LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Authorities have released the name of a man whose body was found inside a home by Lincoln firefighters.
Lincoln police identified the man as the home’s occupant, 57-year-old David Spinar.
Firetrucks were dispatched just after 1 a.m. Thursday to the home a few blocks south of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln East Campus. The fire cause is being investigated.
BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska man who was run over after falling out of a vehicle has died.
Alan Jurgens died from injuries he sustained when he fell out of the vehicle on Thursday.
Beatrice Police say the Plymouth man was arguing with his wife in the car when he fell out of the vehicle and was run over by another vehicle.
Police Lieutenant Mike Oliver says the incident happened in south Beatrice.
Officers are investigating the incident, and an autopsy will be performed on Jurgens.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Lincoln Airport will begin charging a new $4.50 fee Tuesday on any ticket out of town.
Officials say it’s up to the airlines to decide whether they’ll raise ticket prices to cover the fees. The fees won’t be assessed on tickets already purchased for travel Tuesday or later.
The fee can be used to pay for federally approved local projects directly related to air travel and is charged by more than 80 percent of U.S. commercial airports. Nebraska airports in Grand Island, Kearney and Scottsbluff have the fee. Omaha’s Eppley Airfield does not.
Lincoln Airport officials expect the fee will bring in about $675,000 a year in new revenue.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities have identified the 48-year-old man whose body was pulled from a southwest Omaha lake last Friday, but police say the death is not considered suspicious.
The man was identified as Brad Gladwell.
Gladwell’s body was found after someone saw it floating in Lake Zorinsky and called 911. He was found near the South 168th Street entrance.
Court records show that Gladwell had been arrested in September on suspicion of electronic enticement of a teenage girl. Lincoln Police said Gladwell tried to meet an underage girl to have sex.
A hearing in that enticement case was scheduled for Nov. 21.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A former flower shop owner who sexually assaulted and tortured a Texas man in the basement of his Wayne store has been granted parole.
The Nebraska Board of Parole granted 69-year-old Roger Van parole on Friday.
Van has been in prison since 2003 after being convicted of sexual assault, false imprisonment and other counts. He was sentenced to up to 30 years for sexually assaulting, torturing and holding a Texas man captive in the basement of his Wayne flower shop in 2001.
Board member Teresa Bittinger told Van she voted to release him mainly because she wanted officials to be able to monitor him. If he had reached his mandatory release date in 2018, he would be subject to no oversight.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Police have identified a woman fatally shot in north Omaha as 35-year-old Suzanne Pope.
Omaha police say officers were called to the area of Kansas Avenue and 39th Street around 4:35 a.m. Saturday for a report of a shooting and found a man and a woman suffering from gunshot wounds.
The man, who has not yet been identified, was taken to an Omaha hospital for surgery. His condition has not been released.
Police say Pope was pronounced dead a short time after being found.
No arrests have been reported.
BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — An event next month at the Homestead National Monument will offer the chance to learn more about the medicines and foods American Indians used.
The monument will host Jerome Kills Small for a talk on the topic on Nov. 13 at 2 p.m.
Kills Small will talk about medicinal plants and foods that can be found growing on the Great Plains, in the Missouri River valley, and in the Rocky Mountains.
He will also describe what Native American tribes believes about those plants.
The monument sits four miles west of Beatrice, along Nebraska Highway 4. All activities are free of cost and no park permit is required to visit Homestead National Monument of America.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A grand jury has cleared Lincoln police officers of wrongdoing in the June shooting death of a man suspected of shooting two other people.
The grand jury found on Friday that the officers acted lawfully in the June 26 shooting of 22-year-old Germichael Kennedy, of Lincoln.
Investigators say the officers confronted Kennedy and shot him when he pointed a handgun at them. Investigators believe Kennedy had fatally shot 20-year-old Marlene Rashidi and wounded 23-year-old Dezarae Mann as the women were sitting in separate cars earlier that day.
Officials say Kennedy broke away and pulled a gun when Sgt. Mario Robinson tried to arrest him. That’s when Robinson and Officer Josh Atkinson fired multiple rounds, killing Kennedy.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha’s award-winning zoo has announced the birth of a white-handed gibbon.
The Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium said Friday that the gibbon was born Oct. 15 in the Lied Jungle’s Asian rainforest. The gender of the gibbon is not yet known.
The small, tree-dwelling ape is now on display with its family, including 17-year-old mother, Chewie; 24-year-old father, Stevie; and sister Mei, born in 2011.
White-handed gibbons, also known as lar gibbons, are native to the rainforests of southeast Asia and dwell in high canopies where they forage for fruits, leaves and insects and live a primarily monogamous lifestyle among family groups.
White-handed gibbons are listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species due to habitat destruction and illegal hunting.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The CEO of Goodwill Omaha has resigned in the wake of an Omaha World-Herald investigation showing the charity’s top executives being paid more than Goodwills nationwide — a practice that drastically ate into funds for its job programs for the needy and disabled.
64-year-old Frank McGree announced Friday his resignation and plan to take early retirement. McGree had led the Omaha charity for 30 years. Goodwill’s board accepted his resignation Friday.
The newspaper’s investigation showed McGree received total compensation of $933,444 in 2014.
Also, 13 of the nonprofit’s executives were paid more than $100,000 in 2014, so a significant portion of the $4 million generated from Goodwill’s stores in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa went to administrative costs instead of its job-training programs.
