Increase suggests youth shifting to substitutes for banned cartridges&nbsp;

The Federal Trade Commission’s <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/E-Cigarette%20Report%202019-20%20final.pdf">second report on e-cigarette sales and advertising nationwide</a>&nbsp;shows
 sales of flavored disposable e-cigarettes and menthol e-cigarette 
cartridges surging dramatically in 2020. This significant increase, 
which coincides with a federal ban on the flavored cartridges popular 
with young smokers, suggests that youth e-cigarette use shifted to 
substitute products rather than declined. The report also found that the
 distribution of free and discounted e-cigarettes – a practice linked to
 a rise in youth smoking – reached record highs.

“This report shows that youth are still at 
risk from flavored or deeply discounted e-cigarettes,” said Samuel 
Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.&nbsp;“Marketers 
of e-cigarettes have proven skillful at evading FDA regulation and 
hooking youth on addictive products.” 

The FTC has been reporting on tobacco
 sales annually since 1967 and smokeless tobacco sales since 1987. Last 
year, the agency expanded its studies of industry and published its 
first-ever report on e-cigarettes. E-cigarettes or vaping devices are 
battery-operated devices that people use to inhale an aerosol, which 
typically contains nicotine, flavorings, and other chemicals.&nbsp;The two 
main types of e-cigarettes are cartridges and disposables. Cartridges 
are rechargeable and designed to be used multiple times. Users generally
 replace the pre-filled cartridge when it is empty. Disposables are not 
rechargeable or refillable, and are thrown away once they run out of 
charge or e-liquid. 

This year’s e-cigarette report covers
 sales and advertising data from 2019 and 2020, a period in which the 
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published an enforcement 
policy banning the sale of flavored e-cigarette cartridges other than 
menthol. Overall, the report found that total e-cigarette sales, which 
had increased from $304.2 million in 2015 to $2.046 billion in 2018, 
grew to $2.703 billion in 2019, but then declined to $2.24 billion in 
2020. The FTC report notes that the 2020 decline may not represent the 
market given major industry shifts. Key findings in the report include:

The FTC’s report provides an 
important market snapshot of the impact of the FDA’s efforts to restrict
 harmful youth e-cigarette use and a roadmap for additional steps the 
FDA can take to combat youth addiction to nicotine. There is significant
 evidence that flavored e-cigarettes remain attractive for youth, 
increasing the serious potential for more American youth to become 
addicted to nicotine and its harmful effects on the human body. This 
report shows that partial bans on certain types of flavors for certain 
types of e-cigarettes are unlikely to be successful in achieving a 
reduction in youth addiction to nicotine via e-cigarette usage. 

The FTC also is concerned about price
 discounting practices for e-cigarettes. Studies indicate that consumers
 clearly respond to price changes for tobacco products – with younger 
smokers responding more strongly than their older counterparts. Such 
studies led the U.S. Surgeon General to conclude that price discounting 
has resulted in an increase in youth tobacco use. The FTC considers 
similar discounting in the price of e-cigarettes also concerning. FDA 
efforts to restrict free e-cigarette samples seem to have engendered an 
effort by e-cigarette manufacturers to circumvent the ban by offering 
record-high discounting and nearly free e-cigarette products.&nbsp; 

The Commission vote approving the FTC’s E-Cigarette Report and related data tables for 2019-20 was 5-0.

<h2>Increase suggests youth shifting to substitutes for banned cartridges&nbsp;</h2>FTCThe Federal Trade Commission’s <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/E-Cigarette%20Report%202019-20%20final.pdf">second report on e-cigarette sales and advertising nationwide</a>&nbsp;shows
 sales of flavored disposable e-cigarettes and menthol e-cigarette 
cartridges surging dramatically in 2020. This significant increase, 
which coincides with a federal ban on the flavored cartridges popular 
with young smokers, suggests that youth e-cigarette use shifted to 
substitute products rather than declined. The report also found that the
 distribution of free and discounted e-cigarettes – a practice linked to
 a rise in youth smoking – reached record highs. “This report shows that youth are still at 
risk from flavored or deeply discounted e-cigarettes,” said Samuel 
Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.&nbsp;“Marketers 
of e-cigarettes have proven skillful at evading FDA regulation and 
hooking youth on addictive products.” The FTC has been reporting on tobacco
 sales annually since 1967 and smokeless tobacco sales since 1987. Last 
year, the agency expanded its studies of industry and published its 
first-ever report on e-cigarettes. E-cigarettes or vaping devices are 
battery-operated devices that people use to inhale an aerosol, which 
typically contains nicotine, flavorings, and other chemicals.&nbsp;The two 
main types of e-cigarettes are cartridges and disposables. Cartridges 
are rechargeable and designed to be used multiple times. Users generally
 replace the pre-filled cartridge when it is empty. Disposables are not 
rechargeable or refillable, and are thrown away once they run out of 
charge or e-liquid. This year’s e-cigarette report covers
 sales and advertising data from 2019 and 2020, a period in which the 
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published an enforcement 
policy banning the sale of flavored e-cigarette cartridges other than 
menthol. Overall, the report found that total e-cigarette sales, which 
had increased from $304.2 million in 2015 to $2.046 billion in 2018, 
grew to $2.703 billion in 2019, but then declined to $2.24 billion in 
2020. The FTC report notes that the 2020 decline may not represent the 
market given major industry shifts. Key findings in the report include: <ul>
 <li>Significant shift to flavored disposable e-cigarettes: Publicly
 available sources indicate that the sale of disposable e-cigarettes – 
which are exempt from the FDA’s 2020 policy – increased substantially, 
with “other” flavored disposable products making up 77.6 percent of all 
disposables sold in December 2020. The FTC’s data did not show an 
increase in disposable sales. However, FTC’s data likely does not 
represent an accurate picture of the market for disposable e-cigarettes.
 Only two of the five companies submitting data for 2019-20 continued to
 market disposable e-cigarettes in 2020, and those that did provided 
more limited offerings. In order to improve the representativeness of 
its industry sales data for future FTC reports, the FTC recently sent 
orders to four additional e-cigarette companies. </li>
 </ul><ul>
 <li>Major increase in menthol cartridge sales:
 Similarly, the report found that the sale of the remaining 
non-FDA-banned flavored cartridge, menthol, increased significantly, to 
63.5 percent of all cartridges sold in 2020. </li>
 </ul><ul>
 <li>Record high e-cigarette discounting: The
 data also reveal that price discounting for e-cigarettes reached a 
record high of $182.3 million in 2019, and, although it decreased 
slightly in 2020, such discounting still represented the largest 
category of ad expenditures by e-cigarette manufacturers.</li>
 </ul><ul>
 <li>Doubling of nearly free e-cigarette samples: The
 data collected for 2019-20 suggest that spending on the sampling and 
distribution of free and deeply price-discounted e-cigarettes more than 
doubled in just two years, making it the second-largest spending 
category in 2020. This occurred because, after the FDA banned tobacco 
product sampling in 2016 to limit youth access, some companies began 
offering e-cigarettes for $1 (or even less) in an apparent attempt to 
get around the ban. </li>
 </ul>The FTC’s report provides an 
important market snapshot of the impact of the FDA’s efforts to restrict
 harmful youth e-cigarette use and a roadmap for additional steps the 
FDA can take to combat youth addiction to nicotine. There is significant
 evidence that flavored e-cigarettes remain attractive for youth, 
increasing the serious potential for more American youth to become 
addicted to nicotine and its harmful effects on the human body. This 
report shows that partial bans on certain types of flavors for certain 
types of e-cigarettes are unlikely to be successful in achieving a 
reduction in youth addiction to nicotine via e-cigarette usage. The FTC also is concerned about price
 discounting practices for e-cigarettes. Studies indicate that consumers
 clearly respond to price changes for tobacco products – with younger 
smokers responding more strongly than their older counterparts. Such 
studies led the U.S. Surgeon General to conclude that price discounting 
has resulted in an increase in youth tobacco use. The FTC considers 
similar discounting in the price of e-cigarettes also concerning. FDA 
efforts to restrict free e-cigarette samples seem to have engendered an 
effort by e-cigarette manufacturers to circumvent the ban by offering 
record-high discounting and nearly free e-cigarette products.&nbsp; The Commission vote approving the FTC’s E-Cigarette Report and related data tables for 2019-20 was 5-0.Cover image courtesy Pixabay

FTC: Drastic surge in flavored, menthol e-cigarettes

Scammers wasted no time capitalizing on the Biden Administration’s plan to cancel some federal student loan debt, <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/27471-bbb-tip-student-loan-forgiveness-is-here-heres-how-to-avoid-scams" target="_blank">as BBB predicted</a>. <a href="https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker" target="_blank">BBB Scam Tracker</a> has already received reports from consumers who have been targeted by impostor loan forgiveness calls and emails.

You receive a call or voicemail from someone claiming to represent a 
new student loan forgiveness program. To see if you qualify for 
forgiveness, the scammer insists that you need to complete an online 
application form, which asks for personal information, such as your bank
 account details.

One consumer <a href="https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker" target="_blank">reported the following experience to BBB</a>:
 “My daughter received a voicemail from ‘the Biden student loan 
forgiveness program’… She returned the call and spoke with “Peter,” who 
asked for her email address and telephone number. He asked if she wanted
 to see if she qualified for the loan, but when we started asking him 
questions… he got frustrated and ended the call.”

In other variations, the scammer insists that you need to pay an 
upfront fee or even redirect your current student loan payments to them.
 For example, another person targeted by this scam told BBB: “I got a 
"Final Notice" letter that has the debt amount listed… Thinking it was 
from the federal student loan department, I called. They had me change 
my password and got my bank account number. [And] direct payments to 
them.”

Currently, most of the student loan forgiveness scams reported to <a href="https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker" target="_blank">BBB Scam Tracker</a> are <a href="https://www.bbb.org/all/scamstudies/government_impostor_scams/government_impostor_scams_full_study" target="_blank">government impostors</a>. But watch out for new variations as scammers have time to get creative.

How to avoid student loan forgiveness scams

Get more solid advice by reading the <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/27471-bbb-tip-student-loan-forgiveness-is-here-heres-how-to-avoid-scams" target="_blank">BBB Tip: Student loan forgiveness is here. Here’s how to avoid scams</a>. You can also read up on government impostor scams in this <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/22776-government-impostors-press-release" target="_blank">BBB study</a> and <a href="https://www.bbb.org/all/spot-a-scam" target="_blank">learn how to spot a scam</a>.

For information on federal student loan repayment options, visit the official government website, <a href="http://www.StudentAid.gov">StudentAid.gov</a>. This is the best way to determine if you qualify for loan forgiveness and how to receive it. &nbsp;

If you spot a student loan forgiveness scam, report it. Sharing your experience on <a href="http://www.BBB.org/ScamTracker" target="_blank">BBB.org/ScamTracker</a> can help other consumers spot the scam faster.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/1/1579883951052.jpeg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>BBBScammers wasted no time capitalizing on the Biden Administration’s plan to cancel some federal student loan debt, <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/27471-bbb-tip-student-loan-forgiveness-is-here-heres-how-to-avoid-scams" target="_blank">as BBB predicted</a>. <a href="https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker" target="_blank">BBB Scam Tracker</a> has already received reports from consumers who have been targeted by impostor loan forgiveness calls and emails.<h2>How the scam works</h2>You receive a call or voicemail from someone claiming to represent a 
new student loan forgiveness program. To see if you qualify for 
forgiveness, the scammer insists that you need to complete an online 
application form, which asks for personal information, such as your bank
 account details.One consumer <a href="https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker" target="_blank">reported the following experience to BBB</a>:
 “My daughter received a voicemail from ‘the Biden student loan 
forgiveness program’… She returned the call and spoke with “Peter,” who 
asked for her email address and telephone number. He asked if she wanted
 to see if she qualified for the loan, but when we started asking him 
questions… he got frustrated and ended the call.”In other variations, the scammer insists that you need to pay an 
upfront fee or even redirect your current student loan payments to them.
 For example, another person targeted by this scam told BBB: “I got a 
"Final Notice" letter that has the debt amount listed… Thinking it was 
from the federal student loan department, I called. They had me change 
my password and got my bank account number. [And] direct payments to 
them.”Currently, most of the student loan forgiveness scams reported to <a href="https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker" target="_blank">BBB Scam Tracker</a> are <a href="https://www.bbb.org/all/scamstudies/government_impostor_scams/government_impostor_scams_full_study" target="_blank">government impostors</a>. But watch out for new variations as scammers have time to get creative.<h2>How to avoid student loan forgiveness scams</h2><ul>
 <li>When in doubt, contact the government agency directly. If
 you receive a message that seems legitimate, but you aren’t sure, stop 
communicating with the person who contacted you. Then, verify their 
claims by contacting the government agency they say they represent. For 
details on the student loan forgiveness program, visit <a href="http://www.ED.gov" target="_blank">ED.gov</a> or <a href="http://www.studentaid.gov" target="_blank">StudentAid.gov</a>. </li><li>Never pay fees for a free government program. Government
 agencies will never ask you to pay a fee to benefit from a free 
government program. Don’t let scammers persuade you otherwise. Con 
artists may say the fee will get you relief faster or will unlock 
additional benefits, but that is all part of the scam. </li><li>Think twice about unsolicited calls, emails, or text messages. Usually,
 government agencies won’t reach out to you unless you request to be 
contacted. Out-of-the-blue communications are a red flag. </li><li>Don’t give in to scare tactics. If someone claims 
you’ll miss out if you don’t act immediately, be wary. This is an 
all-too-common tactic scammers use on their victims. Instead of 
responding, stop communications until you can verify what they say is 
true.</li>
 </ul><h2>For more information</h2>Get more solid advice by reading the <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/27471-bbb-tip-student-loan-forgiveness-is-here-heres-how-to-avoid-scams" target="_blank">BBB Tip: Student loan forgiveness is here. Here’s how to avoid scams</a>. You can also read up on government impostor scams in this <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/22776-government-impostors-press-release" target="_blank">BBB study</a> and <a href="https://www.bbb.org/all/spot-a-scam" target="_blank">learn how to spot a scam</a>.For information on federal student loan repayment options, visit the official government website, <a href="http://www.StudentAid.gov">StudentAid.gov</a>. This is the best way to determine if you qualify for loan forgiveness and how to receive it. &nbsp;If you spot a student loan forgiveness scam, report it. Sharing your experience on <a href="http://www.BBB.org/ScamTracker" target="_blank">BBB.org/ScamTracker</a> can help other consumers spot the scam faster.

Alert: New imposter scam targets student loan holders

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA will try again Saturday to launch its new moon rocket on a test flight, after&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nasa-moon-rocket-launch-63e9e863f294968af8869950909a212c">engine trouble</a>&nbsp;halted the first countdown this week.

Managers said Tuesday they are changing fueling procedures to deal with the issue. A bad sensor also could be to blame for Monday's scrapped launch, they noted.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket — the most powerful ever built by NASA — remains on its pad at Kennedy Space Center with an empty crew capsule on top.

The Space Launch System rocket will attempt to send the capsule around the moon and back. No one will be aboard, just three test dummies. If successful, it will be the first capsule to fly to the moon since NASA’s Apollo program 50 years ago.

Proceeding toward a Saturday launch will provide additional insight, even if the problem reappears and the countdown is halted again, said NASA's rocket program manager, John Honeycutt. That’s better “than us sitting around scratching our heads, was it good enough or not.”

“Based on what I’ve heard from the technical team today, what we need to do is continue to pore over the data and polish up our plan on putting the flight rationale together,” he said.

During Monday's launch attempt, readings showed that one of the four main engines in the rocket's core stage could not be chilled sufficiently prior to the planned ignition at liftoff. It appeared to be as much as 40 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) warmer than the desired minus-420 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-250 degrees Celsius), the temperature of the hydrogen fuel, according to Honeycutt. The three other engines came up just a little short.

All of the engines appear to be fine, according to Honeycutt.

The chilling operation will be conducted a half-hour earlier for Saturday afternoon's launch attempt, once fueling begins that morning. Honeycutt said the timing of this engine chilldown was earlier during successful testing last year, and so performing it sooner may do the trick.

Honeycutt also questioned the integrity of one engine sensor, saying it might have provided inaccurate data Monday. To change that sensor, he noted, would mean hauling the rocket back into the hangar, resulting in weeks of delay.

Already years behind schedule, the $4.1 billion test flight is the opening shot in NASA's Artemis moon-exploration program, named after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology. Astronauts could strap in as soon as 2024 for a lap around the moon and actually attempt a lunar landing in 2025.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661909324649.jpeg" alt="In this photo provided by NASA, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen atop the mobile launcher at Launch Pad 39B, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2022, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.. NASA's Artemis I flight test is the first integrated test of the agency's deep space exploration systems: (Joel Kowsky/NASA via AP)" />
 <figcaption>In this photo provided by NASA, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen atop the mobile launcher at Launch Pad 39B, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2022, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.. NASA's Artemis I flight test is the first integrated test of the agency's deep space exploration systems: (Joel Kowsky/NASA via AP)</figcaption>
 </figure>By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSCAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA will try again Saturday to launch its new moon rocket on a test flight, after&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nasa-moon-rocket-launch-63e9e863f294968af8869950909a212c">engine trouble</a>&nbsp;halted the first countdown this week.Managers said Tuesday they are changing fueling procedures to deal with the issue. A bad sensor also could be to blame for Monday's scrapped launch, they noted.The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket — the most powerful ever built by NASA — remains on its pad at Kennedy Space Center with an empty crew capsule on top.The Space Launch System rocket will attempt to send the capsule around the moon and back. No one will be aboard, just three test dummies. If successful, it will be the first capsule to fly to the moon since NASA’s Apollo program 50 years ago.Proceeding toward a Saturday launch will provide additional insight, even if the problem reappears and the countdown is halted again, said NASA's rocket program manager, John Honeycutt. That’s better “than us sitting around scratching our heads, was it good enough or not.”“Based on what I’ve heard from the technical team today, what we need to do is continue to pore over the data and polish up our plan on putting the flight rationale together,” he said.During Monday's launch attempt, readings showed that one of the four main engines in the rocket's core stage could not be chilled sufficiently prior to the planned ignition at liftoff. It appeared to be as much as 40 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) warmer than the desired minus-420 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-250 degrees Celsius), the temperature of the hydrogen fuel, according to Honeycutt. The three other engines came up just a little short.All of the engines appear to be fine, according to Honeycutt.The chilling operation will be conducted a half-hour earlier for Saturday afternoon's launch attempt, once fueling begins that morning. Honeycutt said the timing of this engine chilldown was earlier during successful testing last year, and so performing it sooner may do the trick.Honeycutt also questioned the integrity of one engine sensor, saying it might have provided inaccurate data Monday. To change that sensor, he noted, would mean hauling the rocket back into the hangar, resulting in weeks of delay.Already years behind schedule, the $4.1 billion test flight is the opening shot in NASA's Artemis moon-exploration program, named after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology. Astronauts could strap in as soon as 2024 for a lap around the moon and actually attempt a lunar landing in 2025.

Take 2: NASA aims for Saturday launch of new moon rocket

WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Jill Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Monday and will return to Washington on Tuesday, nearly a week after she came down with a “rebound” case of the coronavirus.

Her communications director, Elizabeth Alexander, announced the negative test in a statement Monday night.

Jill Biden had been isolating at her family's house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, since testing positive on Aug. 24, and at the time, her spokesperson said she was not experiencing any symptoms. She first tested positive for the virus on Aug. 15, when she and President Joe Biden were vacationing in Kiawah Island, South Carolina.

The president, who had his own back-to-back cases of COVID-19, was identified as a close contact of his wife and the White House said he was undergoing more frequent testing for the virus as a precaution. While Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines called for Biden to wear a face covering in close proximity to others indoors, he was seen without a mask hugging and taking selfies with supporters during an indoor rally on Thursday in the Washington suburbs.

Jill Biden, 71, and her husband, 79, have been twice-vaccinated and twice-boosted with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. She had been prescribed the antiviral drug Paxlovid, which has proven to be highly effective at preventing serious disease and death among those at highest risk from COVID-19. A minority of those prescribed the drug have experienced a rebound case of the virus a few days after their initial recovery.

WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Jill Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Monday and will return to Washington on Tuesday, nearly a week after she came down with a “rebound” case of the coronavirus.Her communications director, Elizabeth Alexander, announced the negative test in a statement Monday night.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">She won’t leave my side! I’m grateful to have Willow with me as I recover from COVID-19. 💕 <a href="https://t.co/UxLVE8FQwf">pic.twitter.com/UxLVE8FQwf</a>&mdash; Jill Biden (@FLOTUS) <a href="https://twitter.com/FLOTUS/status/1562607595466428417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 25, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Jill Biden had been isolating at her family's house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, since testing positive on Aug. 24, and at the time, her spokesperson said she was not experiencing any symptoms. She first tested positive for the virus on Aug. 15, when she and President Joe Biden were vacationing in Kiawah Island, South Carolina.The president, who had his own back-to-back cases of COVID-19, was identified as a close contact of his wife and the White House said he was undergoing more frequent testing for the virus as a precaution. While Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines called for Biden to wear a face covering in close proximity to others indoors, he was seen without a mask hugging and taking selfies with supporters during an indoor rally on Thursday in the Washington suburbs.Jill Biden, 71, and her husband, 79, have been twice-vaccinated and twice-boosted with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. She had been prescribed the antiviral drug Paxlovid, which has proven to be highly effective at preventing serious disease and death among those at highest risk from COVID-19. A minority of those prescribed the drug have experienced a rebound case of the virus a few days after their initial recovery.

First lady Jill Biden tests negative for COVID-19 after rebound

MOSCOW (AP) — Mikhail Gorbachev, who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, died Tuesday. He was 91.

The Central Clinical Hospital said in a statement that Gorbachev died after a long illness. No other details were given.

Though in power less than seven years, Gorbachev unleashed a breathtaking series of changes. But they quickly overtook him and resulted in the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state, the freeing of Eastern European nations from Russian domination and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation.

His decline was humiliating. His power hopelessly sapped by an attempted coup against him in August 1991, he spent his last months in office watching republic after republic declare independence until he resigned on Dec. 25, 1991. The Soviet Union wrote itself into oblivion a day later.

A quarter-century after the collapse, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in a nuclear country.

“The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war,” he said.

Many of the changes, including the Soviet breakup, bore no resemblance to the transformation that Gorbachev had envisioned when he became the Soviet leader in March 1985.

By the end of his rule he was powerless to halt the whirlwind he had sown. Yet Gorbachev may have had a greater impact on the second half of the 20th century than any other political figure.

“I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world,” Gorbachev told The AP in a 1992 interview shortly after he left office.

“I am often asked, would I have started it all again if I had to repeat it? Yes, indeed. And with more persistence and determination,” he said.

Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War and spent his later years collecting accolades and awards from all corners of the world. Yet he was widely despised at home.

Russians blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union — a once-fearsome superpower whose territory fractured into 15 separate nations. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.

His run for president in 1996 was a national joke, and he polled less than 1% of the vote.

In 1997, he resorted to making a TV ad for Pizza Hut to earn money for his charitable foundation. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.

“In the ad, he should take a pizza, divide it into 15 slices like he divided up our country, and then show how to put it back together again,” quipped Anatoly Lukyanov, a one-time Gorbachev supporter.

Gorbachev never set out to dismantle the Soviet system. What he wanted to do was improve it.

Soon after taking power, Gorbachev began a campaign to end his country’s economic and political stagnation, using “glasnost” or openness, to help achieve his goal of “perestroika” or restructuring.

In his memoirs, he said he had long been frustrated that in a country with immense natural resources, tens of millions were living in poverty.

“Our society was stifled in the grip of a bureaucratic command system,” Gorbachev wrote. “Doomed to serve ideology and bear the heavy burden of the arms race, it was strained to the utmost.”

Once he began, one move led to another: He freed political prisoners, allowed open debate and multi-candidate elections, gave his countrymen freedom to travel, halted religious oppression, reduced nuclear arsenals, established closer ties with the West and did not resist the fall of Communist regimes in Eastern European satellite states.

But the forces he unleashed quickly escaped his control.

Long-suppressed ethnic tensions flared, sparking wars and unrest in trouble spots such as the southern Caucasus region. Strikes and labor unrest followed price increases and shortages of consumer goods.

In one of the low points of his tenure, Gorbachev sanctioned a crackdown on the restive Baltic republics in early 1991.

The violence turned many intellectuals and reformers against him. Competitive elections also produced a new crop of populist politicians who challenged Gorbachev’s policies and authority.

Chief among them was his former protege and eventual nemesis, Boris Yeltsin, who became Russia’s first president.

“The process of renovating this country and bringing about fundamental changes in the international community proved to be much more complex than originally anticipated,” Gorbachev told the nation as he stepped down.

“However, let us acknowledge what has been achieved so far. Society has acquired freedom; it has been freed politically and spiritually. And this is the most important achievement, which we have not fully come to grips with in part because we still have not learned how to use our freedom.”

There was little in Gorbachev’s childhood to hint at the pivotal role he would play on the world stage. On many levels, he had a typical Soviet upbringing in a typical Russian village. But it was a childhood blessed with unusual strokes of good fortune.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born March 2, 1931, in the village of Privolnoye in southern Russia. Both his grandfathers were peasants, collective farm chairmen and members of the Communist Party, as was his father.

Despite stellar party credentials, Gorbachev’s family did not emerge unscathed from the terror unleashed by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin: Both grandfathers were arrested and imprisoned for allegedly anti-Soviet activities.

But, rare in that period, both were eventually freed. In 1941, when Gorbachev was 10, his father went off to war, along with most of the other men from Privolnoye.

Meanwhile, the Nazis pushed across the western steppes in their blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union; they occupied Privolnoye for five months.

When the war was over, young Gorbachev was one of the few village boys whose father returned. By age 15, Gorbachev was helping his father drive a combine harvester after school and during the region’s blistering, dusty summers.

His performance earned him the order of the Red Banner of Labor, an unusual distinction for a 17-year-old. That prize and the party background of his parents helped him land admission in 1950 to the country’s top university, Moscow State.

There, he met his wife, Raisa Maximovna Titorenko, and joined the Communist Party. The award and his family’s credentials also helped him overcome the disgrace of his grandfathers’ arrests, which were overlooked in light of his exemplary Communist conduct.

In his memoirs, Gorbachev described himself as something of a maverick as he advanced through the party ranks, sometimes bursting out with criticism of the Soviet system and its leaders.

His early career coincided with the “thaw” begun by Nikita Khrushchev. As a young Communist propaganda official, he was tasked with explaining the 20th Party Congress that revealed Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s repression of millions to local party activists. He said he was met first by “deathly silence,” then disbelief.

“They said: ‘We don’t believe it. It can’t be. You want to blame everything on Stalin now that he’s dead,’” he told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview.

He was a true if unorthodox believer in socialism. He was elected to the powerful party Central Committee in 1971, took over Soviet agricultural policy in 1978, and became a full Politburo member in 1980.

Along the way he was able to travel to the West, to Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and Canada. Those trips had a profound effect on his thinking, shaking his belief in the superiority of Soviet-style socialism.

“The question haunted me: Why was the standard of living in our country lower than in other developed countries?” he recalled in his memoirs. “It seemed that our aged leaders were not especially worried about our undeniably lower living standards, our unsatisfactory way of life, and our falling behind in the field of advanced technologies.”

But Gorbachev had to wait his turn. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, and was succeeded by two other geriatric leaders: Yuri Andropov, Gorbachev’s mentor, and Konstantin Chernenko.

It wasn’t until March 1985, when Chernenko died, that the party finally chose a younger man to lead the country: Gorbachev. He was 54 years old.

His tenure was filled with rocky periods, including a poorly conceived anti-alcohol campaign, the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

But starting in November 1985, Gorbachev began a series of attention-grabbing summit meetings with world leaders, especially U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, which led to unprecedented, deep reductions in the American and Soviet nuclear arsenals.

After years of watching a parade of stodgy leaders in the Kremlin, Western leaders practically swooned over the charming, vigorous Gorbachev and his stylish, brainy wife. But perceptions were very different at home. It was the first time since the death of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin that the wife of a Soviet leader had played such a public role, and many Russians found Raisa Gorbachev showy and arrogant.

Although the rest of the world benefited from the changes Gorbachev wrought, the rickety Soviet economy collapsed in the process, bringing with it tremendous economic hardship for the country’s 290 million people.

In the final days of the Soviet Union, the economic decline accelerated into a steep skid. Hyper-inflation robbed most older people of their life’s savings. Factories shut down. Bread lines formed.

And popular hatred for Gorbachev and his wife Raisa grew. But the couple won sympathy in summer 1999 when it was revealed that Raisa Gorbachev was dying of leukemia.

During her final days, Gorbachev spoke daily with television reporters, and the lofty-sounding, wooden politician of old was suddenly seen as an emotional family man surrendering to deep grief.

Gorbachev worked on the Gorbachev Foundation, which he created to address global priorities in the post-Cold War period, and with the Green Cross foundation, which was formed in 1993 to help cultivate “a more harmonious relationship between humans and the environment.”

Gorbachev took the helm of the small United Social Democratic Party in 2000 in hopes it could fill the vacuum left by the Communist Party, which he said had failed to reform into a modern leftist party after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He resigned from the chairmanship in 2004.

He continued to comment on Russian politics as a senior statesman — even if many of his countrymen were no longer interested in what he had to say.

“The crisis in our country will continue for some time, possibly leading to even greater upheaval,” Gorbachev wrote in a memoir in 1996. “But Russia has irrevocably chosen the path of freedom, and no one can make it turn back to totalitarianism.”

Gorbachev veered between criticism and mild praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been assailed for backtracking on the democratic achievements of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras.

He said Putin had done much to restore stability and prestige to Russia after the tumultuous decade following the Soviet collapse. He did, however, protest growing limitations on media freedom, and in 2006 bought one of Russia’s last investigative newspapers, Novaya Gazeta, with a businessman associate.

“We should — this is one of our goals — promote the newspaper’s qualitative development in the interests of democratic values,” he said, tacitly criticizing the Kremlin’s efforts to bring Novaya Gazeta and other independent media outlets to heel.

Gorbachev ventured into other new areas in his 70s, winning awards and kudos around the world. He won a Grammy in 2004 along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Italian actress Sophia Loren for their recording of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and the United Nations named him a Champion of the Earth in 2006 for his environmental advocacy.

Gorbachev had a daughter, Irina, and two granddaughters.

The official news agency Tass reported that Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661895504846.png" alt="A quarter-century after the Soviet Union collapsed, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in a nuclear country." />
 <figcaption>A quarter-century after the Soviet Union collapsed, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in a nuclear country.</figcaption>
 </figure>MOSCOW (AP) — Mikhail Gorbachev, who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, died Tuesday. He was 91.The Central Clinical Hospital said in a statement that Gorbachev died after a long illness. No other details were given.Though in power less than seven years, Gorbachev unleashed a breathtaking series of changes. But they quickly overtook him and resulted in the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state, the freeing of Eastern European nations from Russian domination and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation.His decline was humiliating. His power hopelessly sapped by an attempted coup against him in August 1991, he spent his last months in office watching republic after republic declare independence until he resigned on Dec. 25, 1991. The Soviet Union wrote itself into oblivion a day later.A quarter-century after the collapse, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in a nuclear country.“The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war,” he said.Many of the changes, including the Soviet breakup, bore no resemblance to the transformation that Gorbachev had envisioned when he became the Soviet leader in March 1985.By the end of his rule he was powerless to halt the whirlwind he had sown. Yet Gorbachev may have had a greater impact on the second half of the 20th century than any other political figure.“I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world,” Gorbachev told The AP in a 1992 interview shortly after he left office.“I am often asked, would I have started it all again if I had to repeat it? Yes, indeed. And with more persistence and determination,” he said.Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War and spent his later years collecting accolades and awards from all corners of the world. Yet he was widely despised at home.Russians blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union — a once-fearsome superpower whose territory fractured into 15 separate nations. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.His run for president in 1996 was a national joke, and he polled less than 1% of the vote.In 1997, he resorted to making a TV ad for Pizza Hut to earn money for his charitable foundation. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.“In the ad, he should take a pizza, divide it into 15 slices like he divided up our country, and then show how to put it back together again,” quipped Anatoly Lukyanov, a one-time Gorbachev supporter.Gorbachev never set out to dismantle the Soviet system. What he wanted to do was improve it.Soon after taking power, Gorbachev began a campaign to end his country’s economic and political stagnation, using “glasnost” or openness, to help achieve his goal of “perestroika” or restructuring.In his memoirs, he said he had long been frustrated that in a country with immense natural resources, tens of millions were living in poverty.“Our society was stifled in the grip of a bureaucratic command system,” Gorbachev wrote. “Doomed to serve ideology and bear the heavy burden of the arms race, it was strained to the utmost.”Once he began, one move led to another: He freed political prisoners, allowed open debate and multi-candidate elections, gave his countrymen freedom to travel, halted religious oppression, reduced nuclear arsenals, established closer ties with the West and did not resist the fall of Communist regimes in Eastern European satellite states.But the forces he unleashed quickly escaped his control.Long-suppressed ethnic tensions flared, sparking wars and unrest in trouble spots such as the southern Caucasus region. Strikes and labor unrest followed price increases and shortages of consumer goods.In one of the low points of his tenure, Gorbachev sanctioned a crackdown on the restive Baltic republics in early 1991.The violence turned many intellectuals and reformers against him. Competitive elections also produced a new crop of populist politicians who challenged Gorbachev’s policies and authority.Chief among them was his former protege and eventual nemesis, Boris Yeltsin, who became Russia’s first president.“The process of renovating this country and bringing about fundamental changes in the international community proved to be much more complex than originally anticipated,” Gorbachev told the nation as he stepped down.“However, let us acknowledge what has been achieved so far. Society has acquired freedom; it has been freed politically and spiritually. And this is the most important achievement, which we have not fully come to grips with in part because we still have not learned how to use our freedom.”There was little in Gorbachev’s childhood to hint at the pivotal role he would play on the world stage. On many levels, he had a typical Soviet upbringing in a typical Russian village. But it was a childhood blessed with unusual strokes of good fortune.Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born March 2, 1931, in the village of Privolnoye in southern Russia. Both his grandfathers were peasants, collective farm chairmen and members of the Communist Party, as was his father.Despite stellar party credentials, Gorbachev’s family did not emerge unscathed from the terror unleashed by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin: Both grandfathers were arrested and imprisoned for allegedly anti-Soviet activities.But, rare in that period, both were eventually freed. In 1941, when Gorbachev was 10, his father went off to war, along with most of the other men from Privolnoye.Meanwhile, the Nazis pushed across the western steppes in their blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union; they occupied Privolnoye for five months.When the war was over, young Gorbachev was one of the few village boys whose father returned. By age 15, Gorbachev was helping his father drive a combine harvester after school and during the region’s blistering, dusty summers.His performance earned him the order of the Red Banner of Labor, an unusual distinction for a 17-year-old. That prize and the party background of his parents helped him land admission in 1950 to the country’s top university, Moscow State.There, he met his wife, Raisa Maximovna Titorenko, and joined the Communist Party. The award and his family’s credentials also helped him overcome the disgrace of his grandfathers’ arrests, which were overlooked in light of his exemplary Communist conduct.In his memoirs, Gorbachev described himself as something of a maverick as he advanced through the party ranks, sometimes bursting out with criticism of the Soviet system and its leaders.His early career coincided with the “thaw” begun by Nikita Khrushchev. As a young Communist propaganda official, he was tasked with explaining the 20th Party Congress that revealed Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s repression of millions to local party activists. He said he was met first by “deathly silence,” then disbelief.“They said: ‘We don’t believe it. It can’t be. You want to blame everything on Stalin now that he’s dead,’” he told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview.He was a true if unorthodox believer in socialism. He was elected to the powerful party Central Committee in 1971, took over Soviet agricultural policy in 1978, and became a full Politburo member in 1980.Along the way he was able to travel to the West, to Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and Canada. Those trips had a profound effect on his thinking, shaking his belief in the superiority of Soviet-style socialism.“The question haunted me: Why was the standard of living in our country lower than in other developed countries?” he recalled in his memoirs. “It seemed that our aged leaders were not especially worried about our undeniably lower living standards, our unsatisfactory way of life, and our falling behind in the field of advanced technologies.”But Gorbachev had to wait his turn. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, and was succeeded by two other geriatric leaders: Yuri Andropov, Gorbachev’s mentor, and Konstantin Chernenko.It wasn’t until March 1985, when Chernenko died, that the party finally chose a younger man to lead the country: Gorbachev. He was 54 years old.His tenure was filled with rocky periods, including a poorly conceived anti-alcohol campaign, the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.But starting in November 1985, Gorbachev began a series of attention-grabbing summit meetings with world leaders, especially U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, which led to unprecedented, deep reductions in the American and Soviet nuclear arsenals.After years of watching a parade of stodgy leaders in the Kremlin, Western leaders practically swooned over the charming, vigorous Gorbachev and his stylish, brainy wife. But perceptions were very different at home. It was the first time since the death of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin that the wife of a Soviet leader had played such a public role, and many Russians found Raisa Gorbachev showy and arrogant.Although the rest of the world benefited from the changes Gorbachev wrought, the rickety Soviet economy collapsed in the process, bringing with it tremendous economic hardship for the country’s 290 million people.In the final days of the Soviet Union, the economic decline accelerated into a steep skid. Hyper-inflation robbed most older people of their life’s savings. Factories shut down. Bread lines formed.And popular hatred for Gorbachev and his wife Raisa grew. But the couple won sympathy in summer 1999 when it was revealed that Raisa Gorbachev was dying of leukemia.During her final days, Gorbachev spoke daily with television reporters, and the lofty-sounding, wooden politician of old was suddenly seen as an emotional family man surrendering to deep grief.Gorbachev worked on the Gorbachev Foundation, which he created to address global priorities in the post-Cold War period, and with the Green Cross foundation, which was formed in 1993 to help cultivate “a more harmonious relationship between humans and the environment.”Gorbachev took the helm of the small United Social Democratic Party in 2000 in hopes it could fill the vacuum left by the Communist Party, which he said had failed to reform into a modern leftist party after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He resigned from the chairmanship in 2004.He continued to comment on Russian politics as a senior statesman — even if many of his countrymen were no longer interested in what he had to say.“The crisis in our country will continue for some time, possibly leading to even greater upheaval,” Gorbachev wrote in a memoir in 1996. “But Russia has irrevocably chosen the path of freedom, and no one can make it turn back to totalitarianism.”Gorbachev veered between criticism and mild praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been assailed for backtracking on the democratic achievements of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras.He said Putin had done much to restore stability and prestige to Russia after the tumultuous decade following the Soviet collapse. He did, however, protest growing limitations on media freedom, and in 2006 bought one of Russia’s last investigative newspapers, Novaya Gazeta, with a businessman associate.“We should — this is one of our goals — promote the newspaper’s qualitative development in the interests of democratic values,” he said, tacitly criticizing the Kremlin’s efforts to bring Novaya Gazeta and other independent media outlets to heel.Gorbachev ventured into other new areas in his 70s, winning awards and kudos around the world. He won a Grammy in 2004 along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Italian actress Sophia Loren for their recording of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and the United Nations named him a Champion of the Earth in 2006 for his environmental advocacy.Gorbachev had a daughter, Irina, and two granddaughters.The official news agency Tass reported that Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife.___

Mikhail Gorbachev, who steered Soviet breakup, dead at 91

By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2022/08/30/nontraditional-students-get-another-option-to-complete-college-degrees/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN — Married with three kids and working, Amanda Redler said she
 couldn’t manage the one-hour commute to a community college from her 
home in Albion to resume her college studies.

So Redler turned to the Western Governors University, a completely 
online university that Nebraska helped found back in 1996 when Ben 
Nelson was governor.

Redler is now on track to graduate in the spring and is already 
teaching sixth graders at Petersburg. She is among about 300,000 
Nebraskans who have some college studies but no degree.

On Tuesday, Gov. Pete Ricketts and others inked an agreement to make 
completing a college degree easier and more affordable for 
nontraditional, adult students who cannot travel, because of the demands
 of life or a rural location, to a brick-and-mortar school.

“This is about giving everyone access to a life-changing education,” said Paul Illich, president of Southeast Community College.

Under an agreement signed by Ricketts and WGU, transferring credits 
from institutions such as Southeast will be easier, and Nebraska 
students will gain access to the state’s $21 million worth of 
“Opportunity Grant” scholarships for post-secondary studies.

Ricketts said Nebraskans who have some college studies but no degree 
are a pool of “untapped talent” in a world where about 71% of jobs 
require a post-secondary degree.

This spring, the Nebraska Legislature established a goal of getting 
70% of the state’s workforce, ages 25-34, to have “a degree, 
certificate, diploma, or other postsecondary or industry-recognized 
credential with economic value by 2030.” Currently, about 58% of that 
group have degrees.

Ricketts said that making it easier, and more affordable, for 
Nebraskans to attend WGU is another step to address the state’s 
workforce shortage. Most recently, 52,000 jobs were unfilled in the 
state.

WGU offers a “flat tuition rate,” in which students pay $3,750 for a 
six-month term in which they can complete as many courses as they are 
able. The school also allows students to test out of certain subjects by
 showing competency, learned through real-life experiences, in that 
subject.

Redler said she tested out of several subjects, earning “competency 
units” instead of “college credits,” while pursuing her degree in 
education.

WGU President Scott Pulsipher, speaking at a news conference Tuesday,
 said the system, which credits experience as well as “time in a seat,” 
allows nontraditional students to complete studies more quickly and at a
 lower cost.

“There is no waste of time learning what I already know,” Redler said.

Brenda Soto, a WGU grad from Lincoln, said she was able to propel her
 career by working on a master’s degree in health care administration 
while working. She is now the state’s Emergency Preparedness &amp; 
Response Officer, a job that requires a master’s degree.

Pulsipher said about 390 students from Nebraska are currently enrolled in WGU, among about 130,000 nationwide.

He said the average Nebraska student takes two years and three months to complete a degree, at an average cost of $15,165.

WGU, Pulsipher said, is a private, nonprofit entity that is wholly 
supported by tuition income. Nebraska did provide some seed money in 
1996, along with nine other states, to establish the online university, 
officials said.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661889251700.png" alt="Gov. Pete Ricketts was joined at a Tuesday press conference by two Nebraskans who attended the Western Governors University, from left, Brenda Soto and Amanda Redler. (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)" />
 <figcaption>Gov. Pete Ricketts was joined at a Tuesday press conference by two Nebraskans who attended the Western Governors University, from left, Brenda Soto and Amanda Redler. (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)</figcaption>
 </figure>By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2022/08/30/nontraditional-students-get-another-option-to-complete-college-degrees/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN — Married with three kids and working, Amanda Redler said she
 couldn’t manage the one-hour commute to a community college from her 
home in Albion to resume her college studies.So Redler turned to the Western Governors University, a completely 
online university that Nebraska helped found back in 1996 when Ben 
Nelson was governor.<h2>Already teaching</h2>Redler is now on track to graduate in the spring and is already 
teaching sixth graders at Petersburg. She is among about 300,000 
Nebraskans who have some college studies but no degree.On Tuesday, Gov. Pete Ricketts and others inked an agreement to make 
completing a college degree easier and more affordable for 
nontraditional, adult students who cannot travel, because of the demands
 of life or a rural location, to a brick-and-mortar school.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661889312815.jpeg" alt="Southeast Community College President Paul Illich (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)" />
 <figcaption>Southeast Community College President Paul Illich (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)</figcaption>
 </figure>“This is about giving everyone access to a life-changing education,” said Paul Illich, president of Southeast Community College.Under an agreement signed by Ricketts and WGU, transferring credits 
from institutions such as Southeast will be easier, and Nebraska 
students will gain access to the state’s $21 million worth of 
“Opportunity Grant” scholarships for post-secondary studies.Ricketts said Nebraskans who have some college studies but no degree 
are a pool of “untapped talent” in a world where about 71% of jobs 
require a post-secondary degree.<h2>70% goal by 2030</h2>This spring, the Nebraska Legislature established a goal of getting 
70% of the state’s workforce, ages 25-34, to have “a degree, 
certificate, diploma, or other postsecondary or industry-recognized 
credential with economic value by 2030.” Currently, about 58% of that 
group have degrees.Ricketts said that making it easier, and more affordable, for 
Nebraskans to attend WGU is another step to address the state’s 
workforce shortage. Most recently, 52,000 jobs were unfilled in the 
state.WGU offers a “flat tuition rate,” in which students pay $3,750 for a 
six-month term in which they can complete as many courses as they are 
able. The school also allows students to test out of certain subjects by
 showing competency, learned through real-life experiences, in that 
subject.<h2>Credits for competency</h2>Redler said she tested out of several subjects, earning “competency 
units” instead of “college credits,” while pursuing her degree in 
education.WGU President Scott Pulsipher, speaking at a news conference Tuesday,
 said the system, which credits experience as well as “time in a seat,” 
allows nontraditional students to complete studies more quickly and at a
 lower cost.“There is no waste of time learning what I already know,” Redler said.Brenda Soto, a WGU grad from Lincoln, said she was able to propel her
 career by working on a master’s degree in health care administration 
while working. She is now the state’s Emergency Preparedness &amp; 
Response Officer, a job that requires a master’s degree.Pulsipher said about 390 students from Nebraska are currently enrolled in WGU, among about 130,000 nationwide.He said the average Nebraska student takes two years and three months to complete a degree, at an average cost of $15,165.WGU, Pulsipher said, is a private, nonprofit entity that is wholly 
supported by tuition income. Nebraska did provide some seed money in 
1996, along with nine other states, to establish the online university, 
officials said.

Nontraditional college students get option to complete degrees

WASHINGTON (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/joe-biden">President Joe Biden</a>&nbsp;will deliver a prime-time address “on the continued battle for the soul of the nation” Thursday outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the White House announced Monday.

Billed as a major address just over two months before the midterm elections, Biden, the White House said, will discuss how the nation's standing in the world and its democracy are at stake.

“He will talk about the progress we have made as a nation to protect our democracy, but how our rights and freedoms are still under attack," the White House said. "And he will make clear who is fighting for those rights, fighting for those freedoms, and fighting for our democracy.”

Biden has increasingly sought to portray the November elections as a choice for voters between “ultra-MAGA Republicans” — a reference to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan — and Democrats. He told supporters last week that they had “to vote to literally save democracy once again”&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-inflation-maryland-congress-f72f8363b9344a7cb2dd871409d77dba">— and labeled some Republican ideology as “semi-fascism."</a>

<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-give-prime-time-speech-soul-nation-voters-prepare-cast-midterm-b-rcna45358">NBC News</a>&nbsp;was first to report on Biden's plans for the address.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661814688261.png" alt="Billed as a major address just over two months before the midterm elections, Biden, the White House said, will discuss how the nation's standing in the world and its democracy are at stake-White House photo" />
 <figcaption>Billed as a major address just over two months before the midterm elections, Biden, the White House said, will discuss how the nation's standing in the world and its democracy are at stake-White House photo</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/joe-biden">President Joe Biden</a>&nbsp;will deliver a prime-time address “on the continued battle for the soul of the nation” Thursday outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the White House announced Monday.Billed as a major address just over two months before the midterm elections, Biden, the White House said, will discuss how the nation's standing in the world and its democracy are at stake.“He will talk about the progress we have made as a nation to protect our democracy, but how our rights and freedoms are still under attack," the White House said. "And he will make clear who is fighting for those rights, fighting for those freedoms, and fighting for our democracy.”Biden has increasingly sought to portray the November elections as a choice for voters between “ultra-MAGA Republicans” — a reference to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan — and Democrats. He told supporters last week that they had “to vote to literally save democracy once again”&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-inflation-maryland-congress-f72f8363b9344a7cb2dd871409d77dba">— and labeled some Republican ideology as “semi-fascism."</a><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-give-prime-time-speech-soul-nation-voters-prepare-cast-midterm-b-rcna45358">NBC News</a>&nbsp;was first to report on Biden's plans for the address.

Biden to deliver prime-time speech on 'battle for soul of the nation'

Rockville is a village of 85 northwest of Grand Island

By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/allegations-of-misuse-of-funds-by-rockville-village-clerk-referred-for-possible-prosecution/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN
 — Allegations that a former village clerk in central Nebraska used 
village funds to purchase home canning supplies, Christmas-type lights 
and liver cleanse pills have been forwarded for possible criminal 
prosecution.&nbsp;

The Nebraska State Auditor’s Office 
issued a report Monday noting that the former village clerk in 
Rockville, Amanda Green, had used a village debit card to purchase a 
handful of items that appeared to be for personal use.

Those purchases included $368 worth 
of home canning jars and supplies, $42 worth of rope lighting and $32 
for a jar of liver cleanse pills.

The auditor also expressed concerns 
about lack of dual signatures on village checks, $2,673 worth of village
 purchases that were not approved by the village board, and a conflict 
of interest involving one village board member, Tim Kusek, who failed to
 recuse himself for voting on village payments to him.

Because there were allegations of 
misuse of village funds against the former clerk, the matter was 
referred to the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office and the Sherman 
County attorney, as well as to the Nebraska Political Accountability and
 Disclosure Commission.

Sherman County Attorney Heather 
Sikyta, who also serves at the Rockville village attorney, said the 
village board has begun the process of determining what action is 
necessary to rectify and obtain reimbursement for the misused funds.

&nbsp;A message left Monday with Green, who resigned as village clerk late last year, seeking comment was not immediately returned.&nbsp;

The village’s official response to 
the audit stated that it has changed its policy concerning use of the 
village debit card and will make sure that Kusek’s wages with the 
village are handled correctly.

Rockville is a farming village of 85 people northwest of Grand Island.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661870288437.png" alt="The Nebraska State Auditor’s Office is located in the State Capitol in Lincoln. (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)" />
 <figcaption>The Nebraska State Auditor’s Office is located in the State Capitol in Lincoln. (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)</figcaption>
 </figure><h2>Rockville is a village of 85 northwest of Grand Island</h2>By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/allegations-of-misuse-of-funds-by-rockville-village-clerk-referred-for-possible-prosecution/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN
 — Allegations that a former village clerk in central Nebraska used 
village funds to purchase home canning supplies, Christmas-type lights 
and liver cleanse pills have been forwarded for possible criminal 
prosecution.&nbsp;The Nebraska State Auditor’s Office 
issued a report Monday noting that the former village clerk in 
Rockville, Amanda Green, had used a village debit card to purchase a 
handful of items that appeared to be for personal use.Those purchases included $368 worth 
of home canning jars and supplies, $42 worth of rope lighting and $32 
for a jar of liver cleanse pills.The auditor also expressed concerns 
about lack of dual signatures on village checks, $2,673 worth of village
 purchases that were not approved by the village board, and a conflict 
of interest involving one village board member, Tim Kusek, who failed to
 recuse himself for voting on village payments to him.Because there were allegations of 
misuse of village funds against the former clerk, the matter was 
referred to the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office and the Sherman 
County attorney, as well as to the Nebraska Political Accountability and
 Disclosure Commission.Sherman County Attorney Heather 
Sikyta, who also serves at the Rockville village attorney, said the 
village board has begun the process of determining what action is 
necessary to rectify and obtain reimbursement for the misused funds.&nbsp;A message left Monday with Green, who resigned as village clerk late last year, seeking comment was not immediately returned.&nbsp;The village’s official response to 
the audit stated that it has changed its policy concerning use of the 
village debit card and will make sure that Kusek’s wages with the 
village are handled correctly.Rockville is a farming village of 85 people northwest of Grand Island.

Neb. village clerk referred for possible prosecution after allegations

Consultant looked at 21 possible sites on tributaries

By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2022/08/30/legislative-report-says-dams-could-mitigate-flooding-on-lower-platte-river/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN
 — A recent legislative study into developing a huge recreational lake 
between Omaha and Lincoln was careful to reassure residents of Ashland 
that it wouldn’t include damming the Platte River and flooding the town 
of Ashland.

That idea, part of past proposals to spur development between the state’s two largest cities, stirred up a flood of controversy.

But that doesn’t mean dams ought not to be considered elsewhere, a consultant’s report concluded.

A draft final report for the Nebraska
 Legislature’s special STAR WARS committee shows that while a dam near 
Ashland isn’t being considered, 21 reservoirs across eastern and central
 Nebraska deserve a look.

The report, issued in May after the 
Nebraska Legislature adjourned for the year, looked at how to mitigate 
flooding in the lower Platte River, from Columbus to where it flows into
 the Missouri River at Plattsmouth.

The consultant that prepared the 
report, Omaha-based HDR, homed in on 21 “potential sites” to build 
reservoirs on tributaries of the Platte River, such as the Loup and 
Elkhorn Rivers and Salt, Wahoo and Logan Creeks.

To be sure, the report doesn’t prescribe that any dams be built, and none of the dams were part of a<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2022/04/18/governor-signs-bills-for-big-lake-park-enhancements-and-perkins-canal/"> $200-million legislative bill passed this spring</a> to enhance recreation across Nebraska, as identified by the Statewide Tourism and Recreation Water Access and Resource Sustainability, or STAR WARS, committee.

The bulk of the money was allocated for building new marinas at Lake 
McConaughy and Lewis &amp; Clark Lake, a new lodge at Niobrara State 
Park and a flood-control levee near Schuyler. But $20 million was set 
aside for further study of building a huge sand-pit lake near Linoma 
Beach in Sarpy County, with $26 million designated for possible future 
construction.

HDR’s report says more study would be needed before any reservoir construction could happen on the tributaries of the Platte.

State Sen. Mike Hilgers of Lincoln, the Speaker of the Legislature 
and head of the STAR WARS committee, made similar observations, adding 
that consideration of flood mitigation was part of the committee’s 
charge but that further work on the tributary dams was not funded.

“While the Legislature may not focus on those projects in the future,
 any other entity, such as a natural resources district, that has an 
interest in improving our flood control mechanisms in that area will 
have a head start by virtue of the work done in this report,” Hilgers 
said.

Tom Riley, the director of the Nebraska Department of Natural 
Resources, said mitigation of flooding in the Platte is being addressed 
in the STAR WARS plan via the levee work in the Schuyler area and small 
dams being planned in the Wahoo Creek watershed in Saunders County.

Right now, Riley said, his department is preparing to begin a study 
of how the big lake might impact well fields operated by the Cities of 
Lincoln and Omaha along the Platte River for drinking water. After that,
 there will be a report on the feasibility of building the big lake 
itself.

In the past, even talk of damming up a creek or river in Nebraska has
 inspired howls of protests from those whose land or community would be 
displaced.

Past objections led the STAR WARS 
committee to propose a way to build a huge recreation lake between Omaha
 and Lincoln without damming up the Platte, but instead, by pumping sand
 to create a&nbsp; sand-pit lake of at least 3,600 acres to rival Iowa’s 
popular Lake Okoboji.

The HDR report says that such a sand-pit lake would have little 
impact to reduce flooding on the adjacent Platte. But it estimated that 
dams on tributaries could.

The “best-value option” named in the 
report was damming up Logan Creek, a tributary of the Elkhorn, at a spot
 about 65 miles northwest of Omaha, between the communities of Oakland 
and Lyons. A “relatively shallow” reservoir there, averaging 5 feet in 
depth, could reduce flows from a 100-year flood event by 12-14%, HDR 
estimated, and could have reduced flooding on the lower Platte during 
the “bomb cyclone” floods of March of 2019 by 7%.

The report said the reduction of flood flows in a 100-year flood 
could be reduced by 25% in the lower Platte if the Oakland-Lyons dam was
 built, along with another dam on the Elkhorn River near Norfolk or on 
the Union Creek near Madison.

By contrast, the two next-highest rated options — dams on Loup River 
tributaries near Arcadia and Dannebrog, or dams on the Wahoo-Silver 
Creeks and Rock Creek — would combine to reduce 100-year flood flows on 
the lower Platte by 14% and 16%, respectively.

That a dam is being considered near Lyons caught the mayor of the farm town of 766 residents by surprise and prompted some joking from a local merchant there.

“I think it’s nuts,” said Allen “Steiny” Steinmeyer, who has a general store in Lyons.

“It’s
 going to take a lot of farm ground out of play. And where’s all the 
water to fill it?” he said. “Tell them to go look at the Logan right 
now. You’d be lucky to fill a thimble.”

Lyons Mayor Andy Fuston said it’s the
 first time he’s heard of anyone proposing to dam up the Logan Creek, 
which is known as “the dredge” in the Lyons area after it was 
straightened by a dredging project a century ago.

The reservoir envisioned by HDR would
 require a dam nearly 8,000 feet long and 37.7 feet tall. It would be 
designed to avoid disrupting U.S. Highway 77 and a BNSF railroad line 
that parallel the wide, Logan valley between Oakland and Lyons.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Fuston guessed that opinions in Lyons would be split on such a reservoir.&nbsp;

He added that such a proposal raises several questions: “Would it provide recreation? Would it help irrigate nearby farmland?”

A representative of the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District said
 that while the NRD is constantly looking for ways to mitigate floods, 
he was unaware of any proposals to dam the Elkhorn River, as was 
suggested in the STAR WARS report, but said that some smaller dams on 
tributaries of the Logan Creek have been looked at.

Curt Becker, projects manager for the Norfolk-based NRD, said damming
 the main channel of the Elkhorn would be very expensive and consume a 
large area.

He did say that the Lower Elkhorn NRD is looking at one project 
mentioned in the STAR WARS report: a dam on Battle Creek near the 
community of the same name, west of Norfolk.

When asked whether those living in the Lower Elkhorn NRD area, which 
includes the communities of Lyons, Oakland, West Point and Norfolk, 
would support building dams in those areas to reduce flooding far 
downstream on the Platte, Becker said he wasn’t so sure.

“Our charge isn’t to create flood reduction for outside of our district,” he said. “Our primary concern is this area.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661870048758.png" alt="The Logan Creek, in northeast Nebraska, flows from north of Laurel to its confluence with the Elkhorn River near Winslow, north of Fremont. A consultant suggests considering damming the creek to mitigate flooding on the Platte River. Pictured is a stretch of Logan Creek near Bancroft that has a kayak launch. (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)" />
 <figcaption>The Logan Creek, in northeast Nebraska, flows from north of Laurel to its confluence with the Elkhorn River near Winslow, north of Fremont. A consultant suggests considering damming the creek to mitigate flooding on the Platte River. Pictured is a stretch of Logan Creek near Bancroft that has a kayak launch. (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)</figcaption>
 </figure><h2>Consultant looked at 21 possible sites on tributaries</h2>By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2022/08/30/legislative-report-says-dams-could-mitigate-flooding-on-lower-platte-river/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN
 — A recent legislative study into developing a huge recreational lake 
between Omaha and Lincoln was careful to reassure residents of Ashland 
that it wouldn’t include damming the Platte River and flooding the town 
of Ashland.That idea, part of past proposals to spur development between the state’s two largest cities, stirred up a flood of controversy.But that doesn’t mean dams ought not to be considered elsewhere, a consultant’s report concluded.A draft final report for the Nebraska
 Legislature’s special STAR WARS committee shows that while a dam near 
Ashland isn’t being considered, 21 reservoirs across eastern and central
 Nebraska deserve a look.The report, issued in May after the 
Nebraska Legislature adjourned for the year, looked at how to mitigate 
flooding in the lower Platte River, from Columbus to where it flows into
 the Missouri River at Plattsmouth.The consultant that prepared the 
report, Omaha-based HDR, homed in on 21 “potential sites” to build 
reservoirs on tributaries of the Platte River, such as the Loup and 
Elkhorn Rivers and Salt, Wahoo and Logan Creeks.<h2>Funding for marinas, lodge, leveel</h2>To be sure, the report doesn’t prescribe that any dams be built, and none of the dams were part of a<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2022/04/18/governor-signs-bills-for-big-lake-park-enhancements-and-perkins-canal/"> $200-million legislative bill passed this spring</a> to enhance recreation across Nebraska, as identified by the Statewide Tourism and Recreation Water Access and Resource Sustainability, or STAR WARS, committee.The bulk of the money was allocated for building new marinas at Lake 
McConaughy and Lewis &amp; Clark Lake, a new lodge at Niobrara State 
Park and a flood-control levee near Schuyler. But $20 million was set 
aside for further study of building a huge sand-pit lake near Linoma 
Beach in Sarpy County, with $26 million designated for possible future 
construction.HDR’s report says more study would be needed before any reservoir construction could happen on the tributaries of the Platte.State Sen. Mike Hilgers of Lincoln, the Speaker of the Legislature 
and head of the STAR WARS committee, made similar observations, adding 
that consideration of flood mitigation was part of the committee’s 
charge but that further work on the tributary dams was not funded.<h2>Future study</h2>“While the Legislature may not focus on those projects in the future,
 any other entity, such as a natural resources district, that has an 
interest in improving our flood control mechanisms in that area will 
have a head start by virtue of the work done in this report,” Hilgers 
said.Tom Riley, the director of the Nebraska Department of Natural 
Resources, said mitigation of flooding in the Platte is being addressed 
in the STAR WARS plan via the levee work in the Schuyler area and small 
dams being planned in the Wahoo Creek watershed in Saunders County.Right now, Riley said, his department is preparing to begin a study 
of how the big lake might impact well fields operated by the Cities of 
Lincoln and Omaha along the Platte River for drinking water. After that,
 there will be a report on the feasibility of building the big lake 
itself.In the past, even talk of damming up a creek or river in Nebraska has
 inspired howls of protests from those whose land or community would be 
displaced.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/2/1644590042966.png" alt="Backers of a 3,600-acre lake proposed between Omaha and Lincoln are eyeing a location in Sarpy County, north and south of Linoma Beach. Additional studies of the lake’s impact and feasibility will soon get underway through the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources. (Courtesy of PlanPreservePlayNE.co)" />
 <figcaption>Backers of a 3,600-acre lake proposed between Omaha and Lincoln are eyeing a location in Sarpy County, north and south of Linoma Beach. Additional studies of the lake’s impact and feasibility will soon get underway through the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources. (Courtesy of PlanPreservePlayNE.co)</figcaption>
 </figure>Past objections led the STAR WARS 
committee to propose a way to build a huge recreation lake between Omaha
 and Lincoln without damming up the Platte, but instead, by pumping sand
 to create a&nbsp; sand-pit lake of at least 3,600 acres to rival Iowa’s 
popular Lake Okoboji.<h2>‘Best-value’ option</h2>The HDR report says that such a sand-pit lake would have little 
impact to reduce flooding on the adjacent Platte. But it estimated that 
dams on tributaries could.The “best-value option” named in the 
report was damming up Logan Creek, a tributary of the Elkhorn, at a spot
 about 65 miles northwest of Omaha, between the communities of Oakland 
and Lyons. A “relatively shallow” reservoir there, averaging 5 feet in 
depth, could reduce flows from a 100-year flood event by 12-14%, HDR 
estimated, and could have reduced flooding on the lower Platte during 
the “bomb cyclone” floods of March of 2019 by 7%.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661870161579.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>The report said the reduction of flood flows in a 100-year flood 
could be reduced by 25% in the lower Platte if the Oakland-Lyons dam was
 built, along with another dam on the Elkhorn River near Norfolk or on 
the Union Creek near Madison.By contrast, the two next-highest rated options — dams on Loup River 
tributaries near Arcadia and Dannebrog, or dams on the Wahoo-Silver 
Creeks and Rock Creek — would combine to reduce 100-year flood flows on 
the lower Platte by 14% and 16%, respectively.That a dam is being considered near Lyons caught the mayor of the farm town of 766 residents by surprise and prompted some joking from a local merchant there.<h2>‘It’s nuts’</h2>“I think it’s nuts,” said Allen “Steiny” Steinmeyer, who has a general store in Lyons.“It’s
 going to take a lot of farm ground out of play. And where’s all the 
water to fill it?” he said. “Tell them to go look at the Logan right 
now. You’d be lucky to fill a thimble.”Lyons Mayor Andy Fuston said it’s the
 first time he’s heard of anyone proposing to dam up the Logan Creek, 
which is known as “the dredge” in the Lyons area after it was 
straightened by a dredging project a century ago.The reservoir envisioned by HDR would
 require a dam nearly 8,000 feet long and 37.7 feet tall. It would be 
designed to avoid disrupting U.S. Highway 77 and a BNSF railroad line 
that parallel the wide, Logan valley between Oakland and Lyons.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h2>Recreation?</h2>Fuston guessed that opinions in Lyons would be split on such a reservoir.&nbsp;He added that such a proposal raises several questions: “Would it provide recreation? Would it help irrigate nearby farmland?”A representative of the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District said
 that while the NRD is constantly looking for ways to mitigate floods, 
he was unaware of any proposals to dam the Elkhorn River, as was 
suggested in the STAR WARS report, but said that some smaller dams on 
tributaries of the Logan Creek have been looked at.Curt Becker, projects manager for the Norfolk-based NRD, said damming
 the main channel of the Elkhorn would be very expensive and consume a 
large area.He did say that the Lower Elkhorn NRD is looking at one project 
mentioned in the STAR WARS report: a dam on Battle Creek near the 
community of the same name, west of Norfolk.When asked whether those living in the Lower Elkhorn NRD area, which 
includes the communities of Lyons, Oakland, West Point and Norfolk, 
would support building dams in those areas to reduce flooding far 
downstream on the Platte, Becker said he wasn’t so sure.“Our charge isn’t to create flood reduction for outside of our district,” he said. “Our primary concern is this area.”

Report: Dams could mitigate flooding on lower Platte River

SEDGWICK COUNTY—Law enforcement authorities&nbsp; investigating a fatal weekend shooting&nbsp; have a suspect in custody.

According to Sedgwick County booking records, Derby Police arrested 22-year-old Demarc Maurice Burgess late Monday in the 200 Block of North Baltimore in connection with the alleged crime.

Just before 3 a.m. on Sunday, police responded to the report of a shooting at 1215 N. Westview in the city of Derby, according to a statement from the city.

Officers located several witnesses to the shooting and one adult male who was suffering from a gunshot wound. EMS transported the victim to a local hospital where he died.

Police asked the public for help to locate a&nbsp; suspect described as a Black male, approximately mid 20s, with a slender build and a street name of “D” or possibly “Dee”.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Burgess is<a href="https://ssc.sedgwickcounty.org/sheriffinmates/SheriffInmateDetail.aspx?nameId=20078401"> being held on requested </a>charges of 2nd degree murder, intentional, according to online jail records.

SEDGWICK COUNTY—Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal shooting and looking for a suspect.

Police are looking for a suspect described as a Black male, approximately mid 20s, with a slender build. He has a street name of “D” or possibly “Dee”. &nbsp;

Anyone who knows the identity of this person should contact the Derby Police&nbsp; at 788-1557, 911 or Crime Stoppers at 267-2111. Please do not try to approach or apprehend this person. &nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661865777856.png" alt="Burgess-photo Sedgwick Co." />
 <figcaption>Burgess-photo Sedgwick Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>SEDGWICK COUNTY—Law enforcement authorities&nbsp; investigating a fatal weekend shooting&nbsp; have a suspect in custody.According to Sedgwick County booking records, Derby Police arrested 22-year-old Demarc Maurice Burgess late Monday in the 200 Block of North Baltimore in connection with the alleged crime.Just before 3 a.m. on Sunday, police responded to the report of a shooting at 1215 N. Westview in the city of Derby, according to a statement from the city.Officers located several witnesses to the shooting and one adult male who was suffering from a gunshot wound. EMS transported the victim to a local hospital where he died.Police asked the public for help to locate a&nbsp; suspect described as a Black male, approximately mid 20s, with a slender build and a street name of “D” or possibly “Dee”.&nbsp;&nbsp;Burgess is<a href="https://ssc.sedgwickcounty.org/sheriffinmates/SheriffInmateDetail.aspx?nameId=20078401"> being held on requested </a>charges of 2nd degree murder, intentional, according to online jail records.-------SEDGWICK COUNTY—Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal shooting and looking for a suspect.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661726235566.png" alt="Dee-photo City of Derby" />
 <figcaption>Dee-photo City of Derby</figcaption>
 </figure>Just before 3 a.m. on Sunday, police responded to the report of a shooting at 1215 N. Westview in the city of Derby, according to a statement from the city.Officers located several witnesses to the shooting and one adult male who was suffering from a gunshot wound. EMS transported the victim to a local hospital where he died.Police are looking for a suspect described as a Black male, approximately mid 20s, with a slender build. He has a street name of “D” or possibly “Dee”. &nbsp;Anyone who knows the identity of this person should contact the Derby Police&nbsp; at 788-1557, 911 or Crime Stoppers at 267-2111. Please do not try to approach or apprehend this person. &nbsp;

Police arrest suspect in weekend killing at Kan. home

KANSAS CITY (AP) —More than 1 million construction workers across the U.S. won't have to comply with a federal COVID-19 vaccination requirement, but an appeals court cleared the way for President Joe Biden's administration to potentially enforce the mandate on some federal contractors.

Biden's Office of Management and Budget said Monday that federal attorneys were still reviewing&nbsp;<a href="https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202114269.pdf">the ruling</a>&nbsp;issued Friday and that no immediate steps have been taken to implement it.

The vaccine requirement for employees of federal contractors has been on hold nationwide since a U.S. district judge in Georgia&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-health-business-augusta-684571e6fb81014caed440c66e2b7fa2">issued an order in December barring its enforcement.</a>

A split ruling by a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta lifted that nationwide injunction but continues to bar enforcement of the vaccine mandate against seven states that sued — Georgia, Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia. It also bars enforcement against members of Associated Builders and Contractors — which joined the lawsuit — or any of their subcontractors on federal projects.

The association, which has about 21,000 member companies employing more than 1 million workers, called the ruling a “huge victory” even though it narrows the scope of the previous injunction.

“A lot of the contractors were concerned about the record-keeping" and the potential to lose workers, said Ben Brubeck, the association’s vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs. "There’s a lot of employees who didn’t want to get vaccinated in the construction industry.”

Taking into account previous court orders stemming from lawsuits by other states, the vaccine mandate now is blocked for federal contracts involving half the states but allowed in the other half. It's unclear whether, when or how Biden's administration will seek to enforce the mandate.

The contractor requirement had been part of Biden's broader plan to fight COVID-19 by boosting vaccination rates. Separate orders had mandated vaccinations for health care employers participating in Medicare or Medicaid and had mandated employers with at least 100 workers to either require vaccinations or make employees wear masks and get regularly tested for COVID-19.

The vaccine mandates spawned a bevy of lawsuits, primarily from Republican-led states, but also from some employers. The U.S. Supreme Court in January&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-vaccine-mandate-eb5899ae1fe5b62b6f4d51f54a3cd375">blocked the vaccine requirement for large private employers but allowed it to proceed for most health care workers.</a>

In requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for federal contractors, Biden's administration contended that a federal procurement law gives the president broad authority to implement workplace safety guidelines. The appeals court panel disagreed and said Biden likely exceeded his authority. But it said the lower court judge also pushed the boundaries of judicial power by applying an injunction nationwide instead of limiting it only to those involved in the lawsuit.

The appellate decision was written by Circuit Judge Britt C. Grant, who was appointed by former Republican President Donald Trump in 2018. Senior Circuit Judge J. L. Edmondson, an appointee of former Republican President Ronald Reagan, concurred in the decision.

Senior Circuit Judge R. Lanier Anderson III, an appointee of former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, wrote that he believes Biden had the legal authority to issue the vaccine requirement.

KANSAS CITY (AP) —More than 1 million construction workers across the U.S. won't have to comply with a federal COVID-19 vaccination requirement, but an appeals court cleared the way for President Joe Biden's administration to potentially enforce the mandate on some federal contractors.Biden's Office of Management and Budget said Monday that federal attorneys were still reviewing&nbsp;<a href="https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202114269.pdf">the ruling</a>&nbsp;issued Friday and that no immediate steps have been taken to implement it.The vaccine requirement for employees of federal contractors has been on hold nationwide since a U.S. district judge in Georgia&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-health-business-augusta-684571e6fb81014caed440c66e2b7fa2">issued an order in December barring its enforcement.</a>A split ruling by a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta lifted that nationwide injunction but continues to bar enforcement of the vaccine mandate against seven states that sued — Georgia, Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia. It also bars enforcement against members of Associated Builders and Contractors — which joined the lawsuit — or any of their subcontractors on federal projects.The association, which has about 21,000 member companies employing more than 1 million workers, called the ruling a “huge victory” even though it narrows the scope of the previous injunction.“A lot of the contractors were concerned about the record-keeping" and the potential to lose workers, said Ben Brubeck, the association’s vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs. "There’s a lot of employees who didn’t want to get vaccinated in the construction industry.”Taking into account previous court orders stemming from lawsuits by other states, the vaccine mandate now is blocked for federal contracts involving half the states but allowed in the other half. It's unclear whether, when or how Biden's administration will seek to enforce the mandate.The contractor requirement had been part of Biden's broader plan to fight COVID-19 by boosting vaccination rates. Separate orders had mandated vaccinations for health care employers participating in Medicare or Medicaid and had mandated employers with at least 100 workers to either require vaccinations or make employees wear masks and get regularly tested for COVID-19.The vaccine mandates spawned a bevy of lawsuits, primarily from Republican-led states, but also from some employers. The U.S. Supreme Court in January&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-vaccine-mandate-eb5899ae1fe5b62b6f4d51f54a3cd375">blocked the vaccine requirement for large private employers but allowed it to proceed for most health care workers.</a>In requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for federal contractors, Biden's administration contended that a federal procurement law gives the president broad authority to implement workplace safety guidelines. The appeals court panel disagreed and said Biden likely exceeded his authority. But it said the lower court judge also pushed the boundaries of judicial power by applying an injunction nationwide instead of limiting it only to those involved in the lawsuit.The appellate decision was written by Circuit Judge Britt C. Grant, who was appointed by former Republican President Donald Trump in 2018. Senior Circuit Judge J. L. Edmondson, an appointee of former Republican President Ronald Reagan, concurred in the decision.Senior Circuit Judge R. Lanier Anderson III, an appointee of former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, wrote that he believes Biden had the legal authority to issue the vaccine requirement.