OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says sandbars along part of the Missouri River are again closed to protect the nests of endangered bird species.

The Corps says endangered interior least terns and threatened piping plovers nest on sandbars between Ft. Peck Dam in Montana and Ponca State Park in Nebraska.

The birds use the sandbars to lay their eggs and hatch chicks.

The number of sandbars on the Missouri River is limited this year because the water level is higher than normal.

The nesting season runs from mid-May through August.

LA VISTA, Neb. (AP) — A new music venue with an indoor space and an outdoor amphitheater will be built in eastern Nebraska.

The La Vista City Council unanimously approved a preliminary statement of intent to build the venue, the Omaha World-Herald reported

The venue will be built by local promoter 1% Productions, Kansas-based Mammoth Live and Omaha developer City Ventures. Mammoth Live and 1% Productions will operate the venue.

“There are more shows out there,” said Marc Leibowitz of 1% Productions. “There’s more business to be had, and we need a place to do it that works.”

Brenda Gunn, city administrator for La Vista, said the cost hasn’t been determined for the project but that about $3.2 million could be needed.

Leibowitz said the goal isn’t to take down other venues.

“It’s about the venue we want to build. It’s about bringing something new,” Leibowitz said. “We really just want it to be a top-notch experience.”

The venue is expected to hold 1,800 people indoors and 4,000 people outdoors. Both areas will have the capacity to scale up, depending on the configuration of seating and other elements.

Mammoth Live and 1% Productions said artists have skipped the market because they don’t have the right place to play.

“We’re missing tours. When we don’t miss them, we’re putting them in oddball situations where the production doesn’t work, or it’s an odd fit, or the artist can’t make money, or we can’t break even,” said Josh Hunt of Mammoth.

Construction is expected to begin this year, with a goal of opening by 2020.

“It’s gonna be really exciting for the market,” Leibowitz said,

HARRISON, Neb. (AP) — A woman has been given one to three years in prison for her role in a pasture rental scam in the northern Nebraska Panhandle.

Sioux County District Court records say 52-year-old Kelley Heller, of Crawford, was sentenced June 12.

Heller and her daughter, Calinda Barthel Vantine, were arrested in February 2017. Prosecutors say the scheme was orchestrated by Vantine and resulted in more than $44,000 in losses to the five victims. The two didn’t own the pasture they’d rented to the five people from Nov. 1, 2015 through Feb. 15, 2017.

The 28-year-old Vantine was sentenced to prison last October. She also is known as Calinda Barthel.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Lincoln man has been found guilty in a second trial in the brutal beating and robbery a University of Nebraska-Lincoln student.

Late Wednesday night, a Lancaster County jury found 25-year-old James Price guilty of aiding and abetting robbery and first-degree assault. He faces up to 100 years in prison when he’s sentenced in August. Price’s first trial in 2016 ended in a hung jury.

A Texas man, 25-year-old Stelson Curry, is already serving 25 to 40 years for the attack on Patrick Pantoja.

Police say Pantoja and a fellow student were walking near the State Capitol to the UNL campus one October night in 2014 when they were attacked.

Pantoja spent a month in a coma and several more months in a hospital from the beating.

 

GRETNA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a dispute led a man to shoot another man in a Gretna apartment complex parking lot, then fatally shot himself.

The Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office says the shooting happened around 8 a.m. Thursday, when 50-year-old Michael Bartenhagen, of Gretna, was shot two to three times while he was in his vehicle. Investigators say Bartenhagen drove himself to a nearby fire station and was then taken to an Omaha hospital in serious condition. He’s expected to recover.

Deputies say they found the suspect, 52-year-old Scott Rieflin, of Gretna, in his apartment suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Investigators say the two men knew each other and that Rieflin was upset about a relationship between Bartenhagen and a woman.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Another person has been sentenced in connection with the distribution of a powerful synthetic opioid that led to the death of a Council Bluffs man.

Federal prosecutors say 24-year-old Amalia Pandis, of Carter Lake, was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute fentanyl that caused death.

Pandis was also ordered to serve five years’ supervised release once she’s out of prison.

Prosecutors say Pandis was part of a drug trafficking ring responsible for obtained fentanyl from a source in China and selling it western Iowa and eastern Nebraska.

The investigation into the group began in June 2015, when police were called to a Carter Lake home and found the body of 20-year-old Diego Lemus. Police learned a second man had been hospitalized for a fentanyl overdose.

NORTH BEND, Neb. (AP) — Eastern Nebraska officials say a Columbus woman has died after her vehicle hit a train at a railroad crossing.

The Dodge County Sheriff’s Office tells the Fremont Tribune that 54-year-old Debra Kessler was traveling northbound on a county road around 9 p.m. Wednesday when her minivan and the train collided at a crossing about three miles west of North Bend.

Firefighters removed Kessler from the van, and she was flown by a medical helicopter to a Fremont hospital, where she later died.

Officials say Kessler was alone in her vehicle and was not wearing a seatbelt.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — Grand Island police say officers have arrested two men suspected of using or possessing dozens of credit or debit cards encoded with stolen card information.

Police said Thursday that Rafael Figueredo Hidalgo faces 119 counts of felony forgery and 22 counts of felony and misdemeanor criminal possession of a financial transaction device. Andres Aguila Carrasco faces 84 counts of felony forgery and 20 counts of felony and misdemeanor criminal possession of a financial transaction device

Hall County Court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for Carrasco. Hidalgo’s attorney in a separate case, Andrew Hanquist, said Thursday that it wasn’t clear whether he was going to represent Hidalgo in the new case and declined to comment.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A city-county commission is planning to use a nonprofit to develop a potentially $120 million juvenile justice center in Omaha.

The Omaha-Douglas Public Building Commission wants a nonprofit to handle the hiring of construction and management firms for the project, the Omaha World-Herald reported. Public officials will oversee the nonprofit, named the Douglas County Unified Justice Center Development Corp.

The county hopes to create juvenile and family courtrooms and related services to replace cramped quarters in the Douglas County Courthouse, though no specific proposal has been made. The commission intends to issue up to $120 million in bonds for the project. The building commission would own the facilities and the county would rent them out.

Mary Ann Borgeson, chair of the nonprofit’s board, said the corporation is already considering Omaha businesses and investors to be involved in the project. All contract work will need to be approved by the county and the commission, she said.

Using a nonprofit allows the project to include private donations, Borgeson said.

“This is big, this is huge, if it goes forward,” Borgeson said. “We wanted to use a successful model, one that would keep us on top of things, that would keep us accountable, that would keep everything on time and on budget.”

County Board member Jim Cavanaugh has criticized the project as not being open to public scrutiny or discussion.

“There’s going to be lots of eyes and lots of conversation to make sure everything and everybody stays on task, on time and on budget,” Borgeson countered. “I’m not worried about that at all.”

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A former Creighton University student accused of slashing a fellow student’s neck has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and five years’ probation.

Twenty-year-old Christopher Wheeler was sentenced in Douglas County District Court on Wednesday. He pleaded no contest in April to second-degree assault. In exchange, prosecutors dropped a charge of use of a weapon to commit a felony.

Police have said Wheeler entered the dorm room of a 19-year-old student he didn’t know in February 2017 and swiped at her neck with a pocketknife, scarring the woman but not seriously injuring her.

Wheeler had sought to argue that his fraternity hazed him into a state of intoxication so severe that it caused his actions, but a judge ruled last month that he could not use that defense.