The former head of the Omaha Chiefs youth football organization has been sentenced to 30 to 80 years in prison for sexually abusing a girl for five years.

Sixty-four-year-old Darrel Meyer was sentenced Wednesday in Douglas County District Court. He pleaded guilty in May to two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child. Under state law, he must serve the full 30 years before he would be eligible for parole.

Prosecutors say Meyer assaulted the girl, now 12, between 2006 and 2011 and threatened to kill himself if she told anyone. He also showered her with gifts.

Meyer blamed his repeated assaults on a sex addiction, which his attorney said started while Meyer served in Vietnam.

Big cracks caused by drought have forced officials to bar bicycles from three recreational trails in southeast Nebraska.

the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District on Wednesday closed stretches of the MoPac East Trail, the Oak Creek Trail and the Homestead Trail.

The closures amount to about 50 miles of trails. Notices have been posted in kiosks and signs will be posted soon.

The district’s Dan Schulz says the cracks are worse than those that occur in the limestone-surfaced trails every summer. Some are a couple of inches wide and more than 3 feet deep.

He says the drought caused the cracks, which pose a hazard to bicyclists. The trails remain open to walkers.

Former state Sen. Ernie Chambers has filed a grievance with the Nebraska Supreme Court that says the Omaha school board’s lawyer committed “gross negligence” while handling the Nancy Sebring case.

The district hired Sebring, who was superintendent in Des Moines, Iowa, in April. Sebring abruptly left her Iowa job in May. She lost the Omaha job after emails sent on a Des Moines district computer to her lover became public.

Chambers says attorney Elizabeth Eynon-Kokrda should have informed the entire board about the emails rather than conferring only with board President Freddie Gray.

Gray has been criticized for her handling of the Sebring matter, but the board voted on Aug. 6 to retain Gray as its leader.

Eynon-Kokrda didn’t immediately return an Associated Press call on Thursday.

A former state trooper imprisoned for sexually assaulting a girl is still fighting to protect his pension.

Former Maj. Billy Hobbs is challenging a new state law that would allow his pension to be tapped to pay a $325,000 lawsuit judgment won by the girl’s father.

The new law was passed in April after the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled last year that state law protected state benefits from collection actions.

Hobbs’ lawyer has filed a motion to have the law declared unconstitutional, saying it amounts to an ex post facto taking of benefits that Hobbs earned.

The 57-year-old Hobbs gets a monthly pension of more than $3,700, minus more than $1,850 that goes to his ex-wife.

A Lincoln official is defending officers from people who are complaining about being awakened early in the morning so they can be ticketed for violating the city’s water use restrictions.

Public safety director Tom Casady told reporters that he’s heard some complaints and wishes the officers didn’t have to be intrusive.

But he says that if a sprinkler is on in violation of the restrictions, the officer first must determine who is responsible so that the right person is given the misdemeanor citation.

Casady says it would be an inefficient use of the officer’s time if he or she had to return at a more civilized hour.