(AP) — Police say a 62-year-old woman has been hit and killed by a truck while crossing a street in south Omaha.
Police say the truck hit the woman, who wasn’t identified, about noon Friday.
She was pronounced dead at the accident scene.
Neighbors say the woman was returning from a grocery store with items in a small wagon.
The driver hasn’t been cited and police are continuing the investigation.
(AP) — Three teens have been charged in the murder of a church volunteer who was found strangled and stabbed in her central Minnesota home.
Nineteen-year-old Brok Junkermeier was charged with intentional second-degree murder Friday in Kandiyohi County. Two others, ages 16 and 17, also face charges.
Police found 79-year-old Lila Warwick Monday night after authorities went there to check on her welfare.
Prosecutors say Junkermeier said one of the teens thought Warwick had $40,000 in a safe, so they plotted to steal it.
Police say Junkermeier broke into Warwick’s Willmar home, cut her with a sword-like knife and forced her to write out a $1,500 check. Police say he then strangled her, repeatedly stabbed her, then threw her downstairs.
It was not immediately clear if Junkermeier had an attorney.
(AP) — Some State Farm Insurance workers in Lincoln could lose their jobs.
The jobs could be lost as State Farm relocates a commercial insurance unit from Lincoln.
The company says in a statement Friday that an evaluation showed “some job functions could be effectively consolidated with similar work at other company locations.”
The statement also notes that some employees could move to a different location and have some moving expenses paid.
State Farm didn’t provide details about how many jobs would be lost.
The city government lists State Farm Insurance as Lincoln’s 10th largest employer, with nearly 1,400 employees.
(AP) — A 41-year-old man has pleaded no contest to attempted first-degree murder in the stabbing of his estranged girlfriend outside a Grand Island church.
Aslin C. Nabarro entered the plea Wednesday.
Other charges related to the assault were dropped.
Nabarro was arrested after a May 17 assault in a parking lot of St. Mary’s Cathedral.
After an argument with a woman identified as Mirna Medina-Colocho, Nabarro stabbed her 20 times in the upper torso and head.
He then cut his own throat and fled but collapsed less than a block away.
Medina-Colocho and Nabarro both recovered.
Nabarro will be sentenced Sept. 26.
(AP) — The U.S. Forest Service is letting people visit caves in national forests and grasslands in the Rocky Mountain region again, but there are restrictions as officials work to halt a disease that has killed 5.5 million bats since 2006.
The agency issued a closure order in 2010 to keep white-nose syndrome from spreading. So far, the disease and the fungus that causes it haven’t been confirmed in the region, which covers Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.
As of Thursday, people can visit the region’s caves but have to register first. They must decontaminate clothing and gear before and after entering caves. Gear used in caves or mines in states affected by white-nose syndrome is prohibited.
Caves used for winter hibernation will close from roughly Oct. 15-April 15.
(AP) — Investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway will release its second-quarter earnings report Friday afternoon.
Berkshire’s results are likely to be affected by the health of the housing market and how well BNSF railroad dealt with reduced demand for coal.
If developers continued building homes at a healthy pace in the spring, Berkshire’s Shaw carpet, Acme Brick and Benjamin Moore paints will perform well. Berkshire also owns the HomeServices of America network of real estate brokers.
The paper value of Berkshire’s derivative contracts can also cause big swings in its bottom-line net income.
The analysts surveyed by FactSet expect Berkshire to report earnings per Class A share of $2,163.63 on revenue of $43.25 billion.
(AP) — A grand jury has cleared authorities of any wrongdoing in the February death of a Saunders County jail inmate.
Saunders County Attorney Scott Tingelhoff announced late Thursday afternoon that the grand jury had met this week and determined no crime had occurred in the death of 47-year-old Gloria O’Connor. O’Connor was found unresponsive in her cell on Feb. 10. She was taken to a Lincoln hospital but could not be revived.
State law requires such an investigation whenever someone dies in custody or while being arrested.
An autopsy showed O’Connor died of a heart attack.
She was serving a 30-day sentence for disorderly conduct, trespassing and other charges when she died.
(AP) — The U.S. Department of Labor has fined Hy-Vee, Fareway and other grocery stores in Iowa and Nebraska nearly $130,000 for violating child labor laws.
The Labor Department announced the fines Thursday.
The department says the violations included allowing workers under 18 to perform hazardous jobs that are prohibited. That included loading or operating power-driven paper balers, meat slicers, bakery machines and motor vehicles. No underage workers were injured.
The Labor Department report says Hy-Vee was assessed $68,200 for 27 violations at seven stores, while Fareway was assessed nearly $20,000 for 13 violations at eight stores. The violations would have happened since October 2011.
Representatives of Hy-Vee and Fareway say the stores are committed to maintaining a safe environment for young workers.
(AP) — The former director of the Lincoln YWCA who resigned in February days before she was sentenced to probation for stealing from a past employer is now facing new embezzlement charges.
42-year-old Denise Scholl-Serrett was charged Wednesday with embezzling more than $34,700 from the YWCA.
YWCA officials audited the nonprofits’ books after learning that Scholl-Serrett had stolen thousands of dollars from Omaha-based property management company DEI Communities, where she had been vice president of human resources.
Lancaster County prosecutors say Scholl-Serrett spent YWCA money from December 2011 until February to pay for a personal trip, various membership dues, court debts and settlements, tuition for classes and other expenses.
Scholl-Serrett is free on $3,500 bond. She could not be reached for comment Friday.
(AP) — The issue of Rolling Stone magazine with Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover has sold nearly twice as many copies as an average issue.
That’s according to Adweek, which says people bought more than 13,000 copies of the issue at more than 1,400 retailers from July 19 to July 29. That’s more than double the magazine’s average sales for previous years.
Retailers including Stop & Shop, CVS, Walgreens and others said they would not sell the issue after a public outcry over the cover, which critics said glamorized Tsarnaev. The 19-year-old has pleaded not guilty in the bombing.
Rolling Stone says the story was part of its “longstanding commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day.”
