It’s getting weird in the Flatwater Free Press this week. We’re flying planes, we’re eating our way through a Med Center quarantine, we’re running out of beer. Let’s get into it.
In heaven (and Omaha) there is no beer: OK, we still have some beer. But this week, Flatwater fellow Emma Croteau has the story of why some of the city’s bars have pulled your favorite brand of brew off their menus.
It turns out to be a fight with far greater implications than whether or not I can get a PBR at my preferred watering hole. (But to be clear, I cannot.)
Last week’s news this week: As many of you noticed, I wrote a big, long thing last week about how you should read Sara Gentzler’s eye-opening story about how a smaller Nebraska nonprofit hospital has paid two of its doctors staggering sums of money. I got you all excited to read it … and then I forgot the link so you could read it.
You should still read it. Here’s the long-awaited link to that story.
Related PSA: You can always find all our latest stories on our website, flatwaterfreepress.org. If you have come to our stories only through this newsletter, check out the home page. Bookmark it. Return to it whenever you need a Flatwater fix!
It includes our new story each day we publish one. Currently, that’s generally one or maybe two stories a day, Tuesday through Friday. You can also search every story that we have written since our founding in 2021 and check out the Documenters program. The home page also showcases some of our award-winning projects over the years.
Anyway, that’s where you should head if I ever again fail miserably and neglect to add a story link. Thank you!
Flyin’ Mavs: No, not Maverick from Top Gun. It’s the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Flight Team! Flatwater Omaha reporter Jeremy Turley with a nice look at a high-flying collegiate squad that virtually no one has heard of. They’re getting good, Iceman. And they’re bringing some attention to the university’s aviation program as well.
Table for one: An Instagram-famous travel blogger just happened to be on the infamous cruise where people contracted a rare and deadly strain of hantavirus. That’s why Jake Rosmarin found himself inside the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s National Quarantine Unit, where he’s stuck, virtually alone, for 42 days as they monitor for him of signs of the virus. (So far, so good.)
But Jake took these lemons and made a lemon-mint triple chocolate fudge cheesecake with a peanut butter swirl, or something like that. More accurately, he ordered it delivered.
The man inside the quarantine unit, and now all his remaining quarantine compadres, are eating their way through Omaha, one uniquely Nebraskan food delivery at a time. Flatwater food critic Sarah Baker Hansen with the story.
Boys Don’t Cry (cont.): Let me get serious for just a moment before I let you go on this fine summer Friday. We published a story earlier this week, by Flatwater correspondent Leo Adam Biga, whose main photo stopped me cold.
It’s a candid photo of a young Nebraskan giving a little side eye to the camera from the passenger seat of a car. It’s a photo whose amateur blurriness gives it away as an old one, a snapshot taken long before the advent of the iPhone. The kid — and I’m old enough now to call this person a kid — looks ready to go places fast. The photo oozes confidence. It suggests adventure, that endless blue horizon visible through the windshield.
That photo is of Brandon Teena, the 21-year-old trans man murdered in our state in 1993. After Brandon’s death, the young Nebraskan became the subject of the movie “Boys Don’t Cry.” But it was a documentary, made before that Hollywood movie, that really gave the country its first unflinching and nuanced look at Brandon’s life and heinous death.
Leo’s story is about the filmmakers behind that documentary, their work to make a new one — a sequel, an update. It’s also about how these coastal filmmakers have come to feel close to, and protective of, Nebraskans. It’s a very good story, and you should read it.
But linger on that photo just a second before you go about your weekend.
Join me in slowing down for a moment, glancing out the windshield and giving a few heartbeats of our time to the kid in the passenger seat.
Questions wanted: Some of our best story ideas come from readers, and they typically start with a burning question that just cries out for an answer. Have a question that our reporters need to look into? Reach our newsroom at [email protected].
Sincerely,
Matthew Hansen, Executive Editor
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Here’s what we’re into this week: News from around Nebraska
Every week, we like to share great Nebraska journalism, no matter who made it. Here’s what caught our eye this week:
- It’s not every day that a Nebraska chef gets a big cool profile in The New Yorker. Frankly, this is probably a first, and for good reason. Dave Utterback continues to do incredible sushi inside our most landlocked of states. Really fascinating story from Hannah Goldfield.
- Another massive wildfire is burning in Nebraska, this time in extreme northwest Nebraska. Story by the Scottsbluff Star-Herald’s Maunette Loeks, appearing in The World-Herald. (You may need OWH subscriber access to read that story.) And another story on the South Fork Fire, this one by Nebraska Public Media’s Matt Olberding.
- Nebraska is building new nontraditional pathways to recruit new teachers, reports The World-Herald’s Luna Stephens. To understand one big reason why this is needed in Nebraska, read Flatwater’s recent story from Emma Croteau about how many current teachers are leaving the field.
- Here’s a headline I was surprised to read. In May, for the first time ever, solar power provided more of the country’s electricity than coal. Story by the Associated Press.
- Strange one from central Nebraska. The Central Nebraska Health Department is again searching for a new director just one month after hiring someone in that role. Story by Austin Koeller of NTV News.
- Omaha may join Lincoln by attempting to keep the $15 minimum wage, reports Nebraska Public Media’s Jessica Wade. Lincoln’s move has gotten that city crosswise with Attorney General Mike Hilgers.
- It has been a year since the massive Glenn Valley immigration raid. News Channel Nebraska looks back and talks to those affected at the 1-year anniversary mark.
- The University of Nebraska is going to hike tuition again, and will also have to weather another round of (smaller) budget cuts after a less-than-hoped-for state appropriation, reports Chris Dunker in the Lincoln Journal Star. (You may need LJS subscriber access to read this story.)
- Say it ain’t so, Zipline! The popular Nebraska craft brewery is shutting down brewing operations. Stories by the Lincoln Journal Star and 10/11 News Now.
- And finally, our sister publication Silicon Prairie News had a sweet one this week, and honest to God, I was reading it while I was eating some Sweet Stash candy at the Omaha airport the other day. Nice story on the candy startup and its founders by SPN’s Lev Gringauz.
