A state audit has found that Nebraska improperly sent nearly $8 million in federal energy-assistance money directly to customers, including some who were known to be dead.

State Auditor Mike Foley said Monday that the payments were made in haste in August 2011, just five weeks before the federal deadline to use the money.

Auditors found that the state made nearly 19,000 payments of either $250 or $500 directly to customers who had previously qualified for “crisis assistance.” The payments should have gone to their energy companies, to ensure they were used as intended.

Auditors say there’s no way to confirm how the money was spent. But some checks were cashed at a keno parlor, grocery stores and funeral homes.

State officials say they’ve added safeguards to prevent future occurrences.

One of the stars of MTV’s “BUCKWILD” has been found dead along with two other people in an apparent off-road accident in West Virginia.

Twenty-one-year-old Shain Gandee, his uncle David Gandee, and a third person who has not been identified were last seen around 3 a.m. Sunday at a bar in Sissonville. They had told people that they were going four-wheeling.

The Kanawha County Sheriff’s Department says their 1984 Ford Bronco was found in a ditch near Gandee’s home about 15 miles outside of Charleston with the three men inside. Search teams had to use all-terrain vehicles to reach the site, which they described as “very muddy” and “very rough.”

Gandee had become a breakout star of the reality show that follows the antics of a group reality star of young friends enjoying a wild country lifestyle. MTV announced in February that “BUCKWILD” would be picked up for a second season, after pulling in an average of 3 million viewers per episode in its first season.

MTV issued a statement saying it was shocked and saddened to learn of Gandee’s death, describing him as “a magnetic personality, with a passion for life that touched everyone he met.”

 

The New York City medical examiner says it has started sifting construction debris from the World Trade Center site in an effort to find any human remains from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The work began Monday. It’s expected to continue for about 10 weeks on Staten Island.

Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said in a memo Friday that DNA testing will continue until every possible identification can be made.

City officials say about 60 truckloads of construction debris have been collected around the site over the past 2½ years. A skyscraper will replace the twin towers.

Some 2,750 people died at the World Trade Center in the 2001 attacks. So far, 1,634 people have been identified.

Over the 30 years of its the bone marrow/stem cell transplantation program, researchers at University of Nebraska Medical Center and its hospital partner, The Nebraska Medical Center, have forged strong partnerships with researchers around the world. As a result, many patients come from all over the U.S. and world to see medical center experts.

One example of how research plays a critical role in advancing treatment and care of patients is a recent study that shed new light on T-cell lymphoma.

“We don’t see a lot of cases of this rare kind of lymphoma, so our partnership with others around the world is one way everyone can share to advance our knowledge and help patients,” said Julie Vose, M.D., chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology. “T-cell lymphoma is more common in other parts of the world. It’s very important that we have the resources and expertise to be able to do these types of studies. There has not been adequate information on it.”

Several different clinical trials for T-cell lymphoma currently are ongoing.

Dr. Vose, also a physician on staff at The Nebraska Medical Center,  was involved in an international study that looked at 1,300 cases of T-cell lymphoma to identify which treatments were helpful and which ones weren’t. In the United States, there are about 85,000 new cases of lymphoma annually of which about 10 percent are T-cell.

It produced surprising results.

“We found that our current treatments for T-cell aren’t very helpful and that we have to look for new treatments,” said Dr. Vose, the Neumann M. and Mildred E. Harris Professor. “We were surprised to learn patients did so poorly on current treatments. We also found some new types of T-cell lymphoma from genetic information that previously hadn’t been described.”

As a result of the study, she said there will be changes in treatment.

“It’s important to tailor treatment since not all T-cell lymphomas are alike,” she said. “Some are aggressive, some slow growing. Some patients do better with certain combinations of therapies while others do better with other types of treatment. We need to understand why.”

In the past few years, Dr. Vose said two new drugs have been approved for T-cell lymphoma.

She said treatment of lymphomas have come a long way in 30 years, thanks to research. There are 50 different types of lymphoma.

“Physicians used to treat many lymphoma patients with the same treatments,” she said. “We didn’t understand that different types of lymphoma can benefit from different types of treatment. Now we know.”

A Wisconsin man has admitted slashing his three daughters to death. Now, a jury will decide whether they believe his claim that he was insane when he did it.

Aaron Schaffhausen goes on trial Monday in St. Croix County, just east of Minneapolis. Schaffhausen last week admitted cutting the throats of his daughters — 11-year-old Amara, 8-year-old Sophie and 5-year-old Cecilia — last July in their River Falls home.

Prosecutors say Schaffhausen was bitter over his divorce from his ex-wife, Jessica, and angry because he thought she had begun seeing another man. A criminal complaint says he called his ex-wife the day the girls were slain and told her: “You can come home now because I killed the kids.”

Schaffhausen’s attorney says his client has a “major depressive order.”

 

(AP) — Authorities in western Iowa found a southeast Nebraska man dead inside his overturned car this weekend.

The Shelby County Sheriff’s office found 21-year-old Tanner Merz’ 2003 Ford Taurus upside down in a ditch along a county road south of Irwin early Saturday.

Authorities say the car was sitting on its roof when first responders arrived. Paramedics worked to extract the Falls City, Neb. man from his car, but Merz died at the scene.

Investigators say Merz was driving north when he lost control of his vehicle.

According to his obituary, Merz was a student at Midland Lutheran University studying teaching an coaching.  He is survived by his parents and three brothers.

 (AP) — Declaring their business “The Husker Bar” made perfect sense to the new owners of Barry’s, but the bar owners forgot to check whether the University of Nebraska would mind.

That decision is proving costly now because the sports bar a few blocks away from campus is redoing all of its shirts, glassware and signage.

One of the bar’s co-owners Kevin Fitzpatrick says he was surprised when he received a letter asking him to drop the Husker tagline at Barry’s because there are so many businesses in Lincoln that use Husker somewhere in their names.

But Fitzpatrick learned that officials at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln don’t want the school to be associated with a bar or restaurant.

(AP) — A Nebraska woman is in an Omaha hospital with life-threatening injuries after being pulled from a burning recreational vehicle.

The RV caught fire on a street in Papillion. Tom Akins was driving in the area and says he saw the RV pull over with smoke coming from it. He pulled over to help, and saw the occupants push a dog out of the RV’s window. Akins says as he approached the RV, flames began to erupt from it, and he heard a woman screaming inside.

Akins managed to break out the windshield with a hammer, and he and other pulled the 47-year-old woman from the RV.

Theresa Harazin, of Papillion, was flown to an Omaha hospital with burns to her entire body.

Lincoln Public Schools and the Nebraska School Activities Association will pay a Falls City woman $150,000 to settle a lawsuit she filed after falling on the district’s icy sidewalks in 2010.

Barbara Froeschl’s lawsuit said she was on her way to watch the Falls City Sacred Heart High School girls compete in the state basketball tournament when she slipped on an icy sidewalk at Lincoln High that had not been properly cleared and did not have warning signs.

Froeschl says she suffered multiple pelvic fractures and incurred nearly $33,000 in medical expenses in little more than a year. She says she also lost wages and suffers permanent injury.

The school district will pay $140,000 and NSAA, $10,000.

Omaha police say a second officer has been placed on administrative leave as the department investigates a recorded incident that has led to accusations of police brutality.

Police said in a news release Saturday that the officer placed on leave is in addition to another officer placed on leave last week and two officers who have been reassigned.

Police again declined to name the officers involved.

Police Chief Todd Schmaderer ordered an internal investigation a day after a video turned up online showing an officer grabbing 28-year-old Octavius Johnson from behind, violently throwing him to the ground and punching him while he was restrained.

The March 21 arrest was secretly recorded by a neighbor. The arrest happened after officers responded to an on-going parking complaint in a north Omaha neighborhood.