(AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has, for the second straight week, addressed the issue of teenagers sentenced to life without parole.

Trevelle Taylor was 17 in 2009 when he shot and killed Justin Gaines in a gang-related dispute. In 2010, Taylor was convicted as an adult of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. While the words “life without parole” don’t appear in his sentence, the judge set no discharge date for Taylor “until the Pardons Board of the State of Nebraska commutes the sentence or offers a specific term of years.”

His attorney argued that amounts to life without parole. On Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court agreed and ordered a new sentencing.

The U.S. Supreme Court says teenagers cannot be locked up for life without the chance of parole.

(AP) — The owner of an unusual wolf hybrid dog breed faces a deadline to move his dog outside Lincoln city limits.

A judge has denied a motion to delay an order by the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department to Alex Kaftan. He was told in a Jan. 17 letter to move his Czechoslovakian vlcak (VUHL’-chak) out of town within 30 days.

The city says the dog, Mars, is a hybrid cross between a German shepherd and a Carpathian wolf. Wolf-dog hybrids are barred from the city.

Kaftan says the vlcak is not a hybrid but rather a special breed. The Czechoslovakian Vlcak Club of America says German shepherds were experimentally crossed in 1955 with Carpathian wolves. Kaftan’s attorney says neither of Mars’ parents was a wolf.

(AP) — A federal judge has ordered the people behind an alleged Ponzi scheme that cost investors about $4.7 million to pay roughly $10 million in penalties.

U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp imposed the penalties against Elite Management Holdings, MJM Enterprises and two individuals who ran them: Michael Kratville and Jonathan Arrington.

The penalties are part of a 2011 lawsuit filed by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The commission says investors lost $3 million in participants’ funds and more than $1.5 million in investments was misappropriate. The companies involved closed in 2007.

Kratville and Arrington are both facing federal criminal charges related to the case.

 

(AP) — The second suspect in the 2012 shooting death of a Lincoln man has pleaded guilty after making a deal with prosecutors.

On Wednesday 24-year-old Miguel Castillo was convicted of aiding and abetting the use of a firearm to commit a felony and of being an accessory to second-degree murder. Prosecutors reduced a murder charge in exchange for Castillo’s plea.

Castillo and 21-year-old Adrian Casares are accused of killing Tyler Schoenrock in December 2012. Schoenrock’s body was found on a rural road outside of Lincoln. Casares pleaded no contest to lesser charges last week.

Each man says the other shot Schoenrock. Both men are scheduled to be sentenced in April.

(AP) — A judge has fined an 88-year-old woman $100 for backing over and killing a former state senator while driving in a Lincoln parking lot.

The fine was the maximum punishment on the traffic infraction. Imogene Bruce, of Lincoln, had pleaded no contest on Wednesday to careless driving. Authorities say former Sen. Jennie Robak died Jan. 3 after the accident in a grocery store parking lot. Police say Bruce accidentally accelerated when trying to stop as Robak walked behind her car.

Bruce said before her court hearing that she was sorry for what happened. Bruce’s lawyer says Bruce has given up her driver’s license.

Robak represented the Columbus area in the Legislature from 1989 until 2003.

(AP) — An attorney for a Peru State College student says he’ll ask a federal judge to reconsider her dismissal of the student’s lawsuit challenging Nebraska’s denial of driver’s licenses to people who were brought into the country illegally as children.

U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp ruled Wednesday in favor of the state, saying Nebraska had not violated Mayra Saldana’s equal-protection rights. Saldana was granted deferred-action status under an Obama administration program.

Saldana, who came to the U.S. from Mexico at age 2, applied for a Nebraska driver’s license three times in January 2013, and was denied.

Her attorney, Aaron Siebert-Llera with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, says he needed more time to show that Nebraska officials have given licenses to some immigrants with deferred-action status.

(AP) — An armed man has surrendered after a nearly three-hour standoff at a southeast Nebraska motel.

Officers responded to a call early Thursday morning from a Travelers Lodge motel in Beatrice.

A negotiating team made contact with the man as officers evacuated motel occupants. The man soon let a woman and child out of the motel room, and Police Chief Bruce Lang says another woman escaped from the room shortly thereafter. It’s unclear whether they were being held hostage. Lang says the women knew the man, Adam Wolken, of Beatrice.

Negotiators talked Wolken into coming out around 2:45 a.m. He was taken into custody without incident. No shots or injuries have been reported. A rifle and handgun were recovered.

It’s unclear whether Wolken has an attorney.

Researchers say women have a higher risk of blood clots for 12 weeks after childbirth, twice as long as has been believed.

Pregnant women are more prone to blood clots because substances that thicken the blood naturally rise, and blood from the legs has more trouble traveling to the heart. Clots can cause heart attacks and strokes.

The study involved 1.7 million California women having their first child. The risk of a blood clot was about 11 times greater during the first six weeks after delivery and more than two times greater during weeks seven to 12. After that, it fell to normal levels.

The work was published online in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at a stroke conference in San Diego on Thursday.

(AP) — The Hall County board has decided to back out of its deal to buy the former state Workforce Development building from the city of Grand Island.

The board had voted 4-3 last month to spend $600,000 in buying what would provide temporary courtrooms and office space while the county upgrades the heating and air-conditioning system at the Hall County Courthouse.

But the board was told Tuesday morning that inspections showed the former Workforce Development building lacked adequate water service and heating and air conditioning.

Chief Deputy Hall County Attorney Jack Zitterkopf says the deal with the city lets the county terminate the purchase if the county is dissatisfied with the condition of the property.

(AP) — Sentencing has been scheduled in May for an Omaha man who pleaded guilty to health care fraud and nine federal misdemeanors.

A news release from the office of Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said Wednesday that James Holt and his company, UMOJA, provide mental health services. The news release says Holt and his company stole money by billing Nebraska Medicaid for services that weren’t actually provided.

As part of the agreement, Holt and his company agreed to make restitution of about $15,000.

Sentencing is set for May 13.