Published by jason@omahadail... on Wed, 02/11/2026 - 12:00am
When Chris Vega arrived in Omaha in mid-2025, he was unhoused, living on the street. Omaha was his latest stop on what seemed like a national tour of homeless shelters.
Vega, who is in his mid-30s, voluntarily decided to become unhoused after leaving his home in Orlando, Florida, almost a decade ago. His travels took him to several cities, including Augusta, Georgia, and San Francisco, where his lived on the streets for about three years.
Published by jason@omahadail... on Wed, 02/11/2026 - 12:00am
Shelby native Curt Tomasevicz fulfilled his dream of playing football for the Nebraska Cornhuskers, where he was a scrappy special teamer. But since then, his life and career have taken a circuitous route — a twisting, turning path kind of like a bobsled course.
Tomasevicz, who grew up in a 700-person town hundreds of miles from the nearest mountain, is now on the USA Bobsledding leadership team as director of sport performance. And he’s currently at the Winter Olympics in Italy.
Published by jason@omahadail... on Wed, 02/11/2026 - 12:00am
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education reinforced the right to prayer in public schools in guidance issued Thursday.
Under the guidance to state and local education agencies, students, teachers and school officials have “a right to pray in school as an expression of individual faith, as long as they’re not doing so on behalf of the school,” the department said.
Published by jason@omahadail... on Tue, 02/10/2026 - 10:39pm
In 2023, the science fiction literary magazine Clarkesworld stopped accepting new submissions because so many were generated by artificial intelligence. Near as the editors could tell, many submitters pasted the magazine’s detailed story guidelines into an AI and sent in the results. And they weren’t alone. Other fiction magazines have also reported a high number of AI-generated submissions.
Published by jason@omahadail... on Wed, 02/04/2026 - 12:00am
“Don’t give me narcotics.”
Emmalee Hortin, a doula, recalled one of her clients delivering that message to hospital staff. Doctors were operating on the woman to clear tissue after a miscarriage.
But despite her patient’s pleas, clinicians still administered fentanyl via IV to manage pain, Hortin said. Her client had substance use disorder and had been working toward recovery.
“She was really, really upset,” Hortin said. “She actually was really worried about returning to use, and so was her husband.”
Published by jason@omahadail... on Wed, 02/04/2026 - 12:00am
VANDALIA, Mo. — Kathy Briggs slipped her arms through the thick straps of a brand-new baby carrier, tugging it over her beige shirt as two other women stood beside her, tightening buckles and adjusting the padded waistband.
The carrier was still stiff from its packaging, and Briggs shifted her feet as one of the women gently lifted then-6-month-old Melody into the front pouch.
Melody’s gray-blue eyes tracked the women’s hands, and her wispy blond hair — gathered into a tiny pink bow — bobbed slightly with the movement. She blinked up at the adults.
Published by jason@omahadail... on Wed, 02/04/2026 - 12:00am
LINCOLN — Since it was renovated and reopened in 1997, the 729-seat Midwest Theater in Scottsbluff has served as a cultural beacon in the state’s Panhandle.
The 79-year-old Art Deco theater hosts Grammy-winning musicians, classic movies and films nominated for Academy Awards, as well as local theater performances and weddings.
Published by jason@omahadail... on Wed, 01/28/2026 - 12:00am
As nurses rushed Rachel Woollen to an Omaha operating room, all she could do was pray for the four tiny babies she was about to deliver.
“All I could say was, ‘Please, God, help them.’ I repeated it over and over. One nurse heard me, grabbed my hand, and told me she and everyone else on the medical team were praying the same thing.”
Brett entered the world at 2:04 p.m. Brother Kaden, sister Parker and brother Cooper followed within the next two minutes. None weighed more than 1.8 pounds.
Published by jason@omahadail... on Wed, 01/28/2026 - 12:00am
WASHINGTON — Several U.S. Senate Democrats launched an investigation into how the Trump administration’s child care funding cuts and policy changes are affecting rural families, in a Sunday letter provided exclusively to States Newsroom.
Published by jason@omahadail... on Wed, 01/28/2026 - 12:00am
First, they killed a mom moments after she dropped off her son at school. Then, they came for the children; in one suburban Minneapolis school district, four students have been detained. On Friday, educators, activists, faith leaders and families braved frigid temperatures to protest the aggressive tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in their state, with solidarity protests happening across the country.