 2018 interview with The Associated Press. “It may be agreeable to listen to these songs, but there’s nothing easy about them. Try playing them. Try singing them.”

A box set, “The Songs of Bacharach &amp; Costello,” is due to come out March 3.

He triumphed in many artforms. He was an eight-time Grammy winner, a prize-winning&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-lifestyle-arts-and-entertainment-theater-music-3075cfa46c71a754a41d382b81a51c63">Broadway composer</a>&nbsp;for “Promises, Promises” and a three-time Oscar winner. He received two Academy Awards in 1970, for the score of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and for the song “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” (shared with David). In 1982, he and his then-wife, lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, won for “Best That You Can Do,” the theme from “Arthur. His other movie soundtracks included “What’s New, Pussycat?”, “Alfie” and the 1967 James Bond spoof “Casino Royale.”

Bacharach was well rewarded, and well connected. He was a frequent guest at the White House, whether the president was Republican or Democrat. And in 2012, he was presented the Gershwin Prize by Barack Obama, who had sung a few seconds of “Walk on By” during a campaign appearance.

In his life, and in his music, he stood apart. Fellow songwriter Sammy Cahn liked to joke that the smiling, wavy-haired Bacharach was the first composer he ever knew who didn’t look like a dentist. Bacharach was a “swinger,” as they called such men in his time, whose many romances included actor Angie Dickinson, to whom he was married from 1965-80, and Sager, his wife from 1982-1991.

Married four times, he formed his most lasting ties to work. He was a perfectionist who took three weeks to write “Alfie” and might spend hours tweaking a single chord. Sager once observed that Bacharach’s life routines essentially stayed the same — only the wives changed.

It began with the melodies — strong yet interspersed with changing rhythms and surprising harmonics. He credited much of his style to his love of bebop and to his classical education, especially under the tutelage of Darius Milhaud, the famed composer. He once played a piece for piano, violin and oboe for Milhaud that contained a melody he was ashamed to have written, as 12-point atonal music was in vogue at the time. Milhaud, who liked the piece, advised the young man, "Never be afraid of the melody."

"That was a great affirmation for me," Bacharach recalled in 2004.

Bacharach was essentially a pop composer, but his songs became hits for country artists (Marty Robbins), rhythm and blues performers (Chuck Jackson), soul (Franklin, Luther Vandross) and synth-pop (Naked Eyes). He reached a new generation of listeners in the 1990s with the help of Costello and others.

Mike Myers would recall hearing the sultry “The Look of Love” on the radio and finding fast inspiration for his “Austin Powers” retro spy comedies, in which Bacharach made cameos.

In the 21st century, he was still testing new ground, writing his own lyrics and recording with rapper Dr. Dre.

He was married to his first wife, Paula Stewart, from 1953-58, and married for a fourth time, to Jane Hansen, in 1993. He is survived by Hansen, as well as his children Oliver, Raleigh and Cristopher, Brausam said. He was preceded in death by his daughter with Dickinson, Nikki Bacharach.

Bacharach knew the very heights of acclaim, but he remembered himself as a loner growing up, a short and self-conscious boy so uncomfortable with being Jewish he even taunted other Jews. His favorite book as a kid was Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”; he related to the sexually impotent Jake Barnes, regarding himself as “socially impotent.”

He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, but soon moved to New York City. His father was a syndicated columnist, his mother a pianist who encouraged the boy to study music. Although he was more interested in sports, he practiced piano every day after school, not wanting to disappoint his mother. While still a minor, he would sneak into jazz clubs, bearing a fake ID, and hear such greats as Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie.

“They were just so incredibly exciting that all of a sudden, I got into music in a way I never had before,” he recalled in the memoir “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” published in 2013. “What I heard in those clubs turned my head around.”

He was a poor student, but managed to gain a spot at the music conservatory at McGill University in Montreal. He wrote his first song at McGill and listened for months to Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song.” Music also may have saved Bacharach’s life. He was drafted into the Army in the late 1940s and was still on active duty during the Korean War. But officers stateside soon learned of his gifts and wanted him around. When he did go overseas, it was to Germany, where he wrote orchestrations for a recreation center on the local military base.

After his discharge, he returned to New York and tried to break into the music business. He had little success at first as a songwriter, but he became a popular arranger and accompanist, touring with Vic Damone, the Ames Brothers and Stewart, his eventual first wife. When a friend who had been touring with Marlene Dietrich was unable to make a show in Las Vegas, he asked Bacharach to step in.

The young musician and ageless singer quickly clicked and Bacharach traveled the world with her in the late 1950s and early '60s. During each performance, she would introduce him in grand style: “I would like you to meet the man, he’s my arranger, he’s my accompanist, he’s my conductor, and I wish I could say he’s my composer. But that isn’t true. He’s everybody’s composer ... Burt Bacharach!”

Meanwhile, he had met his ideal songwriter partner — David, as businesslike as Bacharach was mercurial, so domesticated that he would leave each night at 5 to catch the train back to his family on Long Island. Working in a tiny office in Broadway’s celebrated Brill Building, they produced their first million-seller, "Magic Moments," sung in 1958 by Perry Como. In 1962, they spotted a backup singer for the Drifters, Warwick, who had a “very special kind of grace and elegance,” Bacharach recalled.

The trio produced hit after hit. The songs were as complicated to record as they were easy to hear. Bacharach liked to experiment with time signatures and arrangements, such as having two pianists play on “Walk on By,” their performances just slightly out of sync to give the song “a jagged kind of feeling,” he wrote in his memoir.

The Bacharach-David partnership ended with the dismal failure of a 1973 musical remake of "Lost Horizon." Bacharach became so depressed he isolated himself in his Del Mar vacation home and refused to work.

"I didn't want to write with Hal or anybody," he told the AP in 2004. Nor did he want to fulfill a commitment to record Warwick. She and David both sued him.

Bacharach and David eventually reconciled. When David died in 2012, Bacharach praised him for writing lyrics “like a miniature movie.”

Meanwhile, Bacharach kept working, vowing never to retire, always believing that a good song could make a difference.

“Music softens the heart, makes you feel something if it’s good, brings in emotion that you might not have felt before,” he told the AP in 2018. “It’s a very powerful thing if you’re able to do to it, if you have it in your heart to do something like that.”

NEW YORK (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/burt-bacharach">Burt Bacharach,</a>&nbsp;the singularly gifted and popular composer who delighted millions with the quirky arrangements and unforgettable melodies of "Walk on By," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" and dozens of other hits, has died at 94.The Grammy, Oscar and Tony-winning Bacharach died Wednesday at home in Los Angeles of natural causes, publicist Tina Brausam said Thursday.Over the past 70 years, only Lennon-McCartney, Carole King and a handful of others rivaled his genius for instantly catchy songs that remained performed, played and hummed long after they were written. He had a run of top 10 hits from the 1950s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-music-virus-outbreak-burt-bacharach-3c75337777bf897b635fbf518d200a13">into the 21st century,</a>&nbsp;and his music was heard everywhere from movie soundtracks and radios to home stereo systems and iPods, whether “Alfie” and “I Say a Little Prayer” or “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and “This Guy’s in Love with You.”Dionne Warwick was his favorite interpreter, but Bacharach, usually in tandem with lyricist Hal David, also created prime material for Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and many others. Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Frank Sinatra were among the countless artists who covered his songs, with more recent performers who sung or sampled him including White Stripes, Twista and Ashanti. “Walk On By” alone was covered by everyone from Warwick and Isaac Hayes to the British punk band the Stranglers and Cyndi Lauper.Bacharach was both an innovator and throwback, and his career seemed to run parallel to the rock era. He grew up on jazz and classical music and had little taste for rock when he was breaking into the business in the 1950s. His sensibility often seemed more aligned with Tin Pan Alley than with Bob Dylan, John Lennon and other writers who later emerged, but rock composers appreciated the depth of his seemingly old-fashioned sensibility.“The shorthand version of him is that he’s something to do with easy listening,” Elvis Costello, who wrote the 1998 album “Painted from Memory” with Bacharach, said in a 2018 interview with The Associated Press. “It may be agreeable to listen to these songs, but there’s nothing easy about them. Try playing them. Try singing them.”A box set, “The Songs of Bacharach &amp; Costello,” is due to come out March 3.He triumphed in many artforms. He was an eight-time Grammy winner, a prize-winning&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-lifestyle-arts-and-entertainment-theater-music-3075cfa46c71a754a41d382b81a51c63">Broadway composer</a>&nbsp;for “Promises, Promises” and a three-time Oscar winner. He received two Academy Awards in 1970, for the score of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and for the song “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” (shared with David). In 1982, he and his then-wife, lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, won for “Best That You Can Do,” the theme from “Arthur. His other movie soundtracks included “What’s New, Pussycat?”, “Alfie” and the 1967 James Bond spoof “Casino Royale.”Bacharach was well rewarded, and well connected. He was a frequent guest at the White House, whether the president was Republican or Democrat. And in 2012, he was presented the Gershwin Prize by Barack Obama, who had sung a few seconds of “Walk on By” during a campaign appearance.In his life, and in his music, he stood apart. Fellow songwriter Sammy Cahn liked to joke that the smiling, wavy-haired Bacharach was the first composer he ever knew who didn’t look like a dentist. Bacharach was a “swinger,” as they called such men in his time, whose many romances included actor Angie Dickinson, to whom he was married from 1965-80, and Sager, his wife from 1982-1991.Married four times, he formed his most lasting ties to work. He was a perfectionist who took three weeks to write “Alfie” and might spend hours tweaking a single chord. Sager once observed that Bacharach’s life routines essentially stayed the same — only the wives changed.It began with the melodies — strong yet interspersed with changing rhythms and surprising harmonics. He credited much of his style to his love of bebop and to his classical education, especially under the tutelage of Darius Milhaud, the famed composer. He once played a piece for piano, violin and oboe for Milhaud that contained a melody he was ashamed to have written, as 12-point atonal music was in vogue at the time. Milhaud, who liked the piece, advised the young man, "Never be afraid of the melody.""That was a great affirmation for me," Bacharach recalled in 2004.Bacharach was essentially a pop composer, but his songs became hits for country artists (Marty Robbins), rhythm and blues performers (Chuck Jackson), soul (Franklin, Luther Vandross) and synth-pop (Naked Eyes). He reached a new generation of listeners in the 1990s with the help of Costello and others.Mike Myers would recall hearing the sultry “The Look of Love” on the radio and finding fast inspiration for his “Austin Powers” retro spy comedies, in which Bacharach made cameos.In the 21st century, he was still testing new ground, writing his own lyrics and recording with rapper Dr. Dre.He was married to his first wife, Paula Stewart, from 1953-58, and married for a fourth time, to Jane Hansen, in 1993. He is survived by Hansen, as well as his children Oliver, Raleigh and Cristopher, Brausam said. He was preceded in death by his daughter with Dickinson, Nikki Bacharach.Bacharach knew the very heights of acclaim, but he remembered himself as a loner growing up, a short and self-conscious boy so uncomfortable with being Jewish he even taunted other Jews. His favorite book as a kid was Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”; he related to the sexually impotent Jake Barnes, regarding himself as “socially impotent.”He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, but soon moved to New York City. His father was a syndicated columnist, his mother a pianist who encouraged the boy to study music. Although he was more interested in sports, he practiced piano every day after school, not wanting to disappoint his mother. While still a minor, he would sneak into jazz clubs, bearing a fake ID, and hear such greats as Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie.“They were just so incredibly exciting that all of a sudden, I got into music in a way I never had before,” he recalled in the memoir “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” published in 2013. “What I heard in those clubs turned my head around.”He was a poor student, but managed to gain a spot at the music conservatory at McGill University in Montreal. He wrote his first song at McGill and listened for months to Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song.” Music also may have saved Bacharach’s life. He was drafted into the Army in the late 1940s and was still on active duty during the Korean War. But officers stateside soon learned of his gifts and wanted him around. When he did go overseas, it was to Germany, where he wrote orchestrations for a recreation center on the local military base.After his discharge, he returned to New York and tried to break into the music business. He had little success at first as a songwriter, but he became a popular arranger and accompanist, touring with Vic Damone, the Ames Brothers and Stewart, his eventual first wife. When a friend who had been touring with Marlene Dietrich was unable to make a show in Las Vegas, he asked Bacharach to step in.The young musician and ageless singer quickly clicked and Bacharach traveled the world with her in the late 1950s and early '60s. During each performance, she would introduce him in grand style: “I would like you to meet the man, he’s my arranger, he’s my accompanist, he’s my conductor, and I wish I could say he’s my composer. But that isn’t true. He’s everybody’s composer ... Burt Bacharach!”Meanwhile, he had met his ideal songwriter partner — David, as businesslike as Bacharach was mercurial, so domesticated that he would leave each night at 5 to catch the train back to his family on Long Island. Working in a tiny office in Broadway’s celebrated Brill Building, they produced their first million-seller, "Magic Moments," sung in 1958 by Perry Como. In 1962, they spotted a backup singer for the Drifters, Warwick, who had a “very special kind of grace and elegance,” Bacharach recalled.The trio produced hit after hit. The songs were as complicated to record as they were easy to hear. Bacharach liked to experiment with time signatures and arrangements, such as having two pianists play on “Walk on By,” their performances just slightly out of sync to give the song “a jagged kind of feeling,” he wrote in his memoir.The Bacharach-David partnership ended with the dismal failure of a 1973 musical remake of "Lost Horizon." Bacharach became so depressed he isolated himself in his Del Mar vacation home and refused to work."I didn't want to write with Hal or anybody," he told the AP in 2004. Nor did he want to fulfill a commitment to record Warwick. She and David both sued him.Bacharach and David eventually reconciled. When David died in 2012, Bacharach praised him for writing lyrics “like a miniature movie.”Meanwhile, Bacharach kept working, vowing never to retire, always believing that a good song could make a difference.“Music softens the heart, makes you feel something if it’s good, brings in emotion that you might not have felt before,” he told the AP in 2018. “It’s a very powerful thing if you’re able to do to it, if you have it in your heart to do something like that.”___

Burt Bacharach, KC native, legendary composer of pop songs, dies

ANTAKYA, Turkey (AP) — Thousands who lost their homes in a catastrophic earthquake huddled around campfires and clamored for food and water in the bitter cold, three days after&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/earthquake-shakes-turkey-b927808f6a5c54bdb669120faa40b7bc">the temblor and a series of aftershocks</a>&nbsp;hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 19,300.

&nbsp;The U.S. State Department confirmed that three U.S. citizens are among&nbsp; those who died.&nbsp; Officials did not release their names late Wednesday.

Emergency crews used pick axes, shovels and jackhammers to dig through twisted metal and concrete — and occasionally still pulled survivors out. But in some places, they switched the focus to demolishing unsteady buildings.

While stories of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/newborn-rescued-earthquake-syria-899ba2d62631d3f5c77761b935f9f7e9">miraculous rescues</a>&nbsp;briefly buoyed spirits, the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/earthquake-turkey-syria-photo-gallery-feb-8-c22cec8eb554cc72a41a72212c52d2bb">grim reality</a>&nbsp;of the hardship facing tens of thousands who survived the disaster cast a pall. The number of deaths has surpassed the toll in a 2011 earthquake off Japan that triggered a tsunami, killing more than 18,400 people.

In northwest Syria, the first U.N. aid trucks to enter the rebel-controlled area from Turkey since the quake arrived — underscoring the difficulty of getting help to people in the country riven by civil war. In the Turkish city of Antakya, meanwhile, dozens of people scrambled for aid in front of a truck distributing children's coats and other supplies.

One survivor, Ahmet Tokgoz, called for the government to evacuate people from the devastated region. While many of the tens of thousands who have lost their homes have found shelter in tents, stadiums and other temporary accommodation, others have spent the nights outdoors.

“Especially in this cold, it is not possible to live here,” he said. “If people haven’t died from being stuck under the rubble, they’ll die from the cold.”

Winter weather and damage to roads and airports have hampered the response in both Turkey and Syria, where a civil war that displaced millions has further complicated efforts. Some in Turkey have complained the response was too slow — a perception that could hurt President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a time when he faces a tough battle for reelection in May.

In the Turkish town of Elbistan, rescuers stood atop a high stack of rubble from a collapsed home and fished out an elderly woman who had been submerged.

Teams&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/turkey-syria-earthquakes-f4086948f1c77eb519ad07590ae09568">urged quiet</a>&nbsp;in the hopes of hearing stifled pleas for help, and the Syrian paramedic group in the rebel-held northwest known as White Helmets noted that “every second could mean saving a life.”

But more and more often, the teams pulled out dead bodies from under the rubble. In Turkey's Antakya, over 100 bodies, covered by blankets and awaiting identification, lay in a makeshift morgue outside a hospital and in refrigerated trucks.

With the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/science-syria-turkey-health-earthquakes-673a3be02bfa996bad99dbba90ad7b7f">chances of finding people alive in the rubble dwindling</a>, teams in some places began demolishing buildings. In others, they simply had to move on.

In Adiyaman, Associated Press journalists saw a local resident plead with rescuers to come and sift through the rubble of a building where relatives were trapped. The crew refused, saying there was no one alive there, and they had to prioritize areas where there may be survivors.

A man, who gave only his name as Ahmet out of fear of government retribution, later asked the AP: “How can I go home and sleep? My brother is there. He may still be alive.”

In Nurdagi, throngs of onlookers — mostly family members of people trapped inside — watched as heavy machines ripped at one building that had collapsed, its six floors pancaked together.

Mehmet Yilmaz watched from a distance, estimating that around 80 people were still beneath the rubble — but that it was unlikely any would be recovered alive.

“There’s no hope," said Yilmaz, 67, who had six relatives, including a 3-month-old baby, trapped inside. "We can’t give up our hope in God, but they entered the building with listening devices and dogs and there was nothing.”

Authorities called off search-and-rescue operations on Thursday in the cities of Kilis and Sanliurfa, where destruction was not as severe as in other impacted regions.

Across the border in war-riven Syria, assistance trickled in. Smaller aid organizations have sent in shipments to Syria's rebel-held northwest, but the first U.N. trucks arrived Thursday. The U.N. is only authorized to deliver aid through one border crossing and road damage has prevented that thus far.

U.N. officials said more was needed, and they pleaded for humanitarian concerns to take precedence over politics.

The scale of loss and suffering to tend to remained massive. Turkish authorities said Thursday that the death toll had risen to more than 16,100 in the country, with more than 64,000 injured. On the Syrian side, which includes in government-held and rebel-held areas, of the border, more than 3,100 have been reported dead and more than 5,000 injured.

It was not clear how many people were still unaccounted for in both countries.

Among the missing were members of a high-school volleyball team from northern Cyprus, as well as teachers and parents who had been staying in a hotel that collapsed, said Nazim Cavusoglu, the education minister in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north, on Turkey’s NTV television.

Turkey’s disaster management agency said more than 110,000 rescue personnel were now taking part in the effort and more than 5,500 vehicles, including tractors, cranes, bulldozers and excavators had been shipped. Teams from places as diverse as Poland, Switzerland, Israel and the West Bank were contributing to the deployment to Turkey.

But international aid for Syria was far more sparse, where efforts have been hampered by the ongoing war and the isolation of the rebel-held region along the border that is surrounded by Russia-backed government forces. Syria itself is an international pariah under Western sanctions linked to the war.

The U.N. shipment was scheduled before the earthquake happened but was delayed by road damage. U.N. officials said more trucks were set to follow.

Erdogan, who continued touring devastated areas Thursday, has sought to deflect criticism of the response — and vowed it was improving. He renewed a promise to quake survivors that destroyed homes would be rebuilt within a year. He has said the government will distribute 10,000 Turkish lira ($532) to affected families.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/2/1675651936627.png" alt="To date, the United States has deployed more than 150 search-and-rescue personnel, along with teams of canines, to join the life-saving efforts in Turkey, according to the State Department. U.S. teams include experienced emergency managers, hazardous materials technicians, engineers, logisticians, paramedics, and planners, among others – along with 170,000 pounds of specialized tools and equipment.-USGS image&nbsp;&nbsp;" />
 <figcaption>To date, the United States has deployed more than 150 search-and-rescue personnel, along with teams of canines, to join the life-saving efforts in Turkey, according to the State Department. U.S. teams include experienced emergency managers, hazardous materials technicians, engineers, logisticians, paramedics, and planners, among others – along with 170,000 pounds of specialized tools and equipment.-USGS image&nbsp;&nbsp;</figcaption>
 </figure>ANTAKYA, Turkey (AP) — Thousands who lost their homes in a catastrophic earthquake huddled around campfires and clamored for food and water in the bitter cold, three days after&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/earthquake-shakes-turkey-b927808f6a5c54bdb669120faa40b7bc">the temblor and a series of aftershocks</a>&nbsp;hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 19,300.&nbsp;The U.S. State Department confirmed that three U.S. citizens are among&nbsp; those who died.&nbsp; Officials did not release their names late Wednesday.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">.<a href="https://twitter.com/SecBlinken?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SecBlinken</a> on the initial U.S. earthquake response for Turkiye &amp; Syria: We’ve deployed experienced emergency managers, hazardous materials technicians, engineers, logisticians, paramedics, planners, others, along with about 170,000 lbs of specialized tools &amp; equipment. <a href="https://t.co/zwUf3PEpmk">pic.twitter.com/zwUf3PEpmk</a>&mdash; Department of State (@StateDept) <a href="https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/1623412338937196545?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Emergency crews used pick axes, shovels and jackhammers to dig through twisted metal and concrete — and occasionally still pulled survivors out. But in some places, they switched the focus to demolishing unsteady buildings.While stories of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/newborn-rescued-earthquake-syria-899ba2d62631d3f5c77761b935f9f7e9">miraculous rescues</a>&nbsp;briefly buoyed spirits, the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/earthquake-turkey-syria-photo-gallery-feb-8-c22cec8eb554cc72a41a72212c52d2bb">grim reality</a>&nbsp;of the hardship facing tens of thousands who survived the disaster cast a pall. The number of deaths has surpassed the toll in a 2011 earthquake off Japan that triggered a tsunami, killing more than 18,400 people.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/2/1675906856525.png" alt="Two USAID Urban Search and Rescue teams arrived to the 39th Air Base Wing in Incirlik to help with rescue and recovery efforts after the devastating earthquakes in Turkiye. U.S Ambassador to Türkiye Jeffry Flake and Mrs. Flake thank the Los Angels County Fire Department and Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department’s Urban Search and Rescue team for providing urgent support to our NATO Ally. (State Department photo courtesy U.S. Embassy Türkiye)" />
 <figcaption>Two USAID Urban Search and Rescue teams arrived to the 39th Air Base Wing in Incirlik to help with rescue and recovery efforts after the devastating earthquakes in Turkiye. U.S Ambassador to Türkiye Jeffry Flake and Mrs. Flake thank the Los Angels County Fire Department and Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department’s Urban Search and Rescue team for providing urgent support to our NATO Ally. (State Department photo courtesy U.S. Embassy Türkiye)</figcaption>
 </figure>In northwest Syria, the first U.N. aid trucks to enter the rebel-controlled area from Turkey since the quake arrived — underscoring the difficulty of getting help to people in the country riven by civil war. In the Turkish city of Antakya, meanwhile, dozens of people scrambled for aid in front of a truck distributing children's coats and other supplies.One survivor, Ahmet Tokgoz, called for the government to evacuate people from the devastated region. While many of the tens of thousands who have lost their homes have found shelter in tents, stadiums and other temporary accommodation, others have spent the nights outdoors.“Especially in this cold, it is not possible to live here,” he said. “If people haven’t died from being stuck under the rubble, they’ll die from the cold.”Winter weather and damage to roads and airports have hampered the response in both Turkey and Syria, where a civil war that displaced millions has further complicated efforts. Some in Turkey have complained the response was too slow — a perception that could hurt President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a time when he faces a tough battle for reelection in May.In the Turkish town of Elbistan, rescuers stood atop a high stack of rubble from a collapsed home and fished out an elderly woman who had been submerged.Teams&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/turkey-syria-earthquakes-f4086948f1c77eb519ad07590ae09568">urged quiet</a>&nbsp;in the hopes of hearing stifled pleas for help, and the Syrian paramedic group in the rebel-held northwest known as White Helmets noted that “every second could mean saving a life.”But more and more often, the teams pulled out dead bodies from under the rubble. In Turkey's Antakya, over 100 bodies, covered by blankets and awaiting identification, lay in a makeshift morgue outside a hospital and in refrigerated trucks.With the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/science-syria-turkey-health-earthquakes-673a3be02bfa996bad99dbba90ad7b7f">chances of finding people alive in the rubble dwindling</a>, teams in some places began demolishing buildings. In others, they simply had to move on.In Adiyaman, Associated Press journalists saw a local resident plead with rescuers to come and sift through the rubble of a building where relatives were trapped. The crew refused, saying there was no one alive there, and they had to prioritize areas where there may be survivors.A man, who gave only his name as Ahmet out of fear of government retribution, later asked the AP: “How can I go home and sleep? My brother is there. He may still be alive.”In Nurdagi, throngs of onlookers — mostly family members of people trapped inside — watched as heavy machines ripped at one building that had collapsed, its six floors pancaked together.Mehmet Yilmaz watched from a distance, estimating that around 80 people were still beneath the rubble — but that it was unlikely any would be recovered alive.“There’s no hope," said Yilmaz, 67, who had six relatives, including a 3-month-old baby, trapped inside. "We can’t give up our hope in God, but they entered the building with listening devices and dogs and there was nothing.”Authorities called off search-and-rescue operations on Thursday in the cities of Kilis and Sanliurfa, where destruction was not as severe as in other impacted regions.Across the border in war-riven Syria, assistance trickled in. Smaller aid organizations have sent in shipments to Syria's rebel-held northwest, but the first U.N. trucks arrived Thursday. The U.N. is only authorized to deliver aid through one border crossing and road damage has prevented that thus far.U.N. officials said more was needed, and they pleaded for humanitarian concerns to take precedence over politics.The scale of loss and suffering to tend to remained massive. Turkish authorities said Thursday that the death toll had risen to more than 16,100 in the country, with more than 64,000 injured. On the Syrian side, which includes in government-held and rebel-held areas, of the border, more than 3,100 have been reported dead and more than 5,000 injured.It was not clear how many people were still unaccounted for in both countries.Among the missing were members of a high-school volleyball team from northern Cyprus, as well as teachers and parents who had been staying in a hotel that collapsed, said Nazim Cavusoglu, the education minister in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north, on Turkey’s NTV television.Turkey’s disaster management agency said more than 110,000 rescue personnel were now taking part in the effort and more than 5,500 vehicles, including tractors, cranes, bulldozers and excavators had been shipped. Teams from places as diverse as Poland, Switzerland, Israel and the West Bank were contributing to the deployment to Turkey.But international aid for Syria was far more sparse, where efforts have been hampered by the ongoing war and the isolation of the rebel-held region along the border that is surrounded by Russia-backed government forces. Syria itself is an international pariah under Western sanctions linked to the war.The U.N. shipment was scheduled before the earthquake happened but was delayed by road damage. U.N. officials said more trucks were set to follow.Erdogan, who continued touring devastated areas Thursday, has sought to deflect criticism of the response — and vowed it was improving. He renewed a promise to quake survivors that destroyed homes would be rebuilt within a year. He has said the government will distribute 10,000 Turkish lira ($532) to affected families.___

🎥 Americans among thousands dead in massive earthquake

By AARON SANDERFORD <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/02/08/year-round-daylight-saving-time-has-a-chance-this-year-in-nebraska/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN — After years of trying, the Nebraska Legislature appears poised to pass a first step toward ending the twice-a-year tyranny of changing the clock.

State Sen. Tom Briese of Albion again
 proposed keeping Nebraska on daylight saving time, if Congress and a 
third neighboring state join Nebraska in passing such a law.

Legislative Bill 143 had its hearing Wednesday before the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.&nbsp;

“It seems everyone in the state hates
 changing their clocks twice a year,” Briese said. “This practice, the 
changing of our clocks, is actually hurting and killing people.”&nbsp;

Researchers have blamed the annual 
shifts between standard time and daylight saving time for increased 
numbers of car crashes, heart attacks, workplace injuries and medical 
dosage mistakes.

Add to that the general disdain 
toward time changes from parents with young kids and workers who are 
cranky about lost sleep, and you have a recipe for change, Briese said.

Beyond that, Briese and supporters 
argue that adding another hour of sunlight to the day through the winter
 months has potential economic benefits. Chief among them: People might 
shop more.

Briese cited a JP Morgan study that 
found people put nearly 2% more purchases on their credit cards in 
cities that had an additional hour of daylight during the winter.

Consumers spend about $80 billion a 
year in Nebraska, he said, so the state’s retailers, businesses and tax 
coffers could see the impacts of people spending an additional $530 
million.

Joe Kohout of the Nebraska Golf 
Alliance said an extra hour of daylight in the evenings means more 
people would play golf at Nebraska’s 300-plus 9- and 18-hole courses.

One opponent, Nebraska Broadcasters 
Association President Jim Timm, testified that TV and radio stations 
whose audiences cross state borders, in places such as Chadron and 
Omaha, would have a hard time scheduling shows with a patchwork of state
 laws. Timm said the broadcasters association would prefer action at the
 federal level, for uniformity.&nbsp;

LB 143 continues to garner bipartisan
 support, including from Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha, Sen. Danielle Conrad 
of Lincoln, Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Omaha and Sen. John Lowe of Kearney.

Hunt said the push to stop changing 
the clocks generates more calls of support than any other issue. The 
public wants the change, she said, and so does she.

“It’s a real bipartisan bill,” Hunt said.

In written testimony, the committee received 22 letters in support, nine opposed and one neutral.

What’s different this year is the momentum from 19 other states that have passed similar laws, Briese said.

LB 143 requires two things to happen before Nebraskans can stop changing clocks.

First, Congress must pass a bill 
giving states the flexibility to choose to keep daylight saving time 
year-round. Currently, federal law allows states to either change clocks
 or choose standard time.

Congress has proposed several bills 
in recent years to do so, Briese said, and the likelihood of passage 
goes up each time a new state like Nebraska weighs in.&nbsp;

The Senate passed a bill last year allowing the change in March 2023, but the House did not.&nbsp;

Second, LB 143 requires three 
neighboring states to pass a similar law. Wyoming and Colorado already 
have, so it’s down to Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri or Kansas.

All four <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ncsl.org/transportation/daylight-saving-time-state-legislation">introduced legislation last year</a> to adopt the change, but like Nebraska, they have yet to pass it.

By AARON SANDERFORD <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/02/08/year-round-daylight-saving-time-has-a-chance-this-year-in-nebraska/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN — After years of trying, the Nebraska Legislature appears poised to pass a first step toward ending the twice-a-year tyranny of changing the clock.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/2/1675897505239.jpeg" alt="State Sen. Tom Briese of Albion (Courtesy of Unicameral Information Office)" />
 <figcaption>State Sen. Tom Briese of Albion (Courtesy of Unicameral Information Office)</figcaption>
 </figure>State Sen. Tom Briese of Albion again
 proposed keeping Nebraska on daylight saving time, if Congress and a 
third neighboring state join Nebraska in passing such a law.Legislative Bill 143 had its hearing Wednesday before the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.&nbsp;“It seems everyone in the state hates
 changing their clocks twice a year,” Briese said. “This practice, the 
changing of our clocks, is actually hurting and killing people.”&nbsp;Researchers have blamed the annual 
shifts between standard time and daylight saving time for increased 
numbers of car crashes, heart attacks, workplace injuries and medical 
dosage mistakes.Add to that the general disdain 
toward time changes from parents with young kids and workers who are 
cranky about lost sleep, and you have a recipe for change, Briese said.Beyond that, Briese and supporters 
argue that adding another hour of sunlight to the day through the winter
 months has potential economic benefits. Chief among them: People might 
shop more.Briese cited a JP Morgan study that 
found people put nearly 2% more purchases on their credit cards in 
cities that had an additional hour of daylight during the winter.Consumers spend about $80 billion a 
year in Nebraska, he said, so the state’s retailers, businesses and tax 
coffers could see the impacts of people spending an additional $530 
million.Joe Kohout of the Nebraska Golf 
Alliance said an extra hour of daylight in the evenings means more 
people would play golf at Nebraska’s 300-plus 9- and 18-hole courses.One opponent, Nebraska Broadcasters 
Association President Jim Timm, testified that TV and radio stations 
whose audiences cross state borders, in places such as Chadron and 
Omaha, would have a hard time scheduling shows with a patchwork of state
 laws. Timm said the broadcasters association would prefer action at the
 federal level, for uniformity.&nbsp;LB 143 continues to garner bipartisan
 support, including from Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha, Sen. Danielle Conrad 
of Lincoln, Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Omaha and Sen. John Lowe of Kearney.Hunt said the push to stop changing 
the clocks generates more calls of support than any other issue. The 
public wants the change, she said, and so does she.“It’s a real bipartisan bill,” Hunt said.In written testimony, the committee received 22 letters in support, nine opposed and one neutral.What’s different this year is the momentum from 19 other states that have passed similar laws, Briese said.LB 143 requires two things to happen before Nebraskans can stop changing clocks.First, Congress must pass a bill 
giving states the flexibility to choose to keep daylight saving time 
year-round. Currently, federal law allows states to either change clocks
 or choose standard time.Congress has proposed several bills 
in recent years to do so, Briese said, and the likelihood of passage 
goes up each time a new state like Nebraska weighs in.&nbsp;The Senate passed a bill last year allowing the change in March 2023, but the House did not.&nbsp;Second, LB 143 requires three 
neighboring states to pass a similar law. Wyoming and Colorado already 
have, so it’s down to Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri or Kansas.All four <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ncsl.org/transportation/daylight-saving-time-state-legislation">introduced legislation last year</a> to adopt the change, but like Nebraska, they have yet to pass it.Cover image courtesy Pixabay

Year-round daylight saving time has a chance this year in Nebraska

Online scammers have gotten so sneaky lately that it’s not just your elderly grandparents at risk—boomers, millennials and even Gen Z-ers can get taken advantage of if they’re not careful. That’s because these shady weirdos keep switching up their scamming tactics based on current events and our constantly changing digital culture.

But the good news is, if you keep your guard up and follow these tips, you’ll be way more likely to spot the scam and hold on to your hard-earned money. Here are five of the biggest internet scams to be aware of right now.

Crypto continues to be a trendy thing for the people who enjoy the thrill (and anxiety) of losing money at any given moment. And much like gambling, it can be addictive—a fact that scammers take advantage of. Cryptocurrency scams can happen in all kinds of ways. Scammers might set up fake websites that look like popular crypto sites in an attempt to get innocent people to send them money. They might also prey on people’s fears of missing out on an investment with massive returns by creating a fake early investment opportunity and pitching it to people online.

Scammers know people are desperate to get their loans forgiven, and they’ll often make fake forgiveness application sites in hopes of stealing people’s social security numbers, bank account info and cash. And because these people have absolutely no shame, these sites are often paired with urgent phone messages or emails trying to convince broke college grads it’s their last chance to apply.

Nothing can make you broke like the fluttery feelings of love—and with the growing popularity of online dating, this kind of scam is becoming more and more common. Someone creates a fake dating profile, reels in an unsuspecting victim, steals their heart with witty banter, and asks them to send money or buy them stuff due to some weird circumstance. This sucks because the poor scammee (that’s what I’m calling someone who was scammed—just go with it) loses out on cash&nbsp;and&nbsp;a chance at true love.

If you buy something online and it never shows up, you might be a victim of this type of scam. Scammers will often “sell” stuff on sites like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, or set up fake online storefronts, take your money, then never deliver what you ordered. Don’t get me wrong, I love Facebook Marketplace as much as the next guy, but you have to be extra careful.

Scammers have figured out how to make almost identical copies of certain popular apps in order to get your money via in-app purchases. They’ll even create apps that steal your personal info once you download them. Triple-check that you’re getting the legit version of well-known apps, and think twice about downloading apps you’re unfamiliar with.

Also, beware of payment apps, like Zelle. Recently, there have been some situations where scammers claim to be the bank’s fraud department and call or text you to walk you through the problem. They’ll tell you to fix it by sending yourself money, but the money goes to their account instead, with little to no way of preventing it on your end.

Okay, so we’ve talked through a few internet scams you need to be aware of. Now let’s talk about four keys to steering clear of them:

It’s a good idea to change passwords for important accounts (like email, social media, bank accounts, etc.) every 90 days. And make them hard to guess by using combinations of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters. Even better, make your password a phrase and switch up some of the letters and characters. For example, I might pick the phrase Dog Dad Life, but in password form that could be D0gDadL1fe!

Also, if you ever get notified about a data breach, that means your password could’ve been leaked and you should change itimmediately&nbsp;to be safe. While you’re at it, set up two-factor authentication on every possible password—this creates an extra layer of security and makes it way harder for scammers and hackers to get your personal info.

Take a close look at the email subject line and sender before opening an email. And if you get an email from an address you’re unfamiliar with, don’t click on&nbsp;any&nbsp;links until you know more about where it came from—especially if you’re being told you won $2 million. Be extra cautious of people asking for personal information or anything money-related. When in doubt, mark it as spam.

Check your online bank account every day

Most banks will let you know if they see any suspicious activity in your account, but in case they miss anything, it’s still super important to log in every day to make sure there aren’t any weird charges. You’re in charge of your money, so think of yourself like your own personal armored guard with those aviator sunglasses. You can even pretend you have a cool van and everything.

If something or someone online seems&nbsp;off&nbsp;to you, listen to that Spidey-Sense. That goes for websites, iPads you might’ve won, and potential spouses. When in doubt, don’t click on or agree to anything that seems suspicious. And if you’re having a hard time telling if something’s a scam or not, have someone else weigh in. Better safe than sorry!

One of the biggest reasons it’s important to protect yourself against scams is because scammers can take this one step further by trying to steal your whole identity and use it for their own personal (and financial) gain. Check out&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ramseysolutions.com/insurance/protect-yourself-from-identity-theft">this article</a>&nbsp;for more tips on steering clear of sleazy situations like this.

George Kamel&nbsp;is a personal finance expert with a countercultural approach to money. He’s the host of The Fine Print podcast and The EntreLeadership Podcast on the Ramsey Network. Since 2013, George has served at Ramsey Solutions, where his goal is to help people spend less, save more, and avoid consumer traps so they can make the most of their money. Follow George on<a href="https://twitter.com/GeorgeKamel?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Twitter</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/georgekamel/?hl=en">Instagram</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/OfficialGeorgeKamel">Facebook</a>&nbsp;or find out more about him online at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ramseysolutions.com/personalities">ramseysolutions.com/personalities</a>.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/11/1636603961231.jpeg" alt="George Kamel&nbsp;" />
 <figcaption>George Kamel&nbsp;</figcaption>
 </figure>By GEORGE KAMEL&nbsp;Online scammers have gotten so sneaky lately that it’s not just your elderly grandparents at risk—boomers, millennials and even Gen Z-ers can get taken advantage of if they’re not careful. That’s because these shady weirdos keep switching up their scamming tactics based on current events and our constantly changing digital culture.But the good news is, if you keep your guard up and follow these tips, you’ll be way more likely to spot the scam and hold on to your hard-earned money. Here are five of the biggest internet scams to be aware of right now.Cryptocurrency ScamsCrypto continues to be a trendy thing for the people who enjoy the thrill (and anxiety) of losing money at any given moment. And much like gambling, it can be addictive—a fact that scammers take advantage of. Cryptocurrency scams can happen in all kinds of ways. Scammers might set up fake websites that look like popular crypto sites in an attempt to get innocent people to send them money. They might also prey on people’s fears of missing out on an investment with massive returns by creating a fake early investment opportunity and pitching it to people online.Student Loan Forgiveness ScamsScammers know people are desperate to get their loans forgiven, and they’ll often make fake forgiveness application sites in hopes of stealing people’s social security numbers, bank account info and cash. And because these people have absolutely no shame, these sites are often paired with urgent phone messages or emails trying to convince broke college grads it’s their last chance to apply.Romance ScamsNothing can make you broke like the fluttery feelings of love—and with the growing popularity of online dating, this kind of scam is becoming more and more common. Someone creates a fake dating profile, reels in an unsuspecting victim, steals their heart with witty banter, and asks them to send money or buy them stuff due to some weird circumstance. This sucks because the poor scammee (that’s what I’m calling someone who was scammed—just go with it) loses out on cash&nbsp;and&nbsp;a chance at true love.Online Purchase ScamsIf you buy something online and it never shows up, you might be a victim of this type of scam. Scammers will often “sell” stuff on sites like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, or set up fake online storefronts, take your money, then never deliver what you ordered. Don’t get me wrong, I love Facebook Marketplace as much as the next guy, but you have to be extra careful.App ScamsScammers have figured out how to make almost identical copies of certain popular apps in order to get your money via in-app purchases. They’ll even create apps that steal your personal info once you download them. Triple-check that you’re getting the legit version of well-known apps, and think twice about downloading apps you’re unfamiliar with.Also, beware of payment apps, like Zelle. Recently, there have been some situations where scammers claim to be the bank’s fraud department and call or text you to walk you through the problem. They’ll tell you to fix it by sending yourself money, but the money goes to their account instead, with little to no way of preventing it on your end.Okay, so we’ve talked through a few internet scams you need to be aware of. Now let’s talk about four keys to steering clear of them:Change your passwordsIt’s a good idea to change passwords for important accounts (like email, social media, bank accounts, etc.) every 90 days. And make them hard to guess by using combinations of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters. Even better, make your password a phrase and switch up some of the letters and characters. For example, I might pick the phrase Dog Dad Life, but in password form that could be D0gDadL1fe!Also, if you ever get notified about a data breach, that means your password could’ve been leaked and you should change itimmediately&nbsp;to be safe. While you’re at it, set up two-factor authentication on every possible password—this creates an extra layer of security and makes it way harder for scammers and hackers to get your personal info.Pay attention to your emailsTake a close look at the email subject line and sender before opening an email. And if you get an email from an address you’re unfamiliar with, don’t click on&nbsp;any&nbsp;links until you know more about where it came from—especially if you’re being told you won $2 million. Be extra cautious of people asking for personal information or anything money-related. When in doubt, mark it as spam.Check your online bank account every dayMost banks will let you know if they see any suspicious activity in your account, but in case they miss anything, it’s still super important to log in every day to make sure there aren’t any weird charges. You’re in charge of your money, so think of yourself like your own personal armored guard with those aviator sunglasses. You can even pretend you have a cool van and everything.Trust your gutIf something or someone online seems&nbsp;off&nbsp;to you, listen to that Spidey-Sense. That goes for websites, iPads you might’ve won, and potential spouses. When in doubt, don’t click on or agree to anything that seems suspicious. And if you’re having a hard time telling if something’s a scam or not, have someone else weigh in. Better safe than sorry!One of the biggest reasons it’s important to protect yourself against scams is because scammers can take this one step further by trying to steal your whole identity and use it for their own personal (and financial) gain. Check out&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ramseysolutions.com/insurance/protect-yourself-from-identity-theft">this article</a>&nbsp;for more tips on steering clear of sleazy situations like this.George Kamel&nbsp;is a personal finance expert with a countercultural approach to money. He’s the host of The Fine Print podcast and The EntreLeadership Podcast on the Ramsey Network. Since 2013, George has served at Ramsey Solutions, where his goal is to help people spend less, save more, and avoid consumer traps so they can make the most of their money. Follow George on<a href="https://twitter.com/GeorgeKamel?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Twitter</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/georgekamel/?hl=en">Instagram</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/OfficialGeorgeKamel">Facebook</a>&nbsp;or find out more about him online at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ramseysolutions.com/personalities">ramseysolutions.com/personalities</a>.

KAMEL: The latest internet scams and how to avoid them

By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/proposal-to-help-dwindling-pheasant-population-panned-as-wrong-solution/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN — Pheasant hunting in South Dakota generates an estimated 
$220 million a year in retail spending and causes an annual flood of 
120,000 orange-clad hunters into the state.

But a Nebraska state senator’s effort to try to replicate that kind 
of economic impact by increasing Nebraska’s shrinking pheasant 
population prompted opposition from biologists and groups that work to 
increase wildlife populations.

They testified Wednesday that State Sen. Tom Brewer’s proposal to pay
 a $10 bounty on predators that prey on pheasants — as is done in South 
Dakota — is the wrong solution to a complicated problem.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/2/1675887594647.jpg" alt="Image courtesy of Pixabay" />
 <figcaption>Image courtesy of Pixabay</figcaption>
 </figure>By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/proposal-to-help-dwindling-pheasant-population-panned-as-wrong-solution/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN — Pheasant hunting in South Dakota generates an estimated 
$220 million a year in retail spending and causes an annual flood of 
120,000 orange-clad hunters into the state.But a Nebraska state senator’s effort to try to replicate that kind 
of economic impact by increasing Nebraska’s shrinking pheasant 
population prompted opposition from biologists and groups that work to 
increase wildlife populations.They testified Wednesday that State Sen. Tom Brewer’s proposal to pay
 a $10 bounty on predators that prey on pheasants — as is done in South 
Dakota — is the wrong solution to a complicated problem.<h2>Parade of opposition</h2>Opponents of Legislative Bill 400 included the Nebraska Game and 
Parks Commission, Pheasants Forever, the Nebraska Sportsmen’s 
Foundation, the Nature Conservancy and famed National Geographic 
photographer Joel Sartore.They maintained that the loss of habitat for ring-necked pheasants 
and poor weather during nesting season are the primary forces that have 
reduced bird populations since their peak in the 1960s.Alicia Hardin, a wildlife administrator with the Game and Parks 
Commission, said a number of studies have found that if the right kind 
of habitat is provided, and the weather isn’t too cold and wet or too 
dry after birds hatch, pheasants will increase.Statewide bounties on predators, she said, are hard to sustain 
financially and don’t account for all the animals that prey on pheasants
 and their eggs.<h2>Wildlife acres have declined</h2>Nebraska, Hardin said, has lost about half of the grasslands 
preserved under the federal Conservation Reserve Program since its peak 
in the 1990s, which has contributed to the decline in pheasants. About 
351,000 acres were enrolled in CRP in 2021.She added that the Game and Parks Commission, in 2017, launched an initiative to increase pheasant populations,<a target="_blank" href="http://digital.outdoornebraska.gov/i/1449393-2022-berggren-plan-web/0?"> the Berggren Plan</a>, that has impacted 300,000 acres of land. Investing funds in habitat is the best idea, Hardin said.Increased prices for crops, others said, have contributed to an 
expansion of plowed fields and a decline in pheasant habitat. Others 
said modern farming practices, in which pesticides have rid fields of 
weeds and insects, are also to blame.Supporters of LB 400, meanwhile, said that populations of coyotes, 
raccoons and other predators of pheasants appear to have increased, and 
with a drop in fur prices and trappers, there’s no way to control 
populations without an incentive.They lamented the lack of opportunities for young hunters and the 
missed opportunity for spending on motels, food and hunting lodges that 
would come with more pheasants to pursue.<h2>Brewer says he was ambushed</h2>Brewer, at the conclusion of the public hearing on LB 400 before the 
Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee, expressed some anger that 
wildlife organizations had “ambushed” him in their opposition testimony,
 instead of working with him on amendments before the hearing.He said that one idea suggested at the hearing — giving farmers a 
property tax break if they set aside acres for wildlife — had merit and 
that he remains committed to working on solutions.The Natural Resources Committee took no action on LB 400 after its hearing Wednesday.