When Chuck Martens could no longer afford his rent, he came up with a solution. He negotiated with his landlords to swap his labor for a rent reduction. Now Martens does landscape work for his Omaha apartment complex. Seven days a week, he mows the grass, collects trash and wields a leaf blower. Hedge trimming is his favorite.

“It’s like you’re doing an ice sculpture, but with a trimmer instead of a chainsaw,” Martens, 77, said.

OMAHA — Signage went up last week, heralding progress on a signature project of the Omaha Inland Port Authority. 

The first phase of the port authority’s “innovation district” — an initiative seeded with a $30 million state grant — now has a home. It’s poised to sprout within a roughly 12-block area southeast of 30th Street and Ames Avenue, near one of the busiest intersections of one of Nebraska’s most disinvested communities.

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania’s rallies against a coastal development project have garnered global attention, both for their connection to U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and because of their curious mascot.

The luxury project has two components: a small resort on the uninhabited island of Sazan and a coastal development in the nearby Narta Lagoon area, which is a wildlife reserve frequented by wetland species including flamingos.

To Protect Its Drinking Water, This City Has to Appeal to the Oil Regulators That Put It at Risk

Down a dirt road in northwest Oklahoma, only a few hundred yards from where the city of Enid draws its drinking water, a company injects the toxic byproduct of oil production deep underground.