Five days, five good stories. That’s what we have for you this week. More and more, that’s what we’re trying to provide at Flatwater every week. They’re ambitious stories from all over the state. Some provoke concern, even outrage. Others left me feeling educated, regenerated, refreshed.
Five weekdays, five important stories. Let’s get busy.
Priced out in Lincoln: The city named after Abe likes to be No. 1 in the state, but not in this category. Lincoln and Lancaster County have become the most expensive place to buy a house in Nebraska when you compare median price to median income, reports Flatwater Lincoln reporter Emily Wolf.
And the shocking surge in prices is causing problems in Lincoln, especially for the city’s younger adults.
Our series, “Priced Out of The Good Life,” continues with an eye-opening one from our capital city.
Want to see how your home county stacks up? Flatwater’s Destiny Herbers built a handy-dandy tool that allows you to see how affordable (or unaffordable) it is to buy a home where you live. Check out her Housing Affordability Calculator.
Birthday talk: It’s our fifth birthday, and each week I’m unveiling — and inviting you to — an event where we can celebrate together.
As a reminder: The big bash is the Flatwater Free Press Festival, codename FlatFest, held this year on Sept. 23 at a stunningly cool barn a few minutes from Lincoln. Learn more and support us by buying your tickets here.
But without further ado, I’m pleased to announce that on Sunday evening, Sept. 20, we will be hosting a Flatwater Forum inside the hallowed halls of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery on UNL’s City Campus.
It’s a series of Q&A’s and conversations with newsmakers and news stars, including Atlantic senior editor (and UNL grad) Jenna Johnson and Flatwater senior reporter Yanqi Xu, who will soon publish another story as part of her New York Times Investigations Fellowship.
I can’t announce it yet, but I’m super hopeful that we will also have a high-profile Lincoln leader answering a reporter’s questions at this event, too.
It’s free! Space is limited! Register for the Flatwater Forum here today.
Scroll down to see all the announced fifth birthday party events. Next week, we announce a special Omaha celebration.
A (giant) Omaha reunion: This was a cool one from correspondent Leo Adam Biga.
The Bryant-Fisher family reunion has been going on in Omaha for more than a century. This year, family members traveled from all over the country — even from overseas — to attend, while passing onto their children the importance of learning the star-studded family tree, and the grand family’s traditions, too.
Wind and solar windfall? A bunch of Nebraska’s rural counties have fought aggressively against the expansion of wind and solar energy and other energy sources, citing a myriad of reasons why they don’t want it in their backyards. (We have written many stories about this.)
But a few counties have quietly but aggressively expanded wind and solar energy. In some cases, the resulting tax dollars are benefiting those counties and their schools. A smart story by Flatwater climate reporter Anila Yoganathan, one allowing you to see whether your county is cashing in or not.
Toxic lead in east Omaha: As I told you last week, we did a wildly ambitious project in Omaha’s biggest city for the past year. We tested the lead in people’s yards, in and around the largest Superfund cleanup site of its kind in American history.
Chris Bowling’s story on Monday, co-published in the Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica, shows that Omaha still has a really serious and frankly legitimately scary lead problem — more than half of the yards we tested were above a lead level that experts say is unsafe, particularly for kids.
Bowling appeared on the NPR program “Here and Now” on Wednesday to discuss his project. He did a really nice job, too. Listen here.
And finally, if you want to catch up on all of Bowling’s coverage in this area, check out our “Buried Truth” landing page.
Wranglers vs. Levi’s: America’s, and Nebraska’s, rural-urban divide isn’t just in our red-blue politics. A new story from Daily Yonder, which we republished this week, shows that we’re divided on where we shop, what we buy and what we eat, too.
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
Thanks to this week’s sponsor
Learn more about Flatwater Free Press sponsorship options »
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:
- I didn’t know a thing about Braniff International Flight 250, which was meant to be a short flight from Kansas City to Omaha but never made it. Which is why I was fascinated by Andrew Nelson’s story in Courthouse News Service about the crash, its 60th anniversary and how it made flying safer.
- The director of Nebraska’s Medicaid program is resigning just as the state becomes the first state in the country to implement more aggressive work requirements as laid out in President Trump’s signature “One Big Beautiful Bill” that passed into law last year. Story by Cindy Gonzalez of the Nebraska Examiner.
- A big story for the past week has been the arrests of petition gatherers for suspected fraud. A challenger to the Lancaster County attorney is now arguing that the county attorney should recuse himself from the investigation. The county attorney is saying no. (Stories by Nebraska Examiner, Nebraska Public Media and the Journal Star.)
- Ord is trying to become the first place in Nebraska to take out Flock cameras, a popular police surveillance technology used around the country. Flatwater Lincoln reporter Emily Wolf wrote about these surveillance tools last year and how they are being used by ICE in Nebraska.
- A new $30 million terminal has been opened in the North Platte Regional Airport, an expansion praised by Nebraska’s congressional delegation this week. Story by News Channel Nebraska and 10/11 News Now.
- The NU Board of Regents eliminated two degree programs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on Thursday. Story by the Daily Nebraskan’s Justin Diep. The board also asked for more money from the state — an ask that may be made more difficult by the state’s looming budget deficit. That story by the Examiner’s Zach Wendling.
