PAPILLION, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a worker at a construction site in eastern Nebraska is in critical condition after being shocked.
Sarpy County Sheriff Capt. Rolly Yost says the person was working Wednesday afternoon at the site of the new Papillion Public Works Department when a service line was touched. The worker was shocked and taken to a hospital.
A backhoe had affected electrical service to the building prior to the worker’s injury.
Additional information is not available.
FUNK, Nebraska (AP) — Authorities say a 26-year-old man has died after the motorcycle he was riding crashed into a utility vehicle in southern Nebraska.
The Phelps County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday that Douglas Davison was traveling on a dirt bike Sunday morning when it struck a utility vehicle on a roadway northwest of Funk. Davison, also of Funk, was thrown from the bike.
Authorities say Davison was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy has been ordered. The case is under investigation.
NEBRASKA CITY, Neb. (AP) — A man believed to have been the oldest Nebraskan had died at the age of 110 in Nebraska City.
Gude Funeral Homes says Mark Behrends died Saturday at nursing home. Services were held Wednesday.
Behrends was born on May 16, 1905. He farmed for years and worked for a farm implement dealer. He married Irene Schreiner in 1930, and she died in 1983. He’d lived on his own until turning 106.
According to the Nebraska Health Care Association and verified by E.A. Kral of Wilber, Nebraska, who tracks Nebraska’s oldest residents, Behrends was one of three people living in Nebraska to have reached age 107 and older.
The Omaha World-Herald reports that Behrends used to tell people that his secret to longevity was love and a daily can of beer.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska’s corrections department is reviewing 2,000 prisoner sentences for accuracy after discovering that some inmates received credit they shouldn’t have.
Director Scott Frakes said Wednesday that the review could add as much as four months onto an inmate’s sentence, which could exacerbate prison crowding.
Frakes says the problem was discovered earlier this month while department officials were upgrading their process for calculating inmate sentences. The department was heavily criticized after previous administrators acknowledged that they ignored a Supreme Court ruling that outlined the correct way to calculate sentences.
Frakes says the newest problem wasn’t caused by bad legal advice, but staffers believed they were calculating sentences properly based on their understanding of a 2011 law.
The review is expected to be completed by the end of July.
FULLERTON, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a 58-year-old woman has died after a pickup she was driving ran over her in northeast Nebraska’s Antelope County.
The accident occurred early Monday morning about three miles south of Elgin, at the intersection of Nebraska Highway 14 and 836 Road.
Sheriff Robert Moore says in a news release that Sarri Stecki, of Fullerton, stopped the pickup and the trailer it was pulling at the intersection, and she got out. Moore says it appears the truck began to roll and Stecki may have fallen into its path while trying to get back inside the cab. Moore says the pickup rolled over Stecki and pinned her underneath. She died at the scene.
An autopsy has been ordered.
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — Hall County will seek new terms when bidding to continue housing state inmates in its jail.
Corrections director Fred Ruiz told Hall County supervisors on Tuesday that state inmates are more demanding to oversee compared to county inmates. Ruiz says the state inmates are “a handful.”
Hall County began taking in the state inmates last June amid prison overcrowding at the state level. The county was contracted to house up to 80 state inmates a day for $88 per inmate per day.
Counties must respond Wednesday to the state’s request for proposals for inmate housing. Ruiz says he plans to respond with a bid of up to $93 per inmate per day if the state provides 96 inmates daily.
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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Two Washington men who helped another man defraud Omaha-based ConAgra have been sentenced for wire fraud conspiracy.
Federal prosecutors say 43-year-old Charles Garcia, of Othello, Washington, was sentenced on Monday in U.S. District Court in Omaha to 12 months and a day in prison and told to make restitution of nearly $606,000. Prosecutors also say 48-year-old Jose Sanchez Jr., of Marysville, Washington, was given five months behind bars and told to make restitution of more than $53,000.
Prosecutors say Garcia and Sanchez, through their companies, helped Donald Wilson, of Bothell, Washington, in his fraudulent scheme. Wilson submitted to ConAgra at least 29 fake vendor invoices from the companies.
Prosecutors say Wilson wasn’t authorized to use ConAgra’s money for his expenses and expenses for a professional softball team he helped sponsor.
PILGER, Neb. (AP) — A tornado last year that damaged most of a small, northeastern Nebraska town left the village clerk known as “Momma Kim” with plenty to do.
Pilger Village Clerk Kim Neiman said she decided that she needed to be someone for the community who was a reliable source for help after the 2014 June tornado destroyed more than three-quarters of the town and killed two people.
Neiman said at one point, she had worked between 16 and 18 hours a day.
Her work recently was recognized by the Nebraska chapter of the American Society of Public Administration. She was named Outstanding Public Administrator of the Year.
ALLIANCE, Neb. (AP) — Two western Nebraska-based co-ops have agreed to become one.
Officials of Western Cooperative Co., or Westco, and Stateline Producers Cooperative say they will merge effective Aug. 1, pending an affirmative vote by Stateline shareholders at a special meeting on June 29 in Gering.
Stateline operations in Bridgeport and Gering would become part of Westco’s New Alliance Division. The combined entity would have 270 employees spread through several Nebraska communities and in Torrington, Wyoming.
Stateline is based in Gering, and Westco is based in Alliance.
MCCOOK, Neb. (AP) — A 54-year-old Culbertson woman has changed her plea to guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced in August for embezzling more than $814,000 from a livestock auction company in McCook.
Trina Hoyt is set to be sentenced on Aug. 3 in Red Willow County District Court. Court records say she submitted her guilty plea on June 1. She’d pleaded not guilty to the same charge last month.
Hoyt is accused of writing 26 unauthorized checks on Tri-State Livestock Commission Co. accounts between January 2012 and December 2013 and depositing them into her own accounts.
Her former employer says Hoyt took more than $1.2 million between 2010 and 2013. Investigators did not include 2010 and 2011 in their probe, because of the statute of limitations.
