LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Lincoln’s public safety director plans to create a task force to see if the Lincoln Fire and Rescue needs to be overhauled after a report detailed retaliation against a whistleblower.

The report says Capt. Troy Hurd was disciplined by at least three chiefs four times over two years after he reported firefighters abusing recruits. The report was given to Lincoln’s Mayor in October.

Kim Taylor-Riley, a city official who wrote the report, said Hurd was blocked from a temporary promotion that comes with a 10 percent pay increase during that time. After Taylor-Riley’s report, Mayor Chris Beutler removed all disciplinary actions against Hurd from his file in November.

The chiefs involved in the case have not been disciplined and still work for the department.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A Nebraska man has been charged with strangling his estranged wife in Sioux City.

Sioux City officers who were sent to an Iowa Street address around 12:40 a.m. Sunday found the woman and her husband. She was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead there.

Police say 27-year-old Rogelio Pablo-Morales is charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of 21-year-old Margarita Morales and is being held in the Woodbury County Jail. Online court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could be contacted to comment on Pablo-Morales’ behalf.

Relatives of Pablo-Morales live at the address, and they’d called police.

Pablo-Morales was charged earlier this month in Dakota County, Nebraska, with beating his wife at the home they’d shared in Emerson. She reported that he punched and choked her.

MINOT, N.D. (AP) — The Highway Patrol has identified a Nebraska man who died in a crash in northern North Dakota.

Authorities say 18-year-old Trenton Tiller, of the Elkhorn neighborhood on the west side of Omaha, Nebraska, was killed Thursday afternoon when the motorcycle he was driving collided with a semitrailer on a Ward County road. The patrol says Tiller failed to yield at an intersection, and was dead at the scene.

The driver of the semitrailer was not injured.

DALLAS (AP) — Music legend Willie Nelson is jumping into the movement to commercialize marijuana and plans to roll out his own brand of cannabis that he intends to make “the best on the market.”

The singer-songwriter announced in a statement Monday that Willie’s Reserve will be grown and sold in Colorado and Washington, two states where recreational use of the drug is legal.

A release explaining Willie’s Reserve says it reflects Nelson’s appreciation for “the many varieties and range of the plant’s qualities.”

The release says the 81-year-old Nelson will collaborate with master growers to define standards for the strain.

Nelson is a longtime supporter of marijuana for personal use and has spoken of its benefits for hemp production.

He’s also pushed for the end of laws criminalizing use of the drug.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A 22-year-old woman has been charged with stealing a puppy from a yard in Lincoln.

Police say Kaylynn Dobbins was picked up Friday after investigators watched security recordings of the dog being sold at a grocery store on April 13. The pit bull pup, Duchess, was taken April 12 after her owners let her go outside into their fenced yard.

The owners posted an appeal on Facebook, and someone contacted them to say someone was at the grocery store with a dog that looked like Duchess. Police say the owners found a man who had bought Duchess, not knowing she was stolen, and they gave him $94 for their dog.

Online court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could be contacted to comment on Dobbins’ behalf.

BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — A former teller in Beatrice has been given 36 months of probation and 60 hours of community service as part of her sentence for theft.

Court records say 21-year-old Jacie Ticnor already has paid back the $8,500 she stole while working at a Pinnacle Bank branch from July 1 through Oct. 14 last year. Ticnor was sentenced last week in Gage County District Court.

She’d pleaded no contest and was convicted of theft and attempted theft after making a deal with prosecutors, who lowered one of the charges. Ticnor was arrested in November after two bank customers reported unauthorized withdrawals.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A former union official who was convicted of embezzling more than $100,000 from the group he led has been sentenced to eight months of prison and house arrest.

Ray Lineweber was sentenced Friday for stealing from the United Transportation Union between 2008 and 2012.

Lineweber apologized for the mistakes he made while leading the union’s Nebraska State Legislative Board 30.

U.S. District Judge John Gerrard says Lineweber had a secret Office Depot credit card he used to buy over $27,000 of gift cards, computers, a television and other items. He also falsified expense records. The total loss was $102,907.

Lineweber will serve four months in prison and four months of house arrest. He was also ordered to pay restitution and complete community service.

ISHPEMING, Mich. (AP) — State police still are searching for two sisters from Nebraska and Oklahoma who have been missing for a week during a trip in Michigan.

Det. Sgt. Jeff Marker said Saturday there have been many tips but still no sign of 52-year-old Leslie Roy and 56-year-old Lee Marie Wright. He says they checked out of a motel, ate breakfast and got gas in Ishpeming in the Upper Peninsula on April 11.

But they didn’t appear as planned that night in Mackinaw City, three hours away. Marker says Roy and Wright had visited relatives in Ishpeming.

Marker says Roy is from Valley, Nebraska, and Wright lives in Depew, Oklahoma.

They’re traveling in a white Ford Explorer with a Nebraska license plate. Anyone with information can call police at (906) 475-9922.