Nebraska

WASHINGTON -- Deb Fischer, a little-known state senator, triumphed in Nebraska's bitterly contested Republican Senate primary Tuesday night, winning the right to face Democrat Bob Kerrey in November. The race had become a high-profile showdown among tea party leaders, who split their support among three candidates. The spot being vacated by Democrat Ben Nelson is considered the GOP's best opportunity to gain a Senate seat this fall. Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had endorsed Fischer last week, giving her candidacy a boost.

WASHINGTON -- An insurgency within an insurgency could be emerging in the GOP Senate primary in Nebraska, where a lesser-known upstart appears to be gaining on two other conservative candidates in yet another battle between tea party activists and the GOP establishment this election cycle. Deb Fischer, a state legislator endorsed by Sarah Palin, has surged heading into Tuesday's election, according to a recent survey , beyond establishment-backed Attorney General Jon Bruning and Dan Stenberg, the state treasurer.

With Mitt Romney essentially the last Republican presidential candidate standing, the former Massachusetts governor will inch closer to officially clinching his party's nomination Tuesday when voters head to the polls in Oregon and Nebraska. Though the GOP presidential race lacks suspense, Republicans will have their eyes on Nebraska, where the retirement of Sen. Ben Nelson, a Democrat, has left a key seat up for grabs. Democratic former Sen. Bob Kerrey is expected to win his party's nomination, but the battle on the Republican side between Attorney General John Bruning, state Treasurer Don Stenberg and state legislator Deb Fischer, is less clear.

Nebraska legislators handed the governor a political defeat by overriding his veto of a bill that forced conservatives to chose among conflicting priorities, such as care for the unborn, illegal immigrants and even fiscal austerity. On the final day of the state's legislative session Wednesday, lawmakers in the single-chamber, nonpartisan house overrode the governor's veto of a prenatal health bill for illegal immigrants in a narrow 30-16 vote with three present but not voting.

TransCanada has revealed the route it would like to use to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline through Nebraska, where the $7-billion project has become mired in concerns over the nation's most important agricultural aquifer. A new report submitted by the Canadian pipeline company to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality shows an alternative route for the pipeline, designed to carry diluted bitumen from the tar sands of Alberta province to U.S. refineries.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Dozens of tornadoes raked the Central Plains on Saturday as residents in Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Iowa braced themselves for a long night of tornado-watching. Damage was relatively light in the afternoon as the storm scraped across the sparsely populated farmlands of western and central Kansas. A hospital was damaged in Creston, Iowa, with no injuries reported. But well after sundown, much of the region was still under tornado watches. If anything, the potential for disaster increased as the system headed toward more densely populated areas in eastern Kansas and southeastern Nebraska.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- As predicted, storms marching eastward through northwestern Oklahoma, central Kansas and southern Nebraska have unleashed a string of tornadoes. But so far, only light damage has been reported. By 2:40 p.m. Pacific time Saturday, the National Weather Service had counted 17 tornadoes spotted across sparsely populated areas in the Central Plains -- largely on a diagonal line running southwest to northeast between Woodward, Okla., and Thayer, Neb. The weather service issued tornado warnings for McPherson and Logan counties in west-central Nebraska.

The on-again, off-again Keystone XL pipeline gained new traction in Nebraska on Wednesday. State legislators authorized the state Department of Environmental Quality to begin evaluating options for a new route outside the sensitive Nebraska Sandhills , the marshy hills and grasslands that lie atop the nation's most important agricultural aquifer. Critics of the pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, say the legislation amounts to a rubber stamp for TransCanada.

Embattled UCLA basketball Coach Ben Howland implied in a statement released by the Bruins athletic department Thursday that he has no interest in Nebraska's coaching vacancy. “I am proud to be returning to my dream job as the head coach of the Bruins next fall, and I intend on ending my coaching career at UCLA," Howland said in the statement. "I'm already very excited about the prospects for next year's team, am currently on the recruiting trail, and will be visiting Kyle Anderson in New Jersey before returning to California this weekend to attend the Southern California Regional Championships at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario.” According to a recent report in the Omaha World-Herald, Nebraska contacted Howland about its coaching vacancy after dismissing Doc Sadler.