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The day after Christmas, Weldin, of Minatare, Neb., had logged on to Facebook to find a message from a friend of hers. Included in the note was a link to an article from the Omaha World-Herald announcing that CoOportunity Health, a nonprofit health insurance company offering plans in Nebraska and Iowa, had been taken over by state regulators. The insurer, one of 23 Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, or co-ops, started with the backing of the federal government and received $145 million in loans from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But, CoOportunity’s expenses and medical claims would far...

CoOportunity’s many customers needed more medical care than expected, according to Nick Gerhart, Iowa’s insurance commissioner, and it had priced its plans too low. After taking control of the co-op in late December, Mr. Gerhart decided last month that it could not be saved and asked a court to liquidate it. The co-op, he said at the time, faced more than $150 million in liabilities. That left its customers scrambling for new coverage, and providers wondering if millions of dollars in outstanding claims would ever get paid.

A Houston-based company that makes piping and casing for oil and gas drilling has postponed plans to build a manufacturing plant in northeast Nebraska. Tejas Tubular Products President Maximo Tejeda told the Norfolk Daily News that he remains committed to building a mill next to Nucor Steel in Norfolk....

In what's being called a Christmas 'miracle' by Teri Robert's family, just hours before they planned to end her life on Dec. 22, the beloved wife, mother and grandmother opened her eyes. Roberts still faces an uphill battle after she lost four of her limbs from her illness. Teri Roberts' grieving family had already come to terms with her likely death, planning to turn off her ventilator, when they say a "miracle" happened. The 56-year-old wife, mother and grandmother, had been in a spiraling coma for 12 days when just four hours before her family planned to pull the plug,...

U.S. experienced record number of cases last year. A measles outbreak whose spread originated at Disneyland has grown to 95 cases. ... 79 of those in infections are in California and 52 of them can be linked directly to Disney Parks. The rest are in Michigan, Arizona, Utah, Washington, Colorado, Oregon, Nebraska and Mexico. ... The U.S. experienced a record number of measles cases last year, with 644 infections from 27 states despite being largely eliminated in 2000.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that both Nevada and Tennessee have joined the Lone Star state's challenge of President Obama's executive amnesty, bringing the total number of states fighting Obama's unilateral immigration policies to 26. “Texas is proud to lead a coalition that now includes a majority of the United States standing up against the President’s rogue actions,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. “The momentum against the President's lawlessness continues to build with Tennessee and Nevada joining the effort to protect our states from the economic and public safety implications of illegal amnesty. As President...

A peaceful prayer walk descended into shoving and shouting Sunday afternoon, as the weekend shooting deaths of three young people aroused anger, fear and suspicion among some of the participants. The trouble began, witnesses said, when a man said to be the father of victim Jakela Foster’s 1-year-old child began arguing with someone who he believed knew what happened early Saturday when Foster was killed. Community leaders at the prayer walk echoed Police Chief Todd Schmaderer in urging anyone with knowledge of the shootings to come forward and talk to police.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Gunfire erupted during a crowded party in a vacant house in Omaha early Saturday, leaving three people dead and five wounded, and most witnesses refusing to help investigators, according to police. As many as 50 people were in and around the small home when shots were fired "by multiple shooters" around 2 a.m., Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said. No arrests have been made, and police said they were confident the shootings were gang-related.

The fate of the oil that flows through the Keystone XL pipeline and the source of the steel used to make it are set to be decided this week in the U.S. Senate. The chamber is expected to vote on as many as three amendments to GOP-backed legislation to authorize the TransCanada Corp. pipeline on Tuesday, with more than four dozen other possibilities on the horizon. Few are without controversy, and many are meant to send a message or put senators in a difficult spot, casting votes on such issues as protectionism, oil spills and climate change. The first three...

BNSF Railway more than tripled the number of trains it moved through Nebraska with a million gallons of oil or more aboard late last year and has changed its route to bypass Lincoln, at least for some trains. Reports filed with the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency show that late last year BNSF expanded the number of oil trains it was required to report from three per week in July to a range of seven to 14 per week. Railroads must report trains that carry at least a million gallons of oil -- about 35 tank cars -- from the Bakken...

After failing probation, Charlie Rogers didn’t show up for her 90-day jail sentence Thursday. Rogers, 36, was sentenced to a week in jail and two years’ probation in April 2013 for faking an anti-gay hate crime that stunned Lincoln and captured the country’s attention the summer before. Rogers, a lesbian and former Nebraska basketball star, lied to police when she told them three men broke into her house on July 22, 2012, tied her up, carved anti-gay slurs into her skin and tried to light the house on fire.

Not since the multiplication of the loaves and fishes near the Sea of Galilee has there been creativity as miraculous as that of the Keystone XL pipeline. It has not yet been built but already is perhaps the most constructive infrastructure project since the Interstate Highway System. It has accomplished an astonishing trifecta: It has made mincemeat of Barack Obama’s pose of thoughtfulness. It has demonstrated that he lacks even a rudimentary understanding of the most basic economic realities. It has dramatized environmentalism’s descent into infantilism. Obama entered the presidency trailing clouds of intellectual self-regard. His carefully cultivated persona was...

Walking into a public health clinic for information about abortion isn't an easy choice to make. A group of Nebraska senators want to make sure anyone who does, has the facts they need to possibly reconsider. Senator Bill Kintner introduced a bill Monday that would require updated informed consent laws to be made public; both online and on the doors of any clinic that performs abortions. Those forms remind women that it's against the law for anyone to be pressured to have an abortion. So could this help bring down abortion rates? Kintner thinks so. "It might yes, it might....

The Senate will start debate on Monday on a bill to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline as Republicans, who have made the project their first priority of the year, try to line up enough votes to overcome a potential veto by President Barack Obama. Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, a co-sponsor of the bill to approve TransCanada Corp's pipeline, has about 63 supporters, including all 54 Republicans. That is four short of the 67 needed to overcome an Obama veto. The White House has said the president would reject the bill if it reaches his desk. Hoeven said...

Now that the U.S. economy is showing signs of life, President Obama is not wasting a moment to take credit for this recovery. “The steps we took nearly six years ago to rescue our economy and rebuild it on a new foundation helped make 2014 the strongest year for job growth since the 1990’s,” he said in a recent speech. For sure we can expect the president to continue this message in his upcoming State of the Union address, as he works to rebuild his credibility, thinking toward his final two years in office and his place in history. And...

For a symbolic issue, the Keystone pipeline has sure caused a lot of damage—to Canadian-American relations, to Democrats, to President Obama. And it feeds, underscores, or reflects a variety of political divisions, some of them quite bitter. I’ll get to Keystone’s victims shortly, but first the explanation of why the issue is purely symbolic. If the pipeline is built, it will carry oil from northern Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast. If it is not built, the crude oil will be transported either to Canada’s west coast or to New Brunswick, a maritime province in the east, where it...

President Barack Obama will veto the Keystone XL bill if Congress passes a measure green-lighting the oil pipeline, White House press secretary Josh Earnest announced on Tuesday. Newly minted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has scheduled a vote on the Keystone XL pipeline project as the first of the new Congress. The bill has some bipartisan support, but environmentalists and progressives have heavily lobbied the White House to oppose the pipeline.... Earnest added that the White House reviewed the text of the bill to authorize the pipeline on Monday....

Video at link. (CNSNews.com) – Jack Gerard, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, says President Barack Obama is “factually incorrect” to say that the Keystone XL Pipeline will not benefit Americans. At the press conference in Washington Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Gerard about Obama’s remarks in November about the pipeline, which, if approved, would transport crude oil from Canada and from two U.S. states to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Jack Gerard, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, held a press conference with reporters on Jan. 6, 2015 following his annual State of American Energy speech in Washington, D.C. (CNSNews.com/Penny...

President Obama said Tuesday he would veto any bill that tries to start construction on the Keystone XL pipeline before a federal review is finished — a process in its seventh year. You can argue whether Obama is being sincere in his desire to follow procedure, or just trying to run out the clock so he doesn't have to make a decision, but by any measure, six-plus years is a long time. Jason Russell tries to put this in perspective at the Washington Examiner by calculating what other things someone could do while Obama's reviews held up the pipeline. Among...

Democrats launched the first filibuster of the new Congress on Thursday, objecting to the GOP’s effort to try to bring the Keystone XL pipeline bill to the floor early next week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to schedule action early next week on the bill, and promised an open process, including allowing both sides to offer amendments to the bill — an attempt to break with the previous few years, when Democrats controlled the floor and kept a tight lid on amendments. But Democrats objected to Mr. McConnell’s request, forcing him to begin the procedure for breaking a filibuster.