Interstate 80 from Utica to Kearney remains closed as of 11:00 a.m., (CST), due to snow pack and rough ice. The Nebraska State Patrol and the Nebraska Department of Roads are working to open the stretch of road, but no timeframe for reopening is yet available.

On other parts of Interstate 80 that are open, travelers are advised to reduce their speed, turn off cruise control, and use extreme caution due to snow being blown back onto the road and reduced visibility in some areas.

Motorists are encouraged to keep up to date with the latest weather and road conditions by utilizing 511, Nebraska’s Advanced Travelers Information System.

511 should be accessed via phone by calling 511 or 800-906-9069 from any cell phone or landline. Travelers may also access the webcams and weather forecasts from < www.ndortraveler.mobi>, which is viewable on any mobile device or PC.

The father of a 16-year-old Lincoln boy who hanged himself in a youth detention center has filed a lawsuit accusing county officials and employees of deliberate indifference to the teen’s mental illness and suicidal statements.

The Lincoln Journal Star reports that the lawsuit filed in Lincoln’s U.S. District County names Lancaster County and five unnamed employees as defendants.

Detention center staff found Jonathan Kennedy unresponsive in his cell the night of Feb. 26. He was taken to a local hospital, where he later died. The teen was being detained due to suspected drug use and self-harming behavior.

In the lawsuit, the teen’s father says detention center staff should have protected the teen from himself. The lawsuit seeks funeral expenses and an unspecified amount for other damages.

Kim Kardashian decided not to sit out of the fight over Instagram’s new Terms of service policy, which has many users upset including one of Instagram’s top 10 most followed users, Kardashian.

The new policy that Instagram rolled out implies that Instagram can sell users photos without having to compensate the user.  TMZ reports that Instagram announced that they are revising the wording to clarify that they’re not going to sell any photos.

Kardashian is threatening to move her picture sharing to a different platform as a way to rebel from the possible policy change.

Kardashian has influence on many people such as her family who are also in the top 10 of Instagram.
Read more here

 

Police say a man dressed as a Super Mario Brother has been arrested for groping a woman in New York City’s Times Square.

An NYPD spokesman says 34-year-old Damon Torres of North Bergen, N.J., was charged with forcible touching on Wednesday. Police say Torres blocked a 58-year-old woman’s path in front of 4 Times Square and grabbed her thigh before walking away.

The woman notified police officers, who arrested Torres at the famous tourist attraction. Torres was also charged with marijuana possession.

Thousands of people are without power in eastern Nebraska and across parts of Iowa as a powerful snow storm sweeps the Midwest.

The Omaha Public Power District says more than 36,000 customers in its service areas in eastern Nebraska are without power. The hardest-hit area is in and around Omaha, where 25,000 customers are without electricity. The utility says heavy snow and high winds gusting to more than 50 mph are hampering efforts to restore power in many areas.

In Lincoln, television station KOLN reports that many residents are also without power.

In Iowa, MidAmerican Energy reports that more than 31,000 of its customers are without electricity, including 25,000 in the Des Moines area. More than 6,000 customers are without power in western Iowa’s Council Bluffs.

Sheriffs in Nebraska’s three largest counties are reporting record requests for firearm certificates in the wake of last week’s school shooting in Connecticut.

Officials in Douglas, Sarpy and Lancaster counties said Wednesday that they’ve each recorded single-day highs this week in certificate applications. The certificates are good for three years, and can be used to buy more than one gun.

Douglas County Sheriff Chief Deputy Martin Bilek said his office processed an all-time high of 115 applications on Tuesday, and denied seven other requests. The Sarpy County sheriff’s office received about 80 on Tuesday. In Lincoln, Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said his office received a record of 63 requests on Monday.

Officials say the increases may be driven by fears that the shooting will inspire new gun control laws.

A new movement has taken off to honor the 26 people killed at a school in Newtown, Conn.

The campaign sparked from a question NBC News correspondent Ann Curry asked herself after Friday’s massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School: “What can I do?”

The answer she arrived at was performing 26 acts of kindness. On Sunday, she shared that suggestion on social media, inviting everyone to join her.

By Wednesday, the hashtag “26acts” was trending on Twitter and a “26 Acts of Kindness” Facebook page had exceeded 17,000 likes.

The social media sites describe acts of kindness directed toward members of the Newtown community, as well as to others across the nation and even globally.

Curry wrote on the NBC News website that the movement is a way to “help heal us all.”

Scam artists have started to prey on the memories of those who were killed in the school massacre in Newtown, Conn.

Family members of Noah Pozner were grieving for the 6-year-old when they learned that someone was soliciting donations in the boy’s memory. A website had been set up with his name, even including petitions on gun control. It was a scam.

Noah’s uncle, Alexis Haller, called it an outrage and reported the action to police.

Consumer groups and government officials call for caution about unsolicited requests for donations, by phone or email. They tell people to be wary of callers who don’t want to answer questions about their organization, who won’t take “no” for an answer, or who convey what seems to be an unreasonable sense of urgency.

Stormy weather is keeping crews looking for tsunami debris away from a dock that washed ashore on a remote beach on the Washington state coast.

A spokesman for the state Marine Debris Task Force, David Workman, says high winds and tides are making it hard to reach the site on the Olympic Peninsula. He says a team hopes to arrive Thursday.

Workman says there’s no confirmation yet whether the dock is debris from the March 2011 tsunami in Japan. It appears to be similar to a Japanese dock that washed ashore last June at Newport, Ore. It was cut up and removed.

The Coast Guard spotted the latest dock Tuesday on a wilderness beach of the Olympic National Park.

The University of Connecticut is creating a scholarship fund for students from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where 20 students and six staff members were gunned down last week.

The Sandy Hook School Memorial Scholarship Fund will help pay college costs for Sandy Hook students who choose to attend UConn when they’re older. Siblings of the student victims and children of the adult victims also will be eligible. The awards will be need-based.

Donations will be collected through the University of Connecticut Foundation. A spokesman says the foundation hasn’t set a fundraising goal and will decide later whether the scholarships can cover the students’ entire college costs.

UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma and his wife have donated $80,000. The university says 650 other individual donations have been received in the fund’s first 24 hours.