OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A judge says Omaha police report delays cited by a defense lawyer aren’t sufficient reason to dismiss murder charges against the lawyer’s client.

Judge Horacio Wheelock said Wednesday that there’s no indication that a “sinister motive” was behind police actions in the case against Marcus Short. Short and Preston Pope have been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the August 2015 slayings of 23-year-old Deprecia Neelon and 19-year-old Garion Johnson.

Short’s attorney sought the dismissal, saying the delays made it “virtually impossible to present a defense.” Short’s trial is scheduled to begin Monday.

A police spokeswoman says Chief Todd Schmaderer has made several changes since learning of the delays, changes intended to improve the homicide unit’s performance on the issues raised.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A jury has acquitted a man accused in the shooting death of a friend in Omaha.

Jurors said Tuesday that 32-year-old Antoine Johnson was not guilty of second-degree murder. Police say he shot to death 29-year-old Trent Stutheit on Easter Sunday last year.

His attorneys argued that Johnson shot Stutheit in self-defense when they argued after hours of drinking, drug use and horseplay.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A man who served time for second-degree murder has been sent back to prison for shooting a neighbor in Lincoln.

61-year-old Jimmy Livingston was sentenced Tuesday to 30 to 40 years. Judge Jodi Nelson told Livingston that if he is “at liberty where you can drink alcohol and have access to guns … you are a danger.”

Livingston had pleaded guilty to assault and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. He apologized at his sentencing for “taking the law into my own hands,” saying the man he shot had conned his way into his home for a family gathering and since has run off with Livingston’s 20-year-old stepdaughter.

Court records say Livingston spent time in prison for shooting a man at an Omaha bar.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Two people have taken plea deals for the slaying of a man on an American Indian reservation in northeast Nebraska.

Federal court records say 20-year-old Jeremiah Wolfe pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Omaha to second-degree murder and his mother, 39-year-old Natasha Wolfe, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit second-degree murder.

The two and Lawrencia Merrick were charged with the April 2017 strangulation of 32-year-old William Redhorn Jr. on the Winnebago Reservation. Merrick is expected to change her plea of not guilty at a hearing Thursday.

The records say Jeremiah Wolfe and Merrick told investigators they came upon Redhorn outside a building he was trying to break into. Wolfe says a fight broke out and he put Redhorn in a chokehold until he quit struggling. Merrick says she also struck Redhorn.

BELLEVUE, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a police chase that began in suburban Omaha and wound south through southwest Iowa ended with a crash and the arrests of two people.

Bellevue police investigating a reported drive-by shooting Tuesday night say a man in a vehicle fired at officers early Wednesday and then fled into Iowa. None of the officers was hit.

Iowa State Patrol Sgt. Nathan Ludwig says an Iowa trooper intending to join the chase crashed his cruiser near Hamburg and was flown to an Omaha hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. Ludwig identified him as Trooper Dillon Malone.

Ludwig says the vehicle being pursued crashed in northwest Missouri, and two occupants were arrested. The pair’s names haven’t been released.

ATKINSON, Neb. (AP) — A 68-year-old man has died after becoming trapped in a grain bin last week in northern Nebraska.

Firefighters, medics and Holt County sheriff’s deputies were sent Thursday afternoon to a property near Atkinson. They eventually freed the man, but he was pronounced dead later at West Holt Memorial Hospital in Atkinson.

The man’s been identified as Warren Funk, of rural Atkinson. Atkinson Fire Chief Ryan Keogh says the accident occurred when Funk went inside the bin while unloading corn.

PAPILLION, Neb. (AP) — Authorities have removed a snake that slithered its way into a suburban Omaha apartment.

The Nebraska Humane Society was sent to the Papillion (puh-PIHL’-yuhn) apartment building early Saturday morning. The society’s Mark Langan says the ball python likely belongs to someone else in the building and may have found its way into the apartment by slithering through vents.

He says the 3- to 4-foot-long (around 1 meter) snake will be kept by the society until it is claimed by its owner. Otherwise, it will be put up for adoption.

HAMPTON, Neb. (AP) — A bald eagle sickened by lead poisoning has been nursed back to health and released back into the wild.

The Omaha World-Herald reports that the eagle was freed Monday at the Pioneer Trails Recreation Area, which sits west-northwest of Hampton. It had been found in a cornfield near Hampton, so sick it couldn’t fly.

Molly Mullen with the Fontenelle Forest Raptor Recovery center near Elmwood says eagles can develop lead poisoning by ingesting lead shot or bullets in carcasses they feed on. Eagles also can develop lead poisoning by eating fish that have ingested lead sinkers.

CAIRO, Neb. (AP) — A central Nebraska school district has told the parents of two students killed in a traffic accident that they can’t buy space in the school yearbook to honor their children, saying the district must be careful about the adolescent grieving process.

The Centura Junior/Senior High School students, 16-year-old Bailey Jean Packer and 17-year-old Navi Nielsen, died last month after a one-car crash in rural Howard County.

The parents and friends think school officials are being inflexible and insensitive.

“Every child’s life matters,” Staci Nielsen told station NTV. “If that’s something that meant something to them or that family wants to put a tribute in their last yearbook, I don’t see how that could be a negative thing for anyone”

Tara Schenk, whose family raised Bailey Packer since fourth grade, told the Omaha World-Herald they were also upset the district immediately removed from the school photographs and drawings done by Bailey.

“The kids think they’re trying to erase Bailey,” Schenk said.

But district officials said they’re following policy and a consultant’s training on student grieving. Centura Superintendent Julie Otero said the consultant recommends that districts immediately remove photographs and clean out lockers of deceased students because adolescents need finality when grieving.

The district allows graduating seniors to purchase space in the back of the yearbook for tributes, said school principal Tammy Holcomb. But Navi and Bailey were both juniors, so tributes or ads specifically for them were not permitted.

The two appear in photos of their sports teams and other activities. Holcomb said the families will be allowed to place tributes in next year’s yearbook, along with those of other seniors in what would have been the girls’ graduating class.

PAPILLION, Neb. (AP) — The driver of a loaded concrete truck that tipped onto a car near Omaha, killing two people, has been charged with misdemeanor motor vehicle homicide.

Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov told the Omaha World-Herald of the decision on Tuesday.

Last month, a judge deemed prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence to charge 21-year-old Austin Holloway, of Fremont, with two felony motor vehicle homicide counts in the Oct. 25 deaths of Michael Dearden and Phillip Hertel.

Holloway was driving the truck in La Vista when he made a sharp right turn, causing it to tip and land on the car carrying Dearden and Hertel. The judge said there was no evidence Holloway was speeding or driving recklessly, but there was evidence that the truck had been overloaded.