(AP) — The latest man arrested by Omaha police in an effort to quash gang-related crime first got into legal trouble when he was 13 years old.

Omaha police say 31-year-old Michael Liggins was arrested Friday. A day earlier, local and federal authorities arrested four men as part of a nine-month investigation called “Operation Purple Haze” targeting gang-related activity, including gun and drug trafficking.

In all, 10 men have been arrested in the operation, all in their 20s and 30s.

Police say Liggins is a north Omaha gang leader who has been in and out of jail every year since 1999. In 2002, when he was 19, he was convicted of shooting and killing a friend who was trying to help him steal a car.

(AP) — Authorities have filed a motor vehicle homicide charge against a truck driver who was involved in a 2011 crash that killed a Nebraska toddler.

Lancaster County Attorney Joe Kelly announced the misdemeanor charge Friday against 53-year-old Leamond Pierce, of New Castle, Del.

Pierce was driving a semi-truck that rear-ended a Toyota Camry in December 2011. The crash on Interstate 80 nearly Waverly killed 2 ½-year-old Aidan Curry, of Bellevue.

Curry’s mother, Jennifer Brock, says she was relieved by the decision to charge Pierce.

Pierce faces up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. He is on parole for a 1981 murder in Delaware, and is not currently in custody.

A meteorologist from The Weather Channel is nursing minor injuries after the “tornado hunt” car in which he was riding was thrown some 200 yards by a tornado in Oklahoma.

The SUV that Mike Bettes and two others were riding in was caught up in a storm near El Reno on Friday evening. The Weather Channel said all of the occupants were wearing safety belts and were able to walk away from the banged-up vehicle.

Network spokeswoman Shirley Powell says a Weather Channel team has been in the field for most of May following tornadoes. She says it’s the first time one of the network’s personalities has been injured while being caught up in violent weather it was covering.

Nine people have died in the Oklahoma City area after a violent burst of tornadoes and thunderstorms overnight.

Amy Elliott with the state Medical Examiner’s Office said Saturday morning that nine fatalities have been confirmed, including two children and seven adults. The previous overall total was seven deaths.

Hospital officials said at least 75 people were hurt during Friday night storms that hit at rush hour.

Dozens of tornado warnings were issued across a wide swath of the Midwest, including Oklahoma and Missouri, as a large storm front moved through the region. At least five died and dozens were injured.

Weather service meteorologists said Saturday that crews have to assess the damage before determining whether it was caused by tornadoes or severe thunderstorms. Cars were toppled on an interstate in the Oklahoma City area, and aerial images showed damaged to homes and businesses in the suburbs of St. Louis.

They said they expected to have an estimate by Saturday afternoon.

A cold front will move through the Plains and Midwest today, lessening the chances for severe weather

(AP) — A 26-year-old Lincoln man accused of slamming his 13-week-old baby son’s head into the bottom of a medicine cabinet has been given four to six years in prison.

Online court records say Victor Patterson was sentenced Wednesday by Judge Jodi Nelson in Lancaster County District Court. Patterson had pleaded no contest to attempted child abuse after prosecutors lowered the felony charge.

Patterson was arrested after the boy’s mother took her son to a Lincoln emergency room in March 2012 because the baby kept vomiting. Doctors say the boy had a skull fracture, five broken ribs, a lacerated liver and a broken collarbone.

Police say Patterson threw the baby into a coffee table, accidentally slammed the boy’s head into the medicine cabinet and squeezed him so hard the boy suffered internal injuries.

(AP) — A former Marine says she’s speaking publicly about her rape because victims are suffering the same retaliation that she encountered when she reported her sexual assault 14 years ago.

Stacey Thompson went public with her story Thursday in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

She says she paid heavily for reporting that her sergeant had drugged her and sexually assaulted her in his barracks in 1999 at a Marine base in Japan.

Thompson says her perpetrator was allowed to leave the Marine Corps, while she was kicked out with an other-than-honorable discharge for being drugged.

A Pentagon report released earlier this month found 62 percent of sexual assault victims in the military who reported being attacked say they faced some kind of retaliation afterward.

A judicial nominating commission has forwarded the names of three people to Gov. Dave Heineman to consider in filling the 1st Judicial District vacancy on the Nebraska Appeals Court.

The nominees are Riko Bishop, Amie Martinez and James Smith, all of Lincoln.

The person chosen would be replacing Judge Richard Sievers, who has resigned.

The 1st Judicial District covers Lancaster and Seward Counties.

(AP) — Authorities say a driver died when strong winds knocked a tree onto his car in rural Arkansas as thunder storms and several tornadoes swept through the Midwest.

The Grant County Sheriff’s Office says the man was killed late Thursday in Tull, 30 miles southwest of Little Rock.

The National Weather Service says up to a dozen tornadoes touched down in Arkansas and Oklahoma on Thursday, injuring nine people and damaging several structures.

More bad weather is on tap for Friday.

Forecasters say large hail and tornadoes are likely in Oklahoma and parts of the Ozarks in Arkansas and Missouri. The areas at greatest risk include Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Joplin, Mo., where the second-deadliest American tornado on record killed at least 158 people in 2011.

(AP) — Officials in Fremont say they’re getting plenty of feedback about warning sirens.

Mayor Scott Getzschman noted at a Tuesday City Council meeting that he’s spoken with people who didn’t hear the sirens as usual and others who heard them for the first time.

Getzschman says the sirens worked when they were sounded early Monday. They also sounded Wednesday night when the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Fremont County.

Emergency Manager Bill Pook says the issue Monday likely was the high wind, which could muffle the sound in one direction and carry it for a long distance in another direction.

Pook says people with concerns should listen for the siren on testing days. Fremont’s next one is set for 11 a.m. Wednesday.

(AP) — Authorities in Omaha have arrested four men on suspicion of gang-related activity that includes gun and drug trafficking.

Local and federal authorities made the arrests Thursday as part of a nine-month investigation called Operation Purple Haze. It included undercover officers buying drugs, as well as tips from the public.

Authorities are now trying to find several other men wanted on drug charges.

Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer says all the men are considered leaders in two of the city’s most notorious crime rings. He called the arrests “a major bust.”

Police have identified more than 70 gangs in Omaha.