A northern Nebraska ranching family has won a statewide award for land stewardship.

The Beel family of Johnstown was given this year’s Nebraska Leopold Conservation Award. The award is presented annually to private landowners who engage in sustainable land-management practices.

The family has worked on the land for 75 years. The ranch is owned and operated by brothers Frank, Henry and Adam, and their wives Jennifer, Mary and Jenny.

The Beel family will receive $10,000 and a crystal. The Sand County Land Foundation, Nebraska Cattlemen and Cargill present the award annually. The Beel family was recognized last week by Gov. Dave Heineman.

A select group of young entrepreneurs have won an opportunity to pitch their business ideas to investor Warren Buffett.

The kids, who are between 7- and 16-years-old, were chosen out of nearly 4,000 entries in the online contest.

The contest is tied to “The Secret Millionaires Club” cartoon that Buffett appears in to teach financial lessons. The contest is sponsored by the Fairholme Foundation and overseen by the By Kids For Kids Co.

Five individuals and three teams will be flown to Omaha to present their ideas to Buffett and a panel of judges.

An online vote from May 6-13 will help determine which of the finalists will win grand prizes of $5,000. The runners up will receive $500 prizes.

Federal officials say they’re delaying a policy that would allow passengers to carry small knives, bats and other sports equipment onto airliners.

The Transportation Security Administration said Monday that the policy change has been delayed to accommodate feedback from an advisory committee made up of aviation industry, consumer and law enforcement officials.

John Pistole (PIH’-stohl), head of the Transportation Security Administration, proposed the policy change last month, saying it would free up the agency to concentrate on protecting against greater threats. TSA screeners confiscate about 2,000 small folding knives from passengers every day.

The policy was to go into effect Thursday. The TSA’s statement said the delay was temporary, but no new date for implementation was provided.

The policy has been fiercely opposed by flight attendants’ unions.

The Nebraska Humane Society says another dog has been poisoned in the backyard of an Omaha couple.

The group says 3-year-old Murphy became violently ill only minutes after being let into the backyard on April 4. He survived. A urine test later came back positive for strychnine.

Murphy belongs to the girlfriend of Paul Wagner, who lives with his parents in north Omaha. Two dogs belonging to his parents died in November after eating tainted meat in the same backyard. The meat was laced with strychnine.

The Nebraska Humane Society is offering $2,500 for information leading to the arrest of the person or people responsible for the poisonings.

A 17-year-old Osceola boy has been hospitalized after being run over by a forklift in eastern Nebraska.

Authorities say the accident occurred about 11:30 a.m. Saturday on a farm southeast of Ulysses in Butler County. The forklift was driven by an 18-year-old man.

The Butler County Sheriff’s Office says the boy has been flown to a Lincoln hospital. His name and condition haven’t been released. The Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident.

A sheriff’s dispatcher said Monday that she had no information on the situation.