Nebraska’s state auditor says the wasteful state spending his office reported earlier this week is but a drop in the budget bucket.

Auditor Mike Foley says Monday’s report on the misspending of nearly $8 million by the Department of Health and Human Services is the sort of waste and fiscal mismanagement that could be found through state and local government agencies.

Foley told members of the Beatrice Rotary Club in Beatrice on Thursday that he thinks the state could trim spending 5 percent across the board. That would amount to about $182 million for this fiscal year alone.

Foley says the alarms his office sounds about public spending haven’t made him and his staff many friends in government offices. He says his department is “making new enemies every day.”

A Nebraska state senator known for his mastery of legislative rules is trying to force a vote on his proposal to repeal a city sales-tax measure.

Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha filed a rare motion to pull his bill out of the Legislature’s Revenue Committee, where the measure has stalled. He failed to bring lawmakers to a vote on Friday, but vowed to try again.

Chambers wants to repeal a state law that allows Nebraska cities to increase sales tax rates by as much as a half-cent, with voter approval.

Sen. Galen Hadley, the Revenue Committee chairman, says the law was vigorously debated over the course of two years. Other lawmakers said bringing the vote to the floor would undermine the committee process.

The Grand Island City Council president says concerns about the behavior of Mayor Jay Vavricek have prompted the council to consider his removal.

After a community meeting Thursday night, council President Bob Neimann said the council would use a section of city code that allows an elected official to be removed from office for misconduct or malfeasance.

Several people at the meeting expressed concern or recounted their embarrassment over Vavricek’s recent arrest on suspicion of drunken driving in nearby Howard County. Resident Grady Erickson called the incident “an eyesore.” On March 21 Vavricek pleaded no contest to a charge of reckless driving and was fined $500.

A 40-year-old U.S. Army reservist in Lincoln has lost his appeal of his conviction for groping a co-worker at the U.S. Army Reserve Center in Lincoln.

Court records say Lancaster County District Court Judge Paul Merritt Jr. denied the appeal of Christopher Hoyt. Hoyt had been convicted in September of misdemeanor sex assault. The woman involved was a civilian at the time.

Authorities say the 21-year-old co-worker testified that Hoyt groped her and made sexual comments at work even after she complained. He said she groped him in return. She was a civilian at the time.

In November Judge Gale Pokorny sentenced Hoyt to six months in jail. Hoyt appealed, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him. Judge Merritt disagreed and earlier this week affirmed the jury verdict.

A Lincoln man who was shot by the father of his girlfriend has been charged with domestic abuse.

Twenty-one-year-old Jeffery Stotler Jr. was released from a hospital on Wednesday and arrested by Lancaster County sheriff’s deputies. He was freed later.

Sheriff Terry Wagner says Stotler already was on probation for domestic assault.

The county prosecutor has decided not to charge the man who shot Stotler, 50-year-old Michael Kinney. Prosecutors say Kinney was acting in self-defense when he shot Stotler on March 20. Investigators say Stotler kicked in the back door of Kinney’s home in Bennet toward the end of a dispute with Kinney’s daughter.

Omaha police say they’re looking for two men who broke into two Omaha pharmacies using a sledgehammer, then stole prescription drugs.

Police say officers responded to an intrusion alarm around 1 a.m. Thursday at a Walgreens in northwest Omaha. Officers arrived to find the glass of the pharmacy’s drive-up window shattered. Police found a similar scene two hours later when responding to an intrusion alarm at another nearby Walgreens.

Police say security video shows that two men used a sledgehammer to break into both pharmacies and steal medication.

Police did not say what prescription drugs or how much were stolen.

(AP)-A psychiatrist who treated James Holmes told campus police a month before the Colorado theater attack that Holmes had homicidal thoughts and was a danger to the public, according to documents released Thursday.

Dr. Lynne Fenton, a psychiatrist at the University of Colorado, Denver, told police in June that the shooting suspect also threatened and intimidated her. It was more than a month before the July 20 attack at a movie theater that killed 12 and injured 70.

In the days after the attack, campus police said they had never had contact with Holmes, who was a graduate student at the university.

But campus police Officer Lynn Whitten told investigators after the shooting that Fenton had contacted her. Whitten said Fenton was following her legal requirement to report threats to authorities, according to a search warrant affidavit.

“Dr. Fenton advised that through her contact with James Holmes she was reporting, per her requirement, his danger to the public due to homicidal statements he had made,” the affidavit said.

Whitten added that Fenton said she began to receive threatening text messages from Holmes after he stopped seeing her for counseling, the documents said.

Whitten did not immediately respond to messages left at her home and office. University spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said she could not comment because the school had not reviewed the court records.

The documents previously were sealed, but the new judge overseeing the case ordered them released Thursday after requests from media organizations including The Associated Press.

Holmes last week offered to plead guilty in the attacks. Prosecutors rejected that offer and announced Monday they would seek the death penalty.

The document that includes the information on the psychiatrist was filed to obtain the contents of a package Holmes sent to her before the attack. That package included a notebook that the newly released documents describe as like a “journal.”

The package was dated July 12 — eight days before the massacre — but was found four days after the attack, in the university mail room. It included a sticky note with an “infinity design” and burnt $20 bills.

In court, prosecutors suggested Holmes was angry at the failure of a once promising academic career, and had stockpiled weapons, ammunition, tear gas grenades and body armor as his research deteriorated and professors urged him to get into another profession. Chief Deputy District Attorney Karen Pearson said Holmes failed a key oral exam in June, was banned from campus and began to voluntarily withdraw from the school.

The newly released records describe Holmes’ behavior after police found him, still clad in ballistic gear, leaving the theater after the massacre. After he was arrested, one officer asked Holmes if anyone was with him.

Holmes replied: “It’s just me.”

He also warned detectives that he had booby-trapped his apartment. It took days before authorities could disarm the traps and enter Holmes’ apartment. When police took Holmes to the station and told him of his rights to an attorney, he asked for one, according to court records. That ended their interview with him.

The documents — including arrest and search warrant affidavits — were unsealed by the new judge in the case. District Judge Carlos Samour took over this week after the previous judge, who had sealed the documents, removed himself.

Judge William Sylvester handed off to Samour on Monday, saying prosecutors’ decision to seek the death penalty against Holmes meant the case would take up so much time that he couldn’t carry out his administrative duties as chief judge of a busy four-county district.

Both prosecutors and defense attorneys had raised concerns about releasing the documents. Prosecutors said they were worried about the privacy of victims and witnesses if the records were released. Attorneys for Holmes said they didn’t want to hurt his chances for a fair trial.

Sylvester had said he was reluctant to release the documents before the preliminary hearing, when prosecutors laid out evidence on whether Holmes could be brought to trial. That hearing was held in January, with investigators giving the names and injuries of every theater victim in graphic detail.

Witnesses testified that Holmes spent weeks amassing an arsenal and planning the attack. They said he set up an elaborate booby trap in his apartment designed to explode at the same time as the theater attack occurred miles away.

Media organizations said there has been a “wealth of information already made public in the proceedings thus far.” They argued there was no basis for the documents to remain sealed.

After the preliminary hearing, Samour said lawyers failed to show that releasing the records would cause any harm, or that keeping the documents sealed would prevent any harm.

Owners of livestock that are seized in abuse or neglect cases could be ordered to pay for the care of their animals, under a bill that won first-round approval from Nebraska lawmakers.

Senators voted 34-1 on Thursday to advance the measure.

Sen. Ken Schilz of Ogallala says the bill would prevent law enforcement agencies or other care-takers from having to shoulder the cost of food and medical care of seized animals.

The bill would also let owners regain custody of their livestock if they meet conditions set by a judge. For instance, a judge could require owners to reduce the size of their herds to sustainable levels.

Owners could be reimbursed if a judge later finds no wrongdoing on their part.

Lawmakers have moved to repeal a state campaign finance law after the Nebraska Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional last year.

Lawmakers voted 27-0 on Thursday to advance the repeal measure through the first of three readings.

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled in August that Nebraska’s Campaign Finance Limitation Act was unconstitutional. The law was enacted in 1992 in an effort to create a level financial playing field in political campaigns.

Avery strongly supported the campaign finance law, but introduced the measure because the law had to be taken off the books.

The bill would also allow the state to buy computer software and equipment so campaigns can file their financial reports electronically with the state Accountability and Disclosure Commission.

A new clinic offering abortions and other women’s medical services has opened in the Wichita building where a slain Kansas abortion provider had practiced.

The South Wind Women’s Clinic saw its first patient Thursday nearly four years after Dr. George Tiller was gunned down in his church by an abortion opponent. The building was purchased by the abortion rights group Trust Women Foundation.

Group spokeswoman Kerry Townsend Jacob cited privacy rights in declining to say whether the first patient received an abortion.

No abortions have been performed openly in Wichita since the death of Tiller, who was one of the nation’s few doctors performing late-term abortions.

Three other Kansas clinics provide abortions but all are in the Kansas City area, about 200 miles from Wichita.