LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Prosecutors have decided not to pursue a rape case against a 19-year-old Lincoln man.
Austin Phipps had been scheduled for arraignment on Monday. He’d been arrested Dec. 10 on an arrest warrant alleging sexual assault. An 18-year-old woman had reported being attacked in a west Lincoln home.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the Lancaster County Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute Phipps.
RED CLOUD, Neb. (AP) — A judge who served up justice in several southern Nebraska counties has died in Red Cloud.
The Williams Funeral Home says Judge Michael Offner died Saturday at Webster County Community Hospital. He was 62.
Offner had been a county judge since 2001 in the 10th Judicial District, which is composed of Adams, Clay, Fillmore, Franklin, Harlan, Kearney, Nuckolls, Phelps and Webster counties.
In Hastings, Judge Michael Burns says Offner was “the consummate judge, and he was always very approachable with a great sense of humor and a genuine kindness that was unmatched.”
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The National Weather Service is warning of dangerously low temperatures in most of Nebraska and in northwest and northern Iowa.
The service says in its advisory for western Nebraska that the air temperature in Scottsbluff likely won’t reach above 2 degrees on Tuesday and is expected to dip to minus 24 overnight, with a wind chill of minus 40.
To the east in Sioux City, Iowa, a high of 3 is expected on Tuesday, with a wind chill of minus 24. In Omaha to the south, a Tuesday high of 7 is expected, with a wind child of minus 14 during the day and minus 17 overnight.
The Tuesday morning temperature of minus 7 in Mason City, Iowa, could reach 3 above later in the day.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska defensive end Randy Gregory is declaring for the NFL draft.
The school’s sports information department confirmed Gregory’s decision, which was first reported by ESPN on Tuesday.
Gregory was a first-team All-Big Ten pick as a junior after leading the Cornhuskers with seven sacks. He was fourth on the team with 54 tackles, including 10 for losses. He also blocked two kicks. He missed or was limited in four games because of injury.
Gregory is considered one of the nation’s top pass rushers, and he’s been projected to be a high first-round draft pick. The 6-foot-6, 240-pound Gregory finished his two-year Nebraska career with 17.5 sacks after transferring from Arizona Western Community College.
A North Platte woman is in jail after she allegedly tried to get her point across to her boyfriend using a rock.
At around 9:53 a.m., on November 21, officers with the North Platte Police Department responded to Great Plains Health to meet with the victim of an assault.
Upon arrival, officers met with the 55-year-old male victim, who alleged that his live-in girlfriend, 48-year-old LeAnn Skinner, had assaulted him at their residence in the 2300 block of East Philip Avenue.
According to police, it was reported that the victim and Skinner had been arguing, so the victim contacted a family member to come and remove him from the situation.
The victim claimed that, as he was packing his belongings, Skinner struck him in the back of the head with a rock.
He stated that when the family member arrived to pick him up, they had to force their way into the residence.
Police contacted the family member, who advised that, when they arrived, they heard what sounded like an assault taking place inside the residence. As a result, they forced their way into the home, where they found the injured victim.
Officers made contact with Skinner, who was hospitalized for unrelated reasons.
Authorities say there was some confusion on when Skinner was released from the hospital, but, in any case, she was contacted on December 29, and placed under arrest.
Skinner was jailed at the Lincoln County Detention Center on a charge of felony aggravated assault.
The victim was treated for non-life threatening injuries and released.
The Nebraska men’s basketball team returns home for the first time since Dec. 13, as the Huskers welcome Indiana to Pinnacle Bank Arena in the Big Ten Conference opener for both teams Wednesday afternoon.
Tipoff for the New Year’s Eve matchup is set for 4:30 p.m. and the game will be nationally televised on BTN with Kevin Kugler and Shon Morris on the call. Wednesday’smatchup will also be available on BTN2GO.
A very limited number of $30 tickets are available on Huskers.com or at the Pinnacle Bank Arena Ticket Office beginning at 3 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, as a sellout crowd of over 15,000 is expected.
The game will be broadcast across the state of Nebraska on the IMG Husker Sports Radio Network, including KLIN 1400 AM in Lincoln, 1110 KFAB in Omaha and KRVN 880 AM in Lexington with Kent Pavelka calling the action and Matt Davison adding color commentary. The game can be heard for free on Huskers.com and available on the Huskers’ app on iOS or android devices, as well as on TuneIn Radio and on SiriusXM Satellite Radio.
The Huskers are 8-4 on the season after wrapping up a 2-1 showing in Hawaii last week with a 71-58 win over Ohio on Christmas Day. Against Ohio, the Huskers got 22 points apiece from Terran Petteway and Shavon Shields, while holding the Bobcats to 38 percent shooting. Nebraska never trailed and enjoyed a 39-28 advantage on the boards, including a career-high 13 rebounds by David Rivers, which matched the Huskers’ best individual rebounding effort in five years.
Nebraska has defended at a high level since the loss to Incarnate Word on Dec. 10, holding its last four opponents to a combined 34 percent shooting and 55.2 points per game. The improvement has coincided with a string of strong performances from junior forward Walter Pitchford, who is averaging 9.5 points and 8.3 rebounds per game in that stretch.
The Huskers will need to continue that strong defensive against an Indiana team which leads the Big Ten and ranks fourth nationally in scoring offense at 83.4 points per game. The Hoosiers are second in the Big Ten in field goal percentage (.499) and fourth in 3-point percentage (.417).
Wednesday’s game features two of the top scoring duos in the Big Ten as Shields and Petteway combine for 36.5 points per game for the Huskers, while the Hoosiers’ duo of James Blackmon Jr. and Yogi Ferrell account for 35.1 points per game.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension offices have scheduled training workshops to help livestock and crop farmers turn manure nutrients into better crop yields.
The land application training will also show ways they can protect the environment.
The workshops are scheduled throughout the state in January and February. A full list is available athttps://water.unl.edu/lat .
Livestock producers with livestock waste control facility permits received or renewed since April 1998 must be certified.
A farm must complete an approved training every five years, and farm personnel responsible for land application of manure are also encouraged to attend.
Pre-registration is required for all workshops. A $60 fee for one operation representative will be charged for the day long workshops. The workshops will charge $15 for each additional participant.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fiat Chrysler is recalling about 67,000 model year 2006 and 2007 pickups because of a problem that could prevent the cars from starting, or cause them to move when the ignition key is turned.
The company says a wire in the clutch ignition interlock switch could break. That could keep the truck from starting, or if drivers don’t follow recommended starting procedures, the truck could move when the ignition key is turned. Chrysler says one death is associated with the problem.
The company is recalling Dodge Dakota, Dodge Ram 1500, 2500, 3500 and Mitsubishi Raider pickups that were made between July 2005 and June 2006. Nearly 55,000 of them are in the U.S.
FCA US LLC, the former Chrysler Group LLC, will replace the switches at no cost to consumers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new report finds that the number of law-enforcement officers killed by firearms jumped by 56 percent in 2014.
The annual report released Tuesday by the nonprofit National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund found that 50 officers were killed by guns this year, compared to 32 in 2013.
In all, the report says 126 federal, local, tribal and territorial officers were killed in the line of duty. That’s a 24 percent jump from last year’s 102 line-of-duty deaths. Shootings were the leading cause. The second was traffic-related fatalities.
Of gun-related deaths among officers, the report found that 15 were ambush assaults, matching 2012 for the highest total since 1995.
The states that saw the most officer deaths were California, at 14, Texas, at 11, and New York, at nine.
