OMAHA — A local artist key to the creation of Omaha’s popular Little Italy mural has launched another art project to strengthen the bridge between Nebraska’s biggest city and a small Sicilian town from where many of the state’s early Italians emigrated.

This latest venture will be told through the eyes of children.

Called “Little Hearts — Big Roots,” the binational initiative centers on students at Pine Elementary in Omaha’s Little Italy neighborhood and partner schools in Carlentini, one of Omaha’s official sister cities.

NEW YORK (AP) — Three brothers, two of them real estate agents who catered to the jet-set crowd, used a playbook over a 12-year stretch that sometimes involved drugging women and girls before raping them, a prosecutor told a New York jury Tuesday in an opening statement.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Madison Smyser said the brothers used "whatever means necessary" including luxury accommodations, flights, drugs, alcohol and sometimes brute force to lure women into situations where they could be raped.