Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman has unveiled two proposed tax reform measures that would eliminate or reduce state income taxes.

The larger plan unveiled Friday would eliminate the state’s income tax on corporations and individuals, while getting rid of $2.4 billion in sales tax breaks that Nebraska currently allows.

The second bill would eliminate corporate income taxes and provide an exemption for retirement income. Married couples would receive an exemption for the first $12,000 they earn, while single filers would see a $6,000 exemption. That proposal would end $395 million in exemptions.

Many exemptions targeted in one bill are preserved in the other. Heineman says he wants a public conversation about which specific exemptions to cut.

The bills are sponsored by state Sens. Beau McCoy and Brad Ashford, both of Omaha.

The Nebraska Department of Labor says the state’s unemployment rate remained unchanged in December, matching the 3.7 percent in November.

The department report issued Friday says the rate was 4.2 percent in December 2011.

Labor Commissioner Catherine Lang attributes the consistently low rate to the state’s stable and diverse economy.

The state’s December rate was less than half the national rate of 7.8 percent in December.

The Nebraska Department of Revenue says the statewide total of property taxes collected by counties increased nearly 4 percent between 2011 and 2012.

Lincoln County property taxes increased by 3.17%.

The state property tax administrator released the report on Thursday, noting a total $123 million property tax increase. Property taxes jumped from $3.1 billion in 2011 to $3.2 billion in 2012.

The uptick is attributed to $84.7 million in county tax increases on existing property, $28.8 million in newly constructed property and $9.5 million in voter-approved bonds.

The greatest increase was in Dixon County, which grew by 16.2 percent. Lancaster County taxes rose by 5.4 percent, and Douglas County saw an increase of a little more than one-quarter of a percent.

Sioux, Dawes and Arthur counties saw their property taxes decline.

See the list here.

 

Transit police in Philadelphia have arrested a man who allegedly threw a woman on the subway tracks at a station in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood.

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority police say the attack happened around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday when the man approached the woman on the subway platform and asked for a light. Surveillance video shows the suspect then moved closer and began beating her.

Authorities say the man grabbed the woman by her ankles and threw here onto the tracks before walking away with her phone. It was unclear if he knew her.

SEPTA Police Chief Thomas Nestell says the woman was able to climb off the tracks and suffered only bumps and bruises.

Police say they arrested the man around 2:30 p.m. Thursday, identifying him by his jacket.

A Lincoln man who stabbed a woman who’d spurned his offer of marriage has been given 30 to 35 years in prison.

Twenty-four-year Kaw Say, a refugee from Myanmar, had pleaded no contest to a charge of attempted murder. The Lincoln Journal Star reports that  Say was sentenced on Wednesday in Lancaster County District Court.

Prosecutors have said Say stabbed 21-year-old Thai Paw last April with a kitchen knife until he broke the handle and then got another one. Paw survived eight puncture and cutting wounds.

Say told police he had asked Paw to marry him, but she’d said no and had started dating someone else.

Nebraska prisoners and jail inmates would have to provide a $10 co-payment for non-emergency health care each time they request it, under a new bill in the Legislature.

Sen. Tyson Larson of O’Neill proposed a measure Wednesday that would require county jails to deduct the payment from inmates’ personal accounts. Inmates who have less than $10 would lose half of each new deposit until the payment was covered.

Larson says he was approached by a county sheriff in his district who complained that inmate requests for health care were pulling deputies away from their regular duties. He says 37 other states require co-payments from inmates, including Iowa, South Dakota and Kansas.

The bill includes exceptions for emergency care, mental health or substance abuse treatments, and treatment of a chronic illness.

A 12-year-old girl allegedly shot by her cousin’s ex-boyfriend at an eastern Kentucky College has died of her injuries.

Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said Taylor Jade Cornett died shortly before 4 p.m. Wednesday at University of Kentucky Medical Center.

Taylor was shot Tuesday, along with her father and her female cousin in the parking lot of Hazard Community and Technical College in Hazard.

Police said 21-year-old Dalton Stidham was charged with murder and attempted murder in the case.