JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Governors in at least two states that have legalized recreational marijuana are pushing back against the Trump administration and defending their efforts to regulate the industry.
Alaska Gov. Bill Walker sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions this week, asking the Department of Justice to maintain the Obama administration’s more hands-off enforcement approach to states that have legalized the drug. Marijuana is still banned at the federal level.
Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee also sent a letter to Sessions this week, saying the attorney general made claims about the situation in Washington that is “outdated, incorrect, or based on incomplete information.”
Since taking office, Sessions has promised to reconsider pot policy, providing a level of uncertainty for states that have legalized the drug.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An Omaha man who was drunk when he caused a crash that left his young daughter severely injured has been sentenced to 22 to 25 years in prison.
36-year-old Benjamin Thompson was sentenced Wednesday in Douglas County District Court. Thompson was convicted in May of drunken driving, three counts of negligent child abuse and one count of failure to stop and render aid. It was his fifth drunken-driving conviction.
Police say he sped away from the October crash and was found later found dumping alcohol containers in a trash can. His three injured daughters were still in the car.
The crash left 8-year-old Kazlynn Thompson in a persistent vegetative state. Doctors say she will never recover. Her sisters, 6 and 1, were also injured.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Officials say a wild bald eagle that had skin graft surgery at an Omaha zoo is healing and won’t require more operations.
A news release from the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium said the eagle was evaluated Monday by Dr. Coleen Stice, a plastic surgeon who’s been helping treat it, and a zoo veterinarian.
Fishermen spotted the ailing, underweight bird on the ground south of Syracuse in late May. There were no feathers on its head — just a scab. The malady stumped experts at the Fontenelle Forest Raptor Recovery center as they began nursing the adult male.
Last month Stice concluded it was an electrical burn, possibly suffered from hitting an electrical wire.
Recovery center director Janet Stander says the eagle has more healing to undergo before being released.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Lincoln fire investigators say they believe natural gas caused an explosion that leveled a home and injured two people.
Fire investigators are seeking an internal cause for the explosion that destroyed the home Monday afternoon and damaged others nearby in southeast Lincoln.
A Black Hills Energy spokeswoman says Tuesday the utility has determined the explosion wasn’t due to the natural gas delivery system to the house’s gas meter.
The owners of the home, whose names haven’t been released, remained at a Lincoln hospital in critical condition.
The explosion shattered windows and knocked some neighboring homes off their foundations. Debris from the shattered home was scattered for blocks.
Neighbor Diana McCoy says she thought a plane hit her house: “The concussion of it was just incredible.”
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — The Latest on the sentencing of a man who killed a sheriff’s deputy and wounded another while escaping from a western Iowa jail (all times local):
11:10 a.m.
A man who pleaded guilty to murder and 11 other counts for killing a western Iowa sheriff’s deputy and wounding another during a jail escape has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.
A Pottawattamie County District judge issued the sentence Tuesday after 24-year-old Wesley Correa-Carmenaty entered guilty pleas to first-degree murder, attempted murder, escape, kidnapping and other crimes. His trial was set to begin Tuesday, but his attorney informed authorities last week that Correa-Carmenaty would change his plea.
Authorities say Correa-Carmenaty had just been sentenced on May 1 to 45 years in prison in an unrelated murder case when he grabbed one of the deputies’ guns while being transferred to the county jail. He shot them both and used the jail van to escape.
He was recaptured that day in Omaha, Nebraska, after carjacking a woman at gunpoint.
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10:20 a.m.
A judge has accepted the guilty pleas of a man charged with killing a sheriff’s deputy and wounding another while escaping from an Iowa jail.
Twenty-four-year-old Wesley Correa-Carmenaty entered the guilty pleas Tuesday to murder, attempted murder, escape, kidnapping and other crimes. His trial was set to begin Tuesday, but his attorney informed authorities last week that Correa-Carmenaty would change his plea in Pottawattamie County District Court in Council Bluffs.
Authorities say Correa-Carmenaty had just been sentenced on May 1 to 45 years in prison in an unrelated murder case when he grabbed one of the deputies’ guns while being transferred to the county jail. He shot them both and used the jail van to escape.
He was recaptured that day in Omaha, Nebraska, after carjacking a woman at gunpoint.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A judge has told Lincoln it must provide the disability pension a former police officer was previously denied.
Judge Lori Maret agreed with Jonna Conlon, her attorney and her physicians that her back injuries made it impossible for Conlon to continue her career as an officer.
Court filings say the city fired Conlon in June 2015 because she’d exhausted the time allowed on light duty for the ailment. She’d blamed her 25-pound duty belt for the back problems she developed in early 2014. Conlon’s subsequent request for a disability pension was denied, so she went to court.
The judge said that despite evidence Conlon had a preexisting degenerative back condition, medical findings linked her duty belt to the back injury.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A 42-year-old Iowa woman who was convicted of killing her romantic rival has been sent to a Nebraska prison for life.
A Douglas County judge sentenced Shanna Golyar in Omaha on Tuesday. She’d been found guilty of arson and first-degree murder after a nonjury trial. Prosecutors say she killed 37-year-old Cari Farver, who was last seen in Omaha in November 2012. Her body hasn’t been found.
Police say Golyar posed as Farver online and by phone for years after Farver’s disappearance and also posed as other people confessing to having killed Farver. An officer testified that Farver had been dating Golyar’s ex-boyfriend for some weeks when she disappeared.
Golyar’s lawyer argued that prosecutors presented no evidence that a homicide occurred: no body, no murder weapon and no crime scene.
COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) — A woman who was taking care of a Columbus resident’s pets has been accused of stealing from the home.
Court records say 34-year-old Jennifer Carney, of Schuyler, is charged with felony theft. A phone listed for her rang busy during several calls Tuesday. Court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for her.
Carney was asked to feed the pets while the resident went on vacation. The resident discovered upon returning that $2,700 was missing from a fire safe lock box.
An arrest warrant affidavit says Carney acknowledged that she’d taken the money and had returned $250 when confronted by the resident.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Lincoln woman has been accused of stealing her daughter’s Social Security disability benefits.
Court records say 36-year-old Maria Owen-Miller is charged with felony theft. Her attorney didn’t immediately return a call Monday from The Associated Press. Owen-Miller’s next court hearing is scheduled for Aug. 30.
Authorities say Owen-Miller had become payee of her daughter’s benefits and had agreed to notify Social Security if her daughter were no longer in her care. Authorities say Owen-Miller didn’t do so when her daughter began care at an Omaha group home for children in June 2014. Investigators say none of the benefit payments Owen-Miller received were paid to the group home or her daughter.
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Governors in at least two states that have legalized recreational marijuana are pushing back against the Trump administration and defending their efforts to regulate the industry.
