LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A 57-year-old motorcycle rider has been fatally injured in a collision with a sport utility vehicle in southwest Lincoln.
The accident occurred around 7:45 a.m. Tuesday. Police say the SUV failed to negotiate a curve and collided with the motorcycle being driven by David Hadenfeldt, of Denton.
Police say Hadenfeldt died shortly after being taken to a Lincoln hospital. The SUV driver wasn’t injured.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The City Council has approved the mayor’s plan to annex 16 areas of Douglas County, boosting the Omaha population by an estimated 12,000 people.
Mayor Jean Stothert (STAH’-thurt) cheered the vote Tuesday as “positive for the city.”
The neighborhoods and businesses have a total property tax valuation of about $1 billion.
Councilmen Ben Gray, Chris Jerram and Pete Festersen voted against annexing some of the areas, expressing concerns that city services would be stretched too thin.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A 12-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy have been arrested after gunfire was reported in Omaha.
The two boys were arrested Monday. They were booked into the Douglas County Youth Detention Center on suspicion of several charges including being a minor in possession of a gun and obstructing an officer.
According to police, a man called 911 after hearing shots outside his house. Police say the man told officers that he went outside and saw that his vehicle had been hit by bullets. He said he noticed three boys nearby and a 13-year-old fired a shot at him, but missed.
Police say they questioned and released a 14-year-old boy.
DENVER (AP) — Edible marijuana products in Colorado may soon come labeled with a red stop sign.
The state is finalizing work on new rules for the appearance of edible marijuana. A draft of those rules released Tuesday would require each piece of edible marijuana to be marked in the shape of a stop sign with the letters THC in the middle. The letters stand for marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient.
The rules would also prohibit any edible marijuana maker from using the word “candy” on the label.
The rules now go to a public hearing. Marijuana regulators in Colorado have until January to implement a 2014 law requiring edible marijuana to have a distinct look when outside its packaging. The law was passed after reports of people accidentally eating foods infused with marijuana.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Plans are in the works to redevelop Lincoln’s Veterans Affairs campus into a mix of apartments, townhomes and medical offices.
The Lincoln City Council endorsed the proposal on Monday, indicating that the council likely will approve a redevelopment agreement expected later this summer.
Under the first planned phase of the project, developers want to build a three-story apartment building for low-income veterans who qualify for veteran housing vouchers, along with a private medical office building.
The developer expects to spend around $20 million on Phase 1 and intends to use around $2 million in tax increment financing for street, water and sewer improvements.
While plans move forward, the Department of Veterans Affairs is soliciting bids for a new VA clinic in Lincoln.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A new alert system in Douglas County will notify authorities when they’re approaching a potentially dangerous person.
Emergency dispatchers have long been able to warn law enforcement officers when they’re going to a home address of someone with a history of violent behavior or threats. But they haven’t been able to provide the same information based on a person’s name.
It’s a problem when an officer approaches someone who’s potentially dangerous but isn’t at his or her home. The new system will allow dispatchers to check for warnings by searching either a name or residence.
The change follows a June shooting involving Douglas County sheriff’s deputies and a man who had a history of deadly threats against police.
A police report says the girlfriend of Christopher Duffek called for help around 3 a.m. Saturday. Officers who responded say she had injuries consistent with an assault. Police suspect that Duffek had been drinking and that the two had been arguing.
Duffek has been released from custody. A phone listed for him in Omaha rang busy during several calls Tuesday from The Associated Press. Online court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could be contacted to comment on Duffek’s behalf.
Duffek has been placed on administrative leave, pending criminal and internal investigations.
24-year-old Gavin Crowl was found guilty Friday of third-degree sexual assault. According to prosecutors, Crowl gave the girl gifts and massaged her chest when she was 10 or 11.
Police say the girl told two friends at a sleepover last year about what happened. The mother of one of the girl’s friends called the victim’s mother, who notified police.
Crowl is scheduled to be sentenced in October.
CHICAGO (AP) — Baby-making is probably not on most families’ minds when young children get cancer. But at some pediatric centers, doctors bring it up soon after diagnosis because cancer or its treatment can cause infertility.
In children as young as infants, they’re trying a futuristic approach — removing and freezing ovaries and testes, with hopes that by time kids reach adulthood scientists will figure out how to make the tissue work.
It has worked in adults; more than 30 babies have been born to women who had ovarian tissue removed and frozen in adulthood. But no one knows yet if it will work in kids treated before puberty.
Patients at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia are among kids involved in the research.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Mexican Consul Guadalupe Sánchez Salazar says the outlook for more student exchanges in Nebraska is bright following the success of a program that brought eight students from Mexico to study English in Omaha this summer.
The students spent most of their July in the intensive English program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
They came to the U.S. as part of an initiative called Proyecta 100,000 that was started by the Mexican government. It aims to have 100,000 Mexican students studying in the U.S. by 2018.
Salazar says she’s in discussions with several other Nebraska colleges to bring Mexican students there. She adds several public universities in Iowa also are interested in hosting Mexican students.
