THEDFORD, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a 95-year-old woman has died following a house fire near Thedford.
Thomas County Sheriff Gary Eng says Antoinette Arlyne Werner was found Sunday morning in her bed following a report of fire at her property near the community of Thedford. A portion of the house was engulfed in flames by the time fire officials arrived.
Eng said Werner was removed from the house but later died of smoke inhalation.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the fire.
MITCHELL, Neb. (AP) — A Mitchell man faces charges of motor vehicle homicide for the death of a Gering man.
21-year-old Michael Fiscus is accused of causing the death of 36-year-old Seth Thompson, of Gering.
Thompson died in September at a Colorado care center where he had been hospitalized for nine months after being injured in the Dec. 20, 2013, accident.
Scotts Bluff County Sheriff’s deputies say Fiscus failed to heed a stop sign as he traveled westbound on a county road. His vehicle struck a northbound vehicle driven by Dustin Beaudette, of Scottsbluff. Thompson was a passenger in Beaudette’s vehicle.
Fiscus had been fined $25 in July on a charge of failing to yield the right of way. He had also been sentenced on a weapons charge.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska is rejecting the latest contract offer from one of the state’s biggest medical networks because the insurer says the offer still costs too much.
CHI Health officials offered a new agreement to Blue Cross earlier this week that would have cut rates by $10 million. But Blue Cross officials say CHI Health’s rates have been roughly $60 million higher in the Omaha market.
So Blue Cross rejected CHI Health’s offer on Thursday.
Numerous facilities and doctors affiliated with CHI Health have been out of the Blue Cross network since Sept. 1, so they are significantly more expensive for the insurer’s customers.
In several rural Nebraska communities, CHI Health operates the only hospital in town.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The three states crossed by the Republican River have agreed on a new approach to managing water in the disputed basin.
Officials in Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas say the agreements on how the river’s water will be managed this year and next year show they are taking a more cooperative approach.
In the past, disputes over the 1943 compact that spells out how much water each state is entitled to have wound up in the U.S. Supreme Court numerous times.
The new agreements will allow some of the water owed to Kansas farmers this year to be kept in the Harlan County Reservoir in Nebraska until Kansas officials request it.
Previously, the water would have been released this fall when farmers couldn’t use it.
NEW YORK (AP) — There is good news for Thanksgiving travelers: the price of gas is at five-year lows.
The bad news: a lot more people will be driving.
During the holiday weekend, 46.3 million Americans are expected to go 50 miles or more from home, the highest number since 2007, according to car group AAA. That would be a 4.2 percent increase over last year. While promising for the travel industry, the figure is still 8.5 percent short of the 50.6 million reached in 2007, just before the recession.
The overwhelming majority of travelers — almost 90 percent — will be driving.
AAA says the average retail price for gasoline is $2.85 per gallon, 43 cents cheaper than Thanksgiving Day last year. That means a family driving 300 miles will save $6.97.
A North Platte man is in jail following an altercation that ended with a man being shot.
At around 10:45 p.m., on Wednesday, officers with the North Platte Police Department responded to a residence in the 100 block of Ames Street, on the report of a male with a gunshot wound.
Upon arrival, a 52-year-old male told officers that, at around 7:00 p.m., 34-year-old Eric Burke came to his residence to confront him.
The victim alleged that the argument turned physical and the two men began to fight.
According to Officer Rodney Brown, the victim stated that Burke brandished at .45 caliber handgun and fired one shot, striking the man in the upper right leg.
The victim was transported to Great Plains Health for treatment.
In the meantime, Burke, who fled the scene in Chevy pickup, was stopped near 1st and Vine Streets, where he was taken into custody.
Officers searched Burke and found him to be in possession of hydrocodone. They also discovered that he was driving under the influence of liquor.
He was transported to the Lincoln County Detention Center and jailed.
Burke has been charged with driving under the influence of liquor-3rd offense over .15, felony possession of hydrocodone, use of a weapon to commit a felony and attempted 2nd degree murder.
The victim’s condition is unknown at this time.
CAMBRIDGE, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a man in southwest Nebraska has been critically injured after a train collided with his truck.
A BNSF Railway spokesman said the man’s vehicle was hit Wednesday near Cambridge while he tried to cross the tracks at an unmarked rural crossing.
He was flown to a Kearney hospital in critical condition.
No other injuries were reported.
The Nebraska State Patrol hasn’t released the man’s identity.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska’s state tax revenue likely won’t grow as fast in the future because of a law passed earlier this year.
The director of Nebraska’s Legislative Fiscal Office said Wednesday that the average growth rate will likely decline in the future.
State officials generally assume that revenue will grow at an average rate of 5 percent per year. Fiscal office director Michael Calvert told a legislative committee that a new tax-bracket indexing law will slow the increases over time.
The law ensures that Nebraska’s income tax brackets automatically keep pace with inflation. Previously, taxpayers who received a cost-of-living increase would get bumped into a higher tax bracket, where they ended up paying more.
Lawmakers will craft a new two-year state budget in the session that begins in January.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The proposed oil pipeline linking Canadian producers to the U.S. Gulf Coast isn’t much closer to reality after Congress failed to approve it.
The measure requiring approval of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline passed the House but fell short of the votes it needed in the U.S. Senate this week. So the pipeline that was first proposed in 2008 remains in limbo.
The pipeline has attracted opposition from environmentalists and some landowners who worry about the potential damage from a pipeline leak and from oil mining in Canada. But many supporters of the project say those fears are exaggerated.
Landowner Ronald Weber says he thinks the project should have been built a long time ago, but that may not happen until a new president is elected.
