BELLEVUE, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a 55-year-old driver has been killed in a collision between his pickup truck and a semitrailer.

The accident occurred around 8:55 a.m. Monday on U.S. Highway 34 south of Bellevue. The Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office says Randy Strode was turning east onto the highway when the passenger side of his pickup was struck by the eastbound big rig.

Strode was pronounced dead at the scene. He lived in Ashland. The trucker was treated for minor injuries at an Omaha hospital. He was identified as 37-year-old Nathan Jongeling, of Omaha.

The crash is being investigated.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Two people have pleaded not guilty to killing a man on northeast Nebraska’s Winnebago Reservation.

Court records say 19-year-old Jeremiah Wolfe and 21-year-old Lawrencia Merrick entered the pleas Monday in U.S. District Court in Omaha. The charge: second-degree murder. No trial date has been set.

The records say 32-year-old William Redhorn Jr. was slain early on April 23 in Winnebago. An autopsy shows that he’d been strangled but also suffered head trauma.

The records say the two had told tribal police that they’d come upon Redhorn outside a building he was trying to break into and approached him when he wouldn’t stop. Wolfe says a fight broke out between him and Redhorn and that he put Redhorn in a headlock until he quit struggling. Merrick says she struck Redhorn, too.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a Gresham woman has been given three years of probation for her role in an income tax refund scheme.

Court records say 36-year-old Kathy Hansen was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Omaha. She also must make restitution of nearly $11,600.

She’d pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony. Authorities say Hansen knew a crime was being committed and failed to notify law enforcement.

Officials say that in 2014, Hansen opened a bank account with nearly $12,000 in illegally obtained tax refunds. Investigators say the refund fraud scheme was operated by people believed to be outside the U.S. The deposited funds were sent by Hansen to people in Nigeria.

GRETNA, Neb. (AP) — The Ak-Sar-Ben Aquarium at Schramm Park State Recreation Area in eastern Nebraska will close Tuesday for renovations.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission says the work will transform the facility into a state-of-the-art interactive exploration center. The new aquarium will feature Nebraska aquatic habitats, and visitors will be able to view an array of Nebraska’s native fish species.

The project is expected to be finished in fall 2018.

The park sits along Nebraska Highway 31, 5 miles (8 kilometers) south of Interstate 80, Exit 432.

STANTON, Neb. (AP) — A 19-year-old Norfolk man has been charged with one count of misdemeanor motor vehicle homicide for a fatal crash last month.

Blake Baldwin was charged in Stanton County on Friday. Police say Baldwin was driving a sport utility vehicle April 29 when he lost control, causing the SUV to roll. Baldwin and two other passengers were thrown from the vehicle. Nineteen-year-old Beau Kellogg, of Norfolk, was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Baldwin and the surviving passenger, 20-year-old Kaleb Eatherton of Norfolk, have also been charged with being minors in possession of alcohol.

Both are scheduled to appear in Stanton County Court on June 13.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The University of Nebraska Medical Center is asking Douglas County for $5 million for its Davis Global Center under construction in Omaha.

The County Board is considering giving $500,000 a year for 10 years, beginning in 2022. The money would come from inheritance taxes.

The payments would start after the county is done making $500,000 annual payments on its $5 million contribution to UNMC’s Buffett Cancer Center.

The board could vote in early June on an agreement with UNMC that is expected to spell out details.

The new center will offer health care training, education and research with cutting-edge simulation technology, among other things. It’s being built at 42nd and Emile Streets on the UNMC campus.

WAVERLY, Neb. (AP) — A student from Nebraska who died after a long battle with illness will be recognized at her high school’s graduation ceremony, thanks to a compromise between the senior class and school administrators.

A statement released Thursday by Waverly High School’s senior class says they will observe a moment of silence for 17-year-old McKenna Smith and her family at the start of the commencement ceremony Sunday. A purple floral arrangement on the main stage will also commemorate McKenna. She died in July from an incurable degenerative brain disease called juvenile Huntington’s disease.

School officials had rejected students’ original idea of leaving a chair empty for McKenna, citing school policies. After receiving backlash, administrators and seniors found common ground.

The statement says the students are fortunate “to have had our voices heard.”

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — A judge has signed off on the charges against a man accused of killing a sheriff’s deputy and wounding another while escaping from an Iowa jail.

The Pottawattamie County District judge on Friday also scheduled 24-year-old Wesley Correa-Carmenaty’s arraignment hearing for June 19.

Authorities say Correa-Carmenaty had just been sentenced on May 1 to 45 years in prison in an unrelated murder case when he managed to grab one of the deputies’ guns while being transferred to a Council Bluffs jail. He shot them both and used the jail van to escape.

He was recaptured after authorities say he carjacked a woman at gunpoint and forced her to drive to Omaha, Nebraska.

Correa-Carmenaty is charged with murder, attempted murder, escape, kidnapping and other counts.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Former Vice President Joe Biden will deliver the keynote speech next week at the dedication of the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Fred and Pamela Buffett Cancer Center in Omaha.

The former vice president and longtime U.S. senator from Delaware has led an initiative to end cancer, which took the life of his son, Beau, in 2015.

He’ll speak Tuesday at the Omaha cancer research and treatment center’s dedication.

The $323 million, 615,000 square-foot Fred and Pamela Buffett Cancer Center will open in early June. It will include a research facility next to a new cancer hospital, as well as an outpatient center with clinics, oncology and other services.

Tickets to Tuesday’s ribbon cutting have already been distributed and no additional space for the public is available.