(AP) — Police say a 27-year-old man has been connected to seven sexual assault cases in the Omaha area.

Christopher Ennis is accused of two assaults in August 2012, as well as one from November and one that happened last week. Police say Ennis is also a suspect in three other cases dating back to 2009.

According to police, the most recent attack happened in a field just east of Highway 75 and Binney Street in Omaha, not far from the other incidents in which Ennis is accused.

Ennis was being held in the Douglas County Correctional Center.

(AP) — The cost of getting a wayward dog out of jail in may soon be going up in Lincoln.

The local Board of Health is recommending that the city council increase the animal impound fee by $5, from $35 to $40, for animals rounded up by the city and taken to the Capital Humane Society.

The increase will be a moot point for many owners whose dogs have tags and current rabies vaccinations and show up at the pound for the first time. Animal Control officers have recently been giving those first-time runaway pets a free ride home, as part of a campaign to encourage responsible pet ownership.

(AP) — A Nebraska man died and five others were injured in a two-vehicle crash near Fullerton.

20-year-old Kyle Frenzen, of Silver Creek, was killed in the crash Friday night. Five others were taken to local hospitals.

Authorities say a 2000 Chevrolet Silverado pickup failed to yield to a 1997 Pontiac Grand Prix at the uncontrolled intersection, near the Nance and Merrick county line. Two people were in the car, and four people, including Frenzen, were in the truck.

Authorities say Frenzen and five others involved in the crash were not wearing seat belts. The Nebraska State Patrol was investigating and trying to determine who drove the truck.

It was not immediately known whether authorities suspected alcohol or speed were contributing factors to the crash.

(AP) — The author of a book about a Nebraska serial killer executed in 1996 has filed a lawsuit to see the condemned man’s drawings.

Author Mark Pettit, a former investigative reporter, says the drawings of John Joubert reportedly depict Joubert’s fantasies to kill more children. Joubert was sentenced to death for killing two young boys in the Bellevue area in the 1980s.

Pettit is the author of “A Need to Kill: The True-Crime Account of John Joubert, Nebraska’s Most Notorious Serial Child Killer.”

Pettit’s lawyer filed the lawsuit Thursday to try to force the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services to release the drawings, which has refused to do so citing confidentiality laws.

Pettit’s lawsuit says the public has a compelling right to see them.

(AP) — A southeast Nebraska man has been sentenced to prison for a second offense of failing to register as a sex offender.

30-year-old Damien Roland, of Beatrice, was sentenced Wednesday in Gage County District Court to up to three years in prison.

In March, Roland was sentenced to three years of probation for failing to register.

Roland’s attorney, Jerry Shelton, says Roland registered as a sex offender while he was jailed for the first offense in March and believed that he would not have to register again until October. He is required to register in April and October every year.

Roland served more than four years in prison for a 2007 conviction of third-degree sexual assault of a child.

(AP) — Prosecutors have dropped criminal charges against a former Verdigre village clerk who was fined $6,000 last week by the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission for abusing public office.

Alisha Bartling had faced three theft charges in Knox County Court. But Thomas Herzog, the Holt County attorney who had been named a special prosecutor, dropped the charges on Wednesday.

Last week, Bartling was fined for making a housing loan to herself and her husband. The Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission also found she had made loans to her husband’s business and brother-in-law and failed to keep accurate records of the loans or enforced timely payments on them.

Bartling, who was named the 2011 Outstanding Clerk of the Year, agreed to the fine.

(AP) — Omaha police have arrested the sister of a man who is accused of killing four people in August.

Authorities said Thursday that they had charged 23-year-old Erica Jenkins with first-degree murder and weapons charges. Jenkins is accusing of helping her brother kill 22-year-old Curtis Bradford, a man he met in prison, on Aug. 19.

Jenkins’ brother, 26-year-old Nikko Jenkins, is charged with four counts of murder. He is accused of killing Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz and Juan Uribe-Pena on Aug. 11, and shooting to death Andrea Kruger on Aug. 21.

Erica Jenkins was already in custody on other charges. Her younger sister, Lori Sayles, was arrested as an accessory to murder.

Police have also arrested Nikko Jenkins’ uncle, 51-year-old Warren J. Levering.

(AP) — Authorities say they have arrested nearly 250 people in the Omaha area following a 15-week operation that targeted gang violence, narcotics and sex offenders.

The operation announced Thursday involved the U.S. Marshals Service, Omaha police’s gang unit and the Metro Fugitive Task Force.

Officers made 249 arrests, including 72 of people with gang affiliations. Authorities seized 67 firearms and confiscated drugs with a street value estimated at more than $400,000. Officers also recovered more than $68,000 in cash.

Authorities conducted compliance checks on 149 registered sex offenders, resulting in four arrests.

(AP) — NASA’s Curiosity rover has sniffed Martian air and there’s no sign of methane.

That’s the conclusion from a new study released Thursday in the journal Science. On Earth, the gas is linked to living things, released when animals digest.

Scientists say the lack of methane in Curiosity’s experiments does not bode well for the search for microbial life underground.

Curiosity landed in Gale Crater near the Martian equator last year. For the first eight months, it used a tiny laser to sample the air, but came up empty-handed in the search for methane.

This contradicts previous observations from orbiting spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes that found plumes of methane on Mars.

Curiosity is headed toward a mountain and will continue to hunt for methane during the long drive.

(AP) — The Hall County Sheriff’s Office says two gibbons reported missing from a Doniphan home earlier this week have been found in Florida.

The small, black-and-white primates were taken from Nancy Stephens’ home sometime before dawn on Monday. Stephens has owned Caylee and Cody since they were babies. She studies behavioral sciences, but the animals are also her pets. She told police they are valued at $25,000 each.

A news release from the Hall County sheriff says the gibbons were found early Thursday morning in Fort Myers, Fla. Two 20-year-old men were arrested on suspicion of having stolen property.

The release says Stephens is making arrangements for the return of the primates to Nebraska.