Humanities Desk | Net Radio

“I’m excited to see more trails and more options for people,” Lincoln cyclist Lorenz Taylor said, “especially you know if they can get something on the outskirts of town. I live in west Lincoln so if they can get something out there, I’d be super excited about that even more, instead of having to pack my bike up and go to the center part of town or the south side of town to hit a trail head.”

Jalene Carpenter is CEO of the Nebraska Healthcare Association and says closures occurred, in part, due to a lack of funding.Governor Ricketts reinstated an extra $20 per day payment to assisted living facilities starting early next year. But it’s too late for Arapahoe's assisted living facility, where Alan Thomas stays. His wife, Heidi is a teacher and works part-time as a registered nurse at Good Samaritan Society in Arapahoe.

The Nebraska State Fair and its stakeholders formed ‘The 1868 Foundation’ to deliver a remodeling proposal. In the plan released Wednesday, the foundation asked for $25 million from the state’s infrastructure fund to revamp its campus at Grand Island’s Fonner Park.

Heading into the holiday week, COVID-19 cases dropped 2% over the last two weeks. Hospitalizations are also down. The Nebraska Public Health Lab Right reports on average that omicron makes up less than 10% of COVID cases. However, the lab notes that could change dramatically in the coming days.

That changed, when the National Weather Service confirmed 22 tornadoes touched down in Nebraska from December 15th storms.The storms were a part of a ‘serial derecho,’ or a large band of hurricane-like thunderstorms. Forecasters say the storm’s destructive path began in central Nebraska, then moved northeast.

After an extended period of time with brown water, Lyons repaired its temporary, mobile filter. Terry Uding is the utilities manager for Lyons and said the amount of manganese in the town’s water has improved in the last week after mending its provisional filter.

Nebraska’s Department of Environment and Energy is discovering more information about the damaging effects of high levels of manganese in drinking water and asks municipalities to test for the toxin. Uding said fixing that issue and the like can be problematic.

COVID-19 cases statewide are rising to levels seen just before and after the state’s biggest peak last year. According to CDC data, more than 1,000 Nebraskans test positive each day. The last time Nebraska saw a 7-day average above 1,000: late October 2020 and early January 2021.

Two Nebraska state senators reflected on the state’s redistricting process on Tuesday at a University of Nebraska-Lincoln webinar, and they say it was the most partisan process they’ve seen in the legislature. As Will Bauer of Nebraska Public Media News reports, Senators Wendy DeBoer and Matt Williams are still happy with how it turned out.

On the 80th anniversary of the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the unidentified remains of 33 U.S. service members are being reinterred in a solemn military ceremony in Honolulu, Hawaii. It signals the wind down for a team of forensic anthropologists at Offutt Air Force Base whose work has helped positively identify more than 90-percent of the previously unknown crew who died on the U.S.S. Oklahoma.

A few hundred people packed into a Kearney conference center on Sunday to listen. What they heard was, for the most part, standard conservative answers on policy issues – ranging from rural broadband to reworking the state’s tax system.

Global Gaming Nebraska is an affiliate of the Chickasaw Nation. They expect decisions on its applications for two casinos to be handed down in approximately six months and could complete construction as soon as late 2023.

According to the health department, only one of the six people were vaccinated. The Nebraska Public Health Lab later confirmed the variant. Nebraska’s acting state epidemiologist Matt Donahue said the identification of omicron reinforces the urgency for Nebraskans to get vaccinated.

As of Tuesday, 555 Nebraskans were hospitalized with COVID-19. That’s an increase of 42 from one week ago. These numbers are similar to those seen one year ago – right before the pandemic reached its peak in the state.The difference between now and then is what else is going on in these hospitals. One year ago, elective surgeries weren’t happening and most were just focused on COVID. But, now, regular activities have resumed, and that’s strained hospitals..

Terry Uding works in utilities for Lyons, a town of about 800 people roughly 75 miles north of Omaha. Its tap water has recently turned a dark brown color at times. Uding said it's because of an old filtration system that needs replacing. Lyons is experiencing the pitfalls of supply chain delays and is working with a contractor to replace its filtration system.

Headed into Thanksgiving weekend, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the climb in Nebraska. According to the state’s dashboard, COVID hospitalizations reached 513 Tuesday. That’s nearly 12% of the state’s beds. Hospitals, as a whole, remain strained but some pressure has subsided. Around 20% of both regular adult beds and ICUs are available statewide. ICUs had dropped to single digits last week.

The Executive Director of the Nebraska Commission on Latino-Americans will retire on Dec. 31, 2021 after 11 years of service.

After a drawn-out battle in federal court, a church in Walthill, Nebraska, may soon be able to build a church in the village's business district. The Light of the World Church, with the backing of the U.S. government, claimed the village board discriminated against a religious organization when it rejected its request for a change in zoning.

A total of 26-hundred acres have burned in Banner and Scotts Bluff counties. Numerous agencies have gathered in the Buffalo Creek Wildlife Management Area. The Banner County Fire Department and Nebraska Game and Parks continue to quench hotspots.

A simple text saying “summit” was sent as the five senators reached the highest peak in Africa. The team returned to the flat ground on Thursday Nebraska time. Republican Senator Tom Brewer planned the climb before four others asked to tag along. Anna Wishart, Justin Wayne, Dave Murman, and Ben Hansen, two democrats and two republicans, respectively, in the officially nonpartisan legislature. It’s as diverse racially as they are in political philosophy. Brewer is Native American and a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and Senator Wayne is part African American, while the other three are white.Brewer said the Nebraska group hiked up the mountain alongside a much more limber group of people, compared to themselves.