OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Authorities say an 8-year-old girl was wounded when someone shot at a northeast Omaha home.  The Omaha Police Department says in a news release that officers were dispatched to the home a little before 12:45 a.m. Wednesday.  They found the wounded girl inside.  She was inside when the shot was fired from an alley behind the house.  It’s unclear whether she was hit by a bullet or fragments from the bullet or glass or wood pieces.  The girl was taken to Creighton University Medical Center.  Police say she’s expected to survive the injury.  She was identified as Janyah Spigner.  No arrest has been reported.

KEARNEY, Neb. (AP) – The Nebraska State Patrol says it will team up with local agencies for special enforcement efforts during Kearney Cruise Nite weekend.  The event draws hundreds of classic cars and thousands of people to the south-central Nebraska city.  It runs Thursday through Sunday.  The patrol says special enforcement efforts by the patrol, Kearney police and Buffalo County deputies will be focused on Saturday.  A grant of more than $6,000 from the Nebraska Office of Highway Safety is paying part of the cost of the extra enforcement.

FREMONT, Neb. (AP) – A woman has been arrested over the death of her father, whose decomposing body was found months after his passing.  Fremont police say 57-year-old Kathy Madsen faces misdemeanor charges of concealing a death and giving false information to police. She was arrested Thursday.     No number was listed for Madsen.  Online court records didn’t list the case against her or name her attorney.  The badly decomposed body of 88-year-old Raymond Madsen was found in his Fremont home on Friday.  Police say it’s believed he’d been dead for at least four months.  An autopsy didn’t determine a cause of death.  Kathy Madsen had been living in her father’s home, even after his death.

KIMBALL, Neb. (AP) – A woman injured in a trailer fire in Kimball in western Nebraska is in a burn unit in a hospital in Colorado.  Authorities say Karen Boutard was rescued by her husband, John,who carried her out of the burning mobile home on Sunday.  The trailer was destroyed.  Scottsbluff radio station KNEB says Tuesday that Karen Boutard is in stable condition at a hospital in Greeley, Colo.  Investigators believe an extension cord to a fan started the fire.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Omaha police have arrested a third person in connection with the shooting death of a man last week.  Omaha television station KETV reports that 20-year-old Nicholas Ely was arrested Tuesday in Omaha.  He is suspected of playing arole in the July 6 shooting death of 25-year-old Kristopher Winters.  Police say they are still looking for another man believed to have been involved in the shooting.  Ely is still in custody, and court records show no attorney yet assigned to him.  Last week, police arrested 21-year-old Marqus Patton, of LaVista, on suspicion of first-degree murder and a weapons count.  A 15-year-old Omaha girl also has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder in Winters’ death.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – An Omaha man will stand trial for first-degree murder for shooting his wife in the back five times while the couple’s children were in the home.  Sean Barrett is being held without bail, awaiting a trial date.  Barrett’s attorney, James Martin Davis of Omaha, tells an Omaha television station that Barrett had planned to kill himself, but snapped after hours of arguing with his wife, Rochelle.  Douglas County Chief Deputy Attorney Brenda Beadle says the June17 shooting was premeditated murder.  A homicide detective testified in a preliminary hearing Monday that instead of calling 911 after he shot his wife, Barrett packed up the couple’s 11- and 14-year-old children and took them to a friend’s house.  When he returned about 30 minutes later, Rochelle Barrett was dead.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it will reduce water releases from Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota, a sign that major Missouri River flooding could be nearing an end.     The corps’ Omaha District construction chief, Robert Michaels, says the corps will decrease the water volume gradually from its current 160,000 cubic feet per second. The corps plans to drop the flow to 155,000 cubic feet per second on July 31 and cut it to150,000 cubic feet per second on Aug. 1.  Michaels said Tuesday that the corps will trim the releases slowly to keep the water flow stable and prevent further erosion of flooded farmland and roadways.  Missouri-based flood expert David Rogers says lowering the levels gradually is crucial to lessening the risk of levee failure.

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (AP) – Officials are tallying flood damage in Lincoln County, now that the floodwater levels are dropping.

County emergency manager Jim Nitz told KNOP that figures aren’t complete yet. But, he says, so far officials are estimating about $1 million in residential damage, about $250,000 damage to county roads and about
$350,000 in damage to the North Platte airport and the city.
Nitz says damage to wells and septic systems won’t be totaled
until floodwater levels drop further.
The county is developing a plan to help drain standing water
around the North Platte River.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – The last defendant in a western Nebraska drug ring has been sentenced in federal court.  U.S. Attorney Deborah Gilg announced Monday that Braulio Lara received a 108-month prison sentence last week.  Lara was the last of 12 defendants sentenced on drug conspiracy charges, as part of a federal investigation in the Nebraska panhandle.  Gilg said the defendants included U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants working together to bring methamphetamine and cocaine into western Nebraska.  Investigators infiltrated the organization by working their way up from the lowest-level dealers in the ring to the organization’s leader.  The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, with help from the Western Nebraska Intelligence and Narcotics Group Task Force and several local law enforcement agencies.