Omaha

OMAHA, Neb. -- The way Cheryl Brunt sees it, she gets a fair chance to raise three children away from the dangers of public housing projects.The way many of her neighbors see it, Ms. Brunt has it made. The city of Omaha purchased a three-bedroom house in a middle-class suburb. The city makes all repairs.And Ms. Brunt -- a 33-year-old, self-employed, single mother -- pays rent of only $130 a month under a program aimed at breaking up housing projects by moving poor inner-city residents, most of them black, to better-off, largely white areas.

"Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist," by Roger Lowenstein. New York: Random House. 463 pages. $25 With the Walt Disney Co.'s planned buyout of Capital Cities/ABC, the biggest winner will be a mild-mannered billionaire who makes his home in middle America and defies the stereotypes of vulture capitalists.Already worth $9.2 billion, Warren Buffett stands to make $2.1 billion from the Disney deal. And that is likely to catapult him from second to first among America's wealthiest individuals.

OMAHA -- Americans are sharply divided over whether gay men and lesbians choose their sexual orientation, a split that shapes attitudes on everything from homosexuals in the military to gay life in general, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.Americans who say individuals cannot change their homosexuality -- 43 percent of those surveyed -- are more sympathetic to the gay view on these issues than the 44 percent who see it as a choice. The country is split evenly, 43 to 43, on whether homosexuals should be allowed to serve in the military.

Friends charitably called Leonard Johnson conservative. They could just as easily have called him cheap.He handed out Christmas cards to save postage, boiled water in an old coffee can and splurged by blowing $2 on oranges from time to time.Leonard Johnson was a man with millions in the bank."I think it was a disgrace he didn't enjoy any of it," said longtime friend Jerry Tomka. "All he knew was money, money, money. He liked to save it."And when they buried the 92-year-old Nebraska native last year, just seven people were at his grave.

Omaha, Nebr.-- He has red dragon scales tattooed on his right arm from elbow to wrist.On the knuckles of the hand below those scales, where normal people tattoo LOVE and HATE, he has permanently inked a doughnut and a cup of coffee.And he paints huge pictures of washer/dryer combos on violet fields of drywall.In America's heartland, they don't quite know what to make of Billy Ray Gombus.Maybe its because he's from Baltimore."They know I'm different out here, but its not like Baltimore where you're always looking over your shoulder," said Billy Ray. "In the Midwest, people are too polite to say anything."

DALLAS -- The ball hung on the rim for what seemed an endless amount of time.At least seven hands went up for it. Bodies collided. Someone grabbed the net. The rim rattled. A whistle blew.At that moment, with defending champion Omaha up 14-13, the national Hoop It Up 3-on-3 basketball tournament men's title was in doubt. But moments later, when the referee called goaltending against Washington's John Miller and awarded Omaha a point, doubt was removed.The final: Omaha 16, Washington 13. Had the women's team from Amarillo, Texas, not rallied to beat Omaha -- led by former superstar Nancy Lieberman-Cline -- the Midwest city would have had a sweep.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Like many of Tom Huening's political crusades, the idea of fomenting a freshman class revolt among the huge new crop of congressional representatives who will be elected in November began as a long-shot, almost crackpot idea.Now, many of the more than 100 new representatives-elect from both parties may indeed be meeting for two days in late November at a Holiday Inn in Omaha, Neb., even before they get to Washington for their formal orientation. Their tentative agenda includes a call to chuck the seniority system, cut their own office budgets, and toss away many of the perks of office.

OMAHA, Neb. -- Bulldozers usually destroy tropical rain forests, but in Omaha they've helped create one.It's the Lied Jungle, a rain forest under glass that contains 125 species of animals and 2,000 species of plants.Four years in the making, the 1.5-acre jungle opened in April at the Henry Doorly Zoo and is being advertised as the world's largest indoor rain forest.The $15 million project was made possible by a donation from the Lied (pronounced Leed) Foundation Trust, established by a prominent Omaha family.

Father Hanley, retired professor at Loyola, diesA Mass of Christian burial for the Rev. Thomas O'Brien Hanley, S.J., retired professor of history at Loyola College and an authority on the Carrolls of Maryland, will be offered at 10 a.m. today at St. John's Church at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.A Mass will also be offered for Father Hanley, who was 73 and died Sunday of respiratory and heart disease at a hospital in Omaha, at noon tomorrow in the...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Chito Martinez finally got to Royals Stadium, though not by the route that he originally had mapped out for himself.Martinez arrived here yesterday as a member of the Baltimore Orioles organization, which signed him in November as a six-year minor-league free agent."