Peru State College and various officials have asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the mother of a missing student.

The lawsuit by LaTanya Thomas blames the college and officials for neglecting to protect her daughter, 19-year-old Tyler “Ty” Thomas, from what the lawsuit says was a December 2010 attack that killed her. The lawsuit says she should have been protected from fellow student Joshua Keadle, who has been imprisoned since for the 2008 rape of a Fremont teenager.

The dismissal motion says officials couldn’t foresee that placing Keadle in the same dormitory where Thomas lived would lead to an assault by Keadle.

He has not been charged in her disappearance.

Grand Island police have arrested a man they say used a stolen skid loader to rip up and carry off an automatic teller machine.

Police say officers were called to the scene around 5:15 a.m. Friday and found 41-year-old Bryce Malesker in a skid loader, smashing the stand-alone building housing the drive-up ATM. Police chased the skid loader — which has a maximum speed of about 10 mph — through Grand Island streets as it carried off the ATM in its front bucket.

Police say the ATM soon fell onto the roadway, and the skid loader continued through yards and fences before hitting and damaging an elementary school.

Malesker was arrested after the skid loader stalled out on a curb.

Unlike in Texas, groundwater levels in the aquifer beneath Nebraska have generally remained healthy, but officials aren’t sure if that will continue as farmers continue to irrigate.

Experts at the U.S. Geologic Survey agency that study the vast underground bodies of water that stretch beneath eight states say they can’t predict how the aquifer will fare.

Steve Peterson, lead hydrologist for the High Plains Groundwater Availability Study, says the aquifer’s future will depend on regulations and water-management decisions farmers and officials make.

Peterson says in Texas and other Southern Plains states groundwater levels have fallen more than 150 feet compared to the era before irrigation.

Peterson is working on a new report due out this fall that will look at groundwater issues.

(AP)-Authorities have identified the two people killed when a small plane owned by a flight school crashed in northeast Nebraska this weekend.

Federal investigators are expected to reach the crash site about two miles southeast of Norfolk on Sunday afternoon to determine the cause of Saturday’s crash.

Officials say 26-year-old Dale Butler of Omaha and 24-year-old Amy Brobst of Fort Collins, Colo., both died on impact.

The Piper PA-28 plane that crashed was registered to the Pro-Flite Inc. flight training school based in Omaha. Company officials declined to comment on the crash Sunday because they don’t yet know what happened.

FAA officials said the plane struck a power line before crashing into some trees, but the cause of the crash wasn’t immediately clear Sunday.

 

(AP) — A judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the family of a Nebraska inmate who died in 2010 while in custody.

The lawsuit was dismissed Thursday. Lancaster County District Judge John Colborn found there wasn’t enough evidence to show that state officials had been negligent in the death of 51-year-old Darryl Reed.

Reed died from heart disease and hardening of the arteries. He was serving a 5-to-8 year sentence for a drug conviction when he was taken from an Omaha prison to a prison infirmary in Lincoln because of behavior that led security staff to think he has used illegal drugs. Hours later, a nurse found him in distress, and he was taken to a Lincoln hospital, where he died.

A new father who shook and injured his 2-week-old daughter has been sentenced to the six months he has already served in jail.

22-year-old Justin Gore, of Norfolk, was sentenced Thursday to time served. He also was ordered to take anger management and parenting classes.

The baby was taken to a hospital for vomiting and diarrhea in September. A doctor called police to report bruising and cranial bleeding consistent with an infant being shaken or struck.

Gore told the detective he had been up for long hours and shook the baby when she wouldn’t stop crying.

A lawyer for Gore says there appears to be no lasting injuries to the girl from the shaking.

A Lincoln police officer is recovering from a broken nose after being punched by a suspected shoplifter.

Police said the officer was among those who responded to a report of a shoplifter at a Lincoln grocery store before dawn Friday morning.

Police say the 30-year-old suspect fled when officers arrived. Officers gave chase, and the suspect turned around and punched officer closing on him.

The officer, who has not been named, was taken to a local hospital for treatment of a broken nose.

The suspect is behind bars on suspicion of theft and felony assault of a police officer.

Investigators say remains found in a remote West Texas location last month are those of a 13-year-old middle school cheerleader missing since December 2010.

Scurry County Sheriff Trey Wilson said Friday that the human remains found near Lake J.B. Thomas in Scurry County on March 16 have been identified as Hailey Darlene Dunn’s.

At a news conference in Snyder, Wilson said the girl’s disappearance and the cause of her death remains under investigation. He said the Scurry County District Attorney’s Office received written confirmation of the identity of the remains on Friday.

A 23-year-old Lincoln man has been sentenced to five years in federal prison for receiving and distributing child pornography.

U.S. Attorney Deb Gilg says Nicholas Plachy was sentenced Friday in Lincoln’s federal court. He will be required to register as a sex offender when he’s released from prison. There is no parole under federal sentencing guidelines.

Gilg says police learned of Plachy’s activities through a file-sharing investigation conducted by the Lincoln Police Department. A forensic examination of Plachy’s computers revealed videos and still images of child pornography.