COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska Public Power District executive will lead a national utility trade group for the next year.
NPPD’s Chief Operating Officer Tom Kent was recently chosen at the president of RMEL.
The group serves the utility industry with education and networking services.
The utilities that participate in the group share techniques and practices to help the industry improve.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Police say a teenage girl has died after being shot early Saturday in northeast Omaha.
Police say 15-year-old Shadaisja Hill died at a hospital Saturday afternoon. Police say she was taken to the hospital by a private vehicle following the shooting around 2:20 a.m. at 36th and Lake streets.
No arrests had been made by late Saturday afternoon, but police were searching for a 25-year-old woman believed to be the shooter.
Police reminded that public that anyone offering a tip leading to the arrest of a homicide suspect is eligible for a $25,000 reward.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Old film of the Nebraska football team found in an abandoned safe-deposit box has been claimed by its owners.
A relative of the owners contacted the Nebraska State Treasurer’s Office on Friday after learning that the film reel, thought to be from the 1930s or 1940s, was set to be sold in a government auction next week.
The treasurer’s office said Friday in a news release that Clarence Swanson, the grandfather of one of the owners, played for Nebraska in the 1920s.
The film was among the contents of abandoned safe-deposit boxes that were turned over to the state from 2005 to 2011.
Swanson, who died in 1970, was president of the former Hovland-Swanson department store in Lincoln and served on the University of Nebraska Board of Regents.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Prosecutors say Lancaster County Treasurer Andy Stebbing falsified bills of sale to help customers evade taxes on the cars he sold.
53-year-old Stebbing made his first court appearance Friday to face five felony charges.
In one case, state investigators say, a buyer gave Stebbing $1,800 and a handgun in exchange for a pickup, but Stebbing signed a bill of sale listing the purchase price at $300. He allegedly told the buyer the false bill of sale was “so they don’t hose you when you plate it.”
Stebbing, a Republican and former sheriff’s deputy, has served as county treasurer since 2011. He declined to comment Friday on the case, but said he will not resign and plans to seek re-election next year.
His next court date is Oct. 30. If convicted of the charges, he faces up to 10 years in prison.
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — A 30-year-old Grand Island man has been sentenced to prison for first-degree sexual assault.
Cesar Rafael was sentenced Thursday to 18 months to six years in prison for having sex with a woman in April 2016 while the woman was too intoxicated to consent.
Rafael had maintained the sex was consensual, but a judge said Thursday that the evidence showed beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim was passed out or intoxicated to a point “where a reasonable person would find her to be obviously incapable of rational conversation.”
Rafael had been found guilty of the crime in June.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska’s job-licensing requirements will face renewed scrutiny in next year’s legislative session if a lawmaker and two unlikely allies have their way.
Lawmakers and Gov. Pete Ricketts targeted the state’s occupational licensing rules earlier this year. They ended the 2016 session with a handful of changes, but state Sen. Laura Ebke of Crete is pushing for a more sweeping approach next year.
Ebke will travel to Lincoln, Lexington, Norfolk and Omaha this fall to pitch her idea directly to the public. She’ll be joined by the right-leaning Platte Institute, which advocates for free markets, and the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, which wants more job opportunities for ex-prisoners.
Some professions may welcome the changes, but others argue that occupational licensing protects public safety.
CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — The average price of a gallon of regular-grade gasoline fell 7 cents nationally over the past two weeks, to $2.62.
Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg of the Lundberg Survey said Sunday that the drop comes as flooded refineries continue to come back online after the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey.
Lundberg says she expects prices will continue to fall in the next few weeks.
Gas in San Francisco was the highest in the contiguous United States at an average of $3.18 a gallon. The lowest was in St. Louis at $2.19 a gallon.
The U.S. average diesel price is $2.51, down 2 cents from two weeks ago.
SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) — Early harvest of sugar beets in western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming has begun.
Western Sugar vice president Jerry Darnell says the company’s plants in Scottsbluff and Torrington, Wyoming, have bought over 100,000 tons of beets with an average sugar content of nearly 16 percent. Darnell says that average has been rising daily.
American Sugar Alliance chief economist Jack Roney says this year’s harvest is occurring at one of the best times for sugar prices. Roney says prices have increased in recent months from 28- to 29-cents a pound to 32- to 33-cents a pound currently.
The regular sugar beet harvest is set to begin Oct. 6.
GERING, Neb. (AP) — A former Gering Police sergeant has been fined $650, plus court costs, after pleading no contest in a case in which officials allege he stole from a program that helps kids purchase gifts at Christmas.
40-year-old Henry Moreno was fined Friday after entering the plea to one misdemeanor theft count in Scotts Bluff County Court.
In exchange for his plea, two other theft counts were dropped.
Prosecutors had said Moreno stole from the Shop with a Cop program on three separate occasions, totaling $1,300.
Moreno resigned from the Gering Police Department in August.
alLINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — About 60 Nebraska soldiers are participating in a multinational military training exercise in Sweden.
Nebraska Army National Guard members spent Thursday parachuting onto an island in the Baltic Sea, conducting surveillance and reporting their opponents’ activities.
The soldiers face a language barrier as they work side-by-side with Swedish soldiers on the island of Gotland, but that’s one of the goals. Soldiers are learning to work through such challenges together through Aurora 17, a massive military training exercise involving nearly 20,000 troopers from eight countries.
Maj. Gen. John Gronski, deputy commanding general for the Army National Guard in Europe, says the exercises help highlight challenges and find ways to overcome them. The mission is also to help Sweden learn to better defend its borders.
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