72nd/Dodge Library, Rare-Earth Mining, Astronaut Comes Home

HERE’S YOUR RUNDOWN

Happy National Rescue Dog Day

In Reed Moore’s humble opinion, there is nothing more touching than a four-legged friend wagging its tail and slobbering its new human with love.

Today’s news: Designs are in the works for an Omaha Public Library branch at 72nd and Dodge. Southeast Nebraska could soon be home to a rare-earth mine. Nebraska’s only astronaut, Clayton Anderson, returns home to Ashland to become the president and CEO of the SAC Aerospace Museum.

REED MOORE’S FEATURED STORY

The Weirdest ‘High School Musical’ Yet!

Stephen King wrote “Firestarter” back when government conspiracy theories were fun things sci-fi/horror writers used for plot devices and not a major party’s political platform. The new flick boils the book down to a back cover blurb.

Movie Review by Ryan Syrek. Published in The Reader.

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COVID-19 UPDATE

‘Rona roundup:

The spike in COVID-19 cases continues in the Omaha metro, with 353 new cases since Monday, May 16. Medical and surgical beds are 85% occupied, with 82 hospitalizations due to the pandemic. Two of the hospitalizations are due to pediatric cases.

If you aren’t up to date on your COVID-19 vaccines, you can find appointments at vaccines.gov. More at-home COVID-19 tests are also available at CovidTests.gov.

By the numbers:

This graphic is updated as of 7:20 a.m. on May 20. For the latest stats, click the image, which sends you to the Johns Hopkins site.

AROUND OMAHA

Omaha-area ride share drivers say they’re getting requests to drop off and pick up kids from school. Giving rides to unaccompanied minors is against Uber and Lyft rules, but some parents say buses aren’t an option where they live.
Designs are moving forward for an Omaha Public Library branch at 72nd and Dodge. The current occupant, technology library Do Space, will be absorbed into the new branch and become a part of what city leaders envision as a world-class civic engagement center. The cost is estimated to be upward of $100 million, and while plans are not final, a design phase suggests it’s moving quickly in that direction.
Country artist Brett Eldredge and American Idol runner-up Lauren Alaina will be performing at the Gene Leahy Mall on July 2. It’s slated to be the first concert since the reopening on July 1, as part of a four-day celebration of one of downtown’s most prominent landmarks.
Reed Moore previously reported that there was an ongoing effort to study truck traffic in Florence. 3 News Now reports that one of the four options being considered is a bridge that would connect I-680 to Highway 75.
Business owners on Center Street from 34th to 36th say they are redoubling their efforts to getting the city to fund a slim-down of the roads from five lanes to three. They say they want to see the stretch become a business district similar to Dundee, Benson or Blackstone.

AROUND NEBRASKA

Flatwater Free Press’ Natalia Alamdari is back in Nebraska, but she’s been filing a steady stream of stories from her time in Warsaw, Poland, where she covered Operation Safe Harbor, a nonprofit effort raising money to shelter families fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Here’s her latest, focusing on medical care for the refugees. You can listen to Alamdari share her experiences with one of Nebraska Public Media’s many go-getters, William Padmore, here.
Flatwater Free Press’ Yanqi Xu does a deep dive into what Nebraskans in need of reproductive health care will have to do in a hypothetical post-Roe v. Wade world.
A Colorado-based mining company wants to extract rare elements from southeast Nebraska. The mine, proposed by NioCorp Developments and to be placed in Elk Creek (80 miles south of Omaha), would be in the second-largest rare-earth deposit in the United States. A report from NioCorp says there are over 600 kilotons of rare-earth metals there — critical to the manufacturing of electric vehicles and other tech products.
Nebraska’s only astronaut has returned home. Clayton Anderson retired from NASA nearly a decade ago but was most recently based in the Houston area. He’s coming back to his hometown of Ashland to become the president and CEO of the Strategic Air Command Aerospace Museum, located halfway between Omaha and Lincoln.

PORTRAIT OF A PET

Meet Ra, an 11-month-old German Shepherd. She’s a workaholic who loves being kept busy with puzzle feeders, Kongs, hiking, and running. Ra would love to be your energetic canine companion but is not cut out for the trappings of apartment life. If you have kids or other dogs, she’ll need to vet them first. Think you’re ready to undergo Ra’s vetting process? Click here to learn more.