A 28-year-old Omaha man has been given 45 years in prison for the slaying of another Omaha man.

Court records say Horace Amerson was sentenced on Tuesday in Douglas County District Court. He’d pleaded guilty after prosecutors reduced a murder charge to manslaughter and dropped one of two weapons charges.

Police say Amerson fired a dozen shots on March 8, 2011, into the parking lot of a Family Dollar Store. One of the bullets struck and killed 36-year-old Jarrod Maxwell.

Amerson said he’d been seeking revenge for the shooting of his brother, Jonas Amerson. But prosecutors said Maxwell had nothing to do with that slaying.

A Somali national has been sentenced to life in prison for killing the mother of his child and three other people in North Dakota two years ago.

28-year-old Omar Mohamed Kalmio declined to comment following Tuesday’s sentencing, which lasted about 30 minutes.

Judge Douglas Mattson sentenced Kalmio to four consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

He was convicted of fatally shooting 19-year-old Sabrina Zephier at her home in Minot then killing her mother, her brother and her mother’s boyfriend at a nearby mobile home on Jan. 28, 2011.

Kalmio, who had a history of violent crime, was working in North Dakota’s oil patch at the time and said he was in the U.S. under political asylum.

(AP) — A judge has given a former Lincoln police officer more prison time.

Cassandra Briggs was sentenced Tuesday to one to two years. She’d pleaded no contest to a felony charge of forgery. She already is serving two to five years for stealing thousands of dollars from the police union’s Santa Cop program.

Briggs had falsely claimed that her ATM card had been stolen while she was in prison. Police say Briggs initially denied knowing anyone in Florida where the two withdrawals were made. She later admitted her mother lives there.

Briggs’ mother told investigators that Briggs had given her the ATM card to help pay for her son’s care while she’s incarcerated.

(AP) — A Salt Lake City man who was serving as a referee in a recreational soccer game in Taylorsville is in critical condition after being punched by a teenager.

Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal says the attack happened over the weekend during a game held at Eisenhower Junior High School.

Hoyal says the 46-year-old referee apparently made a call against the suspect, who lashed out with a single punch to the man’s face.

Hoyal says the victim was taken to the hospital with what appeared to be minor injuries, but doctors found the injury was much more severe.

Officials say the teenager from Salt Lake City was booked into the Salt Lake Valley Juvenile Detention Center on suspicion of aggravated assault. His name isn’t being released because he’s a minor.

(AP) — An Omaha man is facing burglary charges after being caught on a rooftop, and police are looking for the man’s accomplice.

The man was arrested Monday morning after someone reported seeing two men on the roof of a building in northeast Omaha around 5:30 a.m.

Police say 35-year old Bryan Grutel had burglary tools on him when he was caught, and several of the building’s air conditioners had been damaged or dismantled.

Several thefts involving air conditioners have been reported in Omaha in recent weeks.

Authorities say a Missouri man died after his minivan rammed a garbage truck in northeast Nebraska.

The Nebraska State Patrol says the accident occurred a little before 10 a.m. Monday on U.S. Highway 20, about a half-mile west of Jackson.

The patrol says the minivan crossed the center line and clipped a semitrailer before striking the garbage truck.

The minivan driver was pronounced dead at the scene. He was identified as 46-year-old Rex Dodd, of Bethel, Mo.

Officials say the garbage truck driver, 41-year-old Troy Lane, of Sioux City, Iowa, was taken to Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City. He’s been released.

The semitrailer driver wasn’t injured.

(AP) — Sgt. 1st Class Greg Robinson has become the first amputee to complete Army air assault school, a course so grueling his prosthetic leg broke down twice over the 10 days spent rappelling down ropes, marching long distances and navigating obstacle courses.

Each year thousands of soldiers are physically and mentally tested at the Fort Campbell , Kentucky school. Instructors said Robinson accomplished all that others did and trainers cut him no slack even though he lost part of his right leg in Afghanistan in 2006.

The 34-year-old noncommissioned officer from Elizabethtown, Ill., graduated Monday.

War wounds from Iraq and Afghanistan and the Boston Marathon bombing have highlighted the challenges to recovery amputees face.

Robinson, a platoon sergeant, says he was determined to complete the same program soldiers under his command must confront.

An Ohio girl is recovering after getting a critical kidney transplant — with the organ donated by her former kindergarten teacher.

Nicole Miller — an 8-year-old first-grader at Mansfield Christian School — got the kidney last week from Wendy Killian, who was her kindergarten teacher last year.

Nicole suffered from a genetic disorder that caused kidney malformation.

Killian became involved during a parent-teacher conference with Nicole’s mother. The teacher asked for the criteria needed to be a donor and found she met them. She says she was inspired to be a donor because her son needed and received a blood platelet transfusion.

The transplant happened last Tuesday at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland.

A man has been rescued from beneath a tractor after an accident in southeast Nebraska.

Firefighters were dispatched around 5 p.m. to an address south of Hickman.

The tractor had been pushing dirt into a ravine when the tractor tipped over, trapping the man.

Hickman Fire Chief Stan Draper says it took about 30 minutes to cut off the tractor steering wheel and dig away some dirt so the man could be freed.

The man was flown to a hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. His name hasn’t been released.