A 57-year-old Lincoln woman has been given three to five years in prison for illicitly selling a prescription painkiller.
Angela Kobza pleaded no contest to possession with intent to deliver oxycodone.
The Lincoln Journal Star reports that Kobza was sentenced on Tuesday in Lancaster County District Court.
Investigators say they made several controlled buys at Kobza’s home and in July last year searched it and found several dozen painkiller pills.
A 63-year-old Everett, Wash., man has been sentenced to six months in jail for fatally stabbing his ex- girlfriend’s parrot with a serving fork.
The Daily Herald reports that Richard J. Atkinson pleaded guilty to animal cruelty and domestic-violence malicious mischief in the Aug. 19 attack.
In a letter to the newspaper in September, the woman said she had the parrot, Bailey, for 18 years.
Defense lawyer William Steffener said at Tuesday’s sentencing that his client doesn’t remember what happened, but he may have mixed anti-anxiety medication with whiskey and slipped into a blacked-out rage.
Snohomish County Superior Court Judge George Appel ordered Atkinson to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. He also has to pay the woman for her parrot and destroyed belongings, and he can’t own any animals for five years.
A Kansas City man who told police he killed a woman to prevent her from telling someone she had been sexually assaulted by men in her prayer group is set for arraignment Wednesday on a first-degree murder charge.
Investigators say 23-year-old Micah Moore also told them that he killed 27-year-old Bethany Deaton on Oct. 30 at the request of her husband, the prayer group’s leader.
Tyler Deaton has not been charged, but the Jackson County prosecutor says he is being investigated in connection with her death. Deaton did not respond to messages left by phone and social media, requesting comment.
Bethany Deaton’s death initially was considered a suicide. That changed when Moore confessed to police Nov. 9.
His attorney declined to comment on the case.
The merits of the death penalty will be debated at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on Wednesday.
Nebraska’s Solicitor General J. Kirk Brown will debate University of Colorado sociologist Michael Radelet Wednesday evening.
Brown has worked for the Nebraska Attorney General’s office for more than 28 years. Brown defended the death sentences of the last three men Nebraska executed.
Radelet has extensively researched capital punishment and testified in dozens of death penalty cases.
The debate at the Lied Center will be moderated by the dean of UNL’s Law College. The debate is part of the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues that brings speakers to campus each year.
A 28-year-old woman has been killed in a collision at a rural intersection in eastern Nebraska.
The accident occurred about 8:15 a.m. Tuesday at the intersection, which is about 4½ miles north of Aurora.
Hamilton County Attorney Michael Powell says in a news release that Stephanie Wrick, of Aurora, was driving her car south when it hit a westbound pickup driven by Darrin Grosshans, also of Aurora.
Powell says Wrick was pronounced dead at the scene. Grosshans was taken to a hospital and then released.
The accident cause is being investigated.
The Black Keys told a federal judge the band has settled copyright infringement lawsuits against Pizza Hut and The Home Depot claiming misuse of their music in commercials.
The band alleged the song “Lonely Boy” was improperly used to sell power tools, and “Gold on the Ceiling” to sell pizza.
The Grammy-winning band sued in June and both companies denied copying the songs.
Attorneys for the band informed a federal judge in Los Angeles of the Pizza Hut settlement on Monday. The settlement agreement with The Home Depot was reached earlier this month.
No details of the settlements were included in court filings. Representatives of the companies and the band did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
A Florida man has sued the ex-Elmo puppeteer who resigned amid a sex scandal, saying the voice actor met him in New York after trolling gay telephone chat lines seeking underage boys for sex.
The lawsuit seeking unspecified damages was filed in Manhattan federal court Tuesday by a man who remains anonymous.
The man says he met Kevin Clash on a chat line when he was 16 years old in 2000 and exploring modeling opportunities in New York.
The lawsuit says Clash had numerous Elmo dolls in his apartment when he met the teen for sex. The man, now 29, is the third to make claims against Clash, who resigned from “Sesame Street” last week after 28 years.
A message left with a Clash spokeswoman was not immediately returned.
Police say an Omaha teenager gunned down in October was killed because of the color of his shirt.
Sixteen-year-old Montrell Wiseman was shot and killed on Oct. 21. A 16-year-old girl also was shot and injured.
Police say five men charged in the shooting were going to steal alcohol that day, but instead decided to get revenge for the September shooting death of a fellow gang member. The group went to a rival gang area looking for anyone wearing red when they spotted Wiseman. Police say Wiseman was not affiliated with a gang.
The five men — Angelo Tolbert, Joshua Van Ackeren, Matthew Saunsoci, Adam Gamble, and Francis Cayou — were ordered Monday to stand trial. A sixth person, Nicole Gamble, is also charged, accused of hiding Tolbert from police.
The wife of a shoplifting suspect who died after a fight with security outside a suburban Atlanta Walmart says she thinks store employees used too much force to subdue him.
Fatimah Calloway said Tuesday her estranged husband Vidal Calloway didn’t deserve to die over the Blue Ray DVD players he was accused of stealing.
A police report says Vidal Calloway was wrestled to the ground Sunday by three store employees. One of them, a security guard, put Calloway into a choke hold and told Calloway to tap when he couldn’t breathe.
Detectives are awaiting autopsy results to determine how Calloway died.
Wal-Mart Inc. says two workers were suspended with pay and the security guard will no longer work at the store.
A public university located in one of California’s prime pot-growing regions has formed an academic institute devoted to marijuana.
The Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research at Humboldt State University plans to sponsor scholarly lectures and coordinate research among 11 faculty members from fields such as economics, geography, politics, psychology and sociology.
The Times-Standard of Eureka reports that one professor is studying recent campaigns to legalize marijuana, while another is investigating the environmental effects of pot cultivation.
Sociology professor Josh Meisel tells the newspaper that the institute is probably the first dedicated to examining marijuana through the lens of multiple disciplines.
The University of California has a medical marijuana research center in San Diego that conducted scientific studies on the drug’s health effects until its state funding ran out.
