(AP) — Columbus police are investigating the death of a man whose body was found in a south neighborhood house as a homicide.
Police Capt. Todd Thalken said that the man’s body was found Wednesday.
Police are not releasing the man’s death or details about how he died.
The house’s owner said the man had lived in the house for about eight years, but declined to comment further.
Authorities are looking for those responsible for irreparably damaging the Beatrice High School football field’s new artificial turf by spreading at least 100 pounds of birdseed over it.
School officials and police say several large bags of birdseed were ripped open and spread over the field sometime last weekend. To do that, whoever was responsible would have had to scale a 6-foot outer fence and 4-foot inner fence.
Coaches at Beatrice High School discovered the birdseed Monday.
Activities director Neal Randel says the birdseed has gotten into the fibers of the turf and that it can’t be removed without pulling up the crumb rubber that supports the turf.
The $2.3 million field was constructed last year and dedicated in August.
(AP) — A search and rescue team from Nebraska is returning home after helping with tornado damage in an Oklahoma City suburb.
The Nebraska Task Force 1 is scheduled to return to Lincoln Thursday afternoon. The full 82 members of the urban search and rescue team arrived Tuesday morning in Moore, Okla., to help with operations in the wake of a deadly tornado on Monday.
The team includes firefighters from both the Lincoln and Omaha fire departments. There are civilian members who are doctors, structural engineers and heavy rigging specialists. There also are five canine search specialists and six dogs.
Lincoln Fire Chief John Huff says the team successfully completed its assignments without injury or incident.
A Wednesday evening traffic stop on Interstate 80 just west of the Grand Island interchange led to the seizure of nearly 53 pounds of marijuana and the arrest of a California man.
Just before 8:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 22, a trooper with the Nebraska State Patrol stopped an eastbound 2012 Mitsubishi Galant for driving on the shoulder, three miles west of the Grand Island I-80 Interchange.
The trooper was given consent to search the vehicle.
The search led to the seizure of 52.8 lbs. of marijuana. The marijuana was located in five duffel bags in the trunk of the vehicle.
The driver and lone occupant of the vehicle, Peter J. Millar, 50, San Francisco, Calif., was lodged in the Hall County Jail on a charge of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver
A Sergeant with the Lincoln Police Department has been found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Investigator’s with the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office believe that 53-year-old Tom Hamm killed himself Tuesday night.
Lincoln Police say a Lancaster County Deputy found Hamm in a wooded area east of Stagecoach Lake near Hickman at around 10:20 p.m. on Tuesday with a gunshot wound to the head.
Hamm’s daughter, Charity, is also a Lincoln Police Officer.
Funeral arrangements are still pending.
A former elementary school teacher who was on the FBI’s list of most wanted fugitives is due in federal court on a child pornography charge.
Eric Justin Toth is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Thursday afternoon in Washington.
He was arrested in Nicaragua last month after five years on the run. The FBI last year added him to its “Ten Most Wanted” list to try to drum up attention to the case.
In 2008, Toth was escorted from the campus of Beauvoir, an elementary school on the grounds of the National Cathedral, after another school employee reported finding images of child pornography on a school camera in Toth’s possession. He fled before he could be arrested.
A Norfolk city councilman has been arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.
Josh Moenning was arrested early Wednesday morning in Norfolk.
Police say officers were called to the area for a report of a car parking in the middle of a street. When they arrived, the car, driven by Moenning, pulled over and parked illegally. Police say Moenning failed a field sobriety test and refused to submit to blood alcohol testing after being taken to jail.
Moenning, who is also a spokesman for Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, apologized to his family and the community, saying he was embarrassed and that he takes “full responsibility for the incident.”
A judge has given probation to a Lincoln woman who slapped a police officer while being escorted from the business from which she had been fired.
42-year-old Anita Cobb was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months’ probation.
Court records say Cobb was fired from her job as a personnel director on Aug. 27, but sat at a picnic table at the business and refused to leave. Police say that when officers resorted to forcibly removing her from the property, she struggled and hit Officer Robert Brenner in the face with an open hand.
Cobb pleaded guilty March 25 to third-degree assault and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors.
A Minnesota teenager whose farewell song became a YouTube sensation has died after a fight with bone cancer.
Zach Sobiech died Monday at his Lakeland home. His mother, Laura, said on the CaringBridge website that he was surrounded by his family and girlfriend.
The 18-year-old was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in November 2009. When he learned last year he didn’t have much longer to live, his mother suggested he write farewell notes to his loved ones. Instead, he wrote music.
His farewell song, “Clouds,” has received more than 4 million views on YouTube in just two weeks. The song is on iTunes, with proceeds going to the Zach Sobiech Osteosarcoma Fund.
Zach’s family is declining interviews but said in a statement they felt blessed by Zach’s “amazing presence” in their lives.
(AP) — Northern Indiana authorities say about 50 middle and high school students were injured and a bus driver was seriously hurt in a chain-reaction crash involving four school buses.
Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Chad Hill says the crash about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday injured 55 people, including three of the four bus drivers. Most have gone to Kosciusko Community Hospital in Warsaw, where a spokeswoman says none are in serious or critical condition.
A nursing supervisor at IU Health Goshen Hospital says four students being treated there are in good condition.
One of the bus drivers was airlifted to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne, about 40 miles east of the crash scene.
Hill says one bus apparently was stopped to let a student off when the accident occurred.
