NEW YORK (AP) — An&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/live/earthquake-new-york-updates">earthquake centered between New York and Philadelphia</a>&nbsp;shook skyscrapers and suburbs across the northeastern U.S. for several seconds Friday morning, causing no major damage but startling millions of people in an area unaccustomed to such tremors.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported a quake at 10:23 a.m. with a preliminary magnitude of 4.8, centered near Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, or about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of New York City and 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Philadelphia. The agency's figures indicated that over 42 million people might have felt the rumbling.

People from Baltimore to the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border reported feeling the ground shake. While there were no immediate reports of serious damage, officials were checking bridges and other major infrastructure, Amtrak slowed trains throughout the busy Northeast Corridor, and a Philadelphia-area commuter rail line suspended service out of what it said was “an abundance of caution.”

Pictures and decorative plates tumbled off the wall in Christiann Thompson's house in Whitehouse Station, she said. Thompson was volunteering at the local library when the quake hit, leaving few effects, but she got a report from her husband on the scene at home.

“The dogs lost their minds and got very terrified and ran around," she said.

It was “pretty weird and scary” for Shawn Clark, who felt the quake in his 26th-floor midtown Manhattan office. Clark, an attorney, initially feared an explosion or construction accident. His colleague Finn Dusenbery worried the ceiling or even the building would collapse.

The earthquake slowed travel along the East Coast, with some flights diverted and traffic snarled on roads and rails for runway, bridge, and tunnel inspections. Flights to the Newark, New York and Baltimore airports were held at their origins for a time while officials inspected runways for cracks. At least five flights en route to Newark were diverted and landed at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pennsylvania, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.

Among the affected travelers: Seton Hall University’s men’s basketball team, which was stuck in Indianapolis, where it won the National Invitational Tournament on Thursday. The team said its flight to Newark was being held because of the earthquake-related ground stop, likely delaying a welcome-home celebration scheduled for Friday afternoon on Seton Hall's campus in South Orange, New Jersey.

Traffic through the Holland Tunnel between Jersey City, New Jersey, and lower Manhattan was stopped for about 10 minutes for inspections, the Port Authority of New York and Jersey said.

In midtown Manhattan, motorists blared their horns on shuddering streets. Some Brooklyn residents heard a boom and felt their building shaking. Cellphone circuits were overloaded for a time as people tried to reach loved ones and figure out what was going on.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, the shaking interrupted the chief executive of Save The Children, Janti Soeripto, as she briefed an emergency Security Council session on the threat of famine in Gaza and the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-world-central-kitchen-gaza-aid-workers-69b6176362dafc8e4e2754b2342faa1d">Israeli drone strikes that killed aid workers</a>&nbsp;there.

“Is it an earthquake?” Soeripto wondered aloud, then asked if it was all right to go ahead. She did, but soon diplomats’ phones blared with earthquake alerts.

In New York City’s Astoria neighborhood, Cassondra Kurtz was giving her 14-year-old Chihuahua, Chiki, a cocoa-butter rubdown for her dry skin. Kurtz was recording the moment on video when her apartment started shaking hard enough that a large mirror banged audibly against a wall.

Kurtz assumed at first it was a big truck going by. The video captured her looking around, perplexed. Chiki, however, “was completely unbothered.”

Earthquakes are less common on the eastern than western edges of the U.S. because the East Coast does not lie on a boundary of tectonic plates. The biggest Eastern quakes usually occur along the mid-Atlantic Ridge, which extends through Iceland and the Atlantic Ocean.

Quakes on the East Coast can still pack a punch, as its rocks are better than their western counterparts at spreading earthquake energy across long distances.

“If we had the same magnitude quake in California, it probably wouldn’t be felt nearly as far away,” said USGS geophysicist Paul Caruso.

A 4.8-magnitude quake isn't large enough to cause damage, except for some minor effects near the epicenter, the agency posted on X.

Robert Thorson, a University of Connecticut earth sciences professor, said the quake resulted from the constant compression of the earth's hard, brittle crust in New Jersey.

“It’s like having a big block of ice in a vise, and you are just slowly cranking up the vise,” he said. Eventually, you’re going to get some crackling on it.”

Friday's quake was felt as far as Vermont and New Hampshire, where some residents initially figured it was snow falling off their roofs or plow trucks rumbling by.

Stacy Santa Cruz, a paralegal, watched her computer screen shake at her office in Hartford, Connecticut.

“I kind of was taken aback, but then I kind of processed that it might have been an earthquake," she said, noting that she'd experienced a significant quake in her native Peru.

Earthquakes with magnitudes near or above 5 struck near New York City in 1737, 1783 and 1884, the USGS said. And Friday's stirred memories of the Aug. 23, 2011, earthquake that jolted tens of millions of people from Georgia to Canada. With an epicenter in Virginia, it left cracks in the Washington Monument and rattled New Yorkers ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Registering magnitude 5.8, it was the strongest earthquake to hit the East Coast since World War II.

On Friday, President Joe Biden said he had had spoken to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy about the earthquake. The White House said the administration would provide help if needed to state and local officials.

As of noon, New York City had no indications of major safety or infrastructure problems from the earthquake, said Mayor Eric Adams, who said he didn't feel the quake himself. City Buildings Commissioner James Oddo said officials would watch out for any delayed cracks or other effects on the Big Apple’s 1.1 million buildings.

A Chinatown art gallery owner, Kristen Thomas, worried for the fate of a sculpture that features five real eggs poised on a candelabra-like base. But the piece, by Carlos Estévez, was unbroken.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the quake was felt throughout the state, but officials had no reports of any life-threatening problems.

Solomon Byron felt it as he sat on a park bench in Manhattan’s East Village.

“I was just like, ‘Where is that vibration coming from?'" Byron recalled. He was especially puzzled since there were no subways running nearby.

But he didn’t realize there had been an earthquake until he got the alert on his cellphone.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/4/1712329282349.png" alt="Quake centered near Lebanon, New Jersey-USGS image" />
 <figcaption>Quake centered near Lebanon, New Jersey-USGS image</figcaption>
 </figure>NEW YORK (AP) — An&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/live/earthquake-new-york-updates">earthquake centered between New York and Philadelphia</a>&nbsp;shook skyscrapers and suburbs across the northeastern U.S. for several seconds Friday morning, causing no major damage but startling millions of people in an area unaccustomed to such tremors.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">I AM FINE&mdash; Empire State Building (@EmpireStateBldg) <a href="https://twitter.com/EmpireStateBldg/status/1776254633599480130?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 5, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><div><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=314&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fgovkathyhochul%2Fvideos%2F1150569402614787%2F&show_text=false&width=560&t=1" width="560" height="314" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe></div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Earthquakes are uncommon but not unheard of along the Atlantic Coast, a zone one study called a &quot;passive-aggressive margin&quot; b/c there&#39;s no active plate boundary between the Atlantic &amp; N. American plates, but there are stresses. Did you feel the NJ quake? <a href="https://t.co/ADcDLsTp8b">https://t.co/ADcDLsTp8b</a>&mdash; USGS Earthquakes (@USGS_Quakes) <a href="https://twitter.com/USGS_Quakes/status/1776262335688044979?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 5, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">A 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit west of Manhattan and has been felt throughout New York. My team is assessing impacts and any damage that may have occurred, and we will update the public throughout the day.&mdash; Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) <a href="https://twitter.com/GovKathyHochul/status/1776257181454676383?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 5, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>The U.S. Geological Survey reported a quake at 10:23 a.m. with a preliminary magnitude of 4.8, centered near Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, or about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of New York City and 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Philadelphia. The agency's figures indicated that over 42 million people might have felt the rumbling.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">JFK Airport remains open and operational. Flights are arriving and departing at this time. Please check with your carrier for any updates to your flight status.&mdash; John F. Kennedy Airport (@JFKairport) <a href="https://twitter.com/JFKairport/status/1776270324952170522?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 5, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>People from Baltimore to the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border reported feeling the ground shake. While there were no immediate reports of serious damage, officials were checking bridges and other major infrastructure, Amtrak slowed trains throughout the busy Northeast Corridor, and a Philadelphia-area commuter rail line suspended service out of what it said was “an abundance of caution.”Pictures and decorative plates tumbled off the wall in Christiann Thompson's house in Whitehouse Station, she said. Thompson was volunteering at the local library when the quake hit, leaving few effects, but she got a report from her husband on the scene at home.“The dogs lost their minds and got very terrified and ran around," she said.It was “pretty weird and scary” for Shawn Clark, who felt the quake in his 26th-floor midtown Manhattan office. Clark, an attorney, initially feared an explosion or construction accident. His colleague Finn Dusenbery worried the ceiling or even the building would collapse.The earthquake slowed travel along the East Coast, with some flights diverted and traffic snarled on roads and rails for runway, bridge, and tunnel inspections. Flights to the Newark, New York and Baltimore airports were held at their origins for a time while officials inspected runways for cracks. At least five flights en route to Newark were diverted and landed at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pennsylvania, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.Among the affected travelers: Seton Hall University’s men’s basketball team, which was stuck in Indianapolis, where it won the National Invitational Tournament on Thursday. The team said its flight to Newark was being held because of the earthquake-related ground stop, likely delaying a welcome-home celebration scheduled for Friday afternoon on Seton Hall's campus in South Orange, New Jersey.Traffic through the Holland Tunnel between Jersey City, New Jersey, and lower Manhattan was stopped for about 10 minutes for inspections, the Port Authority of New York and Jersey said.In midtown Manhattan, motorists blared their horns on shuddering streets. Some Brooklyn residents heard a boom and felt their building shaking. Cellphone circuits were overloaded for a time as people tried to reach loved ones and figure out what was going on.At U.N. headquarters in New York, the shaking interrupted the chief executive of Save The Children, Janti Soeripto, as she briefed an emergency Security Council session on the threat of famine in Gaza and the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-world-central-kitchen-gaza-aid-workers-69b6176362dafc8e4e2754b2342faa1d">Israeli drone strikes that killed aid workers</a>&nbsp;there.“Is it an earthquake?” Soeripto wondered aloud, then asked if it was all right to go ahead. She did, but soon diplomats’ phones blared with earthquake alerts.In New York City’s Astoria neighborhood, Cassondra Kurtz was giving her 14-year-old Chihuahua, Chiki, a cocoa-butter rubdown for her dry skin. Kurtz was recording the moment on video when her apartment started shaking hard enough that a large mirror banged audibly against a wall.Kurtz assumed at first it was a big truck going by. The video captured her looking around, perplexed. Chiki, however, “was completely unbothered.”Earthquakes are less common on the eastern than western edges of the U.S. because the East Coast does not lie on a boundary of tectonic plates. The biggest Eastern quakes usually occur along the mid-Atlantic Ridge, which extends through Iceland and the Atlantic Ocean.Quakes on the East Coast can still pack a punch, as its rocks are better than their western counterparts at spreading earthquake energy across long distances.“If we had the same magnitude quake in California, it probably wouldn’t be felt nearly as far away,” said USGS geophysicist Paul Caruso.A 4.8-magnitude quake isn't large enough to cause damage, except for some minor effects near the epicenter, the agency posted on X.Robert Thorson, a University of Connecticut earth sciences professor, said the quake resulted from the constant compression of the earth's hard, brittle crust in New Jersey.“It’s like having a big block of ice in a vise, and you are just slowly cranking up the vise,” he said. Eventually, you’re going to get some crackling on it.”Friday's quake was felt as far as Vermont and New Hampshire, where some residents initially figured it was snow falling off their roofs or plow trucks rumbling by.Stacy Santa Cruz, a paralegal, watched her computer screen shake at her office in Hartford, Connecticut.“I kind of was taken aback, but then I kind of processed that it might have been an earthquake," she said, noting that she'd experienced a significant quake in her native Peru.Earthquakes with magnitudes near or above 5 struck near New York City in 1737, 1783 and 1884, the USGS said. And Friday's stirred memories of the Aug. 23, 2011, earthquake that jolted tens of millions of people from Georgia to Canada. With an epicenter in Virginia, it left cracks in the Washington Monument and rattled New Yorkers ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.Registering magnitude 5.8, it was the strongest earthquake to hit the East Coast since World War II.On Friday, President Joe Biden said he had had spoken to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy about the earthquake. The White House said the administration would provide help if needed to state and local officials.As of noon, New York City had no indications of major safety or infrastructure problems from the earthquake, said Mayor Eric Adams, who said he didn't feel the quake himself. City Buildings Commissioner James Oddo said officials would watch out for any delayed cracks or other effects on the Big Apple’s 1.1 million buildings.A Chinatown art gallery owner, Kristen Thomas, worried for the fate of a sculpture that features five real eggs poised on a candelabra-like base. But the piece, by Carlos Estévez, was unbroken.New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the quake was felt throughout the state, but officials had no reports of any life-threatening problems.Solomon Byron felt it as he sat on a park bench in Manhattan’s East Village.“I was just like, ‘Where is that vibration coming from?'" Byron recalled. He was especially puzzled since there were no subways running nearby.But he didn’t realize there had been an earthquake until he got the alert on his cellphone.

Rare earthquake centered near New York City rattles the Northeast

<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/04/04/proposal-advances-to-restrict-nebraska-school-bathrooms-sports-teams-based-on-sex-at-birth/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN —&nbsp;A legislative committee narrowly advanced a measure Thursday that would define Nebraska K-12 school bathrooms and sporting teams as male or female based on sex at birth.

Education Committee members voted 5-3 to advance Legislative Bill 575, the Sports and Spaces Act, proposed by State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha. Public, private and parochial schools would need to adopt a policy to implement LB 575 if passed, including classifying group bathrooms and locker rooms as male or female and sports teams as male, female or mixed.

An&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AM2049-2.pdf">amendment</a>, also adopted 5-3, removes legal relief for students who may be “deprived of an athletic opportunity” or otherwise harmed if a public school knowingly violated the act.&nbsp;

The change also adds a second prohibition for girls sports to include: “a biological female student who is taking cross-sex hormones and competing as a transgender male.”&nbsp;

Athletic teams or sports designated for males would not be open to female students unless there is no female team equivalent.

Kauth said after the vote she was “very pleased.” She said she is “presuming” debate will be Friday.

“I believe I have the votes and what happens happens, and if it doesn’t work, then I bring it back next year,” Kauth said.

State Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil, Education Committee chair, said LB 575 had been stuck in committee for two years, and “we don’t want to be held hostage by a fraction, probably a small fraction, of the Legislature.”

Murman said taking a vote on the bill was overdue after Kauth and State Sen. Rob Clements of Elmwood prioritized it two years in a row.&nbsp;

State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston has targeted the State Board of Education for not acting on issues such as LB 575.&nbsp;

Although he signed onto the bill when it was introduced, Riepe removed his name last May. At the time, he revealed a memo he wrote to Kauth and other senators regarding LB 575, suggesting that it be amended so the State Board of Education would be required to address the issue, not the Legislature.

“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle,” Riepe wrote, quoting Sun Tzu, a Chinese general.&nbsp;

Riepe declined again Thursday to say how he would vote on LB 575, other than to say it would be a “mystery” until the last second.

Other senators who expressed hesitation with the bill last year declined Thursday to say how they would vote on LB 575. Debate on the measure could be scheduled as early as Friday and could last a maximum of four hours before seeking “cloture,” a procedural vote to end debate, which requires 33 votes.

An internal vote count this week run by Sumner State Sen. Teresa Ibach on Kauth’s behalf sat at 32 votes, with one senator “leaning” toward voting for cloture. Kauth confirmed the count.

State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln, an Education Committee member who led opposition to LB 575, including a failed vote to kill the bill (5-3 against doing so), said it has been known that the bill could shape up to be one of the most divisive of the session, similar to its sister bill, LB 574, in 2023.&nbsp;

LB 574 contained a more restrictive limit on abortions and restricted transgender health care for minors.

Conrad said LB 575 doesn’t solve issues that are most important to schools, ranging from needed resources and teacher shortages to a desire to increase parental engagement.

“I’m asking you to put politics aside,” she told her fellow committee members, noting it could throw gasoline on the 2024 session.

State Sens. Lynne Walz of Fremont and Justin Wayne of Omaha also opposed LB 575.

Conrad asked her colleagues why discrimination&nbsp;was more important than tax relief or other issues. State Sen. Fred Meyer of St. Paul said it was an unfair question because the issue was simple in his district about differences between boys and girls.

Multiple superintendents in his district, he said, have asked the Legislature to step in so they don’t have to. He declined to give names to Conrad after the executive session.

Aryn Huck, community organizer for OutNebraska, a leading statewide LGBTQ organization, said that OutNebraska wants all children to thrive and succeed at school and that trans youths shouldn’t be excluded from opportunities that could build confidence, self-respect and teamwork.

“By excluding kids from sports, or not allowing them to continue using the school facilities they’ve been using, LB 575 sends the message that not everyone is welcome,” Huck said. “Singling out kids who want to belong will only harm them in the long term.”

Multiple times during the executive session, Conrad pointed to the Nebraska School Activities Association, which governs school activities and athletics in many public and private schools statewide and already has a Gender Participation Policy.

Since being implemented in 2016, fewer than 10 students have utilized the policy, which allows a path for trans students to play on a sporting team that matches their gender identity. An associated committee must unanimously approve the student’s application, which includes affirmation of the student’s gender identity.

For trans girls, the process also includes a medical examination and physiological testing to affirm the student has taken at least one year of cross-sex hormones and doesn’t “possess physical … or physiological advantages over genetic females of the same age group.”

Conrad said it is a “very expensive, arduous process” that hasn’t had issues.&nbsp;

Meyer said in his experience, the NSAA is flimsy and may not hold firm in policy. Murman said he has heard second-hand concerns with the policy, though he hadn’t “personally verified it.”

Gov. Jim Pillen, who has supported LB 575 and designated it a priority in his State of the State address, said the bill is “just common sense” and matches Nebraska values.

Bellevue Public Schools has a policy to address transgender students, allowing students to use the restrooms for the gender they identify with. Sarah Centineo, a Bellevue school board trustee, testified against LB 575 last year.

Centineo testified “with absolute certainty” that Bellevue’s policy, which has been in place since 2015, has not been a problem. She added that her husband is a bowling coach and personally expressed concern that he would be required to question whether a girl should be allowed to bowl with other girls and how he could be required to “prove” that she’s a girl.

“That destroys trust between a coach and between a student,” Centineo testified.

State Sen. Rita Sanders of Bellevue, former mayor of the city, said that after numerous phone calls and emails related to LB 575, it’s time to make a decision — “up or down, we move on.”

Centineo and Sanders disagreed about whether Centineo was speaking on behalf of Bellevue Public Schools when she testified last year. Centineo is running against Sanders this election cycle.&nbsp;

Sanders said she confirmed with the district that Centineo was not representing the district when testifying.&nbsp;

Centineo told the Examiner she was representing the district and provided an email she sent from her district email to the committee one week after testifying that Sanders responded to.

Bellevue Public Schools did not immediately return a request for comment.

Sanders said she will be listening for any concerns to be “brought to light” during LB 575 debate and emphasized that senators need to remember they are talking about children.

“I think with any bill you have to look for the concerns, the areas of concerns, that I think are addressed during good debate,” Sanders added.

When it comes to enforcing LB 575, Sanders said lawmakers need to have a discussion, such as around chromosomes, and said lawmakers or lobbyists could suggest amendments.

“We either come out with a better bill, or it goes away,” Sanders said.

Murman told the Examiner that he’s unsure how schools would track students’ chromosomes or enforce the bill.

“That’s something I never thought about,” Murman said, noting schools would need to decide.

Kauth said a birth certificate or a doctor’s attestation, such as through students’ annual sports physicals, could satisfy her bill’s requirements. She also pushed back on “fear mongering” from some opponents to her bill that schools would implement “genital inspections.”

“Come on,” she said. “I am very concerned by anyone who’s promoting that.”

Thursday’s committee action represents one of the last possible moments for members to advance LB 575 to the full Legislature. Murman declined to say whether Speaker Arch — who sets the floor debate agenda —&nbsp;asked the committee to delay consideration until Thursday.

“Every bill that comes to the floor is a negotiation between the speaker and the bill sponsor, or the committee sponsor, and that includes this bill,” Murman said.&nbsp;

Murman has supported LB 575 since its introduction. When&nbsp; asked why LB 575 didn’t advance or come up for a vote sooner, he noted that 2023 demonstrated how a “very small minority” can control what happens in the Legislature and “can, in their own words, ‘burn down the session.’”

“We don’t want that to happen, and I assume it won’t happen because we’ve been very giving in waiting and so forth,” he said.

State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha, who fought Kauth’s LB 574 last year, often bringing debate to a crawl as she extended debate on&nbsp; every bill to its maximum time limit, committed to stall debate in the Legislature’s final days because of the Education Committee’s vote.

“Get ready to hear my recipes, my movie synopsis and on and on,” Cavanaugh said Thursday afternoon. “Until 575 is dead, that’s what we’re going to be doing.”

She added that while LB 574 was a “travesty” and harmed transgender children, LB 575 “makes it impossible for transgender children to exist in this state.”

Cavanaugh later said she would focus opposition on LB 575, not on other bills.

Kauth, Murman and other LB 575 supporters deny any discrimination —&nbsp;and did so during the Education Committee executive session. They argue the bill is about protecting all school-aged children and preserving women’s sports, including Title IX.

“Protecting women’s sports and girls sports is so critically important, especially for kids at that age,” Kauth said. “… We’ve got all these amazing opportunities that will go away if girls are starting to compete with boys in their high school and middle school years.”

Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, in an opinion sought by Kauth that does not carry the same weight as a judicial opinion, argues LB 575 does not violate federal laws, such as the Equal Protection Clause of Title IX, the federal educational civil rights law.&nbsp;

The attorney general is charged with defending state laws.

Hilgers noted the measure does not reference gender identity, so the plain text of the bill “cannot be said to single out transgender students.”

Now, however, with the amendment adopted by the committee, the measure does reference gender identity.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/4/1712321963168.jpeg" alt="State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha introduces a bill Feb. 13, 2023, in Lincoln, before the Education Committee that would define school group bathrooms and sporting teams as either male or female. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)" />
 <figcaption>State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha introduces a bill Feb. 13, 2023, in Lincoln, before the Education Committee that would define school group bathrooms and sporting teams as either male or female. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)</figcaption>
 </figure>Zach Wendling<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/04/04/proposal-advances-to-restrict-nebraska-school-bathrooms-sports-teams-based-on-sex-at-birth/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN —&nbsp;A legislative committee narrowly advanced a measure Thursday that would define Nebraska K-12 school bathrooms and sporting teams as male or female based on sex at birth.Education Committee members voted 5-3 to advance Legislative Bill 575, the Sports and Spaces Act, proposed by State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha. Public, private and parochial schools would need to adopt a policy to implement LB 575 if passed, including classifying group bathrooms and locker rooms as male or female and sports teams as male, female or mixed.An&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AM2049-2.pdf">amendment</a>, also adopted 5-3, removes legal relief for students who may be “deprived of an athletic opportunity” or otherwise harmed if a public school knowingly violated the act.&nbsp;The change also adds a second prohibition for girls sports to include: “a biological female student who is taking cross-sex hormones and competing as a transgender male.”&nbsp;Athletic teams or sports designated for males would not be open to female students unless there is no female team equivalent.Kauth said after the vote she was “very pleased.” She said she is “presuming” debate will be Friday.“I believe I have the votes and what happens happens, and if it doesn’t work, then I bring it back next year,” Kauth said.<h2>One vote remains a ‘mystery’</h2>State Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil, Education Committee chair, said LB 575 had been stuck in committee for two years, and “we don’t want to be held hostage by a fraction, probably a small fraction, of the Legislature.”Murman said taking a vote on the bill was overdue after Kauth and State Sen. Rob Clements of Elmwood prioritized it two years in a row.&nbsp;State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston has targeted the State Board of Education for not acting on issues such as LB 575.&nbsp;Although he signed onto the bill when it was introduced, Riepe removed his name last May. At the time, he revealed a memo he wrote to Kauth and other senators regarding LB 575, suggesting that it be amended so the State Board of Education would be required to address the issue, not the Legislature.“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle,” Riepe wrote, quoting Sun Tzu, a Chinese general.&nbsp;Riepe declined again Thursday to say how he would vote on LB 575, other than to say it would be a “mystery” until the last second.Other senators who expressed hesitation with the bill last year declined Thursday to say how they would vote on LB 575. Debate on the measure could be scheduled as early as Friday and could last a maximum of four hours before seeking “cloture,” a procedural vote to end debate, which requires 33 votes.An internal vote count this week run by Sumner State Sen. Teresa Ibach on Kauth’s behalf sat at 32 votes, with one senator “leaning” toward voting for cloture. Kauth confirmed the count.<h2>‘Put politics aside’</h2>State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln, an Education Committee member who led opposition to LB 575, including a failed vote to kill the bill (5-3 against doing so), said it has been known that the bill could shape up to be one of the most divisive of the session, similar to its sister bill, LB 574, in 2023.&nbsp;LB 574 contained a more restrictive limit on abortions and restricted transgender health care for minors.Conrad said LB 575 doesn’t solve issues that are most important to schools, ranging from needed resources and teacher shortages to a desire to increase parental engagement.“I’m asking you to put politics aside,” she told her fellow committee members, noting it could throw gasoline on the 2024 session.State Sens. Lynne Walz of Fremont and Justin Wayne of Omaha also opposed LB 575.Conrad asked her colleagues why discrimination&nbsp;was more important than tax relief or other issues. State Sen. Fred Meyer of St. Paul said it was an unfair question because the issue was simple in his district about differences between boys and girls.Multiple superintendents in his district, he said, have asked the Legislature to step in so they don’t have to. He declined to give names to Conrad after the executive session.Aryn Huck, community organizer for OutNebraska, a leading statewide LGBTQ organization, said that OutNebraska wants all children to thrive and succeed at school and that trans youths shouldn’t be excluded from opportunities that could build confidence, self-respect and teamwork.“By excluding kids from sports, or not allowing them to continue using the school facilities they’ve been using, LB 575 sends the message that not everyone is welcome,” Huck said. “Singling out kids who want to belong will only harm them in the long term.”<h2>NSAA’s Gender Participation Policy</h2>Multiple times during the executive session, Conrad pointed to the Nebraska School Activities Association, which governs school activities and athletics in many public and private schools statewide and already has a Gender Participation Policy.Since being implemented in 2016, fewer than 10 students have utilized the policy, which allows a path for trans students to play on a sporting team that matches their gender identity. An associated committee must unanimously approve the student’s application, which includes affirmation of the student’s gender identity.For trans girls, the process also includes a medical examination and physiological testing to affirm the student has taken at least one year of cross-sex hormones and doesn’t “possess physical … or physiological advantages over genetic females of the same age group.”Conrad said it is a “very expensive, arduous process” that hasn’t had issues.&nbsp;Meyer said in his experience, the NSAA is flimsy and may not hold firm in policy. Murman said he has heard second-hand concerns with the policy, though he hadn’t “personally verified it.”Gov. Jim Pillen, who has supported LB 575 and designated it a priority in his State of the State address, said the bill is “just common sense” and matches Nebraska values.<h2>Bellevue senator listening for concerns</h2>Bellevue Public Schools has a policy to address transgender students, allowing students to use the restrooms for the gender they identify with. Sarah Centineo, a Bellevue school board trustee, testified against LB 575 last year.Centineo testified “with absolute certainty” that Bellevue’s policy, which has been in place since 2015, has not been a problem. She added that her husband is a bowling coach and personally expressed concern that he would be required to question whether a girl should be allowed to bowl with other girls and how he could be required to “prove” that she’s a girl.“That destroys trust between a coach and between a student,” Centineo testified.State Sen. Rita Sanders of Bellevue, former mayor of the city, said that after numerous phone calls and emails related to LB 575, it’s time to make a decision — “up or down, we move on.”Centineo and Sanders disagreed about whether Centineo was speaking on behalf of Bellevue Public Schools when she testified last year. Centineo is running against Sanders this election cycle.&nbsp;Sanders said she confirmed with the district that Centineo was not representing the district when testifying.&nbsp;Centineo told the Examiner she was representing the district and provided an email she sent from her district email to the committee one week after testifying that Sanders responded to.Bellevue Public Schools did not immediately return a request for comment.Sanders said she will be listening for any concerns to be “brought to light” during LB 575 debate and emphasized that senators need to remember they are talking about children.“I think with any bill you have to look for the concerns, the areas of concerns, that I think are addressed during good debate,” Sanders added.<h2>Enforcing the policy</h2>When it comes to enforcing LB 575, Sanders said lawmakers need to have a discussion, such as around chromosomes, and said lawmakers or lobbyists could suggest amendments.“We either come out with a better bill, or it goes away,” Sanders said.Murman told the Examiner that he’s unsure how schools would track students’ chromosomes or enforce the bill.“That’s something I never thought about,” Murman said, noting schools would need to decide.Kauth said a birth certificate or a doctor’s attestation, such as through students’ annual sports physicals, could satisfy her bill’s requirements. She also pushed back on “fear mongering” from some opponents to her bill that schools would implement “genital inspections.”“Come on,” she said. “I am very concerned by anyone who’s promoting that.”<h2>Opposition strategy forming</h2>Thursday’s committee action represents one of the last possible moments for members to advance LB 575 to the full Legislature. Murman declined to say whether Speaker Arch — who sets the floor debate agenda —&nbsp;asked the committee to delay consideration until Thursday.“Every bill that comes to the floor is a negotiation between the speaker and the bill sponsor, or the committee sponsor, and that includes this bill,” Murman said.&nbsp;Murman has supported LB 575 since its introduction. When&nbsp; asked why LB 575 didn’t advance or come up for a vote sooner, he noted that 2023 demonstrated how a “very small minority” can control what happens in the Legislature and “can, in their own words, ‘burn down the session.’”“We don’t want that to happen, and I assume it won’t happen because we’ve been very giving in waiting and so forth,” he said.State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha, who fought Kauth’s LB 574 last year, often bringing debate to a crawl as she extended debate on&nbsp; every bill to its maximum time limit, committed to stall debate in the Legislature’s final days because of the Education Committee’s vote.“Get ready to hear my recipes, my movie synopsis and on and on,” Cavanaugh said Thursday afternoon. “Until 575 is dead, that’s what we’re going to be doing.”She added that while LB 574 was a “travesty” and harmed transgender children, LB 575 “makes it impossible for transgender children to exist in this state.”Cavanaugh later said she would focus opposition on LB 575, not on other bills.<h2>Attorney general’s opinion</h2>Kauth, Murman and other LB 575 supporters deny any discrimination —&nbsp;and did so during the Education Committee executive session. They argue the bill is about protecting all school-aged children and preserving women’s sports, including Title IX.“Protecting women’s sports and girls sports is so critically important, especially for kids at that age,” Kauth said. “… We’ve got all these amazing opportunities that will go away if girls are starting to compete with boys in their high school and middle school years.”Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, in an opinion sought by Kauth that does not carry the same weight as a judicial opinion, argues LB 575 does not violate federal laws, such as the Equal Protection Clause of Title IX, the federal educational civil rights law.&nbsp;The attorney general is charged with defending state laws.Hilgers noted the measure does not reference gender identity, so the plain text of the bill “cannot be said to single out transgender students.”Now, however, with the amendment adopted by the committee, the measure does reference gender identity.

Proposal advances to restrict Nebraska school bathrooms, sports teams based on sex at birth

CAIRO (AP)— The United States’ military says its forces shot down an anti-ship ballistic missile and two aerial drones launched by Yemen’s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/houthis-yemen-airstrikes-military-us-red-sea-de8430938b907a1cddc906e491dca96d">Iran-backed Houthi rebels</a>.

U.S. Central Command said Thursday that the target of the attack was the USS Gravely destroyer, which is patrolling the Red Sea. The military said it destroyed a mobile surface-to-air missile system in Houthi-held territory in response to the attack early Wednesday.

The Houthis have repeatedly&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/red-sea-yemen-houthis-attack-ships-f67d941c260528ac40315ecab4c34ca3">targeted international shipping</a>&nbsp;and U.S. forces in the Red Sea in recent months in what they portray as a blockade of Israel in response to the war in Gaza. They have attacked several ships with no known connection to Israel.

The U.S. and its allies have responded with strikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen.

The latest confrontation came as tensions are high across the Middle East following an apparent Israeli airstrike in Syria’s capital, Damascus, that destroyed the Iranian Consulate and killed two Iranian generals. Iran has vowed to respond to the attack.

Meanwhile,&nbsp;Israel says it's taking steps to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, including reopening a key border crossing into hard-hit northern Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced the plans early Friday, just hours after President Joe Biden told him that future U.S. support for the war in Gaza depends on Israel taking more action to protect civilians and aid workers. The announcement did not elaborate on quantities or types of items to be let in.

Still, despite their differences, the Biden administration has continued to provide Israel crucial military aid and diplomatic support for Israel's six-month war against Hamas. Israel faces growing international isolation after its forces killed seven aid workers helping deliver food in Gaza.

The Palestinian death toll soared above 33,000 people on Thursday, with another 75,600 wounded, Gaza's Health Ministry said. The ministry&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-health-ministry-health-death-toll-59470820308b31f1faf73c703400b033">doesn’t differentiate</a>&nbsp;between civilians and combatants in its tally, but says&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/women-children-gaza-war-victims-un-inequality-f0f89a724543b99c2c22439e7af09405">women and children</a>&nbsp;make up two-thirds of the dead.

The United Nations says much of the population in&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-03-11-2024-c6835d50f91dff0443e0f7fdf5e3229f">northern Gaza</a>&nbsp;is on the brink of starvation. The&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-genocide-court-south-africa-27cf84e16082cde798395a95e9143c06">top United Nations court has concluded</a>&nbsp;there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies — and the U.N. Security Council has issued a legally binding demand for a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/un-gaza-ceasefire-resolution-vote-ramadan-b7985fede65e5477aba2c8d2e62a6632">cease-fire</a>.

The war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/2/1708804229711.png" alt="File photo U.S. Central command" />
 <figcaption>File photo U.S. Central command</figcaption>
 </figure>CAIRO (AP)— The United States’ military says its forces shot down an anti-ship ballistic missile and two aerial drones launched by Yemen’s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/houthis-yemen-airstrikes-military-us-red-sea-de8430938b907a1cddc906e491dca96d">Iran-backed Houthi rebels</a>.U.S. Central Command said Thursday that the target of the attack was the USS Gravely destroyer, which is patrolling the Red Sea. The military said it destroyed a mobile surface-to-air missile system in Houthi-held territory in response to the attack early Wednesday.The Houthis have repeatedly&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/red-sea-yemen-houthis-attack-ships-f67d941c260528ac40315ecab4c34ca3">targeted international shipping</a>&nbsp;and U.S. forces in the Red Sea in recent months in what they portray as a blockade of Israel in response to the war in Gaza. They have attacked several ships with no known connection to Israel.The U.S. and its allies have responded with strikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen.The latest confrontation came as tensions are high across the Middle East following an apparent Israeli airstrike in Syria’s capital, Damascus, that destroyed the Iranian Consulate and killed two Iranian generals. Iran has vowed to respond to the attack.Meanwhile,&nbsp;Israel says it's taking steps to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, including reopening a key border crossing into hard-hit northern Gaza.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced the plans early Friday, just hours after President Joe Biden told him that future U.S. support for the war in Gaza depends on Israel taking more action to protect civilians and aid workers. The announcement did not elaborate on quantities or types of items to be let in.Still, despite their differences, the Biden administration has continued to provide Israel crucial military aid and diplomatic support for Israel's six-month war against Hamas. Israel faces growing international isolation after its forces killed seven aid workers helping deliver food in Gaza.The Palestinian death toll soared above 33,000 people on Thursday, with another 75,600 wounded, Gaza's Health Ministry said. The ministry&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-health-ministry-health-death-toll-59470820308b31f1faf73c703400b033">doesn’t differentiate</a>&nbsp;between civilians and combatants in its tally, but says&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/women-children-gaza-war-victims-un-inequality-f0f89a724543b99c2c22439e7af09405">women and children</a>&nbsp;make up two-thirds of the dead.The United Nations says much of the population in&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-03-11-2024-c6835d50f91dff0443e0f7fdf5e3229f">northern Gaza</a>&nbsp;is on the brink of starvation. The&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-genocide-court-south-africa-27cf84e16082cde798395a95e9143c06">top United Nations court has concluded</a>&nbsp;there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies — and the U.N. Security Council has issued a legally binding demand for a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/un-gaza-ceasefire-resolution-vote-ramadan-b7985fede65e5477aba2c8d2e62a6632">cease-fire</a>.The war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage.

Terrorist target U.S. destroyer with missile, drones in the Red Sea

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Kan.—The Kansas Highway Patrol has identified those involved in a fatal crash that occurred just after 1:30p.m. Wednesday in Douglas County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2017 GMC Sierra driven by&nbsp; Lowell A.&nbsp;Neitzel, 43, Lawrence, was&nbsp;eastbound on U.S. 24 near north 2100 Road.

The pickup struck a westbound 2010 Kia Soul driven by&nbsp;Milano, Ronald L. Milano, 70, Bennet, Nebraska, head-on.

Milano and two passengers identified as 39-year-old Joshua Z.&nbsp;Milano and 33-year-old Patricia A. Milano both of Lincoln Nebraska were pronounced dead and transported to&nbsp;Frontier Forensics.

The KHP indicated Neitzel was transported to Lawrence Memorial Hospital but not injured.&nbsp; The drivers were wearing seat belts, according to the KHP. The KHP did not have seat belt usage details on the passengers in the Kia.

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Kan.—The Kansas Highway Patrol has identified those involved in a fatal crash that occurred just after 1:30p.m. Wednesday in Douglas County.The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2017 GMC Sierra driven by&nbsp; Lowell A.&nbsp;Neitzel, 43, Lawrence, was&nbsp;eastbound on U.S. 24 near north 2100 Road.The pickup struck a westbound 2010 Kia Soul driven by&nbsp;Milano, Ronald L. Milano, 70, Bennet, Nebraska, head-on.Milano and two passengers identified as 39-year-old Joshua Z.&nbsp;Milano and 33-year-old Patricia A. Milano both of Lincoln Nebraska were pronounced dead and transported to&nbsp;Frontier Forensics.The KHP indicated Neitzel was transported to Lawrence Memorial Hospital but not injured.&nbsp; The drivers were wearing seat belts, according to the KHP. The KHP did not have seat belt usage details on the passengers in the Kia.

Patrol IDs 3 from Nebraksa who died in Kan. head-on crash

NEW YORK (AP) — More and more businesses are taking advantage of the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/solar-eclipse-2024">total solar eclipse</a>&nbsp;set to dim skies across North America&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/total-solar-eclipse-sun-moon-7beea0599f2b829d322f0ec3c71648a6">on Monday</a>.

In the snacks department alone, Krispy Kreme is teaming up with Oreo to sell a limited doughnut-cookie creation. Sonic Drive-In is selling a <a href="https://www.sonicdrivein.com/menu/featured/blackout-slush-float/">“Blackout Slush Float.</a>” And Frito-Lay's SunChips has unveiled a new flavor that will only be available during the celestial event's nearly 4 and a half minutes of totality.

MoonPie also kicked off a “Sun vs. Moon” smackdown-themed campaign as the chocolate snack maker promotes its “eclipse survival kit,” made up of four mini MoonPies and two pairs of eclipse glasses.

Meanwhile, airlines like Southwest and Delta have advertised eclipse-viewing flight paths. And beyond promotions from big-name brands, small businesses&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwL2gEt66no">along the 115 mile (185 kilometer)-wide prime path</a>&nbsp;are leading the charge to meet the incoming tourist demand.

Some towns and local vendors have been&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/total-solar-eclipse-promotions-beer-food-c2e881062d0c366ab72b5d6ca1db3b59">anticipating the celestial event</a>&nbsp;and its huge crowds for years. There are oodles of special eclipse safety glasses for sale, along with T-shirts emblazoned with clever slogans and more astronomical souvenirs. Other offerings include eclipse-themed beer, specialty dining packages and watch parties at amusement parks, wineries and zoos.

Marketing tied to rare spectacles, like the sun’s disappearing act behind the moon, isn’t new.

In 2017, the last time the U.S. saw a big slice of a total solar eclipse, scores of companies tapped into the action — including Krispy Kreme.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company previously rolled out limited-edition chocolate glazed doughnuts for the 2017 eclipse, and those treats have made a few returns since. But that might not be the case for this year's "Total Solar Eclipse Doughnut." The Krispy Kreme-Oreo combo is set to be available from Friday through Monday, according to an announcement from the chain this week.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/4/1712247708219.png" alt="Sonic Blackout Slush Float inspired by the eclipse" />
 <figcaption>Sonic Blackout Slush Float inspired by the eclipse</figcaption>
 </figure>NEW YORK (AP) — More and more businesses are taking advantage of the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/solar-eclipse-2024">total solar eclipse</a>&nbsp;set to dim skies across North America&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/total-solar-eclipse-sun-moon-7beea0599f2b829d322f0ec3c71648a6">on Monday</a>.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/4/1712085263547.png" alt="Image Associated Press" />
 <figcaption>Image Associated Press</figcaption>
 </figure>In the snacks department alone, Krispy Kreme is teaming up with Oreo to sell a limited doughnut-cookie creation. Sonic Drive-In is selling a <a href="https://www.sonicdrivein.com/menu/featured/blackout-slush-float/">“Blackout Slush Float.</a>” And Frito-Lay's SunChips has unveiled a new flavor that will only be available during the celestial event's nearly 4 and a half minutes of totality.MoonPie also kicked off a “Sun vs. Moon” smackdown-themed campaign as the chocolate snack maker promotes its “eclipse survival kit,” made up of four mini MoonPies and two pairs of eclipse glasses.Meanwhile, airlines like Southwest and Delta have advertised eclipse-viewing flight paths. And beyond promotions from big-name brands, small businesses&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwL2gEt66no">along the 115 mile (185 kilometer)-wide prime path</a>&nbsp;are leading the charge to meet the incoming tourist demand.Some towns and local vendors have been&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/total-solar-eclipse-promotions-beer-food-c2e881062d0c366ab72b5d6ca1db3b59">anticipating the celestial event</a>&nbsp;and its huge crowds for years. There are oodles of special eclipse safety glasses for sale, along with T-shirts emblazoned with clever slogans and more astronomical souvenirs. Other offerings include eclipse-themed beer, specialty dining packages and watch parties at amusement parks, wineries and zoos.Marketing tied to rare spectacles, like the sun’s disappearing act behind the moon, isn’t new.In 2017, the last time the U.S. saw a big slice of a total solar eclipse, scores of companies tapped into the action — including Krispy Kreme.The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company previously rolled out limited-edition chocolate glazed doughnuts for the 2017 eclipse, and those treats have made a few returns since. But that might not be the case for this year's "Total Solar Eclipse Doughnut." The Krispy Kreme-Oreo combo is set to be available from Friday through Monday, according to an announcement from the chain this week.

From Sonic to SunChips, companies roll out total solar eclipse promotions

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Powerball jackpot has increased to an estimated $1.23 billion after another drawing without a big winner Wednesday night.

The numbers selected were: 11, 38, 41, 62, 65 and the Powerball 15.

The jackpot, which now ranks as the eighth-largest in&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lottery-jackpots-mega-millions-powerball-80fcb836622ba8e18883ce778786c1cc">U.S. lottery history</a>, has been growing for more than three months,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/north-america-lottery-us-news-ap-top-news-ia-state-wire-b5572da1e5d74f6e974bea45c707b5cb">reflecting the long odds</a>&nbsp;of 1 in 292.2 million of winning the top prize. Since the last player won the jackpot Jan. 1, there have been 40 consecutive drawings without anyone matching all six numbers and hitting it rich.

Lottery officials note that thousands of people have won smaller prizes, which range from $2 to $2 million.

The $1.23 billion prize is for a sole winner who chooses to be paid&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/powerball-jackpot-annuity-vs-cash-0e741f164106c0f4dba89707c5763c99">through an annuity</a>&nbsp;with 30 annual payments. Winners almost always prefer the cash option, which for the next drawing Saturday night would be an estimated $595.1 million.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Powerball jackpot has increased to an estimated $1.23 billion after another drawing without a big winner Wednesday night.The numbers selected were: 11, 38, 41, 62, 65 and the Powerball 15.The jackpot, which now ranks as the eighth-largest in&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lottery-jackpots-mega-millions-powerball-80fcb836622ba8e18883ce778786c1cc">U.S. lottery history</a>, has been growing for more than three months,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/north-america-lottery-us-news-ap-top-news-ia-state-wire-b5572da1e5d74f6e974bea45c707b5cb">reflecting the long odds</a>&nbsp;of 1 in 292.2 million of winning the top prize. Since the last player won the jackpot Jan. 1, there have been 40 consecutive drawings without anyone matching all six numbers and hitting it rich.Lottery officials note that thousands of people have won smaller prizes, which range from $2 to $2 million.The $1.23 billion prize is for a sole winner who chooses to be paid&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/powerball-jackpot-annuity-vs-cash-0e741f164106c0f4dba89707c5763c99">through an annuity</a>&nbsp;with 30 annual payments. Winners almost always prefer the cash option, which for the next drawing Saturday night would be an estimated $595.1 million.

Powerball jackpot jumps to $1.23 billion, 8th largest in U.S. lottery history

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shortly after an&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-syria-airstrike-iranian-embassy-edca34c52d38c8bc57281e4ebf33b240">airstrike widely attributed to Israel destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Syria</a>, the United States had an urgent message for Iran: We had nothing to do with it.

But that may not be enough for the U.S. to avoid retaliation&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-syria-airstrike-iranian-embassy-edca34c52d38c8bc57281e4ebf33b240">targeting its forces in the region.</a>&nbsp;A top U.S. commander warned on Wednesday of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/houthi-attacks-ships-red-sea-7b86941c985a934281c68d6624baff1b">danger to American troops.</a>

And if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent broadening of targeted strikes on adversaries around the region to include Iranian security operatives and leaders deepens regional hostilities, analysts say, it's not clear the United States can avoid being pulled into deeper regional conflict as well.

The Biden administration insists it had no advance knowledge of the airstrike Monday. But the United States is closely tied to Israel's military regardless. The U.S. remains Israel’s indispensable ally and unstinting supplier of weapons, responsible for some 70% of Israeli weapon imports and an estimated 15% of Israel's defense budget. That includes providing the kind of advanced aircraft and munitions that appear to have been employed in the attack.

Israel hasn’t acknowledged a role in the airstrike, but Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Tuesday that the U.S. has assessed Israel was responsible.

Multiple arms of Iran's government served notice that they would hold the United States accountable for the fiery attack. The strike, in the Syrian capital of Damascus, killed senior commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for Syria and Lebanon, an officer of the powerful Iran-allied Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, and others.

American forces in Syria and Iraq already are frequent targets when Iran and its regional allies seek retaliation for strikes by Israelis, notes Charles Lister, the Syria program director for the Middle East Institute.

“What the Iranians have always done for years when they have felt most aggressively targeted by Israel is not to hit back at Israelis, but Americans,” seeing them as soft targets in the region, Lister said.

On Wednesday in Washington, the top U.S. Air Force commander for the Middle East, Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, said Iran’s assertion that the U.S. bears responsibility for Israeli actions could bring an end to a pause in militia attacks on U.S. forces that has lasted since early February.

He said he sees no specific threat to U.S. troops right now, but “I am concerned because of the Iranian rhetoric talking about the U.S., that there could be a risk to our forces."

U.S. officials have recorded more than 150 attacks by Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on U.S. forces at bases in those countries since war between Hamas and Israel began on Oct. 7.

One, in late January, killed three U.S. service members and injured dozens more at a base in Jordan.

In retaliation, the U.S. launched a massive air assault, hitting more than 85 targets at seven locations in Iraq and Syria, including command and control headquarters, drone and ammunition storage sites and other facilities connected to the militias or the IRGC’s Quds Force, the Guard’s expeditionary unit that handles Tehran’s relationship with and arming of regional militias. There have been no publicly reported attacks on U.S. troops in the region since that response.

Grynkewich told reporters the U.S. is watching and listening carefully to what Iran is saying and doing to evaluate how Tehran might respond.

Analysts and diplomats cite a range of ways Iran could retaliate.

Since Oct. 7, Iran and the regional militias allied to it in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen have followed a strategy of calibrated attacks that stop short of triggering an all-out conflict that could subject Iran’s homeland forces or Hezbollah to full-blown war with Israel or the United States.

Beyond strikes on U.S. troops, possibilities for Iranian retaliation could include a limited missile strike directly from Iranian soil to Israel, Lister said. That would reciprocate for Israel's strike on what under international law was sovereign Iranian soil, at the Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus.

A concentrated attack on a U.S. position abroad on the scale of the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-marines-bombing-beirut-1983-hezbollah-israel-hamas-iran-34f61ac47909c52de800dd35b375e782">1983 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut</a>&nbsp;is possible, but seems unlikely given the scale of U.S. retaliation that would draw, analysts say. Iran also could escalate&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-sanctions-treasury-terrorism-bolton-soleimani-rushdie-a3b96b9008b0f4d64c8279717d1f4dea">an existing effort to kill Trump-era officials</a>&nbsp;behind the United States' 2020 drone killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

How far any other retaliation and potential escalation goes may depend on two things out of U.S. control: Whether Iran wants to keep regional hostilities at their current level or escalate, and whether Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's far-right government does.

Sina Toossi, a fellow at the Center for International Policy, said analysts in Iran are among those trying to read Netanyahu's mind since the attack, struggling to choose between two competing narratives for Israel's objective.

“One perceives Israel’s actions as a deliberate provocation of war that Iran should respond to with restraint,” Toossi wrote in the U.S.-based think tank's journal. “The other suggests that Israel is capitalizing on Iran’s typically restrained responses,” and that failing to respond in kind will only embolden Israel.

Ultimately, Iran’s sense that it is already winning its strategic goals as the Hamas-Israel war continues — elevating the Palestinian cause and costing Israel friends globally — may go the furthest in persuading Iranian leaders not to risk open warfare with Israel or U.S. in whatever response they make to Monday’s airstrike, some analysts and diplomats say.

Shira Efron, a director of policy research at the U.S.-based Israel Policy Forum, rejected suggestions that Netanyahu was actively trying with attacks like the one in Damascus to draw the U.S. into a potentially decisive conflict alongside Israel against their common rivals, at least for now.

“First, the risk of escalation has increased. No doubt,” Efron said.

“I don't think Netanyahu is interested in full-blown war though,” she said. “And whereas in the past Israel was thought to be interested in drawing the U.S. into a greater conflict, even if the desire still exists in some circles, it is not more than wishful thinking at the moment.”

U.S. President Joe Biden is facing pressure from the other direction.

So far he's resisting calls from growing numbers of Democratic lawmakers and voters to limit the flow of American arms to Israel as a way to press Netanyahu to ease Israeli military killing of civilians in Gaza and to heed other U.S. appeals.

As criticism has grown of U.S. military support of Israel’s war in Gaza, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller has increasingly pointed to Israel’s longer-term need for weapons — to defend itself against Iran and Iranian-allied Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The U.S. is ″always concerned about anything that would be escalatory,” Miller said after the attack in Damascus. “It has been one of the goals of this administration since October 7th to keep the conflict from spreading, recognizing that Israel has the right to defend itself from adversaries that are sworn to its destruction.''

Israel for years has hit at Iranian proxies and their sites in the region, knocking back their ability to build strength and cause trouble for Israelis.

Since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, one of a network of Iran-aligned militias in the region, that shattered Israel’s sense of security, Netanyahu’s government has increasingly added Iranian security operatives and leaders to target lists in the region, Lister notes.

The U.S. military already has deepened engagement from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea since the Hamas-Israel war opened — deploying aircraft carriers to the region to discourage rear-guard attacks against Israel, opening airstrikes to quell attacks on shipping by Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen.

It is also moving to build a pier off Gaza to try to get more aid to Palestinian civilians despite obstacles that include Israel’s restrictions and attacks on aid deliveries.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/1/1705969629635.png" alt="File photo from U.S. strikes in the Middle East in February-U.S. Central Command" />
 <figcaption>File photo from U.S. strikes in the Middle East in February-U.S. Central Command</figcaption>
 </figure>By ELLEN KNICKMEYER and LOLITA C. BALDORWASHINGTON (AP) — Shortly after an&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-syria-airstrike-iranian-embassy-edca34c52d38c8bc57281e4ebf33b240">airstrike widely attributed to Israel destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Syria</a>, the United States had an urgent message for Iran: We had nothing to do with it.But that may not be enough for the U.S. to avoid retaliation&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-syria-airstrike-iranian-embassy-edca34c52d38c8bc57281e4ebf33b240">targeting its forces in the region.</a>&nbsp;A top U.S. commander warned on Wednesday of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/houthi-attacks-ships-red-sea-7b86941c985a934281c68d6624baff1b">danger to American troops.</a>And if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent broadening of targeted strikes on adversaries around the region to include Iranian security operatives and leaders deepens regional hostilities, analysts say, it's not clear the United States can avoid being pulled into deeper regional conflict as well.The Biden administration insists it had no advance knowledge of the airstrike Monday. But the United States is closely tied to Israel's military regardless. The U.S. remains Israel’s indispensable ally and unstinting supplier of weapons, responsible for some 70% of Israeli weapon imports and an estimated 15% of Israel's defense budget. That includes providing the kind of advanced aircraft and munitions that appear to have been employed in the attack.Israel hasn’t acknowledged a role in the airstrike, but Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Tuesday that the U.S. has assessed Israel was responsible.Multiple arms of Iran's government served notice that they would hold the United States accountable for the fiery attack. The strike, in the Syrian capital of Damascus, killed senior commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for Syria and Lebanon, an officer of the powerful Iran-allied Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, and others.American forces in Syria and Iraq already are frequent targets when Iran and its regional allies seek retaliation for strikes by Israelis, notes Charles Lister, the Syria program director for the Middle East Institute.“What the Iranians have always done for years when they have felt most aggressively targeted by Israel is not to hit back at Israelis, but Americans,” seeing them as soft targets in the region, Lister said.On Wednesday in Washington, the top U.S. Air Force commander for the Middle East, Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, said Iran’s assertion that the U.S. bears responsibility for Israeli actions could bring an end to a pause in militia attacks on U.S. forces that has lasted since early February.He said he sees no specific threat to U.S. troops right now, but “I am concerned because of the Iranian rhetoric talking about the U.S., that there could be a risk to our forces."U.S. officials have recorded more than 150 attacks by Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on U.S. forces at bases in those countries since war between Hamas and Israel began on Oct. 7.One, in late January, killed three U.S. service members and injured dozens more at a base in Jordan.In retaliation, the U.S. launched a massive air assault, hitting more than 85 targets at seven locations in Iraq and Syria, including command and control headquarters, drone and ammunition storage sites and other facilities connected to the militias or the IRGC’s Quds Force, the Guard’s expeditionary unit that handles Tehran’s relationship with and arming of regional militias. There have been no publicly reported attacks on U.S. troops in the region since that response.Grynkewich told reporters the U.S. is watching and listening carefully to what Iran is saying and doing to evaluate how Tehran might respond.Analysts and diplomats cite a range of ways Iran could retaliate.Since Oct. 7, Iran and the regional militias allied to it in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen have followed a strategy of calibrated attacks that stop short of triggering an all-out conflict that could subject Iran’s homeland forces or Hezbollah to full-blown war with Israel or the United States.Beyond strikes on U.S. troops, possibilities for Iranian retaliation could include a limited missile strike directly from Iranian soil to Israel, Lister said. That would reciprocate for Israel's strike on what under international law was sovereign Iranian soil, at the Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus.A concentrated attack on a U.S. position abroad on the scale of the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-marines-bombing-beirut-1983-hezbollah-israel-hamas-iran-34f61ac47909c52de800dd35b375e782">1983 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut</a>&nbsp;is possible, but seems unlikely given the scale of U.S. retaliation that would draw, analysts say. Iran also could escalate&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-sanctions-treasury-terrorism-bolton-soleimani-rushdie-a3b96b9008b0f4d64c8279717d1f4dea">an existing effort to kill Trump-era officials</a>&nbsp;behind the United States' 2020 drone killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.How far any other retaliation and potential escalation goes may depend on two things out of U.S. control: Whether Iran wants to keep regional hostilities at their current level or escalate, and whether Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's far-right government does.Sina Toossi, a fellow at the Center for International Policy, said analysts in Iran are among those trying to read Netanyahu's mind since the attack, struggling to choose between two competing narratives for Israel's objective.“One perceives Israel’s actions as a deliberate provocation of war that Iran should respond to with restraint,” Toossi wrote in the U.S.-based think tank's journal. “The other suggests that Israel is capitalizing on Iran’s typically restrained responses,” and that failing to respond in kind will only embolden Israel.Ultimately, Iran’s sense that it is already winning its strategic goals as the Hamas-Israel war continues — elevating the Palestinian cause and costing Israel friends globally — may go the furthest in persuading Iranian leaders not to risk open warfare with Israel or U.S. in whatever response they make to Monday’s airstrike, some analysts and diplomats say.Shira Efron, a director of policy research at the U.S.-based Israel Policy Forum, rejected suggestions that Netanyahu was actively trying with attacks like the one in Damascus to draw the U.S. into a potentially decisive conflict alongside Israel against their common rivals, at least for now.“First, the risk of escalation has increased. No doubt,” Efron said.“I don't think Netanyahu is interested in full-blown war though,” she said. “And whereas in the past Israel was thought to be interested in drawing the U.S. into a greater conflict, even if the desire still exists in some circles, it is not more than wishful thinking at the moment.”U.S. President Joe Biden is facing pressure from the other direction.So far he's resisting calls from growing numbers of Democratic lawmakers and voters to limit the flow of American arms to Israel as a way to press Netanyahu to ease Israeli military killing of civilians in Gaza and to heed other U.S. appeals.As criticism has grown of U.S. military support of Israel’s war in Gaza, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller has increasingly pointed to Israel’s longer-term need for weapons — to defend itself against Iran and Iranian-allied Hezbollah in Lebanon.The U.S. is ″always concerned about anything that would be escalatory,” Miller said after the attack in Damascus. “It has been one of the goals of this administration since October 7th to keep the conflict from spreading, recognizing that Israel has the right to defend itself from adversaries that are sworn to its destruction.''Israel for years has hit at Iranian proxies and their sites in the region, knocking back their ability to build strength and cause trouble for Israelis.Since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, one of a network of Iran-aligned militias in the region, that shattered Israel’s sense of security, Netanyahu’s government has increasingly added Iranian security operatives and leaders to target lists in the region, Lister notes.The U.S. military already has deepened engagement from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea since the Hamas-Israel war opened — deploying aircraft carriers to the region to discourage rear-guard attacks against Israel, opening airstrikes to quell attacks on shipping by Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen.It is also moving to build a pier off Gaza to try to get more aid to Palestinian civilians despite obstacles that include Israel’s restrictions and attacks on aid deliveries.

US braces for retaliation after attack on Iran consulate

Lincoln, April 3, 2024- Statement from Commission Chair Dan Watermeier on the surrendering of Grain Warehouse License GW-340.

“The PSC Grain Department has worked closely with Union Grain Company (GW-340),regarding its grain warehouse license,” said Commission Chair Dan Watermeier. “With Union Grain voluntarily surrendering its license, the Commission will now work directly with producers who have grain stored at the facility.”

The Order&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nebraska.gov/psc/orders/grain/2024-04-03%20GW-340%20Order%20Opening%20Docket,%20Closing%20Warehouse%20NO%20GW-340%20and%20Taking%20Title%20to%20all%20Grain.pdf" target="_blank">GW-340</a>&nbsp;speaks for itself.

Deb CollinsLincoln, April 3, 2024- Statement from Commission Chair Dan Watermeier on the surrendering of Grain Warehouse License GW-340.“The PSC Grain Department has worked closely with Union Grain Company (GW-340),regarding its grain warehouse license,” said Commission Chair Dan Watermeier. “With Union Grain voluntarily surrendering its license, the Commission will now work directly with producers who have grain stored at the facility.”The Order&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nebraska.gov/psc/orders/grain/2024-04-03%20GW-340%20Order%20Opening%20Docket,%20Closing%20Warehouse%20NO%20GW-340%20and%20Taking%20Title%20to%20all%20Grain.pdf" target="_blank">GW-340</a>&nbsp;speaks for itself.

PSC Statement on Surrender of Grain Warehouse License GW-340

KANSAS CITY (AP) —The largest producer of fresh eggs in the U.S. said Tuesday it had temporarily halted production at a Texas plant after&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/bird-flu">bird flu</a>&nbsp;was found in chickens, and officials said the virus had also been detected at a poultry facility in Michigan.

Ridgeland, Mississippi-based Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. said in a statement that approximately 1.6 million laying hens and 337,000 pullets, about 3.6% of its total flock, were destroyed after the infection, avian influenza, was found at a facility in Parmer County, Texas.

The plant is on the Texas-New Mexico border in the Texas Panhandle about 85 miles (137 kilometers) southwest of Amarillo and about 370 miles (595 kilometers) northwest of Dallas. Cal-Maine said it sells most of its eggs in the Southwestern, Southeastern, Midwestern and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.

“The Company continues to work closely with federal, state and local government officials and focused industry groups to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks and effectively manage the response,” the statement said.

"Cal-Maine Foods is working to secure production from other facilities to minimize disruption to its customers," the statement said.

The company said there is no known bird flu risk associated with eggs that are currently in the market and no eggs have been recalled.

Eggs that are properly handled and cooked are safe to eat,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/avian-influenza-food-safety-qa.pdf">according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.</a>

The announcement by Cal-Maine comes a day after&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/355f1e288e72df8b81b0e2efd8b3ae2f">state health officials said</a>&nbsp;a person had been diagnosed with bird flu after being in contact with cows presumed to be infected, and that the risk to the public remains low. The human case in Texas marks the first known instance globally of a person catching this version of bird flu from a mammal, federal health officials said.

In Michigan, Michigan State University’s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory has detected bird flu in a commercial poultry facility in Ionia County, according to the Michigan’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The county is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) northwest of Detroit.

The department said it received confirmation of the disease Monday from the lab and that it is the fourth time since 2022 that the disease was detected at a commercial facility in Michigan.

Department spokesperson Jennifer Holton said Tuesday that state law prohibits the department from disclosing the type of poultry at the facility. The facility has been placed under quarantine and the department does not anticipate any disruptions to supply chains across the state, Holton said.

Dairy cows in Texas and Kansas&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/bird-flu-dairy-cattle-usda-kansas-texas-c3040bb31a9a8293717d47362f006902">were reported</a>&nbsp;to be infected with bird flu last week — and federal agriculture officials later confirmed infections in a Michigan dairy herd that had recently received cows from Texas. A dairy herd in Idaho has been added to the list after federal agriculture officials confirmed the detection of bird flu in them, according to a Tuesday press release from the USDA.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/2/1707323317575.jpeg" alt="Photo Mo.gov" />
 <figcaption>Photo Mo.gov</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY (AP) —The largest producer of fresh eggs in the U.S. said Tuesday it had temporarily halted production at a Texas plant after&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/bird-flu">bird flu</a>&nbsp;was found in chickens, and officials said the virus had also been detected at a poultry facility in Michigan.Ridgeland, Mississippi-based Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. said in a statement that approximately 1.6 million laying hens and 337,000 pullets, about 3.6% of its total flock, were destroyed after the infection, avian influenza, was found at a facility in Parmer County, Texas.The plant is on the Texas-New Mexico border in the Texas Panhandle about 85 miles (137 kilometers) southwest of Amarillo and about 370 miles (595 kilometers) northwest of Dallas. Cal-Maine said it sells most of its eggs in the Southwestern, Southeastern, Midwestern and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.“The Company continues to work closely with federal, state and local government officials and focused industry groups to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks and effectively manage the response,” the statement said."Cal-Maine Foods is working to secure production from other facilities to minimize disruption to its customers," the statement said.The company said there is no known bird flu risk associated with eggs that are currently in the market and no eggs have been recalled.Eggs that are properly handled and cooked are safe to eat,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/avian-influenza-food-safety-qa.pdf">according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.</a>The announcement by Cal-Maine comes a day after&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/355f1e288e72df8b81b0e2efd8b3ae2f">state health officials said</a>&nbsp;a person had been diagnosed with bird flu after being in contact with cows presumed to be infected, and that the risk to the public remains low. The human case in Texas marks the first known instance globally of a person catching this version of bird flu from a mammal, federal health officials said.In Michigan, Michigan State University’s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory has detected bird flu in a commercial poultry facility in Ionia County, according to the Michigan’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.The county is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) northwest of Detroit.The department said it received confirmation of the disease Monday from the lab and that it is the fourth time since 2022 that the disease was detected at a commercial facility in Michigan.Department spokesperson Jennifer Holton said Tuesday that state law prohibits the department from disclosing the type of poultry at the facility. The facility has been placed under quarantine and the department does not anticipate any disruptions to supply chains across the state, Holton said.Dairy cows in Texas and Kansas&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/bird-flu-dairy-cattle-usda-kansas-texas-c3040bb31a9a8293717d47362f006902">were reported</a>&nbsp;to be infected with bird flu last week — and federal agriculture officials later confirmed infections in a Michigan dairy herd that had recently received cows from Texas. A dairy herd in Idaho has been added to the list after federal agriculture officials confirmed the detection of bird flu in them, according to a Tuesday press release from the USDA.

Largest fresh egg producer in the US has found bird flu in chickens

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — With no votes to spare, Nebraska lawmakers advanced a bill that would raise the state’s sales tax by 1 cent to 6.5% on every taxable dollar spent — which would make it among the highest in the country.

The bill is key to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nebraska-governor-state-address-fccfa23e3b12fe8a508484e369a2e9c4">Republican Gov. Jim Pillen’s plan</a>&nbsp;to slash soaring property taxes, which reached a high of $5.3 billion in 2023 as housing prices have soared in recent years. Because local assessors are required to assess residential property at around 100% of market value, some people — particularly the elderly who are on fixed incomes — are being priced out homes they’ve owned for years because they can’t afford the tax bill, Pillen and others have said.

The bill garnered the 33 votes needed Tuesday to end a filibuster and advance to the second of three rounds of debate in Nebraska’s unique one-chamber legislature. In addition to raising the state's current 5.5% sales tax and expanding it to include more services — such as digital advertising costs — it would add new taxes to candy and soda pop and would tax hemp and CBD products at 100%.

California currently has the highest state sales tax in the nation, at 7.25%. If the Nebraska bill passes as is, it would match the 6.5% state sales taxes of Arkansas, Kansas and Washington, which all currently tie for 9th highest in the nation.

Because most cities and counties in Nebraska have an additional local sales tax from 1/2-cent to 2 cents on the dollar, the legislation advanced Tuesday would take the total sales tax in some Nebraska cities to 8.5%.

But the bill would also cut sales tax currently added to utility bills — a proposal made to address complaints that a sales tax increase would disproportionately affect lower income people.

Supporters of the bill pushed back on that argument, noting that grocery food items would still be exempt from sales tax in Nebraska. The bill is aimed at higher income residents with more disposable income, not those living in poverty, said Omaha Sen. Lou Ann Linehan.

For those struggling to get by, “are you spending a lot of money on handbags?” Linehan asked. “Are you spending $200 on new shoes? This bill affects people who have money to spend on those things.”

Linehan has struggled to find enough votes to advance the bill, and paused debate on it last week in an effort to scrounge up more support. It appeared to be headed for failure Tuesday after initially getting only 32 votes — one short — to end debate. It got the 33rd vote from Republican Sen. Steve Erdman, one of the bill’s biggest critics, who switched from not voting to a yes vote in the last second. Erdman supports a sales tax structure that taxes virtually all purchases while eliminating property, income and corporate tax.

Critics of the measure included an unusual mix of both left-leaning opponents, who say a sales tax inherently puts more burden on lower income populations, and conservative ones who oppose any increase in taxes.

State Sen. Jane Raybould — a Democrat in the officially nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature — said that while food may not be subject to sales tax, other necessities like toiletries and cleaning products and more expensive needs like kitchen appliances and vehicles will hurt lower income Nebraska residents. Others also objected to the 100% sales tax on CBD and hemp products, which would drive many businesses that sell them out of business, Omaha state Sen. Jen Day said.

“Fair taxation is always an effort to balance with raising revenue,” she said.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — With no votes to spare, Nebraska lawmakers advanced a bill that would raise the state’s sales tax by 1 cent to 6.5% on every taxable dollar spent — which would make it among the highest in the country.The bill is key to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nebraska-governor-state-address-fccfa23e3b12fe8a508484e369a2e9c4">Republican Gov. Jim Pillen’s plan</a>&nbsp;to slash soaring property taxes, which reached a high of $5.3 billion in 2023 as housing prices have soared in recent years. Because local assessors are required to assess residential property at around 100% of market value, some people — particularly the elderly who are on fixed incomes — are being priced out homes they’ve owned for years because they can’t afford the tax bill, Pillen and others have said.The bill garnered the 33 votes needed Tuesday to end a filibuster and advance to the second of three rounds of debate in Nebraska’s unique one-chamber legislature. In addition to raising the state's current 5.5% sales tax and expanding it to include more services — such as digital advertising costs — it would add new taxes to candy and soda pop and would tax hemp and CBD products at 100%.California currently has the highest state sales tax in the nation, at 7.25%. If the Nebraska bill passes as is, it would match the 6.5% state sales taxes of Arkansas, Kansas and Washington, which all currently tie for 9th highest in the nation.Because most cities and counties in Nebraska have an additional local sales tax from 1/2-cent to 2 cents on the dollar, the legislation advanced Tuesday would take the total sales tax in some Nebraska cities to 8.5%.But the bill would also cut sales tax currently added to utility bills — a proposal made to address complaints that a sales tax increase would disproportionately affect lower income people.Supporters of the bill pushed back on that argument, noting that grocery food items would still be exempt from sales tax in Nebraska. The bill is aimed at higher income residents with more disposable income, not those living in poverty, said Omaha Sen. Lou Ann Linehan.For those struggling to get by, “are you spending a lot of money on handbags?” Linehan asked. “Are you spending $200 on new shoes? This bill affects people who have money to spend on those things.”Linehan has struggled to find enough votes to advance the bill, and paused debate on it last week in an effort to scrounge up more support. It appeared to be headed for failure Tuesday after initially getting only 32 votes — one short — to end debate. It got the 33rd vote from Republican Sen. Steve Erdman, one of the bill’s biggest critics, who switched from not voting to a yes vote in the last second. Erdman supports a sales tax structure that taxes virtually all purchases while eliminating property, income and corporate tax.Critics of the measure included an unusual mix of both left-leaning opponents, who say a sales tax inherently puts more burden on lower income populations, and conservative ones who oppose any increase in taxes.State Sen. Jane Raybould — a Democrat in the officially nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature — said that while food may not be subject to sales tax, other necessities like toiletries and cleaning products and more expensive needs like kitchen appliances and vehicles will hurt lower income Nebraska residents. Others also objected to the 100% sales tax on CBD and hemp products, which would drive many businesses that sell them out of business, Omaha state Sen. Jen Day said.“Fair taxation is always an effort to balance with raising revenue,” she said.The bill is a tax shift, not a new investment in public education as supporters maintain, taxation watchdog group Open Sky Policy Institute said.“On average, the 5% of Nebraskans with incomes over $252,600 will pay less as a result of the changes, while for 8 in 10 Nebraskans, the sales tax increase will on average be greater than any property tax cut they may receive,” Open Sky said, citing a study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.The bill must survive two more rounds of debate by the end of the legislative session on April 18 in order to pass. Pillen has promised to call lawmakers back for a special session if property tax relief efforts fail to pass.Opponents across the political spectrum insist they support finding a way to reduce property taxes — but not with a sales tax increase. And some Republican lawmakers now find themselves at odds with the Republican governor over it.