LINCOLN — Legislative committees this week narrowly advanced bills seeking to define group bathrooms in Nebraska schools and state buildings as male or female and fully outlaw gender care treatments for minors.

Neither bill appears to have the 33 votes to overcome vowed opposition during floor debate, including from one key swing senator who describes himself as a “compassionate conservative.”

State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha has chosen to prioritize her bathroom bill, Legislative Bill 730, but State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston reiterated his opposition Wednesday. 

LINCOLN — A top-ranking legislative committee formally reprimanded State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha for “unbecoming” and “selfish” behavior at the start of Nebraska’s 2026 legislative session.

The Legislature’s 10-member Executive Board unanimously issued a two-page letter against Cavanaugh for removing and later returning part of a Nebraska Capitol display on American history from conservative nonprofit PragerU on Jan. 7. Clerk of the Legislature Brandon Metzler on Thursday read the letter into the legislative record.

As Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents continued to use aggressive and sometimes violent methods to make arrests in its mass deportation campaign, including breaking down doors in Minneapolis homes, a bombshell report from the Associated Press on Jan. 21, 2026, said that an internal ICE memo – acquired via a whistleblower – asserted that immigration officers could enter a home without a judge’s warrant. That policy, the report said, constituted “a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches.”

In Minneapolis, two recent fatal encounters with federal immigration agents have produced not only grief and anger, but an unusually clear fight over what is real.

In the aftermath of Alex Pretti’s killing on Jan. 24, 2026, federal officials claimed the Border Patrol officers who fired weapons at least 10 times acted in self-defense.