LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a Lincoln high school student has caused widespread panic by peering into a classroom wearing a clown mask.

Seven students who were connected to the prank at Lincoln Southwest High School on Thursday have been cited with disturbing the peace.

Lincoln Police Capt. Don Scheinost says the incident contributed to the hysteria about clowns’ presence in the city and country in the weeks before Halloween.

A video taken of the student in the mask circulated on social media, disturbing other students and disrupting classes throughout the day.

Scheinost says none of the seven juveniles were arrested, but their cases have been referred to the Lancaster County Attorney’s Office for prosecution.

PLATTSMOUTH, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a Nebraska man has died after a vehicle rolled on top of him at a home in Murray.

The Cass County sheriff’s office says 63-year-old Wayne L. Gerdes of Johnson was working the vehicle at a home in Beaver Lake on Wednesday. A sheriff’s deputy arrived shortly before 9:30 p.m. and administered CPR until an emergency medical services crew arrived.

Gerdes was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, where he was pronounced dead.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Four Iowa men and a woman from Nebraska will serve shorter prison sentences after President Barack Obama granted them clemency.

Most of the 102 offenders in Thursday’s announcement committed drug crimes considered nonviolent.

Michael Jay Bertram of Dumont, will serve 14 of 20 years and Nicholas Jolise Deering, of Des Moines, will have served about eight of his 18 ½-year sentence when he’s released in 2018.

Rodger Lee Moran, of Des Moines, was serving life for selling methamphetamine. His sentence was shortened to 20 years and Kenny Siepker of Carroll had six years knocked off his 31 years.

Release for Maria Conchita Marino of West Point, Nebraska, is 2018 after serving half of her 20 years.

Obama has commuted 774 inmate sentences, more than the previous 11 presidents put together.

BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — Gage County is appealing a $28.1 million civil judgment it faces in a lawsuit filed by six people who were wrongly convicted of the 1985 rape and homicide of a Beatrice woman.

The county is asking the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the case and block the verdict a federal judge issued this summer.

The appeal should also buy more time for Gage County officials to come up with a plan to raise the money if the judgment is upheld.

Attorney Jennifer Tomka says the county can’t easily pay the judgment if it is affirmed.

The six people who sued spent a combined 77 years in prison in the death of 68-year-old Helen Wilson before DNA testing cleared them in 2008.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Lincoln’s tax rate will likely go up next year after the mayor won his lawsuit to force the City Council to fund his budget.

A judge ruled in Mayor Chris Beutler (BYTE’-lur) favor on Wednesday.

Beutler had argued that the council was obligated to pass a tax rate that supports the budget of record for the city.

In this case, Beutler says the budget he submitted before vetoing the council’s revised version is the valid one. The Republicans on the council had said the smaller budget they passed should be considered the legal budget.

Councilman Roy Christensen says he’s disappointed in the ruling, but he and the other Republicans won’t decide whether to appeal until their lawyer reviews the ruling.

HOMER, Neb. (AP) — Dakota County farmers along Pigeon Creek hope long-awaited dredging work will reduce the risk of flooding in the future.

Work began last week on a nearly $200,000 project to dredge about seven miles of the creek from U.S. Highway 77 near Homer to a bridge east of Hubbard.

The project will dredge silt in the creek that has built up over the past 30 to 40 years and is designed to increase the creek’s capacity to carry water in the wake of heavy rainfalls.

In June 2014, large amounts of rain caused levees along the creek to breach and hundreds of acres of farmland to flood.

Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District general manager John Winkler says funding for the Pigeon Creek project was transferred from an Omaha-area project.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Police say a 25-year-old woman died when the vehicle she was driving slammed into a power pole in northwest Omaha.

A passerby reported the crash just before 3 a.m., and police found a Ford Explorer resting against a large power pole. The driver was dead at the scene.

Police believe the crash occurred sometime earlier, when the vehicle left the road and crashed into the pole.

The driver was identified as Raelynn M. Preston, of Omaha.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha school Superintendent Mark Evans plans to retire at the end of year after only four years on the job.

The 57-year-old Evans said Monday that he decided to step down so he could spend more time with his aging parents and his wife’s parents.

Evans joined the district in 2013, and helped pass a $421 million bond issue.

Five of the nine seats on the district’s school board are up for election this November.