A 64-year-old Nebraska City man has pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor count of vehicular homicide.

A pretrial hearing for Larry Lawton is scheduled for April 12. Lawton also is charged with three traffic infractions.

Authorities say Lawton’s vehicle struck William “Walkin’ Willie” Perkins in a Nebraska City crosswalk on Nov. 6. The 79-year-old Perkins died Nov. 27 at a Lincoln hospital.

Perkins got the nickname “Walkin’ Willie” because he used to walk 16 miles from Hamburg, Iowa, to Nebraska City to work or pick up his mail. Sometimes, his friends would see him and give him a lift.

Perkins later moved to Nebraska City and made daily rounds to visit friends in the downtown.

Authorities say a 6-month-old Chicago girl who was shot five times while her father was changing her diaper has died.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office says Jonylah Watkins died Tuesday morning at Comer Children’s Hospital. Her father, Jonathan Watkins, was also shot in Monday’s attack and remains in critical condition at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Police are scouring the South Side neighborhood of Woodlawn, where the attack happened and looking for security footage that might help them track down the shooter. Witnesses say the attacker fled in a blue van.

Authorities say a gunman approached Jonathan Watkins while he was standing outside of his minivan and changing his daughter’s diaper while she was lying in the front seat.

A teenager charged with abducting and killing a 10-year-old Colorado girl is due in court to enter a plea.

Eighteen-year-old Austin Sigg is charged with the Oct. 5 disappearance and slaying of Jessica Ridgeway in the Denver suburb of Westminster. He is to appear in court Tuesday.

Jessica’s disappearance created a furor as Denver-area parents and school officials took extraordinary precautions to keep children safe.

Part of Jessica’s body ultimately was discovered in a field. Other remains were found in Sigg’s home.

Investigators say Sigg told them after he turned himself in that he wanted to plead guilty.

Sigg cannot be sentenced to death because he was 17 at the time of the crime. He faces life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years if convicted.

 

The University of Nebraska at Omaha is giving students, staff members and metropolitan Omaha residents opportunities to help out around the community.

UNO’s Seven Days of Service program helps volunteers take spring break time to perform public service. About 1,500 volunteers will be working at sites around Omaha beginning Saturday and continuing Monday through March 23. Volunteers will work from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and do a variety of jobs, including painting, carpentry and landscaping.

Seven Days of Service began in 2003 when seven students helped coordinate the work of 70 others who donated their spring breaks to repairing homes for low-income families.

It costs more to park in Lincoln’s metered spaces.

The hourly rate doubled to $1 an hour on Monday.

Scott Vrbka, of the city’s Parking Services, says all 1,300 new credit card meters have been installed. He also says about 1,000 older meters had to be changed by hand.

The new meters take debit and Visa and Mastercard credit cards. Parkers must buy a minimum of an hour.

The increase will generate an additional $1 million or more from meters, with $750,000 of it going to the city’s general fund. The rest will help pay for new parking garages.

People want their dog to be a friend, not afraid.

But sometimes, fear from life at a puppy mill or hoarder’s home can grip a dog so tightly it shakes, bites or growls when freed.

Until now, it was up to animal shelters to ease the fears, knowing if they didn’t, euthanasia was the likely alternative. But this week, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals opens its Behavioral Rehabilitation Center at St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center in Madison, N.J.

Dogs rescued from puppy mills and hoarders will arrive there from shelters across the country as well as from seizures involving the ASPCA.

Kristen Collins, of ASPCA, says the center, a two-year research project, is the first “dedicated strictly to providing rehabilitation for dogs that are victims of animal cruelty.”

 

Curiosity drilled into its first Martian rock a month ago. Now scientists will reveal what’s inside.

Gathering at NASA headquarters Tuesday, the rover team will detail the minerals and chemicals present in a gray pinch of ground-up rock.

The rock results come seven months after Curiosity made a dramatic landing in an ancient crater near the equator. It has been slow going since then as engineers learn to handle the car-size rover.

Scientists are thrilled with the latest achievement — a first on Mars. It involved boring a hole, scooping the powder and running it through Curiosity’s instruments.

By analyzing the rock’s interior, researchers hope to determine whether the landing spot was habitable. They already have one hint — an ancient streambed that Curiosity crossed to get to the rock.

A New York man whose lawsuit claiming part ownership of Facebook got him arrested wants his criminal case halted.

Paul Ceglia of Wellsville filed a complaint in Buffalo federal court Monday seeking to stop the U.S. government’s prosecution of him on fraud charges.

Ceglia was arrested last October in what the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan called a multibillion-dollar scheme to defraud Facebook and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg. Prosecutors accused Ceglia of doctoring a contract he signed with Zuckerberg in 2003 to make it appear Ceglia would eventually receive half-ownership in the Menlo Park, Calif., company.

That contract is the basis of a pending lawsuit Ceglia filed against Facebook and Zuckerberg in 2010.

Ceglia’s new complaint says prosecuting him criminally for filing a lawsuit violates his constitutional rights.

A jury has cleared a former Omaha television newsman who once ran for Congress of a domestic violence charge.

Fifty-eight-year-old Michael Scott was found not guilty of the misdemeanor charge on Monday.

Prosecutors had said Scott’s estranged girlfriend reported that he had choked her, hit her in an eye and ripped off two fake fingernails while threatening her in a November incident.

Scott denied the accusations and said the woman made up the incident.

Scott ran as a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998 against Republican Lee Terry.

Before that, Scott had worked in television news at two stations in Omaha and at stations in Dallas and Denver and in Huntsville, Ala.

A motorcyclist driving at deadly speeds, has prompted the Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) to remind bikers of safety.

According to a news release from the Patrol, troopers were working a special assignment on Friday, March 8, when the NSP helicopter clocked a 2007 Suzuki motorcycle traveling 139 mph in a 55 mph zone.  The speedster was traveling north on Highway 6 near the Sarpy/Douglas County line.

Troopers were able to catch up with the motorcycle near 156th and Q streets where they initiated a traffic stop.

The 18-year-old driver, who was named by the NSP, was cited and released for Willful Reckless Driving, Speeding, No Proof of Insurance, Operating an Unregistered Vehicle and No Motorcycle Endorsement.

NSP Superintendent Col. David Stankey said, “As we move into the spring and summer, we typically see an increase in motorcycles on our roads.  While motorcycles have the same rights and privileges as other vehicles on the road, they must also obey the same rules.”

The NSP also wants to remind motorcyclists they must have a motorcycle endorsement on their license and that state law requires riders and passengers to wear a Department of Transportation compliant helmet.