(AP) — A judge will decide Wednesday morning whether to close a preliminary hearing for an Indiana man accused of killing four people with ties to an Omaha medical school.

The preliminary hearing for Anthony Garcia is set for 9 a.m. Wednesday. Before that, a judge will decide whether to close the hearing to the public. Garcia’s attorneys argue that news coverage of the preliminary hearing would hurt Garcia’s right to a fair trial.

Garcia is being held without bond on four counts of first-degree murder. Police say he killed the 11-year-old son of Creighton pathologist William Hunter and the family’s housekeeper in 2008, as well as Creighton University pathologist Roger Brumback and his wife in May.

Brumback and Hunter had fired Garcia from the Creighton pathology program in 2001.

(AP) — Authorities say an Omaha police officer shot a dog that had pinned a man against a fence.

The officer shot the dog Tuesday following a report of a man being pinned by his neighbor’s German shepherd. The man told dispatchers that the dog got out of its kennel.

Police say the dog charged at officers. One officer fired his weapon.

The dog was shot in the head. The Nebraska Humane Society says the dog was later euthanized.

The station reports the dog’s owner was cited for improper restraint of a dog and dog menacing behavior.

(AP) — The Nebraska Court of Appeals has affirmed the lengthy sentence of a 29-year-old man for sexually assaulting a teenage girl starting when she was 14.

The appeals court on Tuesday upheld the 40- to 50-year sentence for James Graves, of Salem, who was convicted last August of two counts of first-degree sexual assault.

Graves must also register as a sex offender after his release.

Graves’ appeal said he and girl had a consensual “boyfriend/girlfriend relationship” and that they were engaged to be married when she was 16.

But the appeals court noted that Graves subjected the girl to repeated acts of sexual abuse and violence, including an instance in which he broke into her bedroom window before dawn, dragged her through the window and savagely beat her.

(AP) — Health officials in Florida say a 12-year-old boy is fighting a rare and deadly infection that is attacking his brain.

Family members told media outlets that Zachary Reyna of Southwest Florida was infected with Naegleria fowleri, a microscopic single-celled living amoeba that is commonly found in freshwater lakes, ponds and rivers. State health officials say it can cause a rare brain infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) that destroys brain tissue and is usually fatal.

Victims typically are exposed to the bug while swimming or doing water sports in warm ponds, lakes and rivers during the hot summer months, mostly in the South.

Family members said the boy was infected while knee boarding with friends in a ditch near his family’s LaBelle house on Aug. 3. He is being treated in the intensive care unit at Miami Children’s Hospital.

(AP) — Authorities have identified the woman killed by a truck while crossing a street in south Omaha.

Omaha police say 62-year-old Bonnie Lebbs, of Omaha, was killed Aug. 2. Neighbors say the woman was returning from a grocery store with items in a small wagon.

Police say the driver of the semi and trailer was turning onto a street when the accident happened. Witnesses told authorities that as the vehicle turned, Lebbs was underneath the rear tires of the trailer. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police say alcohol use or speed do not appear to be factors in the crash.

(AP) — Police say a 39-year-old Nebraska man was the second person to die after a weekend hit-and-run crash in Kansas City.

Police say Thomas G. Salistean of Omaha, Neb., died after being injured in the accident Sunday. His girlfriend, 36-year-old Elvia P. Walters, of Lee’s Summit, also died when Salistean’s car was hit by a vehicle at a Kansas City intersection.

The driver of the car fled on foot and has not been captured. He left a seriously injured passenger in his car.

Salistean was declared brain dead and the process to donate his organs began Monday.

(AP) — Native Americans in South Dakota are voting whether to legalize alcohol on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Tuesday’s vote is expected to be close. Critics of the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s plan say legalization would only make the reservation’s troubles worse. Alcohol is blamed for some of the highest rates of domestic abuse, suicide, infant mortality, unemployment and violent crime in Indian Country.

But others say alcohol is reaching the reservation anyway from the border town of Whiteclay, Neb., so the tribe might as well capture the profits. Proceeds from the sales would be used for education about the ills of alcohol abuse and for detoxification and treatment centers, for which there is currently little to no funding.

(AP) — Pavement work is expected to hamper traffic on the Interstate 180 spur into downtown Lincoln.

The work is scheduled to begin Thursday and last just one night.

Starting at 6 p.m., I-180 will be closed in both directions for a two-mile stretch north of Cornhusker Highway. The spur is expected to be reopened by 6 a.m. Friday.

Message signs will be employed.

(AP) — A 25-year-old Omaha man is scheduled to be sentenced next month for stabbing two men outside a neighborhood house party in Lincoln.

Online court records say Joshua Ballew was convicted on Friday of four counts of assault and two weapons counts. His sentencing hearing is set for Sept. 11. An Aug. 21 hearing is scheduled to determine whether Ballew will be sentenced as a habitual criminal.

Records say Tyler Waddell and Marshall Mock were stabbed around 2 a.m. on March 10, 2012, after a fight broke out in front of a house. The two identified Ballew as their assailant. Ballew’s attorney said the men were wrong, because Ballew was trying to break up the fight.

(AP) — A judge in eastern Tennessee has changed a 7-month-old boy’s first name to Martin from “Messiah.”

Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew ordered the name change last week, saying Messiah is a title that has been earned by one person “and that one person is Jesus Christ.”

The parents were in court because they could not agree on the child’s last name. When the judge heard his first name, she ordered it changed, so the baby was “Martin DeShawn McCullough.”

That name includes both parents’ last name.

The boy’s mother, Jaleesa Martin, says she will appeal. She says Messiah is unique.

Messiah was No. 4 among the fastest-rising baby names in 2012, according to the Social Security Administration’s annual list of popular baby names.