OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Fear of being sued has led Hall County’s jail to become Nebraska’s first law enforcement agency to stop honoring federal “immigration detentions.”

Other Nebraska counties may follow suit, thanks in part to efforts by civil rights organizations.

The 48-hour immigration detainers are issued to local law enforcement by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. They ask that immigrants who have been arrested be held for two days after they would normally be released to give federal officials time to initiate an investigation and take the person into custody for deportation, if necessary.

The practice is under scrutiny, and several agencies around the country have stopped complying with the requests.

Hall County jail director Fred Ruiz said the move followed consultation with attorneys for the county and its insurance carrier.

ABIE, Neb. (AP) — Cover crops as part of a diverse cropping system will be part of the discussions during organic farm tours next month.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension says the first tour will begin at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 16 at the Larry Stanislav farm two miles north of Abie in eastern Nebraska’s Butler County. Stanislav will discuss his cropping system and how he’s reduced tillage and managed weeds by using a roller crimper and flamer.

The next tour begins at 3:30 p.m. at Randy Fendrich’s farm nearby.

After the tours, the Fendrich family will serve a free dinner at 5 p.m. Reservations are needed. Call 402-584-3837 to RSVP or for more information about the tours or to get directions.

NEMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An erroneous evacuation warning about a hazardous material spill has sounded in a village of 150 people that sits a couple of miles from a nuclear power plant in southeast Nebraska.

The vocal warning went out once or twice over a siren speaker in Nemaha while a technician from Cooper Nuclear Station worked on the siren Thursday. Nebraska Public Power District owns the plant, and district spokesman Mark Becker said Friday that the technician accidentally played a recorded message that had been loaded by the manufacturer but is not part of the plant’s procedure. The plant’s warning system triggers sirens within 10 miles of the plant for three minutes, alerting people to seek more information from television or radio.

Becker says federal regulators will be notified about the error.

HENDERSON, Neb. (AP) — Workers are fixing up old headstones that were vandalized last year in a Nebraska cemetery.

More than 40 headstones had been damaged in August in Farmers’ Valley Cemetery. Some headstones were from the 1870s.

Over the past two weeks, Debi Hacker and Michael Trinkley have worked on more than 20 headstones in the cemetery that’s in Hamilton County.

Hacker and Trinkley work for the Chicora Foundation in South Carolina. They say they have spent about four hours on each of the damaged stones.

Nineteen-year-old Robert Kelly Jr. was sentenced in January to 180 days in jail for pushing over the headstones. The Clay County man also received five years of probation.

FAIRFIELD, Neb. (AP) — A former city clerk in the south-central Nebraska town of Fairfield has been sentenced to five years of probation and must pay back $55,000 to the city she’s convicted of embezzling.

Jennifer Bassett appeared at a restitution hearing in Clay County District Court at which prosecutors showed that she took $96,000.

Special Prosecutor for Clay County Tim Schmidt says he would have liked to have seen the city get all of its money back but the court had to consider Bassett’s ability to pay.

Bassett pleaded no contest to theft by deception in April.

FORT CARSON, Colo. (AP) — Two soldiers based at Fort Carson were killed when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan.

The Department of Defense says 30-year-old Staff Sgt. Benjamin G. Prange, of Hickman, Nebraska; and 19-year-old Pfc. Keith M. Williams, of Visalia, California, were killed in Kandahar Province on Thursday. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson.

The Defense Department did not release any other information.