ROCK BLUFFS, Neb. (AP) — A two-year legal battle over a shared driveway in Rock Bluffs has ended after a judge mediated a series of complex arguments between neighbors.

The driveway was the only access route to Rock Bluffs Cemetery after another road was barricaded in 2010. Homeowners Larry and Lauri Cunningham blocked the driveway with a rope in 2014.

In November, a judge ordered Larry Cunningham and neighbor Charla Knapp to mediate their dispute. After two years of legal disputes, the pair filed a consent decree with the court in February.

Cunningham is allowed to put a gate in front of his driveway that can be opened with a code, which he will give to cemetery trustees so they can access the grounds.

YORK, Neb. (AP) — An attorney says his client will plead not guilty to a charge that she had sex with a teenager at a York facility for troubled children.

Authorities say 37-year-old Jamie Bishop, of Seward, is charged with sexual assault of a minor. Court documents say Bishop and the 15-year-old had sex several times in his room or on the grounds at Epworth Village from January to July last year. The child was born in December, and authorities say DNA tests prove the boy’s paternity.

Her attorney, Chad Wythers (WIH’-thurz), said Monday that Bishop would plead not guilty and said in a news release that “her accuser has a history of manipulating situations for his benefit.”

Epworth Village CEO Margaret Donovan says Bishop no longer works there.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a Lincoln burglary suspect has been found under a pile of clothes.

Police say a woman called 911 just after 2:15 a.m. Sunday to report that a neighbor had told her about seeing a man inside her apartment.

Capt. Danny Reitan says officers found a broken window next to the apartment door and another upstairs. Officers went in and soon found a variety of electronic devices stacked next to the door and a man hiding under the pile of clothes.

The 30-year-old was arrested on suspicion of burglary. Online court records don’t show that he’s been charged yet.

LOUISVILLE, Neb. (AP) — Firefighters have rescued a Great Dane from a tree in eastern Nebraska.

Owner Wes McGuirk says his 125-pound pet, Kora, probably ran up the tree Saturday in Louisville (LOO’-iss-vihl) in pursuit of a raccoon or squirrel after surmounting a 5-foot-tall fence. McGuirk says he found her on a limb about 20 feet up when he returned home from Omaha. His efforts to get her down failed, so he called for help from firefighters.

One of them slipped a leash and harness on Kora and nudged her off her perch. The harness stitching failed as she was being lowered, but she fell into a canvas tarp being held by firefighters.

She enthusiastically resumed her ground-bound life, apparently without injury.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — The main hospital in Grand Island sometimes has to turn patients away because it doesn’t have enough nurses available to care for them.

CHI Health St. Francis occasionally runs into problems if several nurses are out sick or on maternity leave at the same time.

The hospital works to maintain adequate nursing staff, and it has a program to help train nurses.

But Beth Bartlett with CHI Health St. Francis says the hospital wants to make sure it can provide adequate care.

NORFOLK, Neb. (AP) — A Norfolk man sentenced to life in prison for the stabbing death of his ex-girlfriend has been denied his request to be released from prison.

Madison County District Judge Mark Johnson on Wednesday denied Leodan Alarcon-Chavez’s request for post-conviction relief.

Alarcon-Chavez was convicted in 2011 of first-degree murder and other counts in the March 2010 death of 30-year-old Maria Villareal. Prosecutors say he stabbed Villareal in her apartment while he was awaiting trial for threatening to kill her several months earlier.

Among other things, Alarcon-Chavez alleged in his latest request that his attorney was ineffective and that prosecutors engaged in misconduct.

The judge said in his ruling that Alarcon-Chavez failed to prove some allegations and that others were without merit.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An Omaha man accused of driving drunk and causing a crash that killed another man will stand trial.

39-year-old David Hadi is charged with felony motor vehicle homicide and DUI causing serious bodily injury in connection with the death of 60-year-old Carl Gauff, of Omaha.

Hadi waived his preliminary hearing Friday morning, clearing the way for a judge to order him to stand trial.

Hadi has pleaded not guilty.

Police say that on the night of March 13, Hadi drove a sport utility vehicle on the wrong side of the street, hitting Gauff’s car head-on.

Police say Hadi’s blood-alcohol level after the collision was .308, about four times the legal limit of .08.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — Two Wood River men have pleaded guilty and been fined in Hall County Court for killing sandhill cranes and abandoning scores of dead snow geese last month in east-central Nebraska.

20-year-old Marco Zarraga was fined $525 and 24-year-old Adam Wagner was fined $300.

On March 14, 150 to 200 dead snow geese were found in Merrick County. Days later, 10 dead snow geese and three sandhill cranes were left near Grand Island.

Authorities say Zarraga killed the three cranes.

It’s illegal to hunt sandhill cranes in Nebraska. Shooting snow geese is not a crime this time of year, but authorities say dumping the geese and shooting them from a roadway and from a vehicle was illegal.

 

LONG PINE, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska State Patrol says a three-vehicle crash has killed an elderly Long Pine man.

The crash occurred around noon Friday in Rock County.

The patrol’s Capt. Paul Hattan says 82-year-old Lynne Moore was attempting to pass a pickup on Highway 20 when his vehicle struck a pivot stand being pulled by a 60-year-old Ainsworth man.

Investigators say Moore’s vehicle went into oncoming lanes and struck another vehicle driven by a 64-year-old Ainsworth woman.

Moore died in the crash.

The Nebraska State Patrol continues to investigate.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A 93-year-old baker in Omaha can now wear the medals he earned during combat missions in World War II.

Maj. Gen. Daryl Bohac pinned an Air Medal with silver and bronze oak leaf clusters and five other awards on Claudio Orsi’s jacket Wednesday in Democratic U.S. Rep. Brad Ashford’s office.

Orsi’s father was a World War I veteran who opened Orsi’s Italian Bakery & Pizzeria in Omaha’s Little Italy in 1919. Orsi was married with a newborn son and working at the bakery when the Army drafted him in December 1942. Orsi joined a 10-man B-24 bomber crew.

Orsi has received the six medals after more than 70 years since the last of his 43 combat missions in the Pacific.