KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — After three delays, the world’s tallest water slide is scheduled to open this week.

Officials at Schlitterbahn water park in Kansas City, Kansas, said Tuesday that the public will be able to ride the Verrückt slide on Thursday.

The ride was originally scheduled to open on May 23 when the water park’s season began. The next scheduled opening on June 5 was postponed, and a June 29 date also was delayed. Park officials have said the delays were needed to allow for more testing.

Guinness World Records in April certified the 17-story, 168-foot-tall attraction as the tallest water slide in the world. Riders on the Verrückt, which means “insane” in German, plummet at 60 mph to 70 mph on four-person rafts.

CUSTER, S.D. (AP) — A Fourth of July hot dog eating contest in South Dakota turned tragic when a contestant choked to death.

Custer County Sheriff Rick Wheeler says 47-year-old Walter Eagle Tail, of Custer, died Thursday at a hospital after attempts to save him failed at the scene.

The Custer Chamber of Commerce sponsored the contest. The group canceled a pie-eating contest scheduled for Friday.

Chamber Executive Director Dave Ressler says the group is “at a loss for words.”

Speed-eating competitions are popular over the Fourth of July weekend. Eight-time champion Joey “Jaws” Chestnut managed to eat 61 hot dogs in 10 minutes at the annual Coney Island contest on Friday, eight short of the record 69 he swallowed in the 2013 competition.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha police have released the names of a woman who was fatally injured and a man who was hurt when the truck he was driving slammed into a signal pole.

The crash happened around 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

The woman passenger was identified as 25-year-old Sharlee Arnett. The man was identified as 26-year-old Nicholas Marescalco.

Police say there wasn’t any sign the truck tried to slow before veering off the road and hitting the pole.

Sgt. Jason Menning says homicide investigators are working with the department’s traffic unit to investigate the crash.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Police have cited a Lincoln man who officers say was making illegal fireworks in a house where his wife operates an in-home day care.

Lincoln police spokeswoman Katie Flood said Monday that a state inspector went to the house last week to check the day care. Flood says the inspector found supplies and tools for making fireworks in a spare bedroom.

Fire investigators and a Nebraska State Patrol bomb expert seized the explosives. Flood says the fireworks were illegal because they contained too much flash powder.

Richard Haxton was cited for the fireworks and child neglect. Kasi Haxton was cited for misdemeanor child abuse.

A phone listing for the couple is no longer in service. Online court records don’t list the names of their attorneys.

BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — A couple who used to run a Beatrice bar say a former employee has sent them $200 and an apology.

Pamela and Gibb Hedges said the couple owned Gibb’s sports bar for 30 years but sold it two years ago. They say they got the letter on Thursday. The woman told them that she’d stolen money from the business when she worked there 15 years ago.

Pamela Hedges says she and her husband don’t remember the woman but intend to write her back and commend her for her “very courageous act.” They also intend to cash the woman’s check.

The station says the couple didn’t want to make the woman’s name public.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A 12-year-old Lincoln girl is recovering from a bullet that tore through her back into a lung and shoulder at a Fourth of July party.

Paige Meyer said, at a Lincoln hospital, that she was “just happy to be alive.”

Lincoln Police Capt. Jim Davidsaver says 42-year-old Ronald Marsh was at the party with 10 to 12 other people when his .380-caliber handgun fell out of a pocket on his shorts, hit the ground and fired. The bullet struck Paige in the middle of her back and went out her right shoulder.

Her dad, Brian Meyer, says Marsh has apologized over and over. Marsh has been cited for unlawful discharge of a firearm.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Authorities estimate that about 1,000 large animals were killed by the June 16 storms that roared through northeast Nebraska, destroying more than half of Pilger.

Marty Marks of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service office in Wayne County says the toll could be 1,000 in a six-county region, plus hundreds of chickens and other poultry.

Producers aren’t required to report livestock losses to the government, and businesses such as cattle feeding operations generally don’t insure individual animals.

The EF4 tornado that struck Pilger killed a 5-year-old girl in town and a motorist a few miles east of town.