• Today: Scattered showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 9am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 66. North northeast wind around 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.
• Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 44. East northeast wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
• Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 74. Calm wind becoming south southeast 5 to 8 mph in the afternoon.
• Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 49. Southeast wind 6 to 8 mph.
• Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 80. South wind 8 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph.
• Sunday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 56.
• Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 86.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Doctors at the Nebraska Medical Center say they’re ready to treat a missionary who was infected with Ebola while serving in Liberia.

The North Carolina-based charity SIM announced earlier Thursday that Dr. Rick Sacra is the patient expected to arrive in Omaha on Friday for treatment.

A special isolation unit at the Nebraska Medical Center is one of four nationwide, and it is the largest with 10 beds.

Dr. Phil Smith, who oversees the unit, says the unit was designed for exactly this kind of event.

University of Nebraska Medical Center Chancellor Jeffrey Gold says doctors have been preparing to treat a patient like this for some time.

Gold says he’s confident all of the patients, doctors, staff and students at the facility will be protected during this treatment.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A new report says Nebraska had the nation’s 23rd highest adult obesity rate in 2013.

The report released Thursday by the Trust for America’s Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that 29.6 percent of adults in Nebraska were obese last year.

Nine of the 10 states with the highest obesity rates are in the South.

Mississippi and West Virginia tied for the top rate, at 35.1 percent. Colorado’s 21.3 percent was the nation’s lowest.

Nebraska’s obesity rate was higher than in Colorado and Wyoming but lower than its neighboring states of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and South Dakota.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Officials with 11 cigar bars have met in Omaha this week to discuss the Nebraska Supreme Court’s ruling banning their customers from smoking indoors.

Last week, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that exceptions allowing indoor smoking in cigar bars and tobacco shops were unconstitutional. Cigar bar representatives met Wednesday to brainstorm ways to stall the effects of the court’s ruling.

Cigar bar owners say they’ll let their customers continue to smoke until their cigar bar licenses expire on Oct. 31. Some say they want lawmakers to take up the issue in next year’s legislative session.

The Nebraska Liquor Control Commission says it won’t renew or issue any new cigar bar licenses.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska lawmakers are pushing for answers in their investigation of miscalculated prison sentences that allowed the early release of hundreds of inmates.

Former assistant attorney general Linda Willard told a legislative committee Thursday that she notified state prison officials about a 2013 Supreme Court decision that spelled out the proper way to calculate sentences.

Willard says she sent the ruling to a state records clerk, Jeannene Douglass, who questioned whether the ruling was in the inmates’ best interest and whether it was practical to deviate from the way prison officials had previously calculated them.

Willard says she believed Douglass was under pressure from her superiors to keep the state prison population from growing too large. She says she assumed that prison officials would handle the situation.

 

BROKEN BOW, Neb. (AP) — Broken Bow officials say the city’s new branding statement captures the essence of the central Nebraska community: “Rooted. But not standing still.”

Several groups in the Custer County city of 3,700 teamed up to survey about 700 people to find words that would encapsulate feelings from those inside and outside of Broken Bow. Among the words gleaned from the survey were “hardworking” and “friendly” and “gets things done together.” The groups worked with a consultant to devise the branding statement and an accompanying narrative to share with those considering a move to Broken Bow.

Custer County Economic Development Corp. President Melissa Garcia says the brand statement reflects what Broken Bow is. She says many rural communities are thought of as stagnant, but Broken Bow is economically strong and growing.

SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) — A western Nebraska woman has pleaded no contest to embezzling thousands of dollars from state wards.

Seventy-one-year-old Judy Widener of Bayard took a plea deal on Wednesday. She has agreed to pay more than $25,000 in restitution for thefts that occurred from 2011-2013 while she was serving as the director of Safe Haven in Gering.

Widener was accused of taking funds meant for wards of the court and directing them into her own business accounts to pay for personal costs.

Her nine charges were re-filed into a single aggregate charge of theft as part of the deal.

Widener is scheduled for sentencing in October. As part of the agreement, she could still be sentenced up to 20 years in prison.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The director of Nebraska’s Lottery and Charitable Gaming Division will retire in October.

Jim Haynes was appointed the state’s Charitable Gaming director in 2001, Lottery director in 2004 and acting athletic commissioner in 2010. He worked in various roles at the Department of Revenue for 23 years.

Haynes will be replaced by Jill Marshall, who will serve as acting Lottery director, and Aaron Hendry, who will serve as acting Charitable Gaming director and acting athletic commissioner.

The Nebraska Lottery began in 1993 and raised more than $527 million for its beneficiary funds in that time.

A North Platte man has been charged with a felony after he allegedly defrauded his insurance company.

According to Officer Rodney Brown, on June 28, North Platte Police responded to a reported vehicle theft at 909 East 2nd Street.

Upon arrival, officers met with 31-year-old Joshua Salisbury who alleged that his 2013 Nissan Maxima had been stolen from in front of his residence.

As officers investigated, however, they soon learned that Salisbury had reportedly driven the car into North Public Power District Tailrace Canal, just off Halligan Drive.

Brown said Salisbury then collected $27,500 in insurance money for the alleged stolen vehicle.

Police pulled the vehicle out of the canal on August 11.

On September 3, officers made contact with Salisbury and placed him under arrest.

He was jailed at the Lincoln County Detention Center and charged with felony theft by deception.

The National Weather Service is calling the events in Ogallala and Valentine overnight, “unusual.”

According to the Weather Service, two separate heat burst occurred in Ogallala and Valentine during the overnight hours of Wednesday, September 3, and Thursday, September 4.

The first heat burst occurred just before midnight on Wednesday, in Ogallala.

Meteorologists say the heat burst caused the temperature to suddenly rise from right around 70 degrees to 90 degrees.

The second heat burst, in Valentine, caused the temperature to rise from 77 degrees to right around 92 degrees.

Officials say heat bursts are localized, sudden increases in surface temperatures associated with dying thunderstorms.  They say the storms produce extreme drying and heating of the underlying air, which causes a substantial rise in local temperatures near the thunderstorm.

The NWS has confirmed that dying thunderstorms were present in and around the Ogallala and Valentine areas prior to the sudden temperature rise.

More information on heat bursts can be found here.