By MARGERY A. BECK, Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska is suing Colorado over the amount of water it draws from the South Platte River, the latest in a long history of water rights disputes between the states that have been left increasingly dry by climate change.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen and state Attorney General Mike Hilgers held a news conference Wednesday to announce the lawsuit, which was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It’s crystal clear. Colorado has been holding water back from Nebraska for almost 100 years and getting more and more egregious every single day,” Pillen said, pointing to Colorado’s rapidly expanding population over the past decade.

“So today it’s really, really simple: We’re here to put our gloves on,” Pillen said. “We’re going to fight like heck. We’re going to get every drop of water.”

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser called the lawsuit “unfortunate” in a written statement and said Nebraska officials failed “to look for reasonable solutions.”

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The lawsuit accuses Colorado of depriving Nebraska of as much as 1.3 million acre-feet of water from the river over several years that Nebraska is entitled to under a 1923 compact between the states. The suit also accuses Colorado officials of blocking Nebraska’s effort to construct a massive canal — often called the Perkins County Canal — and reservoir project that would see Nebraska seize land in Colorado to divert water into Nebraska, which is also allowed under the compact.

Nebraska needs the water not only for agriculture production in its southwestern region — which climate experts predict will grow hotter and drier in the coming decades — but also to feed water supplies in the eastern part of the state, officials said. Nebraska’s capital, Lincoln, is expected to get 12% of its water from the proposed canal, Pillen said.

The compact entitles Nebraska to 120 cubic feet per second from the river during the irrigation season between April 1 and Oct. 15 each year, and 500 cubic feet per second during the non-irrigation fall and winter months. Hilgers said Colorado has been shortchanging Nebraska during the irrigation season, allowing only about 75 cubic feet per second of water daily into Nebraska this summer.

“I think this may be the most consequential lawsuit that this office will be a part of in my generation,” Hilgers said. “It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the South Platte River to the future of the state of Nebraska.”

The South Platte, which flows through northeastern Colorado into southwestern Nebraska, has been at the center of a tempest brewing between the two states going back to 2022, when Nebraska announced it would build the canal.

Since then, officials from the two states have been haggling over how to carry out both the terms of the compact and land acquisition to build the canal.

“It became clear, despite the very professional and intentional scope of those negotiations, that we were at an impasse,” Hilgers said.

Weiser countered that Nebraska officials should have remained at the negotiating table.

“Nebraska’s actions will force Colorado water users to build additional new projects to lessen the impact of the proposed Perkins County Canal,” he said. “When the dust finally settles, likely over a billion dollars will have been spent — tens of millions of that on litigation alone — and no one in Nebraska or Colorado will be better off.”

Hilgers said the lawsuit was filed directly with the Supreme Court because it handles disputes between states. The process “isn’t fast,” Hilgers warned.

“We’ll probably have a special master appointed within the next 12 months, and under normal litigation timelines, that’s maybe 3 to 5 years before we get a result,” he said.

That does not mean work on the canal will stop, he said, as he expects work on permitting and design of the canal to continue.

Nebraska has been at the center of interstate water disputes for decades. In 2002, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas reached a settlement over Republican River water allocation after years of legal wrangling. But disputes continued, and new agreements were reached among the states again in 2014.

Water disputes could become more common as climate change worsens shortages, said Dr. Carly Phillips, a research scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists — a nonprofit that advocates for climate change solutions.

Warmer temperatures affect multiple parts of the hydrological cycle, Phillips said. It is decreasing the snowpack, which is the main way water is stored in the western U.S. Higher temperatures also mean the snow melts earlier each year, changing the availability of stream flow. And states like Nebraska might see increased irrigation demand when it’s hotter.

“These patterns are all in the same direction across the board,” Phillips said. “The trends are really consistent when it comes to snowpack, stream flow, evaporation and irrigation demand.”

Associated Press reporter Sarah Raza contributed from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

By MARC LEVY and MICHELLE L. PRICE, Associated Press

WEST PITTSTON, Pa. (AP) — Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday made the Trump administration’s first big pitch to sell the public on President Donald Trump’s sweeping budget-and-policy package in the swing political turf of northeastern Pennsylvania.

The vice president, whose tiebreaking vote got the bill through the Senate, touted the legislation’s tax breaks and cast Democrats as opponents of the cutting taxes because of their unanimous opposition to the legislation.

Democrats, who’ve decried the wide-ranging law’s cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, along with other provisions, are expected to try to use it against Republicans in closely contested congressional campaigns next year that will determine control of Congress.

The GOP plans to use it to make their case as well, something the Republican vice president asked the crowd in working-class West Pittston to help with.

“Go and talk to your neighbors, go and talk to your friends, about what this bill does for America’s citizens. Because we don’t want to wake up in a year and a half and give the Democrats power back,” he said.

As he spoke at at an industrial machine shop, the vice president was also quick to highlight the bill’s new tax deductions on overtime.

“You earned that money,” Vance said. “You ought to keep it in your pocket.”

He also promoted the legislation’s creation of a new children’s savings program, called Trump Accounts, with a potential $1,000 deposit from the Treasury Department. Recognizing the significance of the coal and gas industry in Pennsylvania, he also talked up the ways the law seeks to promote energy extraction, such as allowing increased leasing for drilling, mining and logging on public lands, speeding up government approvals and cutting royalty rates paid by extraction companies.

“We are finally going to drill, baby drill and invest in American energy,” Vance said. “And I know you all love that.”

The historic legislation, which Trump signed into law earlier this month with near unanimous Republican support, includes key campaign pledges like no tax on tips but also cuts Medicaid and food stamps by $1.2 trillion.

Democrats recently held a town hall in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s home state of Louisiana to denounce the legislation as a “reverse Robin Hood — stealing from the poor to give to the rich.”

Vance’s office declined to elaborate on plans for other public events around the U.S. to promote the bill. After his remarks, he visited a nearby diner where he picked up food and spoke to some of the patrons.

It’s unclear how much Trump plans to promote it himself. He told NBC News last week that he would travel “a little bit” to help champion the measure he dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

“But honestly,” he said, “It’s been received so well I don’t think I have to.”

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The battle for control of the messaging on the bill could be critical to how well the measure is ultimately received, as some of the most divisive parts of the law, including Medicaid and food assistance cuts, are timed to take effect only after the midterm elections. The bill was generally unpopular before its passage, polls showed, although some individual provisions are popular, like boosting the annual child tax credit and eliminating taxes on tips.

West Pittston, which sits in Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan’s district in northeastern Pennsylvania, is a place where Trump’s populist brand of politics has found a foothold. Trump’s popularity with the white working class has accelerated the political shift in nearby areas, including around Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, turning reliably Democratic areas into contested turf and contributing to Trump’s 2024 win in Pennsylvania.

There, and in a swing district around Allentown just to the south, Republicans last year knocked off two Democratic U.S. House incumbents after years of trying.

Walter Volinski, a 74-year-old retiree from nearby Swoyersville, said he liked that the bill extended the tax cuts that Trump enacted in his first term. He said he hasn’t read the nearly 900-page legislation but he thinks most politicians haven’t either. Still, Volinski said, “I trust Donald Trump and the Republican Party to make this country a great country again.”

Steven Taylor, a 52-year-old truck driver from West Pittston, thought the new law would help people struggling to pay their bills. Taylor, a Republican who voted for Trump, said he liked that the law contained tax breaks on tips and overtime pay. “Everybody’s hurting out here,” he said. “We need a little extra help.”

But Taylor said he was concerned that his nephew, who has diabetes, could be affected by the legislation’s cuts to Medicaid. “We don’t know as of yet. But we’re really hopeful that it doesn’t,” Taylor said.

Maegan Zielinski, a 33-year-old small business owner from Wilkes-Barre who was among a group of people protesting Vance’s appearance, said she worried the law will hurt vulnerable people, including those on Medicaid and Medicare. “I do not like that it continues to support the billionaires instead of the working-class people of America, continuing to give them tax breaks while middle-class America suffers,” she said.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has aggressively gone after the state’s Republican members of Congress who voted for the bill, including Bresnahan, whose seat is a top Democratic target.

“Shame on these members of Congress who spent the last few months saying, ‘Oh, I’ll never cut Medicaid,’” Shapiro said during an appearance earlier this month on WILK-FM radio in Wilkes-Barre. “I mean, Rep. Bresnahan told you, your listeners, your newspapers, told me to my face, this was a red line in the sand for him, he wouldn’t harm people on Medicaid, he wouldn’t harm our rural hospitals. … He caved and voted for this bill.”

Bresnahan has defended his vote by saying it strengthens Medicaid by cracking down on fraud, waste and abuse and requiring those who can work to do so. He also said it ensures hospitals in northeastern Pennsylvania will qualify for the funding they need to stay open.

Price reported from Washington.

By TRÂN NGUYỄN, Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Two California Republican state lawmakers launched a campaign Wednesday to place a measure on the 2026 ballot that would require voter identification and proof of citizenship at the polls.

The proposal would require the state to verify proof of citizenship when a person registers to vote, and voters would have to provide identifications at the polls. Those who vote through mail-in ballots would have to give the last four digits of a government-issued ID such as a Social Security number.

“We do not want to make it harder to vote. In fact, our initiative makes it easier to vote because it streamlines the process to verify someone’s identity,” Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, who’s leading the effort, said at a Wednesday news conference.

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The Republican lawmakers said the measure would help restore trust in elections where they said people have complained about outdated voter rolls and an inadequate signature review process, with some also casting doubt on election results.

While voting by noncitizens has occurred, research and reviews of state cases have shown it to be rare and typically a mistake rather than an intentional effort to sway an election. Voter fraud is also rare.

California is among 14 states and the District of Columbia that do not require voters to show some form of identification at the polls or to register to voter.

The California campaign came as congressional Republicans were working to advance their own legislation to overhaul the nation’s voting procedures at the urging of President Donald Trump. Across the country, lawmakers in 17 states have introduced legislation this year to require proof of citizenship for voters, according to National Conference of State legislatures.

Opponents argued that the requirements make it more difficult for people to vote, especially the elderly, those with disabilities and those without driver’s licenses. The NAACP and other civil rights groups have argued that it disproportionately harms Black and Latino voters. Democrats in the California Legislature, who hold supermajorities in both chambers, in April rejected a bill by DeMaio aiming to enact similar voting rule changes.

The statewide proposal also came as the state continued to challenge a local measure passed by voters in the city of Huntington Beach to require voter identification at the polls. The state last year sued the city over the new rule, and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law to prohibit local governments in California from establishing and enforcing laws that require residents provide identification to vote in elections.

Sen. Tony Strickland, who helped pass the Huntington Beach measure as a city councilmember last year, said he expects a similar fight from state Democrats over the issue.

“The courts would be on our side because we carefully drafted this initiative. It’s constitutional,” he said.

True to its name, Pop and Son Grill — tucked in the back of Cheers Pub on the East Side — consists of two people: owner and chef Roscoe Woulard and his father, Kirk Munson.

For Woulard, Pop and Son, which opened in November, is both a return home and a chance to branch out.

Woulard grew up in St. Paul and attended Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Minneapolis/St. Paul in Mendota Heights in 2009. A few years ago, he opened his first restaurant, called The Salad Bar, at Southdale Mall in Edina. His parents also owned the former Munsons Potato Shack in the Maplewood Mall. But some mall food courts impose menu restrictions to avoid restaurants stepping on each other’s toes, he said.

“I wanted to bring something back to the community where I was raised,” he said. “I took a bit of the Salad Bar menu and the Potato Shack, things I couldn’t do there, and mixed them with things I wanted to do. Here, I’m just a bit more free.”

The Pop and Son menu is expansive, from wings to shrimp to mac and cheese to classic bar appetizers, with specials that rotate daily. One of the menu’s biggest sections — a nod to Munsons Potato Shack — consists of 14 varieties of loaded baked potatoes and fries. Other top sellers include catfish (breaded, blackened or buffalo) and jerk pasta, which has proved so overwhelmingly popular that it’s now only offered Wednesdays and Sundays, Woulard said.

“The experience has been great, and I’m very grateful to the owner (of Cheers Pub) for giving me the opportunity to step in here and let me flourish,” he said. “To be honest with you, I went in a little scared, like ‘What the heck is going to happen,’ but I get a lot of support from the community.”

The restaurant’s hours differ from the bar: Pop and Son Grill is open 3 p.m. to midnight Tuesdays through Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday with a special “Soul Food Sunday” menu.

“Hey Roscoe,” a bar patron called out to Woulard on a recent Tuesday afternoon. “Whatever you did to this potato, it should be illegal. It’s so good.”

Pop and Son Grill: 1067 Hudson Rd.; instagram.com/popandson_grill

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