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Hershey couple busted with meth


Two Hershey residents are facing charges after authorities say they discovered methamphetamine in their residence.

On September 21, 2018, Lincoln County Sheriff’s Deputies were asked to assist Nebraska State Probation Officers with a search of a residence in Hershey, NE. Probation Officers and Deputies located a large amount of suspected Methamphetamine within the residence.

Deputies met with the two subjects living in the home at various locations within Lincoln County. Deputies arrested 33-year-old Roman Reyes and 32-year-old Jennifer Davis for Possession of Methamphetamine with Intent to Distribute. Both individuals were placed in the Lincoln County Detention Center. Additional charges are pending.

Pederson/Groene debate canceled due to illness


The debate scheduled between Legislative candidates Judy Pederson and Mike Groene has been canceled.

Groene issued a statement saying that he is battling the stomach flu.

Groene said the debate which was slated to take place at Sutherland High School will be rescheduled.

Lincoln attorney sees law license suspended for 2 years

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has suspended the law license of a Lincoln attorney for two years after finding he violated numerous rules of conduct.

Tobin Wolfe’s license had already been temporarily suspended in November after 10 of his clients filed complaints ranging from failing to communicate with clients and failing to diligently complete work to failing to properly account for legal fees. The high court’s Counsel for Discipline says when it contacted Wolfe about the allegations, he didn’t respond for approximately eight months.

Wolfe presented evidence that he suffered a major depressive episode that played a significant role in his conduct.

After his suspension, Wolfe can seek to be reinstated, but must undergo two years of supervision upon readmission.

Wolfe could not be reached for comment Friday.

Senators defend Nebraska Democratic governor hopeful Krist

Bob Krist
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Twenty-one Nebraska lawmakers have signed a letter defending Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bob Krist against Republican allegations that he drank alcohol on the job.

The letter released Friday was signed by current and former senators who served with Krist in the Legislature. The senators say they never saw Krist impaired by alcohol when he was in service to the state. The letter says the attack is without merit.

The Nebraska GOP released videos last week showing Krist sitting at a Lincoln restaurant with a beverage, standing behind the bar with his back turned to the camera and getting into his car outside the restaurant. State investigators who reviewed the footage say they couldn’t substantiate the allegations.

Fifteen of the signers are Democrats, five are Republicans, and one is a Republican-turned-independent.

Congressmen question Google over kids’ privacy on YouTube

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Two members of Congress are calling on Google to address concerns that YouTube might violate children’s privacy.

Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, and Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a Nebraska Republican, sent a letter this week to Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking for more details about how the service collects data.

Their letter comes months after privacy advocates filed a complaint about YouTube with the Federal Trade Commission. The April complaint alleged that YouTube violates the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA, which bans kid-oriented websites from collecting personal information from children under 13 without their parents’ consent.

The FTC hasn’t said if an investigation has been opened. It declined comment Friday.

Google says YouTube isn’t for children under 13, which is why it created a separate app for them, YouTube Kids. The company said in a statement Friday that it will work with the lawmakers to answer their questions.

Advocacy groups have argued that YouTube, despite official terms of service stating it’s not for kids under 13, has long looked the other way as millions of toddlers, preschoolers and preteens spend hours watching popular content on it that’s geared to them. Its business model relies on tracking IP addresses, search history, device identifiers, location and other personal data about its users so that it can gauge their interests and tailor advertising to them. But the 1998 federal law prohibits internet companies from knowingly collecting such personal data from kids without parents’ permission.

While the YouTube Kids apps provides stronger parental filtering options and privacy protections, it’s not as widely used as the regular service, where the same videos and channels can be found.

Advocacy groups said they hope the congressional attention will push the FTC to act.

“It’s great to have representatives asking these questions about Google because FTC’s investigations are all done in private and we never know what’s going on,” said Josh Golin, director of the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, one of the groups that filed the complaint. “There is concern the FTC has not been aggressive in enforcing COPPA.”

Nebraska jobless rate dropped to 2.8 percent in August

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska’s preliminary unemployment rate dropped a tenth of a point to hit 2.8 percent in August, the state said in a report released Friday.

Last month’s rate remained well below the U.S. figure, which remained steady at 3.9 percent. The Nebraska Labor Department report said the state’s rate was down from 2.9 percent a year ago.

“Nebraska’s seasonally adjusted employment reached another record high this month,” state Labor Commissioner John Albin said. “The nonseasonally adjusted employment level for the Lincoln metro area is the highest since 1990, when data (were) first collected for the metro area.”

Nonfarm employment was 1,032,536, up 15,402 over the year and down 264 over the month, the report said. Private industries with the most growth year over year were manufacturing, up 4,649; leisure and hospitality, up 4,156; and education and health services, up 3,552. Month to month, the largest gains were seen in leisure and hospitality, up 1,318; education and health services, up 690; and manufacturing, up 145.

The preliminary Omaha-area rate declined to 2.7 percent from 3.1 percent in July. The new rate was three-tenths of a point lower than the 3 percent of August 2017. Lincoln’s preliminary rate dropped two-tenths of a point in August, hitting 2.6 percent, compared with to 2.8 percent in July. The year-ago figure was 2.7 percent. Grand Island’s preliminary rate for August was 2.8 percent, down three-tenths of a point from July’s 3.1 percent and down a tenth the 2.9 percent recorded in August 2017.

The unemployment rates for Grand Island, Lincoln and Omaha have not been seasonally adjusted, so they cannot be directly compared with the state unemployment rate.

Here are preliminary area labor market unemployment rates for August, followed by the July rates:

— Beatrice: 2.9, 3.4

— Columbus: 2.6, 2.9

— Fremont: 2.7, 3.0

— Hastings: 2.9, 3.2

— Kearney: 2.4, 2.6

— Lexington: 2.5, 2.9

— Norfolk: 2.4, 2.8

— North Platte: 2.8, 3.2

— Red Willow: 2.8, 3.2

— Scottsbluff: 3.1, 3.5

Ex-Omaha Tribal Council member gets 5 years of probation

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A former Omaha Tribal Council member has been sentenced to five years of probation and told to pay more than $13,000 in restitution for misusing federal funds.

Court records say Forrest Aldrich was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Omaha. He’d pleaded guilty in June to misapplication of health care benefit program funds. Other federal charges were dropped in exchange for his plea. The records show he’s already repaid more than $4,000.

Aldrich was one of nine tribal officials accused of misusing federal funds by awarding themselves nearly $389,000 in bonuses. Officials say the bonuses were paid from Indian Health Service funds meant to provide health care to members of the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska who reside on the Omaha Reservation in Macy in northeastern Nebraska and in western Iowa.

Georgia, Texas men charged in Nebraska marijuana case

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say two men found with hundreds of pounds of marijuana in their rental truck have been charged in Nebraska.

Lancaster County Court records say 30-year-old Brandon Arrington, of McDonough, Georgia, and 49-year-old Edward Babb, of Houston, are both charged with two counts of possession with intent to deliver.

Both men are scheduled for an Oct. 11 hearing. The records don’t list the names of attorneys who could comment for the men, who are being held on $250,000 bail.

Court records say a Lancaster County sheriff’s deputy stopped the men’s truck Tuesday on Interstate 80 in Lincoln after seeing it cross onto the shoulder.

The records say the deputy’s K-9 alerted to the presence of drugs, and a search of the truck turned up 645 pounds (293 kilograms) of pot.

Attorneys general asking DEA to tighten drug manufacture

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Attorneys general from West Virginia and 10 other states are asking the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to further tighten the manufacture of opioids.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s office says the DEA’s preliminary quotas for 2019 don’t reflect the federal agency’s position that demand shouldn’t be equated with a legitimate need. He said he believes the proposed quotas are still excessive, even with a 10 percent reduction.

The letter was signed by Morrisey and attorneys general from Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska and Utah. It was dated Wednesday.

West Virginia by far leads the nation in the rate of fatal drug overdoses.

WWII rocket, grenade found in Nebraska destroyed

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska State Patrol says its hazardous device technicians have destroyed a World War II-era rocket and grenade found this week in south-central and southeastern Nebraska.

The patrol says the first device — a rocket — was found by the owners of a farm near Odell while cleaning out an out-building. The grenade was found in Hastings by workers at Hastings City Iron and Metal. Both devices were found on Wednesday.

The patrol says technicians rendered each device safe by use of a counter charge. X-ray examination was unable to determine whether the devices contained explosive filler, so both were treated as live explosives.

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