(AP) — Authorities say a 73-year-old man has died after a collision between a tractor and a semitrailer tanker truck on a rural highway in northeast Nebraska.

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department says the accident occurred Wednesday about a mile northwest of Foster on Nebraska Highway 13.

The southbound tractor driven by Dallas Oestreich, of rural Hadar, turned onto the highway and collided with the tanker. The department says Oestreich died while being taken to an Omaha hospital.

The truck driver was identified as 60-year-old Richard Myers Jr., of Norfolk. He was taken to a Norfolk hospital.

The highway was closed while spilled diesel fuel was cleaned up.

(AP) — Nearly three months after a twister blasted through Moore, Okla., and destroyed two elementary schools, students are going back to class.

And although many families are ready to return to a familiar routine, parents and teachers say many children in the Oklahoma City suburb have fears that are still fresh and a lot more healing to do.

One young girl is so afraid of the wind that she carries headphones to block out the noise. Other kids are traumatized by memories of their narrow escape and friends who died just a few feet away from them.

Classes resume Friday in temporary buildings until Plaza Towers Elementary and Briarwood Elementary are rebuilt. The May 20 tornado killed 24 people and wrecked scores of homes and businesses.

(AP) — The Navy and NASA have completed their first tests showcasing how they’ll recover astronauts from the ocean following future missions to deep space.

On Thursday, a team of Navy divers and the crew of the USS Arlington retrieved a mock-up of the Orion space capsule from waters at Naval Station Norfolk.

The Navy hasn’t been used to recover astronauts since 1975, when the USS New Orleans recovered the Apollo spacecraft. After that, astronauts began returning to Earth via the space shuttle. Once the space shuttle program was shuttered, U.S. astronauts began hitching rides aboard a Russian rocket that lands in a Kazakhstan desert.

Unlike in past recovery efforts, the Navy didn’t use helicopters to retrieve Orion. Instead, a winch pulled the spacecraft into the Arlington’s well deck.

(AP) — Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska are making good on their promise to build a barn in the project’s path.

Volunteers will gather on Saturday at a groundbreaking ceremony for the solar- and wind-powered barn. The barn will sit on land directly on the pipeline’s route, about 15 miles northwest of York.

Organizers say the barn will serve as a gathering place to learn about sustainable energy alternatives that would benefit agriculture. If President Barack Obama approves a federal permit for the oil pipeline, opponents say the barn’s location would force pipeline developer TransCanada to either reroute the Keystone XL or destroy the barn.

Opponents also plan to build picnic tables and paint billboards that will be placed with landowners along the pipeline route.

(AP) — York County’s chief prosecutor says she’s seen a dashboard recording of an officer-related shooting and intends to charge a man wounded in the exchange of shots with a sheriff’s deputy.

York County Attorney Candace Dick said Wednesday that she hadn’t yet charged 26-year-old Max McCall, of York. Dick says she’s awaiting reports from state investigators.

Sheriff Dale Radcliff has said the deputy was responding to a call Sunday morning about McCall when the deputy spotted McCall’s vehicle and gave chase. The chased ended when McCall’s vehicle went into a ditch.

The sheriff says McCall was armed with a rifle when he got out of his vehicle and fired twice at the deputy. The deputy shot back, hitting McCall twice.

The deputy wasn’t wounded.

(AP) — An Omaha man has claimed a $1 million prize from last week’s Powerball drawing.

Thomas Reiners came forward Tuesday as the winner. He says he bought the ticket at a convenience store in the eastern Nebraska town of Genoa.

Reiners, who says he plans to save the money for retirement, learned of his good fortune by checking his numbers online. His five-play Quick Pick ticket matched all of the winning white ball numbers.

Lottery officials say there were three winning tickets for the nearly $450 million Powerball on Aug. 7— one in Minnesota and two in New Jersey.

(AP) — Authorities have found empty alcohol containers amid the wreckage of a car in an accident that killed five cast and crew members of the musical drama “Texas.”

Department of Public Safety spokesman Christopher Ray said Wednesday he didn’t know if the containers were beer cans or liquor bottles or where specifically they were located.

DPS has said alcohol is suspected as a factor in Monday night’s crash when a car carrying six people ran a stop sign and collided with an 18-wheeler near Dumas.

A spokesman for an Amarillo hospital said Wednesday that Timothy Johnson of Houston, the only survivor from the car, remained in critical condition. The truck driver was stable.

Organizers canceled Wednesday performance. The show continues Thursday through Sunday to end the season.

(AP) — The famed piano maker Steinway is being sold for $499 million.

The company terminated an existing sales agreement with Kohlberg & Co. after it was outbid by another investment firm, Paulson & Co.

Paulson topped Kohlberg’s offer by $3 per share.

Steinway, which is being taken private, will have to pay a termination fee of about $6.7 million.

Paulson will ultimately pay $40 per share for the Waltham, Mass., company. Steinway valued the sale at about $512 million.

Paulson will open a tender offer for shares of Steinway Musical Instruments Inc. within the next five days.

(AP) — A Utah beauty pageant winner charged with tossing homemade bombs from a vehicle has relinquished her crown.

Kendra McKenzie Gill said she and her friends feel terrible about the incident, but she insists they were just playing a practical joke and never threw the explosives at people.

Gill and three friends were charged last week with four felony counts of possession of an explosive device.

Prosecutors say the 18-year-olds drove around town Aug. 2 and tossed plastic bottles of toilet bowl cleaner and shrapnel at people and property.

Nobody was injured.

Gill topped a slate of nine beauty contestants earlier this summer to become Miss Riverton.

She said knew she’d probably have the title revoked, and wanted to step down before it was taken from her.