DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Lights flicker, doors hang off their hinges and holes in the walls expose pipes in the apartment building where Hesham, an Egyptian migrant worker, lives in Dubai, an emirate better known for its flashy skyscrapers and penthouses.

His two-bedroom rental unit is carved up to house nine other men, and what he calls home is a modified closet just big enough for a mattress.

LINCOLN – Nebraska Republican U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith is proposing additional tax relief aimed at increasing American production of minerals used in electronics, including microchips.

The legislation aims to increase the “depletion allowance” for producers of rare earth materials and scandium from 14% to match the tax break enjoyed by producers of minerals deemed the “highest-priority,” which is 22%.

LINCOLN — County officials and advocates for rural development cried foul over recent changes in a federal initiative to expand access to high-speed internet, saying they will force thousands in rural Nebraska to settle for second-rate broadband.

Take Seward County, just outside of Lincoln, for example.

PORT VILA, Vanuatu (AP) — When John Warmington first began diving the reefs outside his home in Vanuatu’s Havannah Harbor a decade ago, the coral rose like a sunken forest — tall stands of staghorns branched into yellow antlers, plate corals layered like canopies, and clouds of darting fish wove through the labyrinth.

“We used to know every inch of that reef,” he said. “It was like a friend.”