A Nebraska father and daughter are facing incest charges in Hall County.

On January 29, 2019, 39-year-old Travis E. Fieldgrove and 21-year-old Samantha H. Kershner, both of St. Paul, were arrested on warrants relating to an incest case.

This case relates to the two being involved in an intimate relationship beginning in September of 2018 in Grand Island, Nebraska despite evidence that Fieldgrove is the paternal parent of Kershner.

Evidence leading up to the arrest suggests that Fieldgrove and Kershner were aware of the biological relationship before being intimate, and further indicates that they quickly married one another after being notified of the investigation.

As frigid temperatures took hold across Nebraska Wednesday, troopers with the Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) spent the day assisting motorists who had become stranded.

In total, troopers performed 165 motorist assists from Wednesday morning through Thursday morning. Most of those instances occurred in northern and eastern Nebraska, where temperatures were below zero for much of the day Wednesday and overnight hours into Thursday.

“We’d like to thank these motorists for doing what we and other public safety partners advised with this cold weather. These stranded motorists stayed in their vehicles until help arrived,” said Major Brenda Konfrst – Commander of Eastern Field Services. “Leaving your vehicle in these cold temperatures can be extremely dangerous.”

Troopers responded to slide-offs, crashes, vehicle malfunctions, and helped change a few tires. Troopers also removed five drunk drivers from the road and assisted outside agencies with numerous incidents.

“Public safety is a team effort,” said Colonel John Bolduc, Superintendent of the Nebraska State Patrol. “We’d like to salute our fellow first responders, road crews, and tow truck operators in Nebraska and other areas around the Midwest who are dealing with extremely cold temperatures.”

Temperatures are expected to increase over the next several days.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A bill that would require better tracking of cases involving missing Native American women has advanced out of a Nebraska legislative committee.

Members of the Judiciary Committee voted 7-0 Wednesday to send the measure to the full Legislature.

The bill would require the Nebraska State Patrol to collect data on missing Native American women and organize meetings with law enforcement agencies, tribes and the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs. The patrol would report all of its findings to lawmakers by June 1, 2020.

Sen. Tom Brewer, of Gordon, is the bill’s lead sponsor. Brewer says communication failures among local, state and federal agencies can lead such cases to fall through the cracks.

Recent national studies have found that a disproportionally large number of Native American women have experienced violence.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Railroads work to continue moving freight regardless of the weather, but this week’s extreme cold is slowing traffic and forcing them to use shorter trains.

BNSF spokeswoman Amy Casas says that in subzero cold, the air brakes trains use become less effective because air flow is reduced. So railroads have to reduce the length of trains.

Chicago is a key hub where all major North American freight railroads meet and hand off traffic. With the extreme cold, freight railroads divert traffic away from the area when possible, and Amtrak cancelled all of its departures from Chicago on Wednesday.

Union Pacific spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza said shipments to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa are being delayed by between 48 hours and 72 hours.

The cold also takes a toll on rail and switches. Railroads use thousands of switch heaters to help ensure that the crucial devices will work.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska state health officials say a fourth case of a rare, polio-like illness has been confirmed in the state.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services said in a news release Wednesday that the case of acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM, has been confirmed in a child in northeastern Nebraska. No other information about the child has been released.

The state’s first case was reported in November.

AFM can cause paralysis in the arms and legs and affects mainly children.

An increase in cases nationwide started in 2014. The department says from August 2014 through October 2018, there have been 527 confirmed cases of AFM in the U.S.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A plan by the U.S. Air Force to replace part of the nearly 80-year-old, crumbling runway at Offutt Air Force Base south of Omaha has been expanded to a complete replacement of the runway.

The Omaha World-Herald reports that members of Nebraska’s congressional delegation, including U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, confirmed the new plan.

Offutt’s 55th Wing had planned to replace the worst of the runway at a cost of nearly $100 million. Now, Fischer says, the entire 11,700-foot airstrip will be torn up and new surface installed. Lt. Col. Vance Goodfellow, deputy commander of the 55th Mission Support Group, says the revised cost is about $130 million.

The 55th Wing’s flight operations will move to the Lincoln Airport late this year while the new runway is rebuilt. The project is expected to be completed by December 2020.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Smuggling a cellphone into a Nebraska prison could soon lead to a misdemeanor charge under a bill designed to help corrections officials, who confiscated more than 250 contraband phones last year.

Nebraska corrections director Scott Frakes told a legislative committee Wednesday that it’s a major concern for his department. His comments came in testimony on a bill by Sen. Justin Wayne, of Omaha, to formally ban most cellphones from state prisons.

A report last year from the Inspector General of the Nebraska Correctional System identified cellphones as a “significant safety concern” because inmates can use them to coordinate gang activity and communicate in secret with the outside world.

“Nothing good comes from contraband,” said James Davis III, a deputy ombudsman for correctional services.

Frakes said many phones are thrown over security fences in the middle of the night or smuggled inside by visitors and prison employees. At least two phones were sent to prisons through the state’s laundry system — one from a state-run psychiatric hospital in Lincoln and one from a state veterans’ home.

Davis said contraband cellphones can sell for $1,500 to $2,000 apiece in prison, creating a big incentive to smuggle them inside.

Last year, a former Nebraska State Penitentiary employee was sentenced to a year in jail for smuggling a cellphone to a prisoner in December 2016. She pleaded no contest to a charge of unlawful acts by a corrections employee. Another former staff member at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution was sentenced to probation for a similar breach in 2017.

Supporters of the bill said there’s no formal law in place for non-employees.

Frakes said he opposed an initial version of the bill because it restricted his authority to make exceptions, but pledged to work with Wayne to try to find a compromise.

“I believe we’ll be able to make some other adjustments and land in a place where we agree,” he said to the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee.

Wayne said he’s still working on the bill to decide who would be exempt. The original bill would have applied to county jails, raising concerns from defense attorneys who frequently meet with their clients behind bars. Wayne said he has crafted an amendment that would let jails set their own policies.

“Allowing inmates to have cellphones behind prison walls creates a dangerous situation,” he said.

He said he preferred to keep violations as a misdemeanor to account for inmates who are using contraband phones for non-nefarious purposes, such as calling a loved one.