HOMER, Neb. (AP) — A 72-year-old man has died after his tractor rolled over in a field in northeast Nebraska.
Emergency crews were called to a rural area southeast of Homer on Monday night on a report of a man trapped under a tractor.
Dakota County deputies and Homer Fire and Rescue crews found a man in a field who was pinned under a tractor that had rolled on an incline. He was pronounced dead.
The man’s name is being withheld until relatives can be notified.
GENEVA, Neb. (AP) — A Grafton man has been found not guilty in the shooting of his brother.
A Fillmore County District Court jury in Geneva on Friday acquitted 62-year-old Ervin Fuehrer of assault and use of a deadly weapon.
Authorities say Fuehrer shot his brother, Stephen Preslicka, on March 19, 2015, in Fuehrer’s shop driveway following an argument. Fuehrer’s attorney Bob Parker said in his closing arguments that Preslicka was wild when he showed up at Fuehrer’s shop. Preslicka has a bipolar disorder, and it was believed he was in a manic phase at that time.
Fuehrer says he fired a warning shot outside the shop and then shot his brother in self-defense. He said Preslicka had thrown a fire extinguisher at him and broke several windows with his bare hands.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Attorneys are expected to deliver closing arguments Tuesday in the case against a former medical student accused of killing four people with ties to an Omaha medical school, including an 11-year-old boy.
Anthony Garcia’s attorneys focused during the last day of testimony Monday on the prosecution’s timeline and other aspects of the prosecution’s case. Garcia remained silent. He has not testified during the trial, which began Oct. 3.
Garcia is charged with stabbing to death the 11-year-old son of two doctors and the family’s housekeeper in 2008 and then killing another Omaha doctor and his wife in 2013. Prosecutors say the killings were motivated by Garcia’s desire for revenge against two of the doctors, who had him fired from the Creighton University medical school’s residency program in 2001.
NEMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a 25-year-old man died after his sport utility vehicle crashed into a building and a parked pickup in southeast Nebraska.
The crashes occurred a little before 8:30 p.m. Sunday in Nemaha. The Nemaha County Sheriff’s Office says the SUV was headed south on Nebraska Highway 67 when it left the roadway and struck the building and pickup. Investigators suspect speeding and alcohol consumption were factors in the crashes.
The driver was pronounced dead at the scene. He was identified as Matthew Sciarappa, who lived in Auburn.
NORFOLK, Neb. (AP) — A December sentencing has been scheduled for a Norfolk man charged with the crash deaths of two men.
Court records show 23-year-old Brandon Plante pleaded guilty Monday to two felony counts of vehicular homicide. Prosecutors dropped a drunken driving charge and another misdemeanor charge in exchange for Plante’s pleas. His sentencing hearing is set for Dec. 19.
Authorities say Plante was driving north in a southbound lane of U.S. Highway 81 on June 26 when he struck an oncoming vehicle driven by 32-year-old Tar Eh. Eh and a passenger in the vehicle, 32-year-old Yeh Htoo, were fatally injured. Both lived in Norfolk.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha Public Power District officials say it will cost $5 million to end what was supposed to be a 20-year-contract with the company that has managed day-to-day operations at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant since 2012.
The power district began permanently shutting down the nation’s smallest nuclear power plant on Monday. It’s one of the first steps of a decommissioning process that could last decades.
Exelon Generation has managed Fort Calhoun since September 2012, when it stepped in to bring the nuclear plant back from a nearly three-year outage. The utility would have paid $400 million to Exelon if it had completed its licensing term in 2033.
A utility spokeswoman says it is unclear when the contract will be terminated.
CHICAGO (AP) — New research shows cigarettes contribute to more than 1 in 4 cancer deaths in the U.S. The rate is highest among men in southern states where smoking is more common and tobacco control policies are less strict.
The American Cancer Society study found the highest rate among men in Arkansas, where 40 percent of cancer deaths were linked to cigarette smoking. Kentucky had the highest rate among women — 29 percent.
The lowest rates were in Utah, where 22 percent of cancer deaths in men and 11 percent in women were linked with smoking.
The researchers analyzed 2014 health surveys and government data. They estimated how many cancer deaths were likely attributable to smoking, and compared that with deaths from all cancers.
Results were published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb. (AP) — A city administrator says a company is taking steps to eliminate a horrible odor that’s some residents say has forced them to temporarily leave their South Sioux City neighborhood.
The odor primarily has affected 15 houses in a five-block area where about 40 people live. City Administrator Lance Hedquist said Monday the odor originates at the Big Ox Energy plant about two miles away. He says sewage from the homes and the plant meet at a lift station that sends the sewage to the sewer plant.
Hedquist said Big Ox intends to begin adding to its sewage outflow a chemical that should end the problem.
Denmark, Wisconsin-based Big Ox converts organic waste into methane gas. A company spokesman didn’t immediately return a call from The Associated Press.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Top executives at Goodwill Omaha receive higher salaries than peers at area nonprofits and at other Goodwills nationwide.
Goodwill Omaha CEO Frank McGree received total compensation of $933,444 in 2014. More than half of that was a $519,000 one-time retention bonus, but even without that McGree’s pay was higher than many nonprofit executives.
Thirteen of the nonprofit’s executives were paid more than $100,000 salaries in 2014, so a significant portion of the $4 million generated from Goodwill’s stores in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa went to administrative costs instead of Goodwill’s job training programs.
McGree’s compensation sits in the top tier among 150 independent Goodwill affiliates nationwide. Only two dozen Goodwill leaders make over $400,000 a year and two receive pay over $1 million.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The nation’s smallest nuclear power plant is set to permanently shut down on Monday.
The Omaha Public Power District’s board decided earlier this year that the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant is no longer financially sustainable.
But the shutdown is only one of the first steps of a decommissioning process that could stretch on for as many as 60 years and cost more than $1 billion.
During that process, the utility will have to decontaminate and disassemble elements of the power plant.
The nuclear plant sits on the Missouri River across from Iowa and is about 15 miles north of Omaha.
