SCHUYLER, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a semitrailer driver died after his big rig ran off a state highway in eastern Nebraska and crashed into a creek bank.

The accident occurred a little before 2 p.m. Monday on Nebraska Highway 15, about 6 miles north (10 kilometers) north of Schuyler.

Colfax County authorities say in a news release that the northbound truck came up on a northbound tractor pulling a feed wagon. The release says the truck was trying to pass the tractor and wagon on the left when the tractor began to turn left. The truck veered off the highway into a field and crashed into the creek bank.

The release says the truck driver was pronounced dead later at a Schuyler hospital. The driver’s name hasn’t been released. An autopsy was ordered.

CONCORD, Neb. (AP) — The University of Nebraska may close an agriculture laboratory to save $1 million a year.

Closing the 320-acre Haskell Agricultural Laboratory outside of Concord is among $9 million in proposed budget cuts put forward by university President Hank Bounds at Gov. Pete Ricketts’ request. Ricketts asked the university system to cut its current budget by $11 million and plan to cut next year’s budget by another $23 million.

Researchers at the lab have studied crop and livestock production, crop nutrition, irrigation and water management, soil science and weed, disease and pest management.

The lab has conducted important research that’s relevant to the area, said Kent Bearnes, an independent agronomist and seed sales representative who is president of the Northeast Nebraska Experimental Farm Association, which provides support to the lab.

“We have a resource here, and we need to find out a better way to use this resource,” he said. “Everybody I’ve talked to doesn’t want to lose it. I think it’s a resource that once we lose it, it isn’t coming back. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

While Haskell has had a positive effect in northeast Nebraska, the lab is at the top of the proposed cut list because the university doesn’t own the land and $1.5 million is needed in maintenance and improvements, said Mike Boehm, vice chancellor of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, which oversees Haskell.

The lab also lacks a clear strategy and the university hasn’t replaced seven professors who retired from Haskell over the last decade, Boehm said.

“If it was absolutely critical, we would have been refilling positions, and that isn’t the case,” Boehm said.

The 10 faculty and staff members at the lab would be terminated or asked to relocate if the lab is closed, he said.

“I think it’ll have a detrimental effect on agriculture as a whole,” Bearnes said. “Education is a pathway to opportunity, and research is a part of that. If we lose our research opportunity, we lose that pathway.”

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A death penalty sentencing hearing has again been delayed for a former doctor convicted of killing four people connected to an Omaha medical school.

A three-judge panel had been set to hold the hearing in the case of Anthony Garcia next month, but a judge has granted defense attorneys’ request to push the hearing to May 30 to give them more time to prepare.

The three-judge panel will determine whether Garcia is sentenced to death or to life in prison. He was convicted in 2016 of killing the 11-year-old son and a housekeeper of Creighton University faculty member William Hunter in 2008, and killing pathology doctor Roger Brumback and his wife in 2013.

Prosecutors say Garcia blamed Hunter and Brumback for his 2001 firing from Creighton’s pathology residency program..

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A 17-year-old Elkhorn South High School student in southwestern Omaha has been arrested and charged with five counts of making terroristic threats.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office says the arrest was made after another student reported seeing a written threat from the 17-year-old. Officials say something the student had written indicated a shooting would take place at Elkhorn South High School using his parent’s gun. The threat was directed at five other Elkhorn South students.

The Associated Press generally does not name juveniles charged with crimes.

The sheriff’s office says the arrested student’s parents are cooperating with investigators and that all weapons have been removed from their house.

Omaha television news stations KETV and WOWT reported that the student pleaded not guilty to the charges in court on Tuesday.