A North Platte man is facing charges after police found him passed out behind the wheel, parked in someone else’s front yard.

At around 4:31 a.m., on Wednesday, an officer on patrol in the 1600 block of West Philip Avenue, observed a vehicle that appeared to have driven off the roadway and had struck a vehicle parked in a driveway.

The officer approached the vehicle and found the 36-year-old male driver unconscious with the car still running.

After attempts to wake the driver up failed, the officer gained entry to the vehicle through the sliding glass window in the back of the vehicle and was able to wake the man.

The officer reported that when the man awoke, he grabbed the wheel, thinking he was still driving. The man was said to be stumbling, slurring his speech and had bloodshot eyes. He also had a baggie containing Ambien and Xanax.

When the officer attempted to administer field sobriety tests, the man refused but submitted to a portable breath test for alcohol, which was negative.

At this time, police say the man began making suicidal statements and it was learned that he had intentionally overdosed on prescription drugs and he stated to police that he planned to drive around until he killed himself.

The man was immediately placed in emergency protective custody and transported to Great Plains Health for observation.

Officer Beth Kerr said he was cited for driving under the influence of drugs, driving under revocation and refusal to submit to a chemical test.

The damage to the vehicles was estimated to be around $1,000. Officer Kerr says the man is a North Platte resident but is currently homeless.

The Post is not releasing the man’s name because of his threats to commit suicide.

CHAPPELL, Neb. (AP) — A murder charge has been filed against a woman accused of stabbing a man outside a mobile home in the Nebraska Panhandle.

Deuel County District Court records say 49-year-old Susan Glenn was charged Friday with first-degree murder and a weapons crime. A woman who answered the phone Tuesday at her attorney’s office said there would be no comment from the attorney. Glenn’s next court hearing is scheduled for Feb. 21.

Glenn had been charged with assault and use of a weapon.

The court records say a witness who’d been standing outside the home talking to Robert Mick on Jan. 13 in Chappell was on the phone with 911 dispatchers when Glenn came out of the residence, stabbed Mick and fled in her car. He died four days later.

The records say she’s acknowledged to investigators that she stabbed Mick.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Backers of an effort to legalize medical marijuana in Nebraska have filed formal paperwork for a statewide ballot campaign.

Nebraskans for Sensible Marijuana Laws submitted their proposed constitutional amendment Tuesday to the Nebraska Secretary of State’s office.

State Sens. Anna Wishart and Adam Morfeld, of Lincoln, are co-chairing the effort to place the issue on the 2020 ballot.

Wishart has introduced a bill that would allow lawmakers to legalize the drug for medicinal purposes, but it faces stiff opposition from state and local law enforcement, Gov. Pete Ricketts and prominent Nebraskans including former Husker football coach Tom Osborne.

Legalization supporters have said they will pursue the ballot campaign if lawmakers don’t pass a measure this year.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska motorists who want to support veterans, ornate box turtles or prostate cancer exams could donate to those causes and others with a new license plate, if some state lawmakers have their way.

Members of a legislative committee heard pitches Tuesday for nearly a dozen new specialty plates, adding to the growing number approved in recent years.

‘”I think we just set the record for the number of license plate bills heard in one day,” said Sen. Curt Friesen, chairman of the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee.

The number of new plates surged after the surprising success of Nebraska’s mountain lion conservation plates, which have generated $225,000 for youth wildlife education — far more than expected — since they were created in 2016.

Sen. Ernie Chambers, of Omaha, previously blocked all efforts by lawmakers to approve specialty plates on grounds that they detracted from the purpose of helping law enforcement identify vehicles.

But he changed his mind after former state Sen. Charlie Janssen suggested in 2014 that lawmakers create a mountain lion license plate — honoring an animal Chambers has tried to protect from hunters.

Some new proposals would create special plates for animals such as sandhill cranes, bighorn sheep, cutthroat trout and ornate box turtles.

Others would honor veterans of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Persian Gulf and Vietnam, and establish a new “Support our Troops” plate to boost funding for a state veteran employment program.

“There are still many Vietnam veterans who have never been welcomed home properly and deserve this recognition,” said Sen. Carol Blood, of Bellevue, the sponsor of the military plates bill.

Yet another proposed plate would highlight the importance of spaying and neutering pets. Revenue from the $40 plate would go to a grant program to help low-income families spay and neuter their pets, said Sen. Anna Wishart, of Lincoln.

Wishart said other states have passed similar laws, and “the benefits are already evident. More cats and dogs are being spayed and neutered, resulting in fewer animals entering overburdened and underfunded municipal and nonprofit shelters.”

One proposal would divert revenue from an existing pediatric cancer awareness license plate into a fund to pay for pediatric cancer research at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Those plates currently generate about $25,000 annually, but the road goes into a state road construction fund.

Deana Thuer, whose daughter was diagnosed with a form of brain cancer, said shifting the money would encourage more people to buy plates, thus raising critical research money and awareness.

“We will buy the license plates, we will do the 5Ks, we will do anything to find a cure for our children,” she said.

Prostate cancer awareness advocates urged lawmakers to create plates for their cause, modeled after breast cancer awareness plates in 2017.

“We have lost many of our friends and loved ones because they were not aware of prostate cancer,” said Jeff Shapiro, a representative for the Nebraska Prostate Cancer Alliance.

Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh, of Omaha, said a bill recognizing ornate box turtles would generate money for state officials to preserve their natural prairie habitats. The turtle is one of just two that are native to Nebraska.

“A new plate for the ornate box turtle is sure to be both beautiful and foster interest in Nebraska as a tourist destination,” she said.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A lawyer for a farm supervisor arrested in an immigration raid at O’Neill says federal agents and prosecutors wrongly kept the man from seeing his attorney.

Lincoln attorney John Berry tells the Lincoln Journal Star that his firm was hired to represent Elkhorn River Farms supervisor Eric Beringer the day of the August raid. Berry says a lawyer was immediately sent to a Grand Island detention center where those arrested were taken, but that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent wouldn’t allow the lawyer to see Beringer. The agent and an assistant federal prosecutor insisted Beringer didn’t have a right to counsel until the next day.

Berry says Beringer had a constitutional right to counsel because he had already been indicted on suspicion of harboring people in the country illegally.

Berry is now moving to suppress any statements Beringer made because he was denied his right to a lawyer.

A message left Tuesday for ICE was not immediately returned. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Norris said his office believes there are “many factual inaccuracies” in Berry’s motion, but said he could not elaborate until prosecutors files a reply to it.

Police said a North Platte teen is in protective custody after reportedly attempting to commit suicide by train.

On Tuesday morning, Post staff received numerous reports that a toddler had been running on the tracks near moving train cars Monday.

Law enforcement did respond to an emergency call at the railroad, however, it was in reference to a 15-year-old female who was attempting to commit suicide by walking in front of a moving rail car, police said.

According to North Platte Police, Union Pacific Special Agents were able to apprehend the female and she was placed in emergency protective custody.

No other details of the incident were released and Union Pacific has not responded to a request for a statement on the incident.

No injuries were reported.

Police in Kearney are seeking the mother of two twins who were abandoned at a Kearney hospital.

On February 4, 2019, at 1:09 p.m., officers were dispatched to CHI Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney regarding infant male twins who had been born at the hospital on February 2, 2019.

Hospital officials reported that the mother of the twins had apparently departed the hospital, abandoning the twins.

The two male infants were placed in the custody of Health and Human Services.

Police are working with CHI Good Samaritan and Health and Human Services to identify the mother of the twins, who apparently, gave false information upon admittance to the hospital.

If you have any information, contact the Kearney Police Department at 308-237-2104.

MAXWELL, Neb. (AP) — The Department of Veterans Affairs says it’s bought land to expand a national veterans cemetery in western Nebraska.

The VA announced Monday that Fort McPherson National Cemetery in Maxwell will be expanded to nearly double its current size. The VA says it bought 18 acres (7.3 hectares) on the north side of the 20-acre cemetery, providing room for at least 15,000 more graves.

The VA says it paid Donna Sundstrom nearly $116,000 for the land.

Fort McPherson National Cemetery was established in 1873. The VA says there are two more national cemeteries in Nebraska: Omaha National Cemetery, which is in Sarpy County on the south side of Omaha, and Forest Lawn Cemetery Soldiers’ Lot, in Omaha.

There are also state veterans cemeteries at Alliance and in Grand Island.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska businesses will pay less unemployment insurance taxes this year than they did in 2018.

Gov. Pete Ricketts announced Monday that the average tax rate for the year is 0.7 percent in 2019, which is a decrease of 0.06 percentage points from the previous year. That translates to an estimated $4.3 million less in taxes.

Officials say the decrease was driven by a dramatic decrease in continued unemployment claims and benefits paid out. Ricketts says much of the decrease is driven by Nebraska’s first-in-the-nation “reemployment program” that requires nearly all benefit recipients to enroll in an individualized plan to find a new job to remain eligible for unemployment.

Nebraska also has one of the nation’s lowest unemployment rates.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A 23-year-old Lincoln woman who worked as a corporal at the Nebraska State Penitentiary has been arrested after being accused of unlawful acts with an inmate — including creating an email address with a fake name to communicate with the inmate.

The Lincoln Journal Star reports that Andrea Gassman was arrested Jan. 18 and has been charged in Lancaster County.

A Nebraska State Patrol investigator said in an arrest affidavit that Gassman created an email account under a pseudonym and began emailing convicted murderer Bryton Gibbs. The 24-year-old Gibbs is serving a 100-year prison sentence for the 2010 stabbing death of Omaha pizza delivery driver.

The investigator says Gibbs and Gassman talked about their families and having sex with one another.

Officials say Gassman’s actions endangered her and her co-workers.