(AP) — Several dozen people have been forced from their homes by a fire at a Bellevue apartment complex.

Firefighters were sent to The Chateau Apartments about 12:05 a.m. Friday. A fire had spread from the kitchen of a second-floor apartment.

Firefighters say at least three apartments were damaged. As many as 60 people were displaced, though, because electricity and water service had been shut off.

No injuries have been reported. The fire cause is being investigated.

(AP) — The family of a woman killed in a crash with a Nebraska prison inmate has filed a legal claim against the state, saying officials need to be held responsible for theprisoner who was allowed to drive a state-owned van.

The claim is the first step toward a lawsuit for the death of Joyce R. Meeks, of Lincoln. Meeks was killed on June 25 when a van driven by inmate Jeremy Dobbe plowed into her minivan.

Meeks’ son, Martell Buchanan, says his family wants answers about why officials let Dobbe drive other inmates to and from work-release assignments. Dobbe is serving time for possession of methamphetamine, and has past convictions for DUI and reckless driving.

The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services has allowed inmates to drive the vans since 1985.

(AP) — A Nebraska man has been injured in a fall from a cellphone tower he was helping erect in Iowa.

The accident occurred a little after noon on Wednesday at a site west of Dike.

The Grundy County Sheriff’s Office says 29-year-old Todd Hansel, of Sidney, Neb., was adjusting a ladder between 40 and 60 feet above the ground “when the ladder gave way and pulled Hansel off the tower.”

The office says Hansel was taken to Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

(AP) — A Grand Island warehouse fire has destroyed equipment used by several girls softball teams.

The fire was reported a little after 3:45 a.m. Wednesday.

The equipment was used by teams in the Central Nebraska Girls Softball Association’s Synergy program. Association President Mark Galvan says there was enough gear inside the warehouse to outfit 30 teams.

The teams stopped playing games on July 1 and stored their equipment in the warehouse, which sits just east of the association’s indoor practice facility.

Grand Island Fire Department Division Chief Tim Hiemer says the fire was listed as suspicious, the cause undetermined.

No injuries have been reported.

 

If you’re 65 and living in Hawaii, here’s some good news: Odds are you’ll live another two decades. And for a good chunk of those years, you’ll likely be in pretty good health.

Hawaii tops the charts in the government’s first state-by-state look at how long Americans age 65 can expect to live and how many of those remaining years will be healthy ones.

Mississippi was worst, with about 17½ more years and nearly seven of them in poorer health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the estimates Thursday.

(AP) — Omaha police say a warrant has been issued for a man in connection with the killing a teenager earlier this month.

Police say a felony warrant has been issued for the arrest of 21-year-old Camrin C. Burton on a charge of 1st degree felony assault.

Burton is wanted in connection with the July 5 shooting of 19-year-old Timothy J. Howell, of Omaha. He died later that day at Creighton University Medical Center.

Howell was one of two men found shot early Friday morning.

Police say another man who was a witness to the first shooting walked into the hospital shortly before 3 a.m. Police say 22-year-old Spencer Mason was treated for non-life threatening injuries.

(AP) — Records show an Indiana doctor accused of killing four people with ties to an Omaha medical school has been extradited to Nebraska.

The Douglas County Department of Corrections updated an inmate roster Thursday afternoon that lists Dr. Anthony Garcia as an inmate. He was extradited earlier in the day from southern Illinois’ Jackson County Jail.

Garcia, who was arrested in Illinois on Monday, faces four counts of first-degree murder in Omaha in connection to the May deaths of Roger and Mary Brumback. He is also accused of killing 11-year-old Thomas Hunter and his family’s housekeeper, Shirlee Sherman, in March 2008.

Garcia’s attorneys say their client denies the charges.

(AP) — A Columbus man is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 16 for abusing his 4-month-old son.

25-year-old Jeremy Hetrick made a deal with prosecutors and pleaded no contest to a reduced abuse charge earlier this week.

Prosecutors say Hetrick had abused the infant at a Columbus apartment he shared with the boy’s mother.

Court records say Hetrick called 911 on Jan. 22 to report that his son had stopped breathing. Police Capt. Bret Strecker stated in an affidavit that doctors later said the boy had bleeding on the brain and three healed rib fractures.

Strecker said Hetrick acknowledged that he’d lost patience when his son became fussy that night, had squeezed the boy and then head-butted him very hard.

(AP) — A freight train derailment in North Texas has left a Union Pacific Railroad worker hurt and nine cars and locomotives off the tracks.

A Union Pacific spokesman says the derailment happened before dawn Thursday near Aledo (uh-LEE’-doh). The area is about 15 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

Mark Davis says two locomotives and seven cars derailed. Davis says six cars were empty and the seventh carried a bulk load of cement that did not spill.

Davis says the 46-car train bound from Tucson, Ariz., to Dallas was pulling out of a side track onto the main line when the derailment happened.

Davis says a crewmember was transported to a hospital with unknown injuries. Further details on the person weren’t immediately available.