NEWCASTLE, Neb. (AP) — One person has died and another has been injured in an ATV crash in rural Newcastle.
The Dixon County sheriff’s office told a Lincoln media outlet
that 34-year-old Melissa Brown died at the scene of the crash, which was reported just before midnight Friday.
The sheriff’s office says 36-year-old Clinton Brown was taken to a Sioux City, Iowa, hospital for treatment of injuries.
Details of the crash have not been released.
Larimer County Sheriff’s spokesman John Schulz says the fire was reported just before 6 a.m. Saturday in the Paradise Park area. He says at least 46 structures and likely many more have been evacuated, and an evacuation center has been set up at a middle school in Laporte.
Ten structures have been damaged, although authorities were unsure if they were homes or some other kind of buildings.
A sheriff’s statement says two heavy air tankers, five single-engine air tankers and four helicopters are on the scene.
The fire appears to be burning on private and U.S. Forest Service land.
GRETNA, Neb. (AP) — A geocaching workshop has been scheduled at the Ak-Sar-Ben Aquarium Outdoor Education Center south of Gretna in eastern Nebraska.
In geocaching, people use GPS devices to search for hidden items.
The event is scheduled for 10 a.m. to noon on June 16. After learning the basics, participants will spend time geocaching elsewhere in Schramm Park State Recreation Area, where the aquarium is situated.
People may bring a lunch. GPS devices will be provided.
PINE RIDGE, S.D. (AP) — An annual Justice March from Pine Ridge to Whiteclay, Neb., to honor and remember two men found dead is slated for Saturday.
The bodies of Wally Black Elk Jr., and Ron Hard Heart were discovered June 8, 1999, near Whiteclay. Their deaths are unresolved.
Oglala Sioux Vice President Tom Poor Bear is Black Elk’s brother and Hard Heart’s cousin. Poor Bear has organized a march every year since 1999 to bring awareness to their unresolved deaths.
Saturday’s march will start at 12 p.m. at Billy Mills Hall in the village of Pine Ridge. Supporters will then trek two miles to cross into Whiteclay.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The University of Nebraska is cutting the number of credit hours required for most degrees.
Local media says Provost Linda Pratt says NU will implement a policy for new students this fall that reduces the required number of credit hours to graduate from 125 to 120.
It’s designed to allow undergraduates who take a full course load of 15 credit hours per semester for eight semesters to graduate in four years. Pratt the policy is aimed at saving students and their families money, as well as allowing financial aid programs to serve more students.
Pratt has given exceptions to 18 programs for a variety of reasons. Those are 11 engineering programs, four NU Medical Center programs, a landscape architect program and two music programs.
PLATTSMOUTH, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska’s Cass County and an Iowa woman have settled a lawsuit that said the county didn’t respond properly to the abuse she endured in the county jail.
Amy Miller of the American Civil Liberties Union in Nebraska said Friday the cash settlement amount for Claudia Leiva-Deras, of Storm Lake, Iowa, was confidential.
In a statement, the county denied it was “deliberately indifferent” to Leiva-Deras’ medical needs or her other allegations. The county said the costs of defending itself led it to resolve the case without any admission of liability.
The lawsuit filed Jan. 3 for the 27-year-old Leiva-Deras says she was attacked repeatedly by another inmate over several months in 2009. Leiva-Deras was being detained because of questions about her immigration status, which were later resolved.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A 26-year-old woman has been acquitted of homicide in the crash death of an Omaha woman.
Online court records say Raysheena Samuel, of Omaha, had been charged with misdemeanor vehicular homicide after the Feb. 3 accident that killed 50-year-old Kathryn Hardiman. On Wednesday a jury found Samuel not guilty.
Police say Samuel ran through a stop sign and hit Hardiman’s car at an intersection off an Interstate 480 exit ramp. Samuel told investigators that her vehicle’s brakes failed.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — State officials have issued a health alert for two lakes in southeast Nebraska.
The two lakes are Rockford Lake, which is southeast of Beatrice in Gage County, and Swan Creek Lake 
No. 5, which is near Tobias in Saline County.
Officials say water samples showed high levels of a toxin released by blue-green algae. The levels exceeded the state’s threshold.
Some types of toxic blue-green algae can produce dangerous toxins.
People can still camp, fish and boat on lakes under an alert, but they should not have full-body contact with the water.
Drinking toxin-tainted water can cause vomiting, diarrhea, respiratory failure and, rarely, death.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld a finding that Omaha firefighters 
can’t legally participate in roadside collections for charities on city time using city-owned uniforms and equipment.
The ruling targets so-called “boot drives,” in which uniformed firefighters ask people at traffic intersections, malls and supermarkets to drop money in firefighters’ work boots to go to organizations like the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
In 2010, the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission issued an opinion saying the practice violated state law.
The state firefighters union and Muscular Dystrophy Association challenged that finding, and the Lancaster County District Court dismissed the action, saying the court lacked jurisdiction to review a commission advisory opinion.
The Nebraska Court of Appeals agreed, and on Friday, the state’s high court upheld the dismissal for lack of jurisdiction.
LINCOLN Neb- (North Platte Post)- Most commuters taking I-80 eastbound home yesterday were later than usual arriving home. A accident sending a family and a 13 month old baby occurred around 4:30 yesterday afternoon.
The accident happened near the Northwest 48th street exit when a dump truck in the construction zone came in contact with a Mazda sending the car off the road into a ditch shortly after the Mazda struck a Ravine, flipping the vehicle. A Nebraska State Patrol Spokeswoman Deb Collins says the family in the car was from Kearney.
The family driving the Mazda were taken to Bryan West Hospital. The Truck driver was not injured.
