LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Gov. Pete Ricketts has signed a bill to prevent Nebraska cities from banning short-term home rentals such as Airbnb, Home Away and VBRO.
The measure approved Thursday was one 43 bills signed by the governor. It comes at a time when major cities such as Los Angeles, New York City and Paris have passed restrictions or outright bans on such rentals.
The Nebraska bill by state Sen. Adam Morfeld, of Lincoln, still allows cities to tax short-term rentals and regulate them for health and public safety purposes.
It also gives online short-term rental companies to enter into an agreement with the state to collect and pay sales taxes that are owed.
Ricketts says the new law gives Nebraska property owners the opportunity to embrace the “sharing economy.”
SIDNEY, Neb. (AP) – Bass Pro Shops intends to close its Cabela’s distribution center in Sidney, cutting more jobs from the western Nebraska city.
Bass Pro Shops said Thursday that the closure “is being taken as a result of an extensive review of all Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s operations, including independent analysis by global logistics experts and shipping companies.” The analysis showed the 77-year-old Sidney facility handled less volume than all of its other distribution centers.
The Cabela’s merchandise return center in Oshkosh also is being closed.
Closing the Sidney center will result in the loss of 121 jobs, while 41 jobs will be eliminated at the Oshkosh facility.
Cabela’s once employed around 2,000 people in Sidney before it was bought by Bass Pro Shops, which is based in Springfield, Missouri. The deal was completed in September 2017.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A man has been convicted in the Omaha road-rage killing of a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq.
Douglas County jurors found Michael Benson, 26, guilty of second-degree murder Wednesday in the 2017 shooting death of James Womack, the Omaha World-Herald reported. Benson also was convicted on weapons and witness-tampering charges. He faces up to 28 years in prison when sentenced in May.
The shooting occurred at a busy Omaha intersection after Womack, 32, got out of his semitrailer and confronted Benson by yelling and pounding on the window of his truck. Witnesses testified that they heard gunshots and saw Womack fall to the ground. Womack later died at a hospital.
Omaha Detective Ryan Davis was one of the first officers to arrive at the scene. He said the road-rage shooting “was definitely stupid.”
“This guy was a working guy, he’s a dad, he’s a military veteran, and this is how he dies?” Davis said. “Senseless, just completely senseless.”
Womack served three tours in Iraq before he moved to Omaha with his wife to raise their three children.
His wife, Ivonne Womack, raised concerns about how Benson, who has a felony conviction, was able to get a pistol.
“It seems like anyone can have a gun hiding — it’s just ridiculous,” she said. “It makes no sense that people feel so comfortable to carry a gun and if something happens, it’s OK — just shoot.”
Ivonne Womack said the family doesn’t plan to let the shooting drive them from the area.
“This is the place that we chose to raise our family,” she said. “That was our dream. And I don’t want to change anything.”
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Prosecutors say a man accused of providing to companies workers in the U.S. illegally has pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Lincoln.
Forty-year-old Juan Pablo Sanchez-Delgado, of Mexico, entered the plea Tuesday to conspiring to harbor aliens. His sentencing is scheduled for May 31.
He was among more than a dozen business owners and managers indicted for fraud and money laundering in August raids at Nebraska and Minnesota businesses and plants.
Sanchez-Delgado agreed in his plea deal to forfeit four Las Vegas residences and bank accounts and cash totaling more than $178,000. Prosecutors say the real estate and cash were proceeds of the harboring conspiracy.
Sanchez-Delgado admitted he conspired with supervisors at several agricultural corporations between January 2015 and July 2017 to supply those companies with workers who were not authorized to work or remain in the United States.
NEBRASKA CITY, Neb. (AP) – A southeast Nebraska farmer who was imprisoned for neglecting his animals in 2011 is headed back to prison and won’t be allowed to own any livestock after he gets out.
Otoe County District Court records say 67-year-old John Maahs, of Unadilla, was sentenced Wednesday to two years. Judge Julie Smith also barred him from possessing livestock for 75 years. He’d pleaded no contest to five counts of abandonment or cruel neglect of livestock.
Authorities tipped off last April found the carcasses of more than 40 pigs and 15 goats on the farm, with live hogs feeding on dead hogs. Animals were locked inside buildings without food or water, although deputies found plenty of feed in sacks on the farm.
Maahs pleaded no contest in 2012 to the same charge and served more than a year in prison. In September 2011 deputies found about 1,000 hog carcasses on the property.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Nebraska voters will get the chance in 2020 to repeal a state constitutional amendment that allows people to be enslaved as punishment for a crime.
The measure won final approval from lawmakers Thursday on a 44-0 vote.
Nebraska’s Constitution has banned slavery and involuntary servitude since 1875, except as punishment for a crime. Supporters say that provision hasn’t been used in recent history, but was once invoked to force former slaves back into unpaid labor for private parties, a system known as convict leasing.
The measure will appear on the November 2020 general election ballot. Its sponsor, Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha, says the amendment sends an important message about Nebraska’s values.
Some senators have voiced worries about the message that would be sent if voters reject the repeal measure.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A lawyer who said federal agents and prosecutors kept a man arrested in an O’Neill immigration raid from seeing his attorney now says the accusation was in incorrect result of miscommunication within his office.
Lincoln attorney John Berry had moved to suppress any statements the client had made. Berry alleged in a motion that a lawyer from his firm sent to a Grand Island detention center to see the client last August was barred by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent from seeing the client. Berry says the agent and an assistant federal prosecutor insisted the client didn’t have a right to counsel until the next day.
The Lincoln Journal Star reports that Berry has withdrawn his motion to keep the client’s statements from a jury, explaining that the original complaint was prepared before all the facts surrounding the incident had been shared by other members of Berry’s firm.
The judge said at a hearing last week that ICE and the federal prosecutor deserved a public apology. Berry agreed and did so in the courtroom. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Woods said the government accepted Berry’s apology.
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) – A 16-year-old Nebraska boy has been charged with murder, accused of killing a man in western Iowa’s Council Bluffs.
Court records say the Omaha boy was 15 when 38-year-old Adam Angeroth was slain. Angeroth’s body was found in his apartment on Jan. 24. Details about his death haven’t been released.
It’s not yet clear whether the boy will be tried as an adult. The Associated Press generally doesn’t name juveniles accused of crimes.
The boy’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for Monday.
Warrants also have been issued for a 21-year-old Omaha, Nebraska, man, Liam Stec, and 20-year-old Nicholas Haner, of Harlan, Iowa. Police are still looking for Haner. Stec remains in the Omaha jail awaiting prosecution in an unrelated Nebraska case.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska lawmakers have advanced a bill to prevent people from getting tattoos on the whites of their eyes.
The measure won first-round approval Wednesday on a 38-0 vote.
The proposal by Sen. Lynne Walz, of Fremont, received strong support from eye doctors who warn that such tattoos are risky and could cause people to lose their sight. It includes a limited exception for cases where such a procedure is medically necessary and performed by someone who’s trained to do it.
The concept of eyeball tattooing proved cringe-worthy for many senators. Sen. Sara Howard, the chairwoman of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, says it’s “by far the most disgusting bill I have ever heard in my committee.”
LA VISTA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities in eastern Nebraska say a 17-year-old student has been arrested for bringing a handgun to his suburban Omaha school.
Police say the boy was arrested around 11 a.m. Wednesday for having the gun on the grounds of Brook Valley School, an alternative school in La Vista.
Police were called to the school by administrators after a student told staff members the teen had a handgun in his coat pocket. The principal confronted the student and confiscated the unloaded handgun without incident.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Gov. Pete Ricketts has signed a bill to prevent Nebraska cities from banning short-term home rentals such as Airbnb, Home Away and VBRO.
