A North Platte man is in jail after authorities say he raped a woman.

On July 28, 2018 Deputies were called to check the welfare of a couple of individuals on the roadway by Lake Maloney, south of North Platte. Deputies found a female subject with a male subject. The female could not speak English and it was very difficult for Deputies to communicate with her. Eventually Deputies were able to get an interpreter and spoke with the female at length.

Over the course of several days, Deputies conducted an investigation and found the female was allegedly forcibly raped by the male she was originally found with. Additionally the male subject had contacted the female after the alleged assault and wanted her to change her story.

On August 9, 2018 Deputies made contact with 26-year-old Austin Klatt. Klatt was arrested for First Degree Sexual Assault, Third Degree Domestic Assault, Tampering with a Witness and Disturbing the Peace. Klatt was placed in the Lincoln County Detention Center.

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (AP) — The National Weather Service says thunderstorms that pounded western Nebraska with hail left a faint trail of damage detectable from a satellite.

A northwest-to-southeast line across the Panhandle can be seen from more than 22,000 miles above the Earth. The weather service office in North Platte posted the Monday evening satellite images on its Facebook page .

Meteorologist Nathan Jurgensen told the Omaha World-Herald the damage trail was about 150 miles (241 kilometers) long and was probably about 5 miles (8 kilometers) wide or less.

Most of the hail — some pieces big as softballs — fell on rural areas, shredding crop fields and damaging farm buildings. But several communities also were hit, especially Oshkosh. No injuries have been reported.

By GRANT SCHULTE , Associated Press

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A German pharmaceutical company has filed a lawsuit to prevent Nebraska from using lethal injection drugs next week in what would be the state’s first execution in more than two decades.

The federal lawsuit filed late Tuesday could delay the Aug. 14 execution of Carey Dean Moore, who was sentenced to death for killing two Omaha cab drivers in 1979. The company, Fresenius Kabi, opposes the use of its drugs in executions and alleges that the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services’ supply of potassium chloride was made by the company.

Moore has stopped fighting the state’s efforts to execute him , leaving death penalty opponents with no real options other than to hope a drug manufacturer challenged the state’s use of its products. In Nevada, a judge indefinitely postponed an execution last month after drugmaker Alvogen filed a similar lawsuit over one of its products.

Nebraska state officials have refused to identify the source of their drugs, but Fresenius Kabi alleges the state’s supply of the drug is stored in 30 milliliter vials. Fresenius Kabi said it’s the only company that supplies potassium chloride in vials that size. The company said it may also have manufactured the state’s supply of cisatracurium, and that Nebraska’s use of its drugs would damage its reputation and business relationships.

“While Fresenius Kabi takes no position on capital punishment, Fresenius Kabi opposes the use of its products for this purpose and therefore does not sell certain drugs to correctional facilities,” company attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

The company said it only sells those products to wholesalers and distributors who sign a contract agreeing not to supply the drugs to correctional departments. Drugs obtained illicitly are also at risk of changing chemically because they may not have been stored at proper temperatures, said Matt Kuhn, a company spokesman.

“These drugs, if manufactured by Fresenius Kabi, could only have been obtained by (the corrections department) in contradiction and contravention of the distribution contracts the company has in place and therefore through improper or illegal means,” the company said in the lawsuit.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said the lethal injection drugs were purchased lawfully “and pursuant to the state of Nebraska’s duty to carry out lawful capital sentences.”

A spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nebraska has never carried out an execution by lethal injection, and the state plans to use an untried combination of four drugs during Moore’s scheduled execution. The state’s last execution, in 1997, used the electric chair, which the Nebraska Supreme Court later declared unconstitutional.

Nebraska’s current execution protocol calls for four drugs: the sedative diazepam, commonly known as Valium, to render the inmate unconscious; fentanyl citrate, a powerful synthetic opioid; cisatracurium besylate, which induces paralysis and halts the inmate’s breathing; and potassium chloride to stop the heart.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, a leading death penalty opponent, praised the company’s intervention and chastised the state for refusing to release documents identifying the supplier. State officials have done so in the past without objection.

“While more states are turning away from the death penalty, Nebraska officials are rushing to carry out an execution cloaked in secrecy with an untested four-drug scheme that carries immeasurable risks for unnecessary pain and a botched execution,” said Danielle Conrad, the group’s executive director.

The lawsuit could force Nebraska to reveal its supplier to prove it doesn’t have any of Fresenius Kabi’s drugs, said state Sen. Ernie Chambers, of Omaha, an outspoken opponent of capital punishment. Chambers said he was glad the lawsuit was filed in federal court, saying it was more insulated from political pressure than the state courts.

“The state cannot simply enter a denial,” he said. “They’re going to have to establish that what has been presented isn’t true.”

The lawsuit is not Nebraska’s first run-in with Fresenius Kabi. Last year, a company spokesman told The Associated Press that state officials had obtained a batch of its potassium chloride in 2015 because one of its distributors made a mistake.

A company spokesman said at the time that Fresenius Kabi discovered the sale through an internal audit and requested that the Department of Correctional Services return the drugs, but state officials never did. Those drugs expired in January 2017.

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LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Gov. Pete Ricketts has unveiled a plan to promote Nebraska abroad, increase trade with other countries and attract more foreign investment.

Ricketts announced the plan Wednesday with members of the Nebraska Governor’s Council for Foreign Relations, a group he established last year.

The plan calls for more international trade missions over five years and a focus on specific countries that are likely to partner with Nebraska. It also recommends creating a network of “Nebraska goodwill ambassadors” to tout the state overseas. The group also plans to work with Nebraska’s universities and colleges and the Nebraska Tourism Commission.

The council includes officials from state agencies and industry groups.

On August 8, 2018 around 1:05 a.m., Deputies received a call of a motor vehicle accident at Kelly Avenue and Hershey / Dickens Road, south of Hershey, NE. It was reported a single vehicle had rolled, but the driver was not staying by the accident scene. The male Driver of the wrecked vehicle had gotten a ride and was on his way to North Platte, NE.

The Driver contacted the 911 Center and told them he was not wanting to speak to police and if he had to, he would assault the officers. A Deputy was able to identify the vehicle the Driver was riding in and stopped it at Leota and Dewey Street in North Platte, NE. The Driver, who was now a passenger, jumped out and began yelling at the lone Deputy.

The Driver reached down and picked up a frog and wanted to hand it to the Deputy. He changed his mind and began shouting he was holding the innocent frog hostage, as well as yelling threats at the Deputy.

A North Platte Police Officer arrived to assist the Deputy and the subject began to throw paper and trash at the Officer, while holding the frog hostage. The Deputy gave the subject numerous commands to comply and calm down. Eventually the Deputy deployed his Taser, releasing the frog and controlling the male Driver.

The Driver was taken to Great Plains Health and placed in Emergency Protective Custody. Drugs and maybe alcohol is suspected. The frog appeared uninjured.

By GRANT SCHULTE , Associated Press

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska state officials are preparing for their first execution in two decades and first-ever lethal injection with an untried combination of drugs that includes a powerful painkiller responsible for much of the nation’s opioid epidemic and a paralyzing drug that could conceal whether something has gone wrong.

The execution planned for Aug. 14 at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln comes with significant risks for Nebraska prison officials, who haven’t carried out a death sentence since using the electric chair in 1997.

No state in modern history has resumed executions after such a long hiatus, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit opposed to capital punishment that tracks how states perform executions. Nebraska is also poised to become the first state to use a four-drug protocol, including three substances that have never been used in a lethal injection.

“When states start experimenting with a new drug combination, it heightens the likelihood there’s going to be some kind of error,” said Deborah Denno, a law professor and lethal injection expert at Fordham University in New York.

Nebraska is among a handful of states that still have capital punishment on their books but haven’t carried out an execution in decades as the total number falls nationally, according to the information center.

The last executions in Colorado, Oregon and Wyoming took place in the 1990s. Kansas hasn’t executed an inmate since 1965, and New Hampshire hasn’t done so since 1939. Nebraska lawmakers abolished the death penalty in 2015, but voters reinstated it the following year through a ballot initiative partially financed by Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts.

Prison officials are set to execute Carey Dean Moore, who has spent 38 years on Nebraska’s death row for the 1979 shooting deaths of two Omaha cab drivers. The 60-year-old Moore has stopped fighting the state’s efforts to execute him.

That leaves no real options for death penalty opponents other than hoping a pharmaceutical company protests the state using one of its drugs in court. None have so far. State officials have refused to identify their supplier and appealed a judge’s order to release records that would reveal their source.

Nebraska previously relied on a three-drug combination to render the inmate unconscious, induce paralysis and stop the heart. But the protocol was never used in an execution, and after years of failing to acquire one of the drugs, sodium thiopental, Nebraska prison officials changed their rules to let the state corrections director choose which chemicals to use.

The new protocol calls for an initial IV dose of diazepam, commonly known as Valium, to render the inmate unconscious; the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl; cisatracurium besylate to induce paralysis and stop the inmate from breathing; and potassium chloride to stop the heart. After each injection, prison officials send saline through the IV to flush out any residue and ensure all the drugs have entered the inmate’s system.

Diazepam, fentanyl and cisatracurium have never been used in executions before. Fentanyl, the prescription painkiller, is at the center of the nation’s opioid crisis. A fentanyl overdose killed music superstar Prince in 2016.

Diazepam is a sleep aid, muscle relaxant and a medicine that helps fight anxiety and seizures. Cisatracurium is commonly used to ensure patients remain still in operating rooms and requires them to be connected to a breathing machine.

Potassium chloride is used in small doses for medical patients with low blood potassium, but in large doses it can trigger a heart attack. The combined drugs would likely take five to 10 minutes at most to work, said Dr. Peter Rice, a clinical pharmacy professor at the University of Colorado.

It’s unclear how the drugs might work in combination, and no one knows whether the dosages will do the job “in a way that isn’t tortuous,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

The protocol “seems to be based more on expediency and what drugs the states believe they can get their hands on at any given time,” Dunham said.

A corrections department spokeswoman did not return phone messages and an email seeking comment. Nebraska’s protocol requires all members of the execution team to train at least weekly before an execution.

The dosages prescribed appear large enough to work as intended, but prison officials still face potential complications given the new protocol and the state’s lack of recent experience in carrying out executions, said Dr. Jonathan Groner, a lethal injection expert and surgeon who teaches at Ohio State University.

Because the person administering the drugs won’t be standing next to the inmate, Groner said it will be difficult to tell whether the drugs are flowing correctly through the IV tube and into his veins instead of surrounding tissue, where they wouldn’t be properly absorbed.

Groner said a long delay in administering all the drugs could also give the fentanyl time to wear off, which would expose the inmate to an intense, burning pain, possibly while paralyzed.

“When you’re having surgery, you get a high-dose burst followed by a continuous infusion,” Groner said. “If the other drugs aren’t given in rapid succession, things could go awry pretty quickly.”

Storm systems have pounded parts of Nebraska with high winds and damaging hail.

The National Weather Service says hailstones more than 4 inches (10 centimeters) across were reported Monday night in western Nebraska’s Perkins County. Hail knocked out windows and damaged a house northeast of Lisco and battered property elsewhere in the Nebraska Panhandle.

Region 21 emergency management director Ron Leal said Tuesday that several Oshkosh homes and businesses had lost windows and siding to the hail barrage, and several crop fields had been shredded. He says no injuries have been reported.

The service says a wind gust of 60 mph (97 kph) was recorded northeast of Big Springs in Keith County.,

In eastern Nebraska, hail broke classroom windows at St. Paul Lutheran School and damaged home siding in Utica.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — School officials in Omaha, Kearney, Schuyler and other communities have been using digital monitoring and surveillance of students’ online communications as they try to stop the next school shooter or the next student suicide.

Education technology companies such as Securly, Gaggle and Social Sentinel offer products that scan students’ online communications and flag threats, drug references or signs of potential self-harm. The scans are mostly limited to school emails or activity on school computers or internet networks, not private accounts.

At the Millard school district in Omaha, the email alerts are routed to the school administrators. The alerts begin with the message: “I am alerting you to an item with questionable content.” One recent alert concerned a distressed student who had emailed a friend saying, “I hate myself.” Another included a scan of a file of a different student’s communications that turned up a reference to self-harm.

“I get these almost daily,” said Bill Jelkin, Millard’s student services director.

Schuyler schools signed up for scans from Gaggle on a trial basis two years ago.

“After a quarter, our principals said, ‘Oh, my gosh, we didn’t know how much was going on out here,’ ” Schuyler Superintendent Dan Hoesing told the Omaha World-Herald . “They were surprised at what was found. It was invisible.”

The steps to scan the students’ communications have drawn cheers from parents and principals who fear they can’t keep up with tech-savvy teenagers and children.

But the scans also raise concerns about overreach from advocates for student privacy.

“I don’t want to sound insensitive to the gun violence and student safety concerns. Those are definitely real and important. It’s just that surveillance policies are also rolled out for something like that as sort of a knee-jerk reaction,” said Christine Bannan, an attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Hoesing noted that the information being scanned belonged to the school.

“It’s not like we’re playing Big Brother,” Hoesing said. “If you’re using our network, you know anything that comes across that network is our property.”

Officials in some districts said they’re not using monitoring products, but rather focusing on prevention by fostering positive school climates where students can confide in school staff.

Katie Burton, a parent with three kids in Millard schools, said the district’s use of a monitoring service seems “fairly benign.” But she said she worries that students could be punished for something they wrote before doing anything wrong.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska man says he’ll support his twin brother and be present for his execution.

David Moore tells the Lincoln Journal Star that his brother, Carey Dean Moore, “would just like to die” after being on death row for 38 years.

David Moore says there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his brother. The twins switched places in 1984 so Carey Dean Moore could breathe fresh air again. A supervisor noticed the switch several hours later.

Carey Dean Moore, whose execution is scheduled for next week, has had seven execution dates. He was sentenced to death for the 1979 murders of two Omaha taxicab drivers, Reuel Van Ness, Jr. and Maynard Helgeland.

David Moore says it would be a relief for the execution to happen for the victims’ families and for his brother.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s annual sales tax holiday is wrapping up as people across the state — and plenty from neighboring states like Nebraska and Missouri — scramble to get their back-to-school shopping done.

The holiday is held the first Friday and Saturday in August and exempts sales tax on clothing and footwear items priced under $100. The exemption ends at midnight Saturday.

Sales tax in Iowa ranges from 6 cents to 7 cents on every dollar, depending on location. So, shoppers spending $200 on clothes and shoes in Iowa this Friday and Saturday would save between $12 and $14 they would normally have to pay in sales tax.

The exemption does not include back-to-school supplies, like backpacks, notebooks, calculators or sporting equipment.