SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) — Officials say a home near Bayard was destroyed by one of several grass fires in the Nebraska Panhandle area over the weekend.

The Scottsbluff Rural fire department fought four grass fires on Sunday. Assistant Fire Chief Paul Reisig says a fire near Bayard started late Sunday afternoon in an area that burned last week. The wind-swept fire destroyed a home. No injuries were reported.

Reisig say the three other grass fires were near Minatare. Other fires in were reported near Alliance and Broadwater.

The National Weather Service said Monday that more fires were possible across the Panhandle because of dry conditions and winds gusting up to 35 mph. A fire warning remains in effect across the Panhandle through Monday evening.

COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) — A Columbus man has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the stabbing death of another man in a motel parking lot.

Twenty-one-year-old Ozzy Tilden was charged with first-degree murder in the death of 36-year-old Jerry Garcia during a fight in the parking lot of the Sundown Motel in Columbus last October.

Tilden pled guilty last Friday in Platte County District Court. Prosecutors agreed to dismiss a weapons charge.

Tilden will be sentenced April 20. He faces 20 years to life in prison.

KIMBALL, Neb. (AP) – Kimball County voters have rejected an $8 million bond measure for a motor sports complex. County officials said after the count Tuesday that just 200 people voted for the measure, compared with nearly 1,300 who voted against it. Organizers said the proposal would have cost property owners about $130 a year on property valued at $100,000. The money would have been spent to build High Point Motor Speedway. It would have included a drag strip and an oval track at a site three miles south of Kimball off Nebraska Highway 71. Kimball County is in the southwest corner of the Nebraska Panhandle.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska lawmakers have advanced a measure setting guidelines for pipeline companies to follow when they restore farmland and ranchland disturbed during construction.

Requirements under the Oil Pipeline Reclamation Act are intended to restore construction areas as close as reasonably possible to the condition, contour and vegetation that existed prior to construction.

Sen. Kate Sullivan of Cedar Rapids says her plan is based on reclamation rules in Montana and South Dakota and would not hinder pipeline construction in Nebraska.

It sets rules for pipeline companies to follow, but it would not supercede agreements made between a company and a landowner.

Grading, seeding and restoring active cropland are included in the measure, which Sullivan says will protect Nebraska landowners if a pipeline crosses their land.

FREMONT, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska jury has rejected a man’s claim that a medical condition would have made it impossible for him to rape a sleeping teenager.

Joshua Keadle was found guilty Thursday of first-degree sexual assault of a minor. The 30-year-old who has been linked to the 2010 disappearance of a Peru State College student had claimed that erectile dysfunction would have kept him from raping the 15-year-old in Fremont in 2008.

The sexual assault happened in December 2008 at a residence hall at what was then Midland Lutheran College. Keadle will face up to 50 years in prison when he is sentenced.

Keadle remains a person of interest in the December 2010 disappearance of a Peru State College student, Tyler Thomas. No charges have been filed in that case.

BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — A Gage County District Court judge has rejected motions by the state to dismiss the lawsuits of two people wrongly convicted in a 1985 Beatrice murder-rape case.

Judge Daniel Bryan said in his rulings Thursday that the lawsuits filed by two of the so-called Beatrice Six against the state can proceed.

Ada Joanna Taylor and James Dean sued the state for $500,000 each, saying they were wrongfully convicted in the rape and murder of Helen Wilson in February 1985. Four others also were convicted and sentenced to prison in the case. The six were pardoned in 2009 after DNA evidence exonerated them.

Beatrice radio station KWBE reports that Bryan acknowledged Taylor and Dean “have an uphill climb” to prove their cases, but that the cases should be heard.