OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha officials and the Salvation Army have devised a new program that would pay homeless people $10 an hour to work with flowers and other plants that beautify the city.

The City Council will vote Tuesday on the program, which they’re calling “A Way to Work.”

The program is scheduled to launch next month and will employ six homeless people until the end of September. Participants will work two days a week in the city’s greenhouse and prep plants for city parks. The program also provides lunch and access to training and services, such as counseling.

Officials hope the additional services will help participants gain skills needed to find long-term employment, said Maj. Greg Thompson, commander of the Salvation Army’s Western Division.

A successful participant could get other employment opportunities with the city, said City Parks Director Brook Bench.

The program is modeled after one in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert said she believes “A Way to Work” will be more successful because it offers additional services.

“My ultimate goal would be to end homelessness in the city of Omaha,” Stothert said, noting that this program is just step toward fixing the complicated issue.

The first workers will be selected by the Siena-Francis House, a local homeless shelter. The Salvation Army will screen and employ workers.

The city and the Salvation Army are each providing $50,000 to fund the program. The funds will cover the cost of hiring a program manager, participant wages and other administrative costs.

AUBURN, Neb. (AP) — A southeastern Nebraska school superintendent has been placed on paid leave following an incident involving video of a fight among students.

Superintendent Kevin Reiman was placed on leave Wednesday night after the video posted on social media seemed to show him in his home viewing security footage of the fight in a school hallway. A voice believed to be Reiman’s on the online video narrates and laughs about the fight.

Some students, parents, and teachers turned out Wednesday night at the school board meeting in a show of support for Reiman.

Board President Ryan Jones said the board will not comment on the matter to the public or news organizations.

A phone message left Friday for Reiman with his secretary was not immediately returned.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska man is left scratching his head after thieves came onto his property and, instead of breaking into his home, stole the landscaping outside of it.

Lavern Smith of Omaha tells KETV that thieves stole hundreds of landscaping blocks that made up a retaining wall in his front and side yards.

A neighbor told Smith it happened in broad daylight last week when five men with a pickup truck pulled up, removed the blocks one-by-one and stacked them into the back of the truck before leaving. Smith says they even returned the next day with a blowtorch to remove those blocks frozen to the ground.

Smith is asking those who took the blocks to return them and rebuild the wall.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The police chief says overall and violent crime rates dropped last year in Lincoln.

Lincoln police data say that although Lincoln’s population rose by 4,000 to more than 284,000 residents, the number of serious crimes fell by 6 percent.

Chief Jeff Bliemeister (BLEYE’-meye-stur) said Thursday that the decline in the overall rate is largely due to a 7 percent drop in thefts. Officers suspect that drop came from a combination of efforts to arrest potential repeat offenders and education campaigns to remind people to lock up their possessions.

Rapes increased by 9 percent in 2018, which police attributed partly to more delayed reports prompted by the #MeToo movement. Robberies and aggravated assaults dropped.

HARTINGTON, Neb. (AP) – A 28-year-old caregiver has pleaded not guilty to stealing more than $14,000 from the northeast Nebraska man she’s been helping.

Cedar County District Court records say Kayla Hansen, of Coleridge, is charged with abuse of a vulnerable adult and two related crimes. She entered written pleas Wednesday.

The records say Hansen cleaned the man’s house and drove him to medical appointments. The documents say she had access to his bank account and debit card and used them to pay her own bills and those of relatives.

WAKEFIELD, Neb. (AP) — A northeast Nebraska couple are accused of locking their children in a bedroom of their home and letting them out only to use a bathroom.

Dixon County Court documents say 54-year-old Patrick Henderson and 42-year-old Angel Henderson are charged with two counts of intentional child abuse. The records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for them. The children have been removed from their custody.

The documents say their son was 14 last year when he told an investigator that he and his 9-year-old sister were fed only lunch each day and allowed something to drink only when they finished their food. He said his mother would choke, kick or hit them if they managed to escape the room.

He also said they didn’t get any food if they didn’t finish their schoolwork. They were being home-schooled.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – An Iowa woman accused of having sex with a teenage boy staying at the Child Saving Institute shelter in Omaha has been sent to prison.

Douglas County District Court records say 24-year-old Hanna Dickerson was sentenced Tuesday to two years. She’d pleaded guilty to attempted sexual abuse of a protected person. Prosecutors lowered the charge in exchange for her plea.

The records say Dickerson lives in Neola, Iowa.

The 17-year-old boy was a ward of the state who told investigators that he and Dickerson engaged in sex several times in July and August 2017. Her job at the institute was to supervise wards of the state, sometimes overnight.

The institute specializes in adoptions, emergency foster care and family therapy.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A man suspected in a south Omaha slaying has appeared in court on murder and other charges and will be held without bond.

A judge on Wednesday denied bond for 20-year-old Anthony Sanchez, who was arrested earlier in the week in Crete. Sanchez has been charged with first-degree murder, assault and two weapons counts.

Sanchez is suspected of fatally shooting 23-year-old Franco Gonzalez-Mendez and wounding his brother, Edgar Gonzalez-Mendez.

Police have said two officers working off-duty at the Guaca Maya restaurant in south Omaha heard gunshots just before 11:30 p.m. July 15 and found the two victims just north of the restaurant.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a Nebraska man has been charged in Iowa with conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and other counts.

The Iowa Insurance Division says in a news release that 34-year-old Peere Shackelford, of Omaha, was also charged with second-degree arson and conspiracy to commit a felony following an investigation by the division and the Council Bluffs Fire Department.

Investigators say Shackelford gave false information to his insurance carrier back in October 2017 on an insurance claim following a vehicle fire.