LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Five Catholic women who were excommunicated from the Diocese of Lincoln in the 1990s due to their membership in a group that pushes for changes in church policies pertaining to women could be allowed to fully participate in services again.

Lincoln Bishop James Conley is offering the five women the opportunity to lift their excommunications on an individual basis.

The women are members of Call to Action, a national organization that calls for the Catholic Church to reform its policies related to women’s ordinations, LGBTQ rights, and other issues.

Then-Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz issued a blanket excommunication of the group in 1996, calling their actions “perilous” to the Catholic faith.

Call to Action members have been working to overturn the excommunication for more than two decades. The group even went to the Vatican in 2006 but wasn’t successful.

Conley, two diocesan officials, and the five women have been discussing lifting the excommunication and making changes within the diocese since September 2016.

“Mostly what’s been happening is sharing our own Catholic journey: why we’re Catholic and how we’re Catholic,” said Patty Hawk, who has practiced in a neighboring diocese since she was excommunicated from Lincoln’s. “We’ve talked a lot about that pain that surrounded the excommunication and just tried to understand each other better.”

Conley’s decision won’t lift the group’s blanket excommunication and only applies to the five women. It will allow them to continue being involved with Call to Action while also taking part in communion and other church sacraments.

“Bishop Conley just desires all Catholics to be in union, so he wants to make that possible for as many people as possible,” said Rev. Nicholas Kipper, spokesman for the Diocese of Lincoln.

The overturning of their excommunication is a sign that engaging in difficult conversations with people of different views can lead to a positive result, Hawk said.

“It matters,” Hawk said. “And it doesn’t just matter in this context; it could be a model for how we can talk across political and social divides in the world right now.”

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — BNSF railroad is planning to invest $3.3 billion in its railroad again this year.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based railroad said Wednesday it plans to match last year’s spending on maintenance projects and upgrades to its rail network.

BNSF plans to spend $2.4 billion to maintain and repair its rail network and locomotives. That will include rehabilitating 13,000 miles of track.

The railroad’s plans also include investing about $500 million to expand capacity.

BNSF says it is nearly done with the installation of the automatic braking system federal officials required. So the railroad plans to spend only about $100 million on that system this year.

BNSF is owned by Warren Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate. BNSF operates 32,500 miles of track in 28 western states and three Canadian provinces.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts pitched a new version of his property and income tax plan to lawmakers on Wednesday but acknowledged that it still needs some work to pass this year.

Ricketts stressed the need for compromise in his remarks to the Legislature’s Revenue Committee, which will consider several competing plans from rural lawmakers who want to focus purely on property taxes.

“We’ve got to all work together,” Ricketts said. “Not everybody’s going to get what they want, but that’s the nature of compromise.”

The latest version of the governor’s plan won a key endorsement from the Nebraska Farm Bureau and other agricultural groups, although some farm advocates remain staunchly opposed. Critics argue the plan favors the wealthy and doesn’t do enough to address property taxes that have soared since 2006.

Ricketts and the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jim Smith of Papillion, both described the bill as a “work in progress” but painted it as an effort to unite business and farm organizations that have been at odds over which taxes to cut.

“I think it’s in everyone’s best interests to try to find a path forward,” said Smith, chairman of the Revenue Committee.

The bill would eliminate Nebraska’s existing property tax credit program, which benefits all property owners regardless of whether they live in the state, and shift the money into a new credit that only helps resident homeowners and agricultural land owners. Corporations would lose their property tax savings but would receive income tax cuts.

A previous version of the measure would also have paid for the property tax credits using leftover money from years when the state collects more revenue than projected. The new plan eliminates those so-called revenue triggers, requiring instead that lawmakers draw about $45 million from the state’s cash reserve this year and adjust for lost revenue in the future.

Under the new plan, resident homeowners would get an income tax credit equal to 12 percent of their property tax bill in 2018, capped at $280. Those numbers would increase gradually until hitting a cap of 30 percent in 2031. The maximum savings at that time would be $780.

Residents who own farm- or ranchland would get a refund equal to 10 percent of their property tax bill as well, with no cap. The percentage would increase at the same rate as the residential tax credit.

The bill would also phase down Nebraska’s top individual income tax bracket, from 6.84 percent to 6.69 percent. Nebraska’s corporate income tax rate would drop from 7.81 percent to 6.69 percent for all taxable income beyond $100,000.

Additionally, the plan would commit $10 million to job training programs.

Some senators on the committee voiced criticism of the plan, noting that the changes made it difficult to know how much it would cost the state.

“My fear is that such steep cuts would leave future legislatures with no option but to raise sales taxes,” said Sen. Burke Harr of Omaha.

Nebraska Farm Bureau President Steve Nelson said his organization was “generally supportive” of the refundable income tax credits proposed in the measure, but only if they increased to 30 percent of the total tax burden over time.

“While the changes outlined are not perfect, we recognize we are in an ongoing conversation about how best to arrive at property tax relief, and these conversations will continue,” Nelson said.

Nelson and some farm groups have said they’re likely to pursue a property tax ballot measure if lawmakers don’t act this year.

Al Davis, a former state senator now representing the Independent Cattlemen of Nebraska, said the plan doesn’t fix the rising property tax rates that have hurt ranchers throughout the state.

Scott Wagner, a farmer from Hooper, Nebraska, said lawmakers and advocates have spent too much time arguing the issue without major results.

“Instead of bickering about what we should or shouldn’t be doing, let’s figure out the answers,” he said.

Members of the Revenue Committee ended the hearing without taking action on the bill. Smith said they could begin a general discussion of this year’s major tax bills as early as next week.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska State Patrol is investigating the knifing of an inmate at a Lincoln prison.

Prison officials say the attack occurred early Sunday afternoon at the Lincoln Correctional Center. The prisoner was stabbed several times with a homemade knife and hospitalized.

Deidra Loyd says her grandson, Mikael Loyd, nearly died and had undergone surgery.

Mikael Loyd was convicted of second-degree murder for the 2013 strangling of his 19-year-old girlfriend, Melissa Rodriguez. He dumped her body in an open cemetery grave in Omaha. The 23-year-old has been serving a sentence of 30 to 35 years.

Prison officials did not release the name of Loyd’s attacker.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A bill designed to protect consumers from identity theft has won first-round approval from Nebraska lawmakers.

Senators voted 34-0 on Thursday to advance the measure to the second of three required votes.

The proposal would prevent credit reporting companies from charging a fee to impose or lift a security freeze on a consumer’s personal information. It also requires that companies maintain “reasonable security procedures and practices” to protect such information.

Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln says he introduced the bill in response to last year’s security breach at Equifax, which exposed the personal information of 145.5 million Americans, including 700,000 Nebraska residents.

The information exposed included Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and in some cases driver’s license numbers.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An attorney who successfully sued to keep a 15-year-old boy’s name off Nebraska’s Sex Offender Registry has filed another lawsuit regarding those who the State Patrol did list.

Joshua Weir filed the lawsuit Monday on behalf of seven people who were listed with 67 others on the state’s Sex Offender Registry despite being adjudicated as a juvenile.

Nebraska’s registry doesn’t include juveniles unless they’re prosecuted criminally in adult court.

The 74 were removed from the registry in August after the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Nebraska boy shouldn’t be listed for something he did in Minnesota when he was 11. The Attorney General’s office had previously said that all sex offenders who move to the state must register, regardless of age.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Some faculty leaders have told the University of Nebraska president that they want more input in important university decisions.

The UNL Faculty Senate executive committee has criticized the university for making decisions “with little or no faculty input.” Faculty members have complained about a lack of involvement in discussions about budget cuts and a new freedom of expression policy.

NU President Hank Bounds disputed the notion that decisions are made without input, but offered to meet with senate leadership to discuss the issue.

The University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Faculty Senate passed a resolution in the fall requesting shared governance.

The Faculty Senate presidents at the NU Medical Center and the University of Nebraska at Kearney say they haven’t made such complaints to Bounds.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Union Pacific is building a new $550 million rail yard in Texas to help sort the growing number of freight cars it is hauling into trains.

The Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad says the new Brazos rail yard under construction about 125 miles (201.16 kilometers) south of Dallas, Texas will be able to switch up to 1,300 rail cars per day.

The project is designed to help Union Pacific handle future growth in freight traffic on the railroad.

The new rail yard will be built near where seven Union Pacific rail lines converge. That makes it an ideal point to build the yard, which will break apart trains that come into the facility and reassemble cars into new trains headed to their destinations.

The project is expected to be completed in 2020.

 

Updated 1/30/18 230pm

Eldie Cline, a 48 year old male reported missing to the North Platte Police Department, has been located. This morning, Garden County authorities were notified of a vehicle found in a ravine. The vehicle turned out to be the 1998 Volkswagen owned by Mr. Cline. The vehicle had left a nearby roadway and came to rest in a ravine. Mr. Cline’s body was recovered at the scene. An investigation is being conducted by the Garden County Sheriff’s Office.

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North Platte police are asking for the public’s help in locating a North Platte man who hasn’t been seen or heard from in over a week.

On January 15, police took a missing report involving 48-year-old Eldie Cline.

Investigator John Deal says Cline’s family members reported that he left his residence on the 15th and has not returned or contacted family members.

Cline is believed to be driving a blue 1998 Volkwagon Beetle bearing Nebraska license plate 15-C986.

Cline is 5’6″ with brown hair and brown eyes.

If you have any information on Cline’s whereabouts, contact the North Platte Police Department at 308-535-6789.

 

• Richard John Lampe Jr, 51, North Platte and Megan Dara Jenik, 36, North Platte

 

• Clinton Chandler Morgan, 46, North Platte and Jamie Lynn Wright, 26, North Platte