LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts has vetoed Sen. Ernie Chambers’ bill that would repeal a law allowing counties to eradicate black-tailed prairie dogs on private property.

Ricketts said Monday the bill fails to protect individual property rights from neighbors who don’t control prairie dogs on their property.

Chambers has tried for years to repeal the 2012 law that he says infringes on property rights and harms native animals.

Lawmakers cannot override the veto because the Legislature adjourned last week.

Ricketts also vetoed two other bills. One was intended to provide clarity about short-term rental properties, like Airbnb, and the other dealt with private foundations that could raise money to fund social workers in the state’s education service units.

A North Platte man is facing a felony charge after he allegedly tried to stop a dispute between two teenagers, and ended up assaulting them.

On April 22, at around 7:26 p.m., North Platte police responded to a disturbance on the playground at Washington Elementary School, 600 West Third Street.

Officers arrived and met with several people.  It was reported that a 15-year-old male and a 16-year-old male were playing basketball when they got into a verbal disagreement with some other youth on the playground.

Investigator John Deal says witnesses reported that 44-year-old Nathan Smith was across the street and decided to break up the argument, which led to an argument between Smith and the two ballers.

Witnesses say Smith grabbed of the males by the shirt and pushed him to the ground.  In the meantime, Deal says two adult females came from across the street and pulled Smith away.

During the melee, one of the females stated that she was kicked by one of the juveniles. This allegedly upset Smith who removed his belt and struck one of the teens in the chest with it.

Deal says one of the male juveniles had a visible bruise in the shape of a belt buckle on his chest, and officers recovered the belt and the buckle from the scene.

Smith was placed under arrest and charged with felony 2nd-degree assault.

According to Deal, both juveniles sustained cuts and scrapes but were not seriously injured.

Deal said there were several different accounts of what happened, and the investigation is ongoing.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A federal trial has been delayed for a man accused of stopping an Amtrak train in south-central Nebraska.

Court records say a judge has set a new trial date of June 11 in Lincoln for Taylor Wilson, of St. Charles, Missouri. The trial was scheduled to begin Monday.

Wilson has pleaded not guilty to attempting to disable a train and attempting to interfere with an engineer or conductor. The charges stem from an Oct. 22 incident as the train headed to Chicago. Authorities say Wilson entered a secure area of the locomotive and enabled an emergency brake. The train stopped in Oxford, Nebraska, about 200 miles (322 kilometers) southwest of Omaha.

Authorities say Wilson was armed with a revolver and a knife. No one aboard the train was injured.

TECUMSEH, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska prison inmate who freely admits killing his cellmate last year because he talked to much is not contesting the death penalty sought against him by prosecutors.

Patrick Schroeder was in court Thursday before three judges who will decide whether he’s sentenced to death or life in prison for the strangulation of his cellmate, Terry Berry.

Schroeder, 40, is serving as his own attorney and offered no rebuttal to prosecutors’ case that he should be sentenced to death, the Omaha World-Herald reported.

Last July, Schroeder pleaded guilty to choking the 22-year-old Berry in April 2017 at the Tecumseh State Prison in southeast Nebraska. At the time, the two were sharing a 10-by-12 cell meant for solitary confinement. Schroeder already was serving a life sentence for the 2006 killing of 75-year-old Pawnee City farmer Kenneth Albers, for whom Schroeder briefly worked. Berry was imprisoned for passing bad checks and was set to be paroled in December of the year he was killed.

Schroeder has repeatedly said he does not plan to fight prosecutors’ plans to sentence him to death, recently telling NET News in an interview that he believes in the death penalty and that he feels no remorse for killing either Albers or Berry.

“I believe if you kill somebody, it’s kind of an eye for an eye,” Schroeder told NET.

Schroeder told investigators that he killed Berry for being too talkative and said he had warned Berry several times that he needed to “shut up.” Schroeder said he attacked Berry because Berry kept talking during a televised mixed martial arts match.

“From day one, when I knew that they were going to be charging me with the death penalty,” Schroeder said. “I knew what my choices were; I knew what I was going to do.”