(AP) — Authorities say an Omaha man has died after a train hit his sport utility vehicle near the eastern Nebraska city of Schuyler.

A westbound Union Pacific train pulling loaded grain cars hit the SUV Saturday morning at a crossing just west of Schuyler.

The Colfax County Attorney’s Office identified the motorist as 47-year-old John Eastwood. He was pronounced dead at a Schuyler hospital about an hour after the crash.

Initial reports were that the crossing gates, lights and bells were functioning properly.

(AP) — An Omaha police officer has found the bodies of two men in a pickup truck near a city pool.

Police say the officer was on patrol just before 5 a.m. Sunday when he noticed the pickup near Spring Lake Park pool.

The officer checked on the pickup and found two dead males inside.

Police say the deaths are being investigated as homicides, but they provided no more information about their identities or how they died.

(AP) — University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers have been given a $3.2 million federal grant to evaluate a program that uses parent-to-parent support to help families keep kids in school.

The researchers will be checking the Parent Connectors Program. The program was designed to help children with significant conduct and impulse problems, such as lashing out at teachers or fighting with classmates. These kids also frequently skip school and are disciplined by their schools.

The program encourages parents of middle school-age children with emotional or behavioral disorders to get involved in their children’s education and to help them access mental health and school services.

UNL’s team will conduct a trial involving about 250 families of Nebraska students in the Lincoln and metro Omaha areas.

(AP) — Omaha police say a 23-year-old man has been killed in a north Omaha shooting, and one man has been arrested.

Police say officers were in the area around 2:40 a.m. when they heard gunshots. Upon investigating, the officers found 23-year-old Craig Brown on a sidewalk with a gunshot wound. Brown was taken by ambulance to an Omaha hospital, where he died.

Police say 44-year-old Dwayne Blackson has been arrested on suspicion of criminal homicide and several weapons counts. He also faces a misdemeanor charge of failing to appear on a warrant in a separate case.

Police say Blackson is being held at the Douglas County jail.

(AP) — Prosecutors have dropped a charge against a Lincoln man accused of doctoring a lottery ticket.

Jonathan Tonniges had faced a 20-year prison sentence if convicted for what his fiancee said was simply a practical joke.

Tonniges was charged after his fiancee went to a lottery office with a ticket she thought was worth $35,000. Workers told her it had been altered with a permanent marker, and the woman said she accepted that explanation and left. But workers called police.

The woman says Tonniges was playing a practical joke and that she never tried to cash the ticket. She simply asked about its value.

Lancaster County Attorney Joe Kelly said on Friday that he dismissed the case because there wasn’t enough evidence to convict Tonniges.

(AP) — Police say a man was hospitalized with serious injuries after being carjacking in northwest Omaha.

Police say the man reported walking out a store at 90th and Blondo streets Friday night when two other men attacked him and forced him to drive toward a neighborhood.

Police say the man jumped from the car a short distance away and was helped by a nearby homeowner.

The man was taken to an Omaha hospital with serious injuries, including head trauma.

The man’s car was found near 100th Street and Grand Avenue.

Witnesses told police they saw only one man run from the car after it was taken.

(AP) — A man who embezzled thousands of dollars from his employer in Lincoln has been given probation, jail time and an order to pay back some money.

Online court records say 58-year-old Eugene Southworth had pleaded no contest to attempted theft and was convicted after prosecutors lowered the theft charge. Southworth was sentenced last week. Court records say he now lives in Sicklerville, N.J.

Attorneys for the company, Celerion, reported their suspicions to Lincoln police in September 2011 after a billing problem was unearthed. Police say the money was traced to Southworth’s bank account.

Judge Jodi Nelson of Lancaster County District Court sentenced Southworth to four years of probation and 180 days. Southworth also was ordered to make restitution of $20,400. The judge gave Southworth credit for two days served.

(AP) — Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for a man charged in the beating death and rape of a 93-year-old Omaha woman.

Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said Friday that he plans to seek the death penalty for 19-year-old Sergio Martinez-Perez.

Martinez-Perez is being held without bond on charges of first-degree murder, first-degree sexual assault and burglary in the attack last month on Louise Sollowin, who died from her injuries three days after the attack.

Police say officers found Martinez-Perez naked and passed out on top of the elderly woman. Authorities believe Martinez-Perez was drunk when he entered the home through an unlocked door.

Authorities say Martinez-Perez is in the country illegally and had been in Omaha working as a roofer at the time of the attack.

(AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the dismissal of a racial discrimination lawsuit by a state employee who said she was offered inferior health insurance because she lives in Omaha.

Sandra Cartwright, a black woman, argued that employees living in certain Omaha and Lincoln ZIP code areas — where some 96 percent of the state’s black employees reside — were given a choice between two health insurance plans that offered inferior coverage to what employees living elsewhere in the state could get.

The state ended the practice in 2009, but said it did so for cost savings, not allegations of discrimination.

On Friday, Nebraska’s high court said Cartwright failed to show that health plans offered to those in Omaha and Lincoln were inferior to plans offered to others.

(AP) — A 21-year-old Columbus man has died in a traffic accident on a rural road in eastern Nebraska’s Colfax County

Cody Black was pronounced dead at the scene on Thursday afternoon.

The Colfax County Attorney’s Office says Black was ejected from his sport utility vehicle after he lost control of it and it rolled down an embankment. Twenty-two-year-old Rico Chavez was a passenger in the SUV. He was taken to Columbus Community Hospital for treatment and then released.

The accident is being investigated.