UNMC LAUNCHING CLINICAL TRIALS FOR EXPERIMENTAL CORONAVIRUS THERAPY

OMAHA - In addition to serving as one of the lead quarantine sites for Americans diagnosed with COVID-19, the University of Nebraska Medical Center is spearheading the effort to find a treatment for the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.

Tuesday, UNMC announced the first clinical trial in the U.S. of remdesivir, a "broad-spectrum" antiviral therapy that has proved effective against SARS and MERS — other respiratory diseases caused by varying strains of the virus — as well as against the Ebola virus.

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BILL ALLOWING COLLEGE ATHLETES TO MAKE MONEY OFF NAMES ADVANCES

LINCOLN - Legislation giving college athletes in Nebraska the chance to endorse brands or products, promote sponsored content on social media or get paid for private lessons or to host camps advanced from first-round debate Tuesday.

Omaha Sen. Megan Hunt's Nebraska Fair Pay to Play Act (LB962), which would allow athletes to make money on their name, image or likeness, won early-round approval on a 36-4 vote.

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KOCH-FUNDED CENTER AT UNL SET TO EXPLORE FUTURE IMPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY

Researchers around the world are zeroing in on techniques capable of reprogramming viruses to attack cancer cells or to eradicate unwanted genetic mutations from human DNA altogether.

At the same time, new algorithms are allowing computers to anticipate changes to the financial markets with better accuracy and consistency, enabling trades to take place thousands of times every second.

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COUNTY LEADERS SAY SARPY ISN'T THE RIGHT PLACE FOR A PROPOSED NEW STATE PRISON

LINCOLN — Two Sarpy County leaders are making it clear that they don’t want the suburban Omaha county to become the site of a new state prison.

“It just wouldn’t make any sense to build a large maximum security prison in the fastest growing and among the most populated counties in the state, where the unemployment rate is less than 3%,” said Don Kelly of Papillion, chairman of the Sarpy County Board.

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SUICIDE ATTEMPTS, ASSAULTS, ESCAPES, AN UPRISING: WHAT'S GOING ON AT THE KEARNEY YOUTH CENTER?

KEARNEY, Neb. — Tammie Jones’ heart raced every time her cellphone rang with a call from the state’s largest juvenile justice center.

The calls often brought bad news about her 17-year-old son, who was at the Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Center-Kearney.

Jones, 37, got the latest gut-punch call on Feb. 12. Her son was hospitalized after trying to take his own life by overdosing on pills. It was his third suicide attempt while at the facility.

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PRIVATELY BUILT PRISONS - AS ENVISIONED IN NEBRASKA - ARE STARTING TO CATCH ON

LINCOLN — The largest and oldest prison in Kansas, the Lansing Correctional Facility, opened when Abraham Lincoln was president.

So when Kansas officials decided to replace the 2,400-bed Lansing facility because of overcrowding, rising operating costs and its age, they opted for a novel solution: hire a private company to build a replacement, and have the state staff it with their workers and lease it for 20 years, when it would then own it.

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RICKETTS, STATE SENATORS CONDEMN WHITE SUPREMACIST COMMENTS MADE DURING HEARING ON GUN CONTROL BILLS

LINCOLN — Gov. Pete Ricketts and State Sen. Julie Slama have joined Sen. Megan Hunt in condemning the white supremacist testimony of a Lincoln gun shop employee before a legislative committee on Friday.

Hunt, of Omaha, issued a press release during the hearing saying white supremacy has “no place in our country” and must be opposed and “called out.”

“Elected officials must draw a bright line against normalizing racism and white supremacy while working to promote policies of equality and inclusivity,” said Hunt, who is the Legislature’s first openly bisexual senator.

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THREE NEBRASKA SCHOOL GROUPS UNITE IN OPPOSITION TO PROPERTY TAX

LINCOLN — Groups representing Nebraska schools, from the smallest to the largest, have united against the Legislature’s main property tax proposal.

The Nebraska Rural Community Schools Association, representing smaller schools; Schools Taking Action for Nebraska Children’s Education, or STANCE, representing midsize schools; and the Greater Nebraska Schools Association, representing large schools, issued a joint press release Friday opposing Legislative Bill 974.

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I-80 TO BE REBUILT THROUGH OMAHA; $860 MILLION PLAN OUTLINES FUTURE OF METRO AREA FREEWAYS

OMAHA - Interstate 80 through Omaha will be widened under a new state plan to plot the course for the metro area’s freeways.

The Nebraska Department of Transportation has completed a major study that outlines $860 million in changes over the next 25 years to Interstates 80, 480 and 680, the Kennedy Freeway, West Dodge Road and the West Dodge elevated expressway.

Most notably, it outlines plans to widen I-80 from four main lanes each way to six lanes through Omaha between I-480 and 680.

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OMAHA-BASED ETHANOL COMPANY SAYS IT WON'T MAKE MONEY OFF CONTROVERSIAL GRANT

LINCOLN — The head of the nation’s largest ethanol producer says his firm is being unfairly portrayed as the beneficiary of a controversial shift in a state lottery grant recommended by the Nebraska Environmental Trust Board.

Todd Becker of Omaha-based Green Plains Inc. said the $1.8 million shifted away from wetland and conservation easement projects would be parceled out in grants to retail gas stations, not his firm, to help pay for the installation of “blender” pumps that can deliver fuel with 15% to 85% ethanol.

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30 CABINS FLOODED, 2 PEOPLE RESCUED IN ICE JAM FLOODING ON PLATTE RIVER IN DODGE COUNTY

OMAHA - Ice jam flooding over the weekend inundated about 30 cabins along the Platte River west of Fremont and required a harrowing water rescue that left four people injured.

The sudden surge of the Platte River out of its banks west of Fremont on Saturday generated a rush of anxiety as people worried about a recurrence, even on a modest scale, of last year’s catastrophic flooding. Last year, in March, about $2.7 billion in damage occurred across Nebraska when runoff from snowmelt and rain poured into area rivers, triggering overland and ice jam flooding. At least 7,000 homes were damaged and several people died.

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DON WALTON: TAX REFORM AND PRISON REFORM PRESENT TOUGH CHALLENGES

LINCOLN - Tax reform and prison reform, both heavy legislative lifts.

One requires a balance of economic, regional and political interests; the other requires a reality check.

So far, the legislative play call for both has always been simple: Punt.

Prison reform looks like the easier challenge to resolve with a combination of increased funding now — at a time when state government already has the revenue in hand or on the way — and when sentencing reform legislation is on the floor and sitting in the Legislature's lap.

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NEW 1,600-BED PRISON BETWEEN LINCOLN AND OMAHA PROPOSED

LINCOLN - Just a few years ago, Nebraska administrators and lawmakers were trying everything possible to avoid having to sink state money into building a new prison.

Things have changed.

Corrections Director Scott Frakes said Tuesday the state is considering a public-private partnership to build a new, 1,600-bed prison between Lincoln and Omaha to help deal with overcrowding and staffing issues. It could even have potential to expand by hundreds of beds.

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SURVIVORS OF CHURCH SHOOTINGS RUN AS GUN-RIGHTS CANDIDATES

SEGUIN, Texas—Stephen Willeford was widely hailed by supporters of the Second Amendment as the model “good guy with a gun” in 2017, when he grabbed an AR-15 rifle and pursued and shot at a gunman killing churchgoers in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Two and a half years later, the gregarious plumber has embraced the moniker Good Gun Guy Wille in speeches, church security training and now in a campaign for local county commissioner. If he wins, he wants to make Wilson County a “Second Amendment sanctuary” that would defy any restrictions state politicians might put on guns.

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CAN SOLAR POWER COMPETE WITH COAL? IN INDIA, IT'S GAINING GROUND

BHADLA, India—In a dusty northwest India desert dotted with cows and the occasional camel, a solar-power plant is producing some of the world’s cheapest energy.

Built in 2018 by India’s Acme Solar Holdings Ltd., it can generate 200 megawatts of electricity, enough to power all the homes in a middle-size U.S. town. Acme sells the electricity to distributors for 2.44 rupees (3.4 cents) a kilowatt-hour, a record low for solar power in India, a country that data trackers say has the world’s cheapest solar energy.

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FIRST EBOLA, NOW CORONAVIRUS. WHY AN AN OMAHA HOSPITAL GETS THE TOUGHEST CASES.

OMAHA - In the years after the Sept. 11 attacks, officials at Nebraska Medical Center envisioned a time when the nation would need a large, secure treatment center to guard against the threats of bioterrorism and infectious diseases. They spent $1 million to transform an empty wing of the hospital into a 10-bed biocontainment unit, complete with concrete walls, filtered air and video links to the nursing station.

Then they waited.

The beds sat empty for years, until an Ebola outbreak in 2014. The unit became a central player in treating Americans returning from West Africa with the lethal disease. Nurses wearing face shields, water-resistant gowns and three pairs of surgical gloves treated three Ebola patients. When that threat subsided, the unit returned to being a quiet ward used only for training and planning.

Now, the hospital in Omaha is once again playing a key role in an international health emergency, after 13 Americans who tested positive or were exposed to the new coronavirus on a contaminated cruise ship in Japan were hustled off an international flight and transported there for evaluation on Monday.

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COURT HEARING ON REQUEST TO BLOCK HISTORICAL RACING IN NEBRASKA POSTPONED

LINCOLN - A Lancaster County District Court hearing set for Tuesday on a request to block Fonner Park from installing historical horse racing terminals has been postponed, according to court staff.

No new court date had been set in the case pitting the Nebraska Attorney General's Office against the Nebraska State Racing Commission over its approval of the controversial terminals.

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SENATORS THROW UNANIMOUS SUPPORT BEHIND CHAMBERS' PRIORITY BILL ON RACIAL PROFILING

LINCOLN - It isn't often an Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers bill gets such an overwhelming response.

It happened Wednesday when the Legislature advanced Chambers' priority bill (LB924), requiring racial profiling anti-bias training for law enforcement, on a 43-0 vote.

The veteran lawmaker said he could have prioritized that bill (LB44), which was introduced last year and failed to advance on a 25-17 vote, for symbolism and symmetry to leave the way he came into the Legislature in 1971, fighting to end the death penalty.

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'SOMETHING DIDN'T LOOK RIGHT': PARENT URGES POLICIES TO PREVENT GROOMING OF VICTIMS

LINCOLN - Lisa Albers doesn't know if a stronger school policy would have prevented her child from being groomed by a substitute teacher.

Future policies, the Grand Island Public Schools board member said, defining what interactions between students and teachers are appropriate — as well as what the consequences are for breaching that trust — will prevent future students from being violated.

Under a bill (LB1080) from Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop, all public and private schools in Nebraska would be required to adopt policies outlining appropriate conduct between employees and students.

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TOM OSBORNE TESTIFIES AGAINST GAMBLING BILLS; SENATOR SAYS NEBRASKA LOSING MONEY

LINCOLN - Three bills that would expand gambling in Nebraska drew fire from familiar opponents during a hearing before the Legislature’s General Affairs Committee on Monday, including former Husker coach Tom Osborne and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Rodgers.

Legislative Resolution 295CA would allow Nebraska voters to decide this fall whether to allow casinos and sports betting in the state. LB 971 would redefine “lottery” to include sports betting, and LB 990 would designate sports betting, fantasy sports and poker as “games of skill” rather than “games of chance,” changing the way they are regulated.

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