COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) — The new manager of the Platte County fairgrounds has quit after just one day on the job.

Platte County Agricultural Society chairman Kurt Muhle said Jim Cockson quit on Tuesday after starting on Monday. He accepted the job on June 28.

Muhle says Cockson decided for health and personal reasons that he couldn’t stay. Cockson didn’t immediately return a call Wednesday from The Associated Press.

Rick Johnson will continue to serve as interim general manager until the society board of directors selects another candidate.

The county fair, which opened Wednesday, runs through Sunday.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska State Fair has made a deal to add parking space for 3,500 more vehicles just east of the fairgrounds in Grand Island.

The deal for the nearly 40 acres of space was announced Tuesday.

A tram will carry people from the lot to the fair’s east entrance.

Fair executive director Joseph McDermott told the newspaper that he and other fair officials were caught off guard by the Labor Day crowd last year. He says the crowd of 68,000 would have been even higher if fair officials had anticipated traffic and parking needs better.

This year’s fair runs Aug. 24 through Sept. 3.

BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — Former co-workers have testified that they saw Matthew Pangborn hit and choke residents at the Beatrice State Developmental Center last year.

Testimony against the 31-year-old Pangborn is expected to resume Wednesday morning.

Pangborn faces five counts of abuse of a vulnerable adult, three counts of strangulation, one count of attempted abuse of a vulnerable adult and one count of attempted strangulation.

One of the former center workers, Connie Baird, testified on Tuesday that she saw Pangborn threaten one individual and choke another to the point of unconsciousness.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A northwest Lincoln man has been wounded and the suspected shooter has died.

Police say 28-year-old Isaac Durr was shot several times Tuesday afternoon but is expected to survive.

A police incident report says Durr was shot by a neighbor, Scott Brus. Police and Lancaster County sheriff’s deputies later chased a car reportedly being driven by Brus.

The car ran into a power pole in an alley. Witnesses reported seeing officers pull the driver from the vehicle and perform CPR on him. He was then covered with a sheet, which soon was soaked by blood.

Police would not say whether the man shot himself or was shot by officers or whether he had been positively identified as Brus.

A grand jury will be investigating it as a death in custody.

YORK, Neb. (AP) — Four more mountain lion sightings have been reported in York County, although one has already been debunked.

York resident reported seeing a mountain lion go into a cornfield Monday afternoon.

On Monday morning, another sighting was reported west of town along Road G.

Sheriff Dale Radcliff says another report on Monday came from someone who reported seeing a mountain lion about 3½ miles south of Waco on Friday.

None of the sightings has been confirmed.

A fourth Monday report of a mountain lion came from a motorist who reported seeing a mountain lion near Interstate 80. Radcliff said that person was mistaken, because the animal turned out to be a dead dog.

Mountain lions also are called cougars or pumas.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Rep. Adrian Smith of Nebraska is lauding the passage of a hydropower regulatory act in the House that includes a measure he says will help rural power producers in Nebraska and other states.

Smith, a Republican, and Rep. Jim Costa, a Democrat from California, introduced a measure to exempt hydropower projects generating less than 1.5 megawatts from federal permitting rules.

The Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act, passed Monday, increases the exemption level from 1.5 megawatts to 5 megawatts.

Smith says the legislation would allow irrigation districts and municipalities to partner with local power districts to generate up to 5 megawatts of existing conduit hydropower without going through the federal permitting and exemption process, which he called “lengthy and burdensome.”

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A new report says the number of traffic crashes in Lincoln declined in 2010, despite an increase in residents and registered vehicles.

Mayor Chris Beutler said Tuesday that 7,710 crashes were reported in 2010, down from 7,738 the previous year. He credited the city’s transportation safety improvement program, which includes efforts to re-engineer streets and increase traffic enforcement.

The report says drivers in Lincoln faced the greatest crash risk in January, during Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic. Rear-end collisions were most common, accounting for 30 percent of all crashes.

The report also says the number of bicycle crashes rose slightly, to 140, while the number of pedestrian crashes dropped to 72. City officials say both have trended downward over the last two decades.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Resurfacing work has been scheduled for a stretch of U.S. Highway 34 in eastern Nebraska.

The Nebraska Roads Department says the work will begin on Monday and take about three days. The area affected is about five miles west of Union.

The department says traffic will be reduced to one lane, so flaggers and a pilot vehicle will be employed.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A company affiliated with the University of Nebraska says a Nevada tortilla maker is infringing on a patent two university researchers received in 2002.

NUtech Ventures is suing Gruma Corp., which owns Mission Foods and Azteca Milling, over patent infringement.

NUtech, which is a nonprofit that works to commercialize the university’s research, says Gruma filed several patent applications between October 2004 and June 2007 that show it is violating NU’s patent.

At the heart of the dispute is a process to produce flour from grains such as corn that’s more efficient. The process uses a solution containing a protease enzyme.

Gruma operates 22 U.S. plants that manufacture and distribute packaged corn and wheat tortillas and six plants that manufacture and distribute corn flour.