PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — The Latest on developments with the Keystone XL oil pipeline (all times local):
5:25 p.m.

An attorney for an organization opposing the Keystone XL oil pipeline says the “fight is not over” after the South Dakota Supreme Court dismissed a legal appeal from project foes.

Robin Martinez, an attorney for conservation and family agriculture group Dakota Rural Action, said Thursday the high court’s decision is “disappointing.” But Martinez says the organization is regrouping and evaluating its options.

A TransCanada Corp. spokesman says the pipeline developer is pleased with the ruling, which found the courts lacked jurisdiction to hear pipeline foes’ cases and dismissed their appeal.

The Cheyenne River Sioux and Yankton Sioux tribes and Dakota Rural Action appealed to the high court after a judge affirmed state regulators’ approval for the pipeline.

It would move crude oil from Canada across Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines feeding refineries along the Gulf Coast.
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1:55 p.m.
A TransCanada Corp. spokesman says the Keystone XL oil pipeline developer is pleased with the South Dakota Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss a legal appeal from opponents fighting the project.

The high court ruled Wednesday that a lower court lacked jurisdiction to hear pipeline foes’ cases and ended their appeal.

The project would move crude oil from Canada across Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines feeding refineries along the Gulf Coast.

TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said Thursday the company is working to get needed land easements for the pipeline in Nebraska.

But Nebraska landowners have filed a lawsuit challenging the Nebraska Public Service Commission’s decision to approve a route through the state.

A separate federal lawsuit brought by Montana landowners and environmental groups seeks to overturn President Donald Trump’s decision to grant a presidential permit for the project.
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10:08 a.m.
South Dakota’s Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal from opponents of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, saying a lower court lacked jurisdiction to hear their cases.

Groups fighting TransCanada Corp.’s pipeline appealed a judge’s decision last year upholding regulators’ approval for the pipeline to cross the state.

But the high court ruled Wednesday that justices didn’t “reach the merits of the case” because the lower court lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal of the Public Utilities Commission’s decision.

Attorneys for appealing groups haven’t returned telephone messages requesting comment. TransCanada hasn’t responded to an email seeking comment.
The project would move crude oil from Canada across Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines feeding refineries along the Gulf Coast.

RUSHVILLE, Neb. (AP) — Officials say a western Nebraska sheriff’s deputy has been arrested after being accused of physically abusing a child.

The Nebraska State Patrol says in a news release Wednesday that Sheridan County Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Henry has been arrested on suspicion of child abuse and strangulation, stemming from an incident that happened Tuesday. The patrol did not give details on the incident.

Officials say the child was taken to an area hospital and appears to be in good health.

Henry was booked into the Dawes County Jail in Chadron.

A message left Wednesday for Sheridan County Sheriff Terry Robbins seeking comment on Henry’s employment status was not immediately returned.

The North Platte 911 Center is now equipped to receive text messages.  However, calling 911 is the most efficient way to reach emergency help.

Text-to-911 could be helpful if you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability.  It could also be beneficial in those rare situations where making a voice call to 911 might otherwise be dangerous or impossible.

Voice calls allow the 911 operator to more quickly ask questions and obtain information from the caller, while two-way communication by text can take more time and is subject to limits on the length of text messages.  When you make a voice call to 911, the call taker will typically receive your phone number and the approximate location of your phone automatically.  This is not the case with text-to-911.

Testing has shown that location information is very unreliable.  If you text the 911 Center, you will need to provide an accurate location to the call taker.  In general, you must have a text-capable wireless phone and a wireless service subscription or contract with a wireless phone company to use the service.  You can make a voice call to 911 using a wireless phone that does not have a service plan, but you cannot send a text message to 911 without a service contract that includes texting.

Not all cellphone providers support text-to-911 and it is not available in some 911 centers in our region.  If you attempt to text 911 and it’s not supported, you will receive a message advising you that you must make a voice call to 911.

Officials say if you are able to safely make a voice call, that is always the preferred method for contacting emergency personnel.

CRAWFORD, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a man was injured when his all-terrain vehicle flipped over atop him when it was rammed by a bull in northwest Nebraska.

The incident occurred a little before 9:30 a.m. Monday in a pasture near Crawford. The Dawes County Sheriff’s Office says the bull struck the ATV from behind.

The driver was identified as 56-year-old Barry Stewart. He was reported in good condition after being taken to a Scottsbluff hospital.

BROKEN BOW, Neb. (AP) — A woman who worked 33 years for Custer County is accused of stealing more than $1,500 worth of property from the Sheriff’s Office.

Custer County District Court records say 58-year-old Kelli Estergard, of Callaway, is charged with felony theft and tampering with evidence. Authorities say the theft occurred between July 23, 2015, and Jan. 30 this year. The records say the evidence was tampered with on Jan. 30.

Estergard is scheduled to be arraigned June 21. Her attorney didn’t immediately return a call Tuesday from The Associated Press.

SHELTON, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska State Patrol says troopers have seized more than 500 pounds of marijuana following a traffic stop on Interstate 80.

The patrol says a trooper stopped a refrigerated semitrailer around 12:30 p.m. Monday near Shelton on suspicion of driving on the shoulder. Shelton is about 100 miles west of Lincoln.

The patrol says a search of the trailer turned up 18 boxes containing several hundred heat-sealed bags of marijuana. In all, the marijuana weighed 530 pounds. The patrol says its estimated street value is $1.6 million.

The driver, a 51-year-old man from Homestead, Florida, was arrested on suspicion of possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. He was being held in the Buffalo County Jail.

By GRANT SCHULTE, Associated Press

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Organizers of a petition drive to expand Medicaid in Nebraska say they are making progress toward placing the issue on the November general election ballot, thanks in part to a national group that successfully championed a similar effort in Maine last year.

The Insure the Good Life campaign has already passed the minimum signature threshold in Nebraska’s two largest counties — Douglas and Lancaster — and is sending volunteers to collect signatures in more rural areas, said campaign manager Meg Mandy.
Organizers need about 85,000 signatures by July 5 to qualify. They must also gather signatures from at least 5 percent of the registered voters in 38 of Nebraska’s 93 counties.

“We’re on the right track to meeting the qualifications,” Mandy said. “We’re very confident.”

Organizers have also raised more than $912,000 in cash and in-kind contributions since the committee was formed, according to the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.

More than 93 percent of the donations have come from the Fairness Project, a Washington-based group formed by labor unions to push for minimum wage ballot measures. The group has since branched out to promote “economic fairness” ballot measures, including Medicaid expansion.

Other major donors include Nebraska Appleseed, a public-interest law firm that has lobbied for expanding Medicaid, and the Nebraska State Education Association, a union representing public school teachers.

The Fairness Project played a pivotal role in the 2017 vote to expand Medicaid in Maine, the only state to do so through a ballot measure. In addition to the Nebraska campaign, the group is working this year on Medicaid expansion ballot measures in Idaho, Montana and Utah.

Jonathan Schleifer, the Fairness Project’s executive director, said the latest ballot measures could help demonstrate the public’s support for Medicaid expansion even in conservative states.

“There’s nothing liberal or conservative about wanting our most vulnerable populations to have health care,” he said. “It’s a fundamental value.”

Nebraska lawmakers have rejected six previous attempts to expand Medicaid under former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act. Gov. Pete Ricketts and former Gov. Dave Heineman opposed the efforts, arguing it would create long-term budget problems.

The Nebraska measure would require state officials to submit a coverage plan to the federal government to ensure certain residents who make less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level — about $16,750 a year. The federal government would then have to approve the plan.

It also would prevent state officials from placing “additional burdens or restrictions” on residents who qualify. Some Republican-led states have sought to impose work and other requirements on able-bodied adult recipients as part of their proposals. Critics have said Medicaid isn’t a jobs program.

Expanding Medicaid would provide coverage to an estimated 90,000 low-income adults between the ages of 19 and 64 who have no dependents. Many residents who fall into the so-called coverage gap work in service jobs with no benefits, such as hotel, fast-food and construction workers.

Roughly 11 million people nationally have gotten coverage through the expansion of Medicaid. The health care law appeared to be in jeopardy last year, but President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have repeatedly failed to repeal it.

Mandy said Insure the Good Life is relying on a combination of volunteer and paid circulators provided through Fieldworks, a Washington-based group that ran the successful signature-gathering campaign to raise Nebraska’s minimum wage in 2014. Insure the Good Life still had more than $327,000 in cash-on-hand as of last month, according to accountability and disclosure filings.

A leading opponent of expanding Medicaid said he hopes to defeat the measure if it goes before Nebraska voters, but his group doesn’t yet have plans in place. It’s not clear if the group will raise enough money to campaign effectively.

“If it does make the ballot, we’ll fight it tooth and nail,” said Doug Kagan, president of Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom.

Kagan said he recently encountered petition circulators in Omaha who pitched the measure as a way to “expand insurance choices in Nebraska” while avoiding the phrase “Medicaid expansion,” a term associated with the health care law. He noted that most of Insure the Good Life’s funding has come from out-of-state sources.

“We think they’re being very disingenuous,” he said.

Schleifer defended his group’s contributions to the campaign, saying they would help give the public a chance to voice its opinion and reduce partisan influence.

“This campaign is being led by in-state Nebraskans, and most fundamentally, the voters — the deciders of this — are going to be Nebraskans,” he said. The ballot measure “allows us to separate the issue of health care from all the partisanship. Frankly, health care shouldn’t be political.”
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Follow Grant Schulte on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GrantSchulte

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A lawmaker is asking the Nebraska Supreme Court not to grant an execution warrant for the state’s longest-serving death-row inmate.

Sen. Ernie Chambers contends the Nebraska attorney general’s request isn’t legally valid because it was filed while inmate Carey Dean Moore had a pending application for clemency. Chambers, of Omaha, made the argument in a letter delivered Monday to Chief Justice Michael Heavican.

Chambers says the attorney general’s motion for an execution warrant was made on April 3, when Moore’s application was pending before the Nebraska Board of Pardons. He says the clemency motion triggers a statutory stay of execution that should have been disclosed.

The pardons board voted 3-0 on April 17 to reject Moore’s request for a commutation hearing. Moore was convicted of killing two Omaha cab drivers in 1979.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A 99-year-old World War II veteran who skipped the chance to meet some of the nation’s last Civil War veterans is visiting Nebraska as part of a 50-state tour to make up for his lingering regret.

Sidney Walton, of San Diego, chatted with Gov. Pete Ricketts at the Nebraska Capitol on Monday as part of a tour to ensure that people have a chance to meet a World War II veteran.

Walton was born in New York City in 1919 and served in the U.S. Army in Asia during the war. He says his one regret in life is passing on the chance to meet Civil War veterans in Manhattan’s Central Park the year before he enlisted in 1941.

Nebraska is home to approximately 3,900 World War II veterans.

BENKELMAN, Neb. (AP) — Work is scheduled to begin June 18 on U.S. Highway 34, south of Benkelman in southwest Nebraska.

The Nebraska Transportation Department says the project includes milling and an asphalt overlay.

The work will begin at the Nebraska Highway 61 junction and continue west for 11 miles (18 kilometers).

Traffic will be maintained by lane closures, flaggers and pilot vehicles.