BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — A Beatrice couple have been accused of injuring a 3-year-old girl.
34-year-old Jason Sanchez and 33-year-old Laura Blakely were arrested Monday. Online court records don’t list the names of attorneys who could comment for them.
Police began investigating after the girl was hospitalized for two days around Christmas. The girl has since recovered, and she and her older brother have been placed in foster care.
Police Lt. Mike Oliver says Blakely is the children’s mother.
O’NEILL, Neb. (AP) — Scores of pipeline opponents in Nebraska are gathering to renew their fight against construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Almost 150 people met for two hours Monday at a community center just south of the proposed pipeline route. The meeting consisted of plans to stop, delay or reroute the pipeline.
The Keystone XL — which is proposed to run through Alberta, Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska — has become a symbol of how the U.S. should tackle climate change concerns. Former President Barack Obama previously rejected the pipeline in 2015, but President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month to bring it back.
Jane Kleeb, leader of activist group Bold Alliance, says this time it’ll be farmers, ranchers and Native Americans fighting in the courts, and not politicians.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Lincoln City Council has voted to bar corrugated cardboard from the city landfill.
The compromise approved Monday night won’t require people to pay for curbside recycling from trash haulers. Councilwoman Jayne Raybould says people can take their cardboard to any of the city’s 29 recycling sites.
Mayor Chris Beutler had wanted to ban cardboard and all paper products from the landfill, but he couldn’t rally enough council votes for his stricter measure.
The compromise plan will require trash haulers to offer curbside recycling and to report their recycling totals each year. There no penalties for individuals or businesses that don’t abide by the new restriction. But garbage haulers could be fined $100 every time they take recyclable cardboard to the landfill.
The measure takes effect in April 2018.
FALLS CITY, Neb. (AP) — A Falls City man has been sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder in the death of his cousin.
The Nebraska attorney general’s office says 32-year-old Desiderio Hernandez was sentenced Tuesday in Richardson County District Court to the life term, plus another eight to 17 years for weapons counts.
Hernadez was found guilty in December of killing his cousin, Joseph Debella Jr., in August 2015. Debella was found in the basement of a home with a gunshot wound to his head and died eight days later at a Lincoln hospital.
Hernandez was arrested after a nearly seven-hour standoff at a home in Horton, Kansas.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An Omaha woman who sold thousands of worthless airline vouchers has been sentenced to 63 months in federal prison.
Patricia Urbanovsky was sentenced Monday.
Federal Judge Joseph Bataillon says the sentence was warranted because of the sophisticated scheme Urbanovsky ran, the number of victims and amount of the loss.
Urbanovsky was the owner of Creative Creations in Omaha. Authorities say she ran a scheme to sell discounted airline travel vouchers, most of which turned out to be worthless.
Urbanovsky pleaded guilty last year to 16 counts of wire fraud. In exchange, federal prosecutors dropped nine counts of money laundering.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An Omaha police officer was shot in the ankle before she returned fire and wounded a man Monday afternoon.
Both the female officer and the man she shot were hospitalized in critical condition after the incident in midtown Omaha around 1p.m.
Deputy Police Chief Dave Baker says someone reported a suspicious person near 33rd Street and Turner Boulevard. Baker says the officer stopped a man who had a gun.
Witness Greg Powell says the man sat down but didn’t put his hands behind his back, as instructed. Then the man pulled something out of his jacket or backpack.
The officer was wounded before firing at the man several times.
Authorities did not immediately identify the officer or the suspect.
TARNOV, Neb. (AP) — A 25-year-old Columbus woman has reached a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to the crash death of a man in Platte County.
Online court records say Mikala Phillips made the pleas to misdemeanor charges of vehicular homicide and first-offense driving under the influence. Prosecutors reduced the homicide charge from a felony in exchange for Phillips’ pleas. Her sentencing is scheduled for March 8.
The records say that in her plea deal, Phillips agreed to be sentenced to the maximum probation on each charge. The agreement is not binding on the judge, however.
Authorities have said Phillips’ car collided with a pickup driven by 33-year-old William Sorensen, of St. Edward, on June 9 last year. He was pronounced dead at the rural intersection about a mile west of Tarnov.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha will have to pay $2.75 million extra to complete one of its sewer overhaul projects because a tunnel boring machine got stuck.
The machine was 70 feet underground between the downtown Heartland of America Park and the Missouri River when it ran into boulders and watery gravel. It had to stop 900 feet short of its destination.
The City Council has agreed to pay the contractor for digging a shaft down to the machine and taking it out and then pay for the lowering of a heavier duty drilling rig into the tunnel to finish the work.
The project now is expected to be delayed at least until the end of his year — about one year later than the original completion date.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Roughly 1,500 people gathered in an Omaha park Sunday to object to President Donald Trump’s suspension of refugee entry into the U.S.
The crowd assembled in Turner Park at Omaha’s Midtown Crossing development carried signs declaring refugees are welcome here.
A couple refugees addressed the crowd and talked about their own experience of coming to America from Afghanistan and Kenya.
Several hundred people gathered in Lincoln for another protest Sunday afternoon on the steps on the Nebraska capitol building.
Trump’s executive order barring citizens of seven predominantly Muslim nations entry into the U.S. has sparked weekend protests around the country.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An Omaha woman who sold thousands of worthless airline vouchers is set to learn Monday whether her plea agreement will be accepted by a federal judge.
Patricia Urbanovsky’s sentencing and restitution hearing is set for Monday in Omaha’s federal court.
Last year, Urbanovsky pleaded guilty to 16 counts of wire fraud. In exchange, federal prosecutors dropped nine counts of money laundering. She faces up to six years in prison. She has asked the court for a sentence of three years, with her attorney, Steve Lefler, saying she “had no intention of stealing from anyone.”
Urbanovsky was the owner of Creative Creations in Omaha. Authorities say she ran a scheme to sell discounted airline travel vouchers, most of which turned out to be worthless.
