LINCOLN — Nebraska voters in November elected a record number of women to the Legislature, sending new faces to join the 14 women already serving and setting a new high of 18.

Women in 2023 will hold more than a third of Nebraska’s 49 seats for the first time — at 37% — with nine Republicans and nine Democrats serving in the officially nonpartisan body.

To hear some tell it, a Supreme Court case set for argument on Dec. 7 could spell the end of democracy in the United States. If the Republicans who brought the case, Moore v. Harper, prevail, state legislatures will effectively be free to override the votes of their citizens in presidential elections, the doomsayers predict. That might allow a future presidential candidate to undo an election, much as Donald Trump attempted, but failed, to do in 2020.

The prospect of a potentially devastating rail workers strike is looming again.

Fears of a strike in September 2022 prompted the Biden administration to pull out all the stops to get a deal between railroads and the largest unions representing their employees.

LINCOLN — Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird announced her re-election bid Monday by embracing her record, including the city’s responses to COVID-19 that she knows her opponents will criticize.

Nebraska’s highest-profile Democrat said in an interview that she is proud of how Lincoln and Lancaster County kept mortality rates among the lowest in Nebraska and nationally, which health statistics show.