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A special collection of Signature Stories that looks at life and culture in Nebraska through history, literature, religion, and art. This feed is updated continuously.
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On Oct. 17th, 2000, Gina Bos was last seen leaving a pub in downtown Lincoln. She has been missing ever since. Her sister, Jannel Rap, advocated for the day to be turned into a state holiday. The Unicameral passed legislation last year to make that happen. Law enforcement officers and family members read off names of missing persons in Nebraska, including some who haven’t been seen since the 1970s.
The Rural Mainstreet Index, a metric created by Creighton University professor Ernie Goss, is at its lowest level since May 2020. The index comes from a monthly survey of bank CEOs in rural areas across a ten-state region. Goss says a combination of tariffs and weak grain prices are hurting economic activity. However, Nebraska’s year-to-date exports on agricultural goods and livestock are up by nearly 50%, despite a sharp decline in trade with China. Goss says the state’s strong livestock industry could be to thank.
The fight over medical cannabis access continued in Nebraska Wednesday, as dozens of advocates spoke out against proposed regulations from the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission. More than 71% of voters in the state supported legalizing the use of up to five ounces of marijuana for medical purposes by qualified patients in the November 2024 election. The proposed regulations provide a pathway for patients to access that in theory, but many at Wednesday’s hearing said the restrictions amount to a de facto rejection of the voters’ intent.
Advocates for All Nebraskans, a nonprofit lead by former Nebraska Republican Party chair Eric Underwood, introduced its fourth and fifth petitions of the 2026 election cycle Tuesday. One of the proposed constitutional amendments would require all elections in the state to be conducted exclusively through paper ballots that are counted by hand. The other would give all five of the Nebraska’s electoral votes to the statewide winner instead of the current congressional district allocations. Lincoln radio host Doug Fitzgerald said the petition drives have national implications that cannot be overstated.
Omaha's AfroCon was this past Saturday. A convention that focuses on all things nerdy, it also centers creating and maintaining community within North Omaha.
Nebraska’s capital city may soon have a new requirement for the owners of cryptocurrency ATMs. Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird announced Thursday she will be proposing an ordinance that would require crypto or Bitcoin ATM owners to post a sign warning users of scam risks associated with the machine. According to data from the Lincoln Police Department, the number of local fraud cases involving cryptocurrency has more than doubled since its categorization began in 2021.
AfroCon is back in Omaha for its seventh year in a row this Saturday. Planned and put on by Omaha nonprofit, the House of Afros, Capes and Curls, the goal is to provide a place where people of color are openly welcomed and can feel comfortable to indulge in their ‘nerdy’ interests.
Nebraska’s largest casino operator is expanding its facilities once more, thanks in part to its refinancing of $300 million in startup loans. Since Nebraskans voted to legalize casino gambling at racetracks in 2020, WarHorse Gaming – a wing of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska’s economic development corporation, Ho Chunk Inc. – has taken full advantage. WarHorse currently operates casinos in Lincoln and Omaha, and a new location is being planned for South Sioux City. CEO Lance Morgan said the ability to refinance startup loans at a lower interest rate shows investor confidence and will help the operation continue to grow.
U.S. Rep. Mike Flood discusses the federal government shutdown, ACA tax credits, agriculture economic assistance and the Farm Bill.
The first two medical cannabis cultivator license applications have been approved in Nebraska. Nancy Laughlin-Wagner on behalf of Midwest Cultivators Group in Omaha and Patrick Thomas of Raymond will each receive an offer of licensure to grow and cultivate up to 1250 flowering marijuana plants for medical purposes. Their applications were among the four that were randomly selected to be scored by the members of the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission’s evaluation team, which includes all three commission members: Chair Monica Oldenburg, Lorelle Mueting and J. Michael Coffey.
If you turn on a faucet on the Santee Sioux reservation, the water that comes out looks normal enough. But there’s a good chance the sink it’s pouring into is discolored or corroded. Drink the water, and you’re putting yourself at risk of negatively impacting your memory, attention, or motor skills, particularly if you’re very young or very old. That’s because the water here has a dangerously high level of manganese, a naturally occurring mineral that can’t be boiled away. The tribe has issued a drinking water advisory to the reservation recommending tap water not be consumed due to manganese detected at more than ten times above the EPA Health Advisory level.
Jane Goodall spent her life studying the behavior of primates – their relationships, their behaviors, their emotions. But they weren’t the only animals she admired. For more than twenty years, the great sandhill crane migration drew the legendary primatologist to the center of Nebraska. Author and photographer Alan Bartels told Nebraska Public Media’s Jackie Ourada about his friendship with Jane Goodall that began after a visit she made here.
The Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission will not meet its Oct. 1 deadline to begin granting registrations for marijuana cultivators. During its meeting Tuesday, commission chair Dr. Monica Oldenburg said the commission’s evaluation team was unable to provide recommendations for licensure after two of its members resigned. Earlier this week, Commissioners Bruce Bailey and Kim Lowe resigned from their positions on the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission at the request of Gov. Jim Pillen. That also meant losing their roles on the Medical Cannabis Commission, which includes the Liquor Control Commission members.
Advocates for All Nebraskans, a group that wants to lower property taxes in Nebraska, announced a new petition Monday asking the state to play a bigger role in funding public education. The latest proposed statutory amendment would establish a minimum base salary of $50,000 for all certified public-school teachers and asks the state to fulfill its constitutional obligation to fund K-12 education. Teachers with 12 or more years of experience would receive a minimum salary of $62,000. According to a 2025 report from the National Education Association, Nebraska’s average teacher starting salary is $38,811, which ranks 49th among the 50 states.
The Cultural Centers of Lincoln Collaborative is one step closer to its new home. The building, located on a site at 21st and Vine streets, will connect four initiatives: the Good Neighbor Community Center, the Asian Community and Cultural Center, El Centro de las Américas and the Malone Center.
With federal government funding set to expire at the end of the day Tuesday, one Nebraska congressman isn’t holding out hope of avoiding a shutdown. Rep. Mike Flood, a Republican who represents Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District, said Sunday that compromise with the Democrats, at least in the short term, seems unlikely. “Sadly, at this time, I'm not hearing about anything that gives me hope that we're going to be able to get past this, basically because Senator Schumer in the Senate says he's not there, the Democrats don't want to do this,” Flood said.
Dozens of Pete Ricketts supporters made for standing room only inside the Mechanical Room, a speakeasy located in the basement of a brewery in downtown Beatrice, Wednesday evening. Nebraska’s junior senator began his campaign speech highlighting his record of reducing taxes and improving public safety during his eight years as the state’s governor. “We were able to cut the state income taxes for Nebraska families,” he said. “We were able to eliminate the state income tax on Social Security and also eliminate the state income tax on military retirement benefits.”
It’s been a rough year for Nebraska row crop producers, with low corn prices and China’s refusal to buy soybeans leaving many producers in the red, despite relatively high yields. But speaking in York Wednesday, Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs said there are big wins on the horizon for American agriculture. Lindberg attended a roundtable with ag producers on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, ahead of a joint review on the agreement scheduled for next summer. Lindberg says the review process includes three steps – looking to get a better deal, putting buyers and sellers in the same room and ensuring that foreign governments are living up to their commitments.
Omaha-based Union Pacific may soon become the first transcontinental railroad company in the United States, thanks to a proposed merger with Norfolk Southern. But the move has some rail employees worried about worker safety and a lack of government oversight. Nebraska Public Media’s Brian Beach visited Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard in North Platte to learn more.
The 2026 general election may be more than a year away, but the U.S. Senate race in Nebraska is already heating up. Dan Osborn, the industrial mechanic and independent candidate who made national waves for his closer-than-expected race with Sen. Deb Fischer in 2024, is back on the campaign trail – this time against another Republican incumbent, Sen. Pete Ricketts. Osborn may have lost to Fischer by more than 6 percentage points, but in a state that hasn’t elected a non-Republican to the Senate since 2006, the close margin elevated his profile and motivated supporters heading into the next election cycle. “It just started with an idea, and we turned it into getting 47% of the vote in Nebraska,” he said Monday of his 2024 campaign, interrupted by cheering and applause from the crowd.
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