OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a man has been treated for smoke inhalation after a house fire in south-central Omaha.

The fire was reported late Wednesday night south of Pipal Park. Fire Battalion Chief Mark Driscoll says there were reports that as many as three people were trapped in the house, but firefighters found only the one man.

The fire cause is being investigated.

MALCOLM, Neb. (AP) — Two Malcolm residents have been accused of severely injuring a 5-year-old girl.

Online court records say 25-year-old Cassondra Karst and 26-year-old Bruce Sampson are charged with intentional child abuse. The records don’t list the names of attorneys who could comment for Karst or Sampson. Both have hearings scheduled for Oct. 31.

The records say Karst called deputies to the Malcolm residence on June 16, saying the girl had fallen down some stairs. Medical officials later told investigators the girl had several old injuries and that bleeding in her brain could have been caused by being shaken or by blunt force.

State authorities have taken the girl into emergency protective custody.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A Sioux Falls man is accused of sitting on a woman and slicing off her nipples with a pair of scissors.

Police spokesman Sam Clemens says 45-year-old Tony Ledbetter attacked the woman during an argument Tuesday. He’s charged with domestic aggravated assault.

The 39-year-old woman was hospitalized but no information about her condition has been released.

Clemens says the woman told investigators Ledbetter also punched her, slammed her head on the ground and tried to stop her screaming by putting his forearm on her throat and stuffing a blanket in her mouth.

A judge entered a not guilty plea on Ledbetter’s behalf Thursday and set bond at $250,000 cash. Defense attorney David Stuart says Ledbetter is unlikely to post bond.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Authorities have accused a Council Bluffs man of stealing some of his grandmother’s jewelry and pawning it.

23-year-old Colton Rankin was arrested Wednesday and is charged with theft and burglary. Court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for him.

Council Bluffs police say the woman noticed Sept. 12 that someone had gotten into her jewelry boxes and taken some items. Court records say she told police she suspected her grandson because of what she said was his drug problem. Her family checked with his employer in the Omaha, Nebraska, suburb of La Vista and learned that Rankin had not gone to work that day.

Police say Rankin later told a relative that he’d pawned the jewelry in Omaha.

STORM LAKE, Iowa (AP) — The small northwest Iowa city of Storm Lake has a low unemployment rate, vibrant downtown and tree-lined neighborhoods, but it’s also facing a surge in hunger that’s familiar to rural communities across the country.

The community is struggling to respond as thousands of working families and elderly residents seek help feeding themselves or their children. The issue persists even as national poverty rates have declined and food prices are down.

In Storm Lake, residents are helping their neighbors with a large, mostly volunteer effort to hand out free food at a half-dozen pantries, along a city street and in an empty building.

Hermelinda Gonzalez relies on a monthly drive-up pantry to feed her seven children despite her husband’s construction job. She says, “I don’t know what we’d do without this.”

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska residents have weighed in on a referendum aimed at repealing a 2015 state law that abolished the sentence, with supporters saying it’s necessary for harsh crimes and opponents saying it’s expensive and immoral.

Ten people testified Tuesday night in Omaha at the first of three public hearings.

Nebraska residents already have begun voting on the referendum ahead of the Nov. 8 election. The question on the ballot asks voters to choose whether to retain or repeal the law.

Marylyn Felion, who witnessed a Nebraska execution in 1997, said the death penalty is no longer needed to protect society.

Vivian Tuttle testified that only an execution would’ve held those who killed her daughter and four others at a Norfolk bank accountable.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Lincoln math teacher has been named this year’s Nebraska Teacher of the Year.

State Education Department officials surprised Amber Vlasnik with the award Tuesday at Lincoln High School, where she also coaches other teachers.

The 30-year-old was awarded her education degree at the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 2008, did her student teaching in Houston, Texas, and then taught math at Lincoln’s Southeast High School before joining the Lincoln High staff.,

She’ll be eligible for the National Teacher of the Year Award and will participate in several national professional development programs.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — A former cellphone store employee in Council Bluffs has pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $30,000 while on the job.

21-year-old Sayeg Moreno Padilla, who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced Monday to five years of probation and ordered to pay back what he stole.

Prosecutors say Moreno Padilla opened fraudulent accounts using 44 cellphones and took $1,500 in gift cards between May 6 and June 16 last year.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A former Omaha teacher has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for having a sexual relationship with a former student of his.

Online court records say 36-year-old Brian Robeson was sentenced Tuesday. He’d made a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a minor. Prosecutors had lowered the charge and dropped another in exchange for Robeson’s plea.

Robeson was a math teacher at Davis Middle School. Authorities say the relationship began when the girl was 13.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An expert has testified that DNA recovered from the scene of a home break-in could not rule out a former doctor on trial in the deaths of four people with ties to an Omaha medical school.

A judge sustained a defense objection Tuesday to the expert’s testimony that the DNA likely came from Anthony Garcia or a male related to him.

The DNA was collected from the Omaha home of Dr. Chhanda Bewtra, where a break-in occurred in May 2013 around the same time her Creighton University School of Medicine colleague, Dr. Roger Brumback, and his wife, Mary, were killed.

Prosecutors say Garcia also killed the 11-year-old son of Creighton’s Dr. William Hunter, and the family’s housekeeper in 2008. They say Garcia was angry at being fired by the doctors in 2001.