SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) — A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit in an accident that injured a worker who fell 30 feet while removing an old scoreboard at Western Nebraska Community College in Scottsbluff.

The school’s insurance carrier settled the lawsuit for $915,000.

Mack Downey and his wife, Deborah, sued over his fall at Cougar Palace in 2003. A trial court divided the negligence at about 33 percent among Downey, the college and a sign company.

The school appealed. The Nebraska Supreme Court in January released the sign company from liability and returned the case to the lower court to apportion the sign company’s share of the negligence between Downey and the school.

WNCC attorney Phil Kelley says instead of continued litigation, its insurance carrier settled the lawsuit.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — An investigator says a fire at a Lincoln apartment where a man died last week was intentionally set.

City Fire Investigator Tony Chapp says it’s not clear who set the fire, and he wouldn’t say if police are looking for suspects.

Authorities say firefighters found the body of 67-year-old John Strobel Jr. in his second-floor apartment where the fire started last Friday. No cause of death has been released, pending results of an autopsy.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The state senator who sponsored Gov. Dave Heineman’s tax cut plan says lawmakers have reached a compromise that will allow them to lower taxes.

Bellevue Sen. Abbie Cornett said Tuesday that an amendment to the bill would amount to a “down payment” on the tax relief that the Republican governor had promised.

Heineman’s original plan would have cost the state $327 million over a three-year period. The original measure would lower corporate and individual income tax rates, and eliminate an inheritance tax imposed by counties.

The new, whittled-down proposal would phase in lower individual income tax rates over three years, and provide about $56 million annually in cuts when fully enacted. It would not affect corporate income taxes or the inheritance tax.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska lawmakers have advanced a measure that would create a state tourism commission.

Lawmakers voted 31-1 Tuesday to give the bill first-round approval.

The proposal by Ellsworth Sen. LeRoy Louden seeks to enhance tourism in Nebraska, with a commission that would brainstorm ways to promote the state. Tourism is Nebraska’s third-largest industry.

The bill would establish the commission in place of Nebraska’s Travel and Tourism Division, which is part of the state Department of Economic Development. Louden says the new commission would be more independent, and could work more directly with Nebraska’s tourism industry.

The commission would be required to develop a statewide plan to attract tourists.

SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) — Officials say a home near Bayard was destroyed by one of several grass fires in the Nebraska Panhandle area over the weekend.

The Scottsbluff Rural fire department fought four grass fires on Sunday. Assistant Fire Chief Paul Reisig says a fire near Bayard started late Sunday afternoon in an area that burned last week. The wind-swept fire destroyed a home. No injuries were reported.

Reisig say the three other grass fires were near Minatare. Other fires in were reported near Alliance and Broadwater.

The National Weather Service said Monday that more fires were possible across the Panhandle because of dry conditions and winds gusting up to 35 mph. A fire warning remains in effect across the Panhandle through Monday evening.

 

COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) — A Columbus man has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the stabbing death of another man in a motel parking lot.

Twenty-one-year-old Ozzy Tilden was charged with first-degree murder in the death of 36-year-old Jerry Garcia during a fight in the parking lot of the Sundown Motel in Columbus last October.

Tilden pled guilty last Friday in Platte County District Court. Prosecutors agreed to dismiss a weapons charge.

Tilden will be sentenced April 20. He faces 20 years to life in prison.

KIMBALL, Neb. (AP) – Kimball County voters have rejected an $8 million bond measure for a motor sports complex. County officials said after the count Tuesday that just 200 people voted for the measure, compared with nearly 1,300 who voted against it. Organizers said the proposal would have cost property owners about $130 a year on property valued at $100,000. The money would have been spent to build High Point Motor Speedway. It would have included a drag strip and an oval track at a site three miles south of Kimball off Nebraska Highway 71. Kimball County is in the southwest corner of the Nebraska Panhandle.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska lawmakers have advanced a measure setting guidelines for pipeline companies to follow when they restore farmland and ranchland disturbed during construction.

Requirements under the Oil Pipeline Reclamation Act are intended to restore construction areas as close as reasonably possible to the condition, contour and vegetation that existed prior to construction.

Sen. Kate Sullivan of Cedar Rapids says her plan is based on reclamation rules in Montana and South Dakota and would not hinder pipeline construction in Nebraska.

It sets rules for pipeline companies to follow, but it would not supercede agreements made between a company and a landowner.

Grading, seeding and restoring active cropland are included in the measure, which Sullivan says will protect Nebraska landowners if a pipeline crosses their land.

FREMONT, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska jury has rejected a man’s claim that a medical condition would have made it impossible for him to rape a sleeping teenager.

Joshua Keadle was found guilty Thursday of first-degree sexual assault of a minor. The 30-year-old who has been linked to the 2010 disappearance of a Peru State College student had claimed that erectile dysfunction would have kept him from raping the 15-year-old in Fremont in 2008.

The sexual assault happened in December 2008 at a residence hall at what was then Midland Lutheran College. Keadle will face up to 50 years in prison when he is sentenced.

Keadle remains a person of interest in the December 2010 disappearance of a Peru State College student, Tyler Thomas. No charges have been filed in that case.

BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — A Gage County District Court judge has rejected motions by the state to dismiss the lawsuits of two people wrongly convicted in a 1985 Beatrice murder-rape case.

Judge Daniel Bryan said in his rulings Thursday that the lawsuits filed by two of the so-called Beatrice Six against the state can proceed.

Ada Joanna Taylor and James Dean sued the state for $500,000 each, saying they were wrongfully convicted in the rape and murder of Helen Wilson in February 1985. Four others also were convicted and sentenced to prison in the case. The six were pardoned in 2009 after DNA evidence exonerated them.

Beatrice radio station KWBE reports that Bryan acknowledged Taylor and Dean “have an uphill climb” to prove their cases, but that the cases should be heard.