An insurance company is closing a call center in Lincoln and laying off more than 100 people.

QBE North America will close the call center on May 10 and eliminate 113 jobs.

The Lincoln office was part of QBE subsidiary Sterling National, which provides hazard and flood insurance as well as services for lenders.

QBE officials recently said last year was a difficult one for the company because of the widespread drought and damage from Superstorm Sandy.

Last summer, QBE also closed a claims office in Lincoln and cut 13 jobs.

A Lincoln man has been imprisoned for possessing marijuana that had been mailed to him.

35-year-old Torone Williams was sentenced to 30 months to 56 months in prison. Williams had pleaded no contest to two pot charges.

Prosecutors say a postal inspector became suspicious of a package that had been mailed to Williams from San Bernardino, Calif., in May. Officials found nearly 4½ pounds of marijuana in the package. Williams signed for the package the next day.

An Omaha woman running an unlicensed home day care has been arrested in connection with the death of a 1-year-old boy.

The Omaha Police Department says 33-year-old Elizabeth Harding was arrested Monday. She faces a charge of child neglect resulting in death.

Chase Hunter was found unconscious Feb. 22 in an unbuckled car seat. Investigators say Harding put the child in the seat to sleep. Chase shuffled himself and the seatbelt harness wrapped around his neck. The boy could not be resuscitated and died.

Harding is jailed at the Douglas County Department of Corrections. Online records do not list an attorney.

Prosecutors have filed a misdemeanor reckless driving charge against the Mayor of Grand Island.

Howard County Attorney David Schroeder filed the charge Monday morning after receiving the lab reports regarding Jay Vavricek’s blood alcohol content following an arrest for drunk driving on March 2.  Vavricek was stopped in Howard County after a citizen reported that he was driving erratically.

Prosecutors would not disclose their reason for reducing the charges or the results of Vavricek’s blood alcohol level tests.  He was originally charged with Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol.

Vavricek is due in court on Wednesday.  He faces up to three months in jail, a $500 fine or both.  Reckless driving is a Class IIIA misdemeanor.

 

 

Jurors in suburban Detroit have gone home after less than two hours of deliberations in the trial of a 75-year-old woman who fatally shot her teenage grandson.

The jury got the case Monday after attorneys delivered closing arguments in the case against Sandra Layne.

Jurors could convict Layne of first-degree murder or a lesser charge. But they could also acquit her based on her claim that she killed her 17-year-old grandson, Jonathan Hoffman, last May in self-defense after he struck her during an argument.

Prosecutor Paul Walton says there’s no evidence to back up that assertion. He told the jury that Layne deserves a first-degree murder conviction because she shot at Hoffman ten times during a six-minute span, hitting him six times.

A central Missouri woman who has been missing with her daughter for four days called her boyfriend from a suburban Kansas City motel but was gone when police arrived to check on her.

Chariton County Sheriff Chris Hughes says 28-year-old Rachel Koechner and 4-year-old Zoee Sandner were reported missing Thursday night after her boyfriend received a text message from her saying “help me.”

Hughes says she called her boyfriend Monday morning and said she was OK, but it sounded scripted. He tracked the phone number back to the motel and got ahold of her as she was checking out.

Hughes says he asked if she was OK and she said, “no.”

She is believed to be with her ex-husband and is considered endangered because of previous domestic violence incidents.

An Iowa man who was pulled over for speeding as he tried to get his pregnant wife to the hospital says he was determined to keep going despite the blinking police lights behind him.

Tyler Rathjen says he didn’t plan to stop March 10 as his wife, Ashley, began giving birth to their son in the front passenger seat of their SUV.  However, a red light finally forced him to stop

The baby’s head and arms were already out by the time Officer Kevin Wolfe reached the passenger door. He helped with the delivery and then escorted the Williamsburg family to the hospital. Wolfe’s dashboard camera captured the episode.

Ashley Rathjen says her son will probably retell the story for years to come.

The Omaha Veterans Affairs hospital is referring surgeries elsewhere in the city because of humidifier problems in its operating rooms.

VA officials say the rooms have been temporarily shut down and will remain out of service until the humidifiers are fixed or replaced.

The hospital performs about 300 surgeries a month.

The VA says the rooms have been checked for mold problems, but none was detected.

Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank is leaving the Obama administration to serve as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

President Barack Obama announced Blank’s departure in a statement Monday. He says Blank has distinguished herself as a “steady leader and a vital member of my economic team.”

Blank joined the Commerce Department in 2009 as an economic adviser and was later promoted to deputy secretary. She was named acting secretary last year after John Bryson suffered a seizure and resigned.

The president has not named a nominee to run the department permanently. Top Obama fundraiser Penny Pritzker is considered a leading candidate for the post.

Ohio’s top law enforcement official says the investigation of wrongdoing in a city where two high school football players raped a 16-year-old girl is far from over.

Attorney General Mike DeWine says a grand jury will look into whether other teens, along with coaches, parents and school officials broke the law by not speaking up after the attack.

DeWine said Sunday after a judge convicted the two boys of raping the girl after an alcohol-fueled party last summer that convening a grand jury is the only way to bring finality to the matter.

DeWine also said the rape was not limited to Steubenville but is part of a national problem.