CENTRAL CITY, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a Central City man was killed when a locomotive struck his vehicle at a crossing in Merrick County.
The accident occurred Tuesday morning about 2½ miles northeast of Central City. The vehicle was headed north on 19th Road when it was struck by an eastbound train at the crossing near U.S. Highway 30.
The driver was identified as 53-year-old Steven Bankson. The Merrick County Sheriff’s Department says Bankson was pronounced dead at the scene.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Three firefighters who were injured in a funeral home fire have been released from the hospital.
The Omaha Fire Department says the three firefighters who were sent to the Nebraska Medical Center Tuesday morning are now at home resting.
A fire department news release says heavy equipment is being used to assist with moving collapsed sections of the building. Fire investigators were working with funeral home employees Tuesday to remove bodies removed from the building.
Firefighters were dispatched around 3:20 a.m. Tuesday to the Heafey-Hoffmann-Dworak & Cutler Mortuary on West Center Road.
A fourth person who was injured, co-owner Bill Cutler, received about 15 stitches.
The cause of the fire is still being investigated.
NORFOLK, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a 27-year-old Norfolk man was arrested after belt marks were found on his 7-year-old child’s body.
Police officers were sent to Washington Elementary School on Monday to check the child after school staffers noticed bruises and marks on the child’s body.
Police say the child’s father was arrested on suspicion of felony child abuse later in the day. Online court records don’t show that the man has been formally charged.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A former Nebraska football player has been sent to prison for burglary.
Online court records say 27-year-old Rickey Thenarse (theh-NARS’) was given three to six years at his sentencing hearing Tuesday in Lincoln. Prosecutors say he broke into a Lincoln home on Jan. 14, 2015, and stole several items. Thenarse pleaded no contest and was convicted of a felony burglary charge after prosecutors dismissed a second charge related to another break-in.
Thenarse played safety for the Huskers from 2006 through 2010 and played in three preseason games as a member of the NFL Seattle Seahawks in 2011.
ATLANTA (AP) — Authorities said a meteorologist for The Weather Channel died by suicide when crashing his car through an Atlanta parking garage wall and plowing into an adjacent hotel, injuring a worker.
Authorities said 39-year-old Nicholas Wiltgen was pronounced dead Sunday evening after the crash at Midtown Atlanta’s Colony Square Mall.
Mark Guilbeau, senior investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office, said Wiltgen’s death was a suicide.
Atlanta police spokeswoman Kim Jones says Wiltgen’s car traveled about 20 feet into the adjacent W Atlanta-Midtown, where it hit a hotel worker in a storage area. The worker was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Wiltgen is a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A memorial service has been set for an Omaha police dog killed during a standoff over the weekend.
The service will be held Thursday afternoon at Christ Community Church for the 9-year-old Belgian Malinois named Kobus. Police have said the dog had served with the department’s K-9 unit since 2008 and was scheduled to retire in March.
The dog’s shooting happened in the final hours of a 25-hour standoff between a 59-year-old Omaha man and police. The incident began when officials tried to serve a warrant ordering the man late Friday to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
The man is also accused of firing on police, although no people were injured. He surrendered Saturday evening.
The public is invited to the memorial service.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A disagreement over a Douglas County judge’s controversial courtroom ban on guns continues after officers who refused to disarm weren’t called to testify in court.
Police officers, prosecutors and even fellow judges gathered in a hallway during a hearing on the fifth floor of the county courthouse Monday to see whether an officer would be handcuffed for refusing to disarm.
But prosecutors didn’t call two officers to testify because they knew the officers would violate judge James Gleason’s courtroom gun ban.
Gleason denied the prosecutor’s request to hand off the case to another judge so the officers could testify without the risk of going to jail.
Gleason declined to comment on the dispute.
He is the only judge out of 28 at the courthouse with a no-guns policy.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say four people have been injured in a blast and fire at a funeral home in central Omaha.
Firefighters were dispatched around 3:20 a.m. Tuesday to the Heafey-Hoffmann-Dworak & Cutler Mortuary on West Center Road.
Fire Chief Bernard Kanger (KANG’-ur) says the rear of the building has partially collapsed.
The four injured people are being treated at Nebraska Medical Center. Three of them are firefighters. The fourth person injured is believed to be a mortuary employee.
SYRACUSE, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say nearly 90 pounds of marijuana was found inside a car at a Syracuse motel.
The Otoe County Sheriff’s Office had been on the lookout for three cars suspected of being used by drug traffickers. Over the weekend deputies found one of the cars at a Syracuse gas station and talked to two people who were using the car. They were allowed to leave, but deputies later discovered that one of them had rented a room at the motel where one of the other cars was found. A patrol dog taken to the motel alerted deputies to the odor of drugs coming from the car.
Chief Deputy Sheriff Mike Holland said Monday that information about the two people has been sent to prosecutors. No arrests have been reported.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska authorities say a Colorado man was arrested after deputies found 515 pounds of pot in his pickup at a Lincoln truck stop.
Court records say 68-year-old Steven McElmury, of Cedaredge, Colorado, was charged with drug possession for sale after his arrest Thursday. He’s already bonded out of jail. There’s no public phone listing for McElmury, and court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could be contacted to comment on his behalf.
A court document says a Lancaster County sheriff’s deputy spotted the truck headed east on Interstate 80 and followed it as it left the highway and halted at the truck stop. A drug dog later alerted deputies to the odor of drugs. The drugs and more than $4,400 in cash were found during a search.
