LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska has filed a lawsuit to block the state’s planned switch to a new health insurance company because of improper lobbying on United Healthcare’s behalf.

Blue Cross says the chairman of the Nebraska Republican Party violated state rules by lobbying on behalf of United Healthcare.

Nebraska officials have said switching health insurance companies will save taxpayers and state employees a combined $8 million annually, so the state plans to change to United Healthcare on July 1.

Blue Cross officials have argued that the change will actually cost an additional $10 million per year because of limits in the United Healthcare network.

Blue Cross Blue Shield has administered Nebraska’s health insurance plan for nearly 30 years.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Gov. Dave Heineman has used a line-item veto to strike $2.5 million in child welfare payments from a larger state claims bill.

Heineman confirmed his decision in a letter to the Legislature on Monday. The Republican governor argued that the payments would amount to unconstitutional special legislation, and said the bill would make taxpayers responsible for the debts of a private organization.

Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop, chairman of the Legislature’s Business and Labor Committee, says he will file a motion to override the veto. Lathrop says the cases Heineman cited don’t apply to the current claims bill.

The payments were proposed to reimburse subcontractors that worked for the Boys and Girls Home, a private child welfare service provider that had a contract with the state. Lawmakers passed the bill, 42-4.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The developer of the Keystone XL pipeline has identified a new corridor through Nebraska that avoids the environmentally sensitive Sandhills, but a spokesman says the company won’t yet release its proposal.

TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard says the Canadian pipeline company has identified a rough corridor, but not a specific route, through which the pipeline could run.

Howard says the proposal will be revealed during public hearings set by the Department of Environmental Quality, if a state review is allowed to proceed. Lawmakers have given first-round approval to a bill that would let the state restart its review, after President Barack Obama denied a federal permit in the face of a congressional deadline, halting the process.

Pipeline opponents say TransCanada is trying to secure landowner support before the corridor is unveiled.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A bill that would allow Nebraska to resume its environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline has won first-round approval from state lawmakers.

Lawmakers voted 35-2 Thursday to advance the measure by Papillion Sen. Jim Smith.

Pipeline developer TransCanada agreed to submit to a state environmental review in November, in the midst of a special session aimed at the Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline. Environmentalists and landowners had protested the pipeline’s original path through Nebraska’s environmentally sensitive Sandhills region and the Ogallala Aquifer, a massive groundwater supply.

The state environmental review was halted in January, when President Barack Obama rejected a federal permit for the project after congressional Republicans tried to force his hand.

Nebraska lawmakers approved the bill so the state can continue its review while TransCanada reapplies for federal approval.

VALENTINE, Neb. (AP) — A wildfire caused by lightning has burned a portion of the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge.

Refuge Fire Management Officer Troy Davis says the fire was confined to an area just west of Highway 83 between Thedford and Valentine on the refuge.

The National Weather Service says lightning started the fire. Winds of up to 63 miles per hour in the area spread the flames.

Several area fire departments were called to the scene along with local ranchers who came to help.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska lawmakers are wrangling over a measure that would require voters to show a government-issued identification card or registration papers before they could vote.

Fremont Sen. Charlie Janssen told lawmakers Tuesday that his bill seeks to fight the threat of voter fraud, a problem that critics say doesn’t exist.

Janssen says his proposal would reduce fraud and is not restrictive, because registered voters without IDs would still be allowed to vote provisionally. Counties would then verify their identities for their ballots to count.

Critics say the law disproportionately affects poor and young voters. The group Nebraskans for Civic Reform says between 50,000 and 100,000 Nebraskans do not have identification that would qualify as valid.

UPDATE: Lawmakers voted on the measure Wednesday. Lawmakers who backed the measure fell three votes short Wednesday of the support they needed to overcome a legislative filibuster. The failure to end debate essentially squashes the bill for this legislative session. The bill’s sponsor, Fremont Sen. Charlie Janssen, says he will likely bring it back next year.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has rejected the state Republican Party’s attempt to keep Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Bob Kerrey off the ballot.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the GOP challenge of Kerrey’s residency in Nebraska was filed too late because the May primary ballot was certified last Thursday.

The high court’s decision clears the way for Kerrey to run for the senate seat he held for two terms after serving as Nebraska’s governor. He recently moved back to Nebraska from New York where he’d lived since 2001.

Kerrey’s campaign manager Paul Johnson says Republica
ns should accept they’ll have to compete with Kerrey.

GOP Chairman Mark Fahleson says he’s disappointed Kerrey will appear on the ballot because of a legal technicality. But he says another appeal is unlikely.

 

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A $413,000 grant will help Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas evaluate different options for managing the Republican River.

The money may help the three states resolve their long fight over the Republican River’s water. This is one of only five grants the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plans to fund in 2012.

The Republican River starts in eastern Colorado, flows into Kansas and up to Nebraska and returns to Kansas in Republic County. A 1943 river compact says 49 percent of the river’s water is allocated to Nebraska, 40 percent to Kansas and 11 percent to Colorado.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – A 22-year-old Lincoln man has been sentenced to 180 days in jail for choking a woman who wouldn’t turn down the volume on her iPod.

Phillip May had pleaded guilty to assault. May was sentenced on Wednesday.

Police and medical personnel were sent to an apartment early on Dec. 15 because a 19-year-old woman had a breathing problem. Court records say May told officers he had pressed down on the woman’s throat. May said he was upset because the woman wouldn’t lower the music volume despite his three requests. She was his roommate’s girlfriend.

SIDNEY, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska Panhandle man who is accused of killing his girlfriend has been found incompetent to stand trial.

 

Cheyenne County Attorney Paul Schaub says Judge Derek Weimer made the ruling on Thursday. The judge had reviewed a report from the state psychiatric hospital in Lincoln.

In January not-guilty pleas were entered for 46-year-old Craig Johnson to charges of second-degree murder and use of a weapon to commit a felony.

Johnson is accused of killing 42-year-old April Smith in December at the home they shared eight miles west of Sidney.

Schaub says the judge determined there’s a “substantial probability” Johnson may be competent in the foreseeable future and ordered Johnson back to Lincoln for treatment. A review hearing is scheduled for Aug. 12.