WILBER, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say one person has been killed in a collision on a southeast Nebraska highway.
The accident occurred just before 8 a.m. Tuesday on Nebraska Highway 103, about two miles north of Wilber.
Saline County emergency management coordinator B.J. Fictum says the head-on collision involved a car and a van. The names of those involved and other information about the crash have not been released.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Fort Calhoun man is in the hospital after being shot in the lower leg while deer hunting.
The 45-year-old man was alert when members of the Fort Calhoun Volunteer Fire Department loaded him into an ambulance Monday.
Washington County Sheriff Mike Robinson says the hunter was walking through a field when he was shot outside Fort Calhoun.
Robinson estimates that the hunter was hit from “a quarter to a half mile away.”
He says no citations have been issued. Deputies are investigating the incident.
The name of the man hasn’t been released pending notification of family members.
YORK, Neb. (AP) — A 39-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to charges related to a York standoff with officers.
Sean Hoffman, of Waco, made his pleas on Monday to felony charges of assault, terroristic threats and use of a firearm. His trial is set to begin on March 15.
Court documents say Hoffman broke into a York man’s home and assaulted him on Aug. 25. Police later found Hoffman at his parents’ home in York, where he refused to come out. Officers entered the house and took him into custody after several hours.
BUCKNER, Ill. (AP) — A 40-year-old bride has died in a motorcycle accident as her new husband drove her to their wedding reception in southern Illinois.
Authorities say Jana Miles-Burnett of Whittington died Saturday night following her marriage ceremony in a Buckner city park.
Illinois State Police report that husband William Burnett was driving the couple the three miles to their reception at a bar in Christopher when he struck a deer that darted in front of them on a rural highway. Miles-Burnett was thrown from the motorcycle. Her husband was not seriously injured.
The couple had dated for only a few months before marrying.
Miles-Burnett’s identity was confirmed to the newspaper by family members and a funeral home.
She worked as a Franklin County emergency dispatcher.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha police honored a nursing student for her actions last month to help an officer who had been severely beaten at a gasoline station.
Police gave Tiffany Joseph a plaque and check for $1,625 raised through donations to police officers associations.
Police Chief Todd Schmaderer says Joseph’s actions “represent everything that is good about our community,” when she helped officer Tom Arrance on Oct. 7.
Witnesses say Arrance was surprised by a man who hit him so hard, it broke the officer’s nose, cheekbone and the bones around his eye. Joseph, a part-time nursing student, tried to stop the bleeding and stayed with Arrance.
Joseph met Arrance at the ceremony and expressed relief he was OK.
Police have charged a man with the beating.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — What has been known as the Omaha police crime lab now is called the forensic investigations unit.
The unit develops and examines latent prints, compares spent shell casings and takes photographs.
Police Lt. Darci Tierney said the new name is more correct because the civilian technicians don’t have a lab to analyze some of the evidence they collect. Tierney says outside labs handle that work.
Tierney says it’s important to have the name reflect “more of what we do rather than what we don’t do.”
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A new study suggests that wealthy people are more likely to get on multiple waiting lists and to score an organ transplant, and less likely to die while waiting for one.
Donor organs are assigned based on medical need, time on a waiting list and other factors. Patients can get on waiting lists in more than one area but often must pay for new tests to qualify, and travel on short notice if an organ becomes available.
The new study looked at records for more than a decade and found that multiple-listed patients had higher transplant rates, lived in higher-income zip codes and were more likely to have private insurance versus Medicaid.
Results were discussed Monday at an American Heart Association conference in Orlando.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A fire has burned through a garage and damaged another nearby home in Lincoln.
Firefighters were called to the residence around 2:15 p.m. Sunday. They cut a hole through the roof of the burning garage to ventilate the fire upward. The garage’s interior, the outside wall and a partial section of the attic were damaged.
Battalion Chief Brad Thavenet says the fire may have been started by a warm motor of a lawn mower burning a pile of nearby leaves or leaves still in the leaf bag. The garage’s owner was doing yard work and left the lawnmower unattended shortly before the fire began.
Heat from the fire burned through the vinyl siding of a next-door home.
An investigation is ongoing.
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — Fire officials say carelessly discarded smoking materials caused a fatal blaze at a high-rise apartment building in Grand Island.
An automatic alarm that activated at 1:10 p.m. Saturday alerted the fire department to the blaze at the 11-story Centennial Towers apartments.
Fire Division Chief Tim Hiemer says the fire broke out in an apartment on the south end of the ninth floor. Hall County Attorney Jack Zitterkopf identified the occupant as 56-year-old James Curfman, who was taken to a Lincoln hospital for treatment of burns and smoke inhalation.
A woman who lived down a hall fell to her death. She was identified as 63-year-old Sarah Nyayual Both, who had come to the United States from Sudan.
Hiemer says the building’s concrete block walls kept flames from reaching other apartments.
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — A fire in an 11-story apartment building killed one person and critically injured another, so Grand Island authorities are talking again about the need to retrofit older buildings with sprinkler systems.
The fire was reported shortly after 1 p.m. Saturday. Most of the residents escaped the building safely after fire alarms went off.
Grand Island Fire Chief Cory Schmidt says the fire started on the ninth floor. A woman fell from a window on the ninth floor and died. Schmidt says another person was critically injured with burns.
The 134-foot-tall building challenged firefighters. The tallest ladder truck on scene had a 95-foot platform.
Schmidt said the building was not equipped with a sprinkler system because it wasn’t required when it was built.
