Animal rescuegroup is working

overtime tocare for cats

displacedby flooding.

Midlands

The theories onhow ‘Endgame’will endWill a mainAvenger die?Will CaptainMarvel turnthe tide? WillAnt-Man makeThanos explodefrom the insideout? Go

Atmosphere isfamiliar, butfood is all newAt Lincoln’s Pub,which took overthe space ofDixie Quick’s inCouncil Bluffs,the excellent,local meatstake centerstage. Living

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IndexClassifieds.5&6CComics.............4EObituaries..2&3B

Opinion......4&5BPuzzles ............5ETV listings.......5C

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NEBRASKA LEGISLATURERicketts vetoes bill to help GageCounty pay Beatrice Six. Midlands

Property taxbill runs intolong line ofopponents

By Paul Hammel

WORLD-HERALD BUREAU

LINCOLN — Local school lead-ers, city and county officials, andadvocates for lower taxes lined upin force Wednesday to oppose astate legislative proposal to reduceproperty taxes via a major boost instate aid to K-12 schools.

Even major farm groups, whichare screaming the loudest forproperty tax relief after seeing taxbills skyrocket in the past decade,could muster only a “neutral”stance on the proposal, LegislativeBill 289.

“The situation is critical, andthe time for property tax reliefis now,” said Ken Herz, the pres-ident of the Nebraska Cattlemen.But the bill, he said, falls short bytaking away a current state prop-erty tax credit and not generatingenough tax relief.

“Revisit the issue, choke downyour own prejudices and compro-mise,” suggested former StateSen. Al Davis of Hyannis, of the In-dependent Cattlemen of Nebraska.

Representatives of the state’slargest school districts wereamong the harshest critics of thebill, saying the increased state aidthey would receive would not off-

Major farm groups sayproposal doesn’t provideenough relief; schooldistricts decry lost revenue

With grant, UNL research to focus on rural drug abusers

By Rick Ruggles

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Researchers at the Universi-ty of Nebraska-Lincoln soon willstart looking for 600 drug abusersin the Midwest.

UNL has landed an $11.85 mil-lion federal grant to conduct re-search into the challenges con-nected with the rural drug abuseproblem in Nebraska and threeneighboring states.

Researchers intend to track

those 600 volunteers — identifiedby code number, not name — overyears to discover patterns, prob-lems, what works in treatment,what doesn’t work and many otherelements of rural drug addiction.

The five-year grant from theNational Institutes of Healthcomes with the potential for re-newal for additional years. Theresearch initiative, called the

Rural Drug Addiction ResearchCenter, will include many facets,such as brain scans to examineneurological changes. Research-ers also will study the role thatsocial interactions and networks,behavioral factors and economicconditions play in rural drug ad-diction.

Current treatment tends to re-

Tracking 600 volunteers over years, study will look atchanges in users’ brains and impact of social patterns

Prof’s writing class a creative outletfor men who won’t soon be let out

There is a mo-ment inside Peg-gy Jones’ creativewriting class whenthe class becomesa bit less about themechanics of goodwriting and moreabout the razorwire behind whichher students live.

It happens near the end of Mon-day night’s session, the finale ofthe spring semester. The studentsclear their throats and one afteranother read their final storiesto the room. They use the tech-niques they have learned duringthe semester, techniques profes-sor Jones is always scribbling onthe whiteboard: Imagery; Tension;Pattern; Energy; Insight.

Jones and her students snap

OMAHA.COMTHUrsdAy, ApriL 25, 2019 • sUNrisE EdiTiON • rEAL. FAir. ACCUrATE.

In Wood River,Frost says ‘whenI come backhere I feel likeI’m just Scott,and that feelsgood.’ Sports

RETAIL TECHNOLOGY

New storecameras try toguess your age,gender, mood

NEW YORK (AP) — Eyeing thatcan of pop in the supermarketcooler? Or maybe you’re craving apint of ice cream? A camera couldbe watching you.

But it’s not there to see if you’restealing. These cameras want toget to know you and what you’rebuying.

It’s a new technology being trot-ted out to retailers, where camer-as try to guess your age, gender ormood as you walk by. The intent isto use the information to show youtargeted real-time ads on in-storevideo screens.

Companies are pitching retail-ers to bring the technology intotheir physical stores as a way tobetter compete with online ri-vals like Amazon that are alreadyarmed with troves of informationon their customers and their buy-ing habits.

With store cameras, you may not

See UNL: Page 2

See Property tax: Page 2

See Retailers: Page 3

MatthewHansen

COLUMNIST

M E G A N M C G i L L / T H E W O r L d - H E r A L d

Arthonia “Tone” Watkins reads his final assignment to the class at the OmahaCorrectional Center. At top are UNO professor Peggy Jones and Klint Bitter. Bitterand Watkins will remain inmates at the state prison for at least four more years. See Hansen: Page 2

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