Shortly after taking office last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth polled the nation’s top commanders about cutting a program designed to protect civilians during U.S. military operations.

Hegseth had bet senior officers would endorse his view that focusing on civilian security was “woke” and out of step with “maximum lethality,” current and former defense officials told ProPublica.

Instead, every commander rebuffed the idea.

LINCOLN — The ongoing Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office investigation into possibly fraudulent petition signatures has expanded to all four statewide citizen-led initiatives.

Chief Deputy Ben Houchin of the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office announced the expansion at a Wednesday morning briefing. The four proposed ballot measures seek to legalize and regulate online sports betting, restrict K-12 and collegiate school sports participation to students’ sex at birth and make it harder for lawmakers to change voter-initiated laws.

McCOOK — The sun was still rising as nearly 60 “mothers and others” boarded an Omaha bus and headed across the state to protest what goes on at the ICE detention facility in rural McCook.

Political action committees are responsible for nearly two-thirds of all federal election funding, with about US$6.3 billion raised and $4.8 billion spent since January 2025. But their outsized political influence does not just come from their wallets. It’s also generated from their names.

Political strategists are adopting PAC names that signal the opposite political goals from what those organizations truly intend. They hope to taint voter perception of the candidates or ballot initiatives to which they donate.

And, as our research shows, the strategy is working.