LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — This year’s warm, dry weather has experts worried that crops in Nebraska and other Plains states could be hurt by drought this summer unless the area receives more rain.

Conditions in some areas of the region already resemble late summer conditions, and that could hurt the corn crop, which is just about ready for pollination.

The western two-thirds of Nebraska are already experiencing moderate drought conditions.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln climatologist Al Dutcher says things are going to get ugly unless more rain falls.

Eastern Nebraska has received enough rain so far to limit the stress on crops and stay out of drought, but that could change if conditions are dry over the next few weeks.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A man who was burned in a grass fire in Whiteclay has filed papers to sue local authorities for negligence.

Bryan Blue Bird of Pine Ridge, S.D., hired a lawyer and sent a tort-claim notice to Sheridan County and the Rushville Fire Department in northwest Nebraska.

The 51-year-old says he was lying in a field March 6 in Whiteclay when flames surrounded him. Authorities ignited the blaze to clear grass and prevent unintentional fires. Blue Bird says they didn’t thoroughly check the field, and set the fire on a windy day.

Blue Bird’s injuries have increased tension between residents of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and neighboring Whiteclay.

Reservation leaders have sought to limit alcohol sales in Whiteclay, where four stores sell millions of cans of beer annually.

GOODWELL, Okla. (AP) — Three Union Pacific crew members remain missing after two trains collided in the Oklahoma Panhandle, causing a white-hot fire that emergency crews are struggling to extinguish.

Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Betsy Randolph says the fire near Goodwell is contained but still burning Monday morning. A National Safety Transportation Board team is investigating the Sunday morning crash.

Each train carried two crew members, and officials say one conductor survived after jumping off the train. Three crew members are missing.

Randolph says firefighters from Fort Worth, Texas, are en route with fire-suppressing foam after hundreds of gallons of water failed to put out the blaze. After the fire is extinguished, crews must wait for the metal to cool before they can safely search the trains for any sign of the missing crew.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — More than 2,000 people are expected to pedal their way through Omaha’s streets in the late night Owl Ride next month.

Registration has already opened for the third annual nighttime ride, set to begin at 11 p.m. on July 14. The 14-mile Owl Ride is the largest annual night bicycle ride between Chicago and Denver.

Proceeds from the ride will go to the Meyer Foundation for Disabilities, which supports social and recreational programs for people with developmental disabilities in the Omaha area.

Riders must be equipped with front lights, rear red reflectors and helmets. The cost to register is $30 for individuals and $60 for families. Participants may register at www.owlride.org.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A man who began his career as a student assistant at the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Aviation Institute has been named its director.

Scott Vlasek has been interim director the past eight months, taking over when Scott Tarry left to become director of the Strategic Air and Space Museum near Ashland.

Vlasek earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UNO and began his work at the Aviation Institute in 1995.

He will continue as faculty adviser for UNO’s competitive aviation team, the Flying Mavs.

FREMONT, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say one person is dead following a rollover crash on Highway 275 near Fremont in eastern Nebraska.

Local media reports that the crash happened Saturday afternoon.

Witnesses told investigators that a driver was weaving in and out of traffic on the highway between Freemont and Valley. Investigators believe the driver passed a vehicle on the shoulder of the highway, crossed two lanes of traffic, went into the median and rolled.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office says the driver was thrown from the car and was found dead on the side of the road.

Authorities have not yet identified the person killed.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Rod Bates, longtime general manager of Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, has announced he will retire next year.

Bates is only the second leader in the statewide public broadcaster’s 58-year history. He was hired when the network’s founding general manager, Jack McBride, retired in 1996.

Bates said Friday he plans to retire on March 31.

As general manager, Bates is in charge of a staff of more than 200 employees with an annual budget of $22 million from state, federal and private sources. He is also the director of University Television and the general manager for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s station, KUON-TV.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Prosecutors have dropped an assault on an officer charge against a man already serving prison time for two rapes and robberies in Lincoln.

Local media reports that a third-degree charge of assault on an officer was dismissed Wednesday against Armon Dixon. The decision came a month after Dixon was sentenced to 80 to 140 years for raping woman during a home invasion in 2009.

Dixon is also serving a 70- to 120-year sentence for raping a convenience store clerk in 2009 during a robbery.

Authorities say Dixon lunged for the gun of a police investigator who had been questioning him in 2009 about the rapes and robberies. Prosecutors say the assault charge was dismissed because prosecuting Dixon again wouldn’t be worth the cost.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Lincoln Public Schools has agreed to pay a former middle school student and his parents $30,000 after a classroom stunt left the student with a broken wrist.

Local media reports that the settlement comes in a lawsuit filed by a mother on behalf of her son, who was an eighth-grader at Irving Middle School in 2009 when his wrist was broken in a social studies class.

The lawsuit says the boy’s teacher was leading the class in a game in which the boy lay on the floor and two others tried to lift and heave him into the air. The exercise was an attempt to demonstrate the operation of a catapult.

A school district official says the activity is no longer performed in the class.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Fremont man has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for a wire fraud conviction that cost banks and insurance companies in Nebraska and Iowa millions of dollars.

Thomas Herink was sentenced Thursday in Omaha’s U.S. District Court. In addition to prison, Herink was given three years of supervised probation following his release and ordered to repay more than $5 million to his victims.

U.S. Attorney Deborah Gilg says Herink falsified financial statements for his golf course construction company to defraud lenders and insurers.

Gilg says Herink carried out the scheme in order to participate in large construction contracts throughout the country. Prosecutors say when Herink defaulted on some of the projects, the banks and insurance companies lost more than $8 million.