CHADRON, Neb. (AP) – An investigator has found no evidence that Chadron City Manager Sandy Powell misused city funds or treated city workers unfairly.  Radio station KQSK reports that the City Council released a summary of the investigator’s findings Thursday night.  Earlier this year, the city hired Scottsbluff attorney Paul
Snyder to investigate allegations against Powell, including claims she improperly used city funds for a pilot training program and set up an unfair salary structure for city workers.
Snyder completed his report late last month.  The City Council has spent more than eight hours in closed-door sessions reviewing it.  The council did not release the full report, just a summary.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – A 26-year-old man who was involved with Lincoln youth groups has been given three-to-six years in prison for having sex with an underage girl.
Curtis Green had pleaded no contest to sexual assault.  The Lincoln Journal Star reports that Green was sentenced on Wednesday.  Prosecutors say Green met the 15-year-old girl online.  State law prohibits people 19 or older from having sex with anyone under 16 years old.  Green’s attorney said before sentencing that Green didn’t have a significant criminal history but did have letters of support from the community and had worked with youth programs. Miner sought probation for his client.  Judge Jodi Nelson rejected the idea of probation, saying he “didn’t hear one ounce of responsibility taken by Mr. Green at
this juncture.”

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – The number of abortions performed in Nebraska
dropped 9 percent in the first half of the year over the same period in 2010.
Nebraska Right to Life attributed the decline to enactment of an abortion ban tied to the disputed notion that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks. The law that went into effect in October targeted Dr. LeRoy Carhart and his Bellevue clinic.  The group’s executive director, Julie Schmit-Albin, says the law forced Carhart’s practice into other states, which has caused the drop in abortions.  A message left for Carhart through the Center for Reproductive Rights wasn’t immediately returned.  The state says there were 1,153 abortions performed in Nebraska
in the first six months of 2011. The figure was 1,288 for the same period last year.

COMSTOCK, Neb. (AP) – The organizer of the Comstock Music Festivals has put off its 2011 events until next summer.
A statement on the festivals’ website cited financial issues for the postponement of the August concerts.
It also says those who already bought tickets to the festivals can request a refund or use them in 2012.  The dates for the 2012 festivals are: Country Fest, May 31-June 3; Rock Fest, July 12-15; and Christian Fest, Aug. 2-4.  Henry Nuxoll founded the music festivals near Comstock in 2000.  They pulled in thousands of people over the years.  But Nuxoll ran into financial trouble in 2008. He pleaded guilty
to writing bad checks to vendors and was ordered to serve four years’ probation and pay nearly $100,000 in restitution.  The festival has since changed hands.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – A proposed state plan to help low-income Nebraskans with their energy costs will receive a hearing next month.
The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services has scheduled the hearing for Aug. 4 in the Nebraska State Office Building in Lincoln. It is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.  The hearing will allow department officials to collect input on
the proposed Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program that is submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services each year. The plan describes Nebraska’s program and defines its eligibility requirements and benefit guidelines.
Copies of the plan proposal can be obtained by calling the department’s energy assistance office at 402-471-9450.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – A Nebraska judge has sentenced a California
man to prison for a stash of marijuana and heroin found in a rental
truck during a traffic stop on Interstate 80.
Luis Vargas Trujillo, of Dinuba, Calif., was one of three men arrested in October near the Utica exit.
Trujillo pleaded no contest to a drug charge. The Lincoln Journal Star says a Seward County judge sentenced him on Monday to 20 months to five years in prison.  A Nebraska State Patrol trooper stopped Trujillo for failing to signal a lane change. The patrol say a search turned up 200 pounds of pot and 50 grams of heroin inside some mattresses.
The other men were previously sentenced to prison.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Post offices in Nebraska cities large and small have been added to the list of offices, branches and stations being studied for possible closing.
The U.S. Postal Service said Tuesday that it is considering
closing 90 Nebraska facilities among the nearly 3,700 being considered nationwide.
The service says many of the offices could be replaced by
so-called village post offices. Those are locations offering
limited postal services in local stores, libraries or government
offices.
On the list of 90 Nebraska outlets to be studied for closure are
two in Omaha. The rest are in villages and small cities that
usually have just one post office. The towns include Lakeside in
western Nebraska’s Panhandle, Newport in north-central Nebraska’s
Rock County and Douglas in southeast Nebraska’s Otoe County.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Kawasaki is showing off its new rail car
testing center at its production plant in Lincoln.
The Lincoln Journal Star says the plant’s 1,500 employees were
on hand for the unveiling on Tuesday, which also included company
executives and dignitaries, including Gov. Dave Heineman and Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler.  The $40 million facility includes a 36,000-square-foot test
building and a 2,000-foot-long track. Plant manager Mike Boyle says
it’s the only plant tin North America with the ability to build
rail cars from the ground up and test them on-site.
Since beginning rail car production in Lincoln in 2001, Kawasaki
has nearly doubled the size of its rail car plant and grown the
workforce fivefold.

Authorities say a blown tire led to a
rollover crash on Interstate 80 that killed two people in south-central Nebraska.  The Nebraska State Patrol says the accident occurred a little after 1:30 p.m. Tuesday near Overton. The patrol says an eastbound car went out of control after a rear tire blew out. The car rolled twice in the median and landed in the westbound lanes.  The driver and one passenger were killed. North Platte television station KNOP says they were identified as 43-year-old Darren Willis and 39-year-old Trena Talley.  The patrol says Willis was driving and that Willis and Talley lived in Lexington.  Another passenger, 41-year-old Michelle Fellezs, of Lexington, was sent to a Kearney hospital for treatment.