Aug. 12 | Lexington health findings, Omaha school approved

From the Nebraska Public Media Newsroom, this is the Nebraska Update. Coming up in, Omaha School gets approval to open after initial hesitation from Republican members on the State Board of Education. Plus, the closure of a Tyson Foods plant in Lexington left workers, many of whom had built their lives around the job with a lot of questions. How am I going to make my mortgage or how am I going to pay my rent? How am I going to feed myself? How am I going to feed my family? What am I going to tell my kids? Those stories just ahead. I'm Jackie Aretha. It's Wednesday, August 12th. On this day, in 1877, the city of Omaha issued a permit to the New York Life Insurance Company to construct what's now known as the Omaha building. When its 10 stories were completed in 1889, it was Omaha's first skyscraper and the city's tallest building. The news is next. Nebraska Update is just one of Nebraska Public Media's podcasts. Discover Friday Live, Curious Nebraska, all about books and more. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

An Omaha school can now open next week after the State Board of Education unanimously granted conditional approval at a special meeting Tuesday. Identity Preparatory Academy, an all-girls middle school in North Omaha, was meant to receive approval last week. But that was postponed after the four Republican board members shared concerns with the words. abolitionist framework being on the school's website. It was later removed. Darnisha Phillips, founder of the school, says that was referring to abolishing the school to prison pipeline the North Omaha community faces. When we did use the word abolitionists on our website for a framework, what we were talking about is abolishing the school to prison pipeline by cultivating joyful learning spaces for the girls that will be under our care. that will still be happening. The school is set to open next week. National data shows about 90% of college students are using AI in class. And as Jolie Peel reports, Nebraska universities are considering how to be on the cutting edge and implement it responsibly. The College of St. Mary in Omaha uses a framework that guides how students and faculty use artificial intelligence. Jeff Keat, chief AI officer and a dean, says he wants students to use AI ethically. He's even created his own chatbots for them, like one to turn PowerPoints into study materials. I've had students come to me and say, Keith, this is the best study tool I've ever used. But I also have students who are not interested in it at all and are thriving and succeeding without it. So like I do want... folks to know that, too, that it's not everybody. Creighton University is also implementing AI in coursework, and the University of Nebraska launched the AI Institute earlier this year. You can read more about our AI and education series at Nebraska Public Media.org slash news. I'm Jolie Peel, Nebraska Public Media News. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services has given out about $140 million as part of the new Rural Health Transformation Program. Bios explains how it's being used so far. The federal government gave Nebraska $218 million for the first year of the RHTP. Now the state has until the end of October to decide how to divvy up the money. The Nebraska High Value Network, a group of 22 rural hospitals, got $18 million to implement technology that remotely monitors patient vital signs. Tyler Tolene is the board's chairman and leader of Franciscan Health Care in West Point. Anybody could buy the monitors, but to be able to actually set it up to be able to prove the value of them and prove what you're doing, I don't think we would have had the capital funds to be able to do it. The individual hospitals got a few grants too. Other RHDP initiatives include chronic disease education, access to whole foods in schools, and staff recruitment incentives. I'm Macy Byers for Nebraska Public Media News. The city of Omaha will cover the cost of demolishing or repairing the home of a former cocktail bar called Brothers Lounge. It sits along the streetcar route that partially collapsed in June. It's up to the owners of the now vacant structure to pick which action to take. The bar experience.

a foundational collapse amid heavy rainfall and streetcar construction. Steve Jensen, a longtime city planner, said the city of Omaha is still investigating whether that construction contributed to the collapse. Lincoln Mayor Leary and Gailer Baird formally announced a $17 million volleyball complex ballot initiative in partnership with the nonprofit Nebraska for volleyball. Maddie Ames has more on what the initiative entails. Lincoln voter approval is the final step for the volleyball complex after it was approved by a state board led by Governor Jim Pillon. That approval allows for the project's use of state sales tax incentives, but Lincoln residents need to approve the use of a turnback tax. Maggie Griffin, the executive director of Nebraska for volleyball, said the tax will fund up to 75% of construction. This facility would not be possible without this tool, just based on the cost that it would require for a facility like this. With an estimated opening date of fall 2028, if approved by voters, the complex is estimated to generate over $51 million during the construction phase and the first year of operation. I'm Maddie Ames, Nebraska Public Media News. A coalition of environmental groups says raising public awareness of prairies could help spur conservation efforts. Harvest Public Media's Celia Yopee's Jepson reports. Half of Americans say they know little or nothing about grasslands. One in six considers themselves knowledgeable on the topic. That's according to a survey commissioned. by nearly a dozen groups, including the Nature Conservancy. Brian Obermeier with the group says the survey found that as awareness increases, people see this ecosystem as important. It is an amazing carbon bank, so a lot of stored carbon. About 80% of the prairie is underground. Prairies also reduce flood risks, protect water from pollution, and support ranching. Most of North America's grasslands have been destroyed. I'm Celia Aobis Jepsen, Harvest Public Media.

In the aftermath of the Tyson Foods plant closure in Lexington, groups from around the state flocked to the city to help out. That included professors and researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, like Athena Ramos, an agricultural health and safety expert and researcher who helped lead multiple programs for community members. She also conducted a study with 57 former Tyson employees to learn about their struggles. Molly Ashford sat down with Ramos to learn about her work and the results of the study. So that initial announcement from Tyson came down on the Friday before Thanksgiving, and I know it kind of took the whole state by surprise. After the shock wore off, what were you thinking about and what were you hearing from people on the ground there? When I told my team over the weekend, you know, what was happening, we all agree that we have to do something. So I started getting involved in trying to be at community meetings and participate in some of the things that were going on in the community and kind of online about the community and learn as much as possible. I was able to call on some of those relationships with people that I already knew in Lexington and asked them, hey, you know, I heard about this thing going down. What do you all know? How's the community? doing, how's the community feeling? How can we help? And over and over again, we heard mental health. And I know some of the programming you did in Lexington focused on mental health. Yeah, so we did Being Vanito, which is a mental health promotion program that's also conducted in Spanish. We did a six-week version of Being Vanito, so we met with participants once a week for six weeks. We also did a six-week chronic disease self-management program in English and in Spanish. So if... You know, you study the meatpacking industry. You learn that pain is a very constant. Almost any meatpacking worker that you talk to will talk to you about physical pain that they're experiencing. And so we thought, well, that would be a good program because this chronic disease self-management program also can address pain as a chronic condition. I would imagine the mental and physical health impacts here are really connected, especially in an industry like meatpacking, which is so taxing on the body. It was a really interesting, many really interesting conversations. People talked about this cooling off of the body. And so they were saying actually that now that they weren't working, they were feeling even more pain because they're not doing the work every day where it's just kind of numbing in a way. But now they're actually sitting literally with the pain and thinking about it and feeling it. And so there is a lot of that. In addition to these health promotion programs and trainings, you also did a research study with laid off workers. What were the goals of that research? So the goals of the study were to be able to learn more about the major stressors and worries that people were experiencing about how workers and families were coping with the...

the transition that was happening in their community, and then get their own perspectives about the impact of the closure on the community. We had seven of these focus groups. Three were in English and four were in Spanish. And most of the people who participated in English, they were people from Africa. But we had people from five different countries who participated in these focus groups. Many of the people had worked at the plant for a very long time. So on average, it was about 18 years. What are some of the main feelings and concerns that you heard from people in those focus groups? People were feeling a lot of distress. They were feeling really sad, really angry, really frustrated. They felt like in a way they'd been forgotten. You know, Tyson... They touted a mantra of family, like we're a family, and we're all in this together. And so some people, they told us, we feel like we've been forgotten. They were feeling lost in a way. Those were some of the main things that we found in terms of how people were feeling. They had a lot of concerns. Obviously, money was the main concern. How am I going to make my mortgage? Or how am I going to pay my rent? How am I going to feed myself? How am I going to feed my family? What am I going to tell my kids? You know, what happens to my kids when they see their friends moving away and the sadness that comes from that network dissipating. You also asked participants about what they want the broader public to know about them and their community and their situation. What did they share? Workers want to stay in Lexington. Nobody wanted to leave. In fact, I didn't meet anybody. during all my visits and my time in town that wanted to leave Lexington. Did people leave? Yes, but out of necessity. They loved Lexington because it was that warm, welcoming kind of small town feel where people know each other. They're not afraid to, you know, say hi as they're walking down the streets. Even if you're in the grocery store and you pass somebody that you may have seen in the plant, people, you know, they put up there, you know, wave their hand and that sort of thing. So they didn't want to have to leave that. like the safety, the security of their community. They like the short commute. So they were hopeful that something would happen with the facility, that it could be repurposed into something where jobs would be able to come back into the community. Athena, thank you so much for your work and for chatting with me. You're welcome. Thank you. That was Athena Ramos, a professor at the UNMC College of Public Health. For Nebraska Public Media News, I'm Molly Ashford. The Nebraska update is Nebraska Public Media's daily news podcast. Follow wherever you listen, so you never miss an update. Share your story ideas and news tips with us online at Nebraskapublicmedia.org slash news tip. This episode was produced by Andy Herman with music from KJ Tetter. I'm your host, Jackie Arenda.

History has a way of repeating itself. The years and headlines change, but the questions don't. Join us to connect the past to today's conversations about politics, farming, food, and justice. Once again, a podcast from Nebraska Public Media.