LA VISTA, Neb. (AP) – Authorities say a construction worker was injured in a fall at a worksite in northern Sarpy County.

First responders were dispatched around 8:40 a.m. Wednesday to the Andover Point Apartments. The Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office says 60-year-old Jerome Charvat was working on an elevated platform before plunging between 20 and 30 feet (6 meters and 9 meters) to the ground.

He was flown to an Omaha hospital.

The sheriff’s office is investigating the incident, and federal safety officials have been notified.

GENEVA, Neb. (AP) — The York County public defender has pleaded not guilty to stealing from two private clients.

Fillmore County District Court records say 59-year-old Nancy Waldron entered written pleas to felony theft. Her next court hearing is scheduled for Jan. 15.

The records say questions were raised in nearby Fillmore County about checks Waldron had written to herself on a bank account that belonged to two sisters living in nursing homes. Authorities say she fraudulently billed the two clients and paid herself nearly $187,000 since 2012.

Waldron’s law license has been suspended.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska Court of Appeals panel has ordered that a man who got some jail time and probation for attempted child sexual assault be resentenced to prison.

A majority of the panel found that a Sarpy County district judge was too lenient when he sentenced 42-year-old Jason Gibson to six months in county jail and five years’ probation.

Prosecutors say Gibson was an Air Force Master Sergeant when he contacted a then-18-year-old DeArch Stubblefield early last year and set up sex with the 15-year-old girl. Stubblefield was a star football player for Bellevue West with no criminal history at the time. He was sentenced last year to 20 to 40 years in prison.

The appeals panel recognized Gibson’s military service and his lack of a prior criminal history, but said “a term of probation depreciates the seriousness of the offense and promotes disrespect of the law.”

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — A federal safety agency has proposed fining a company in connection with the death of an employee who was working in a Hall County cornfield.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is proposing penalties of more than $11,600 for Rivera Agri Inc., a provider of temporary farm labor. OSHA says the company failed to protect employees working in excessive heat. A company representative didn’t immediately return a call Wednesday from The Associated Press.

The body of 52-year-old Cruz Urias-Beltran was found in the field on July 12 . A search had begun the evening before when he didn’t return from his detasseling work. He lived in San Luis, Arizona.

Temperatures in the area reached 94 degrees on July 11, but the heat index would have been in the triple digits.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Officials say that a giant Christmas tree going up at Omaha’s Durham Museum will be topped with two angels this year instead of one.

The angels will be placed in honor of 10-year-old Taylor and 12-year-old Jordyn Podraza, who died with their father in a 2010 crash on Nebraska Highway 2 near the Custer County town of Ansley.

The 50-foot-tall (15 meters) blue spruce was donated by the girls’ mother, Kelly Incontro, and her husband, Jay. The tree grew from a seedling planted in northern Omaha in the early 1970s.

The museum has scheduled the traditional tree lighting for 7 p.m. on Nov. 23.

Troopers with the Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) have arrested three people following a pursuit overnight in York County.

At approximately 12:00 a.m. Sunday, a trooper observed a 2005 Lincoln LS driving with its trunk open and displaying fictitious license plates. The trooper performed a traffic stop on Highway 81 near the I-80 interchange. During the traffic stop, the vehicle then fled southbound on Highway 81, driving south in the northbound lanes with speeds reaching 100 miles per hour.

Multiple troopers pursued the suspect vehicle as it entered McCool Junction. During the pursuit, the suspect vehicle struck one of the NSP cruisers on the driver’s side, causing minor injuries to the trooper. The vehicle then started traveling north in the southbound lanes. Another trooper then performed a tactical vehicle intervention to bring the suspect vehicle to a stop on Highway 81 between McCool Junction and I-80. The three occupants were then taken into custody.

The driver, Dylan Pritchard, 26, of Holstein, was arrested for felony flight to avoid arrest, assaulting an officer using a motor vehicle, resisting arrest, willful reckless driving, fictitious license plates, and several traffic violations. 

Troopers also found methamphetamine in the vehicle. Pritchard and passengers Kathie Zimmer, 35, of Fullerton, and Steven Kissel, 26, of Ashland, were all arrested for possession of methamphetamine. Pritchard was transported to the hospital for minor injuries and was released. All three were lodged in York County Jail.

The trooper who was injured was also treated and released from the hospital.

RED OAK, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a 69-year-old woman and her two sons were flown to a Nebraska hospital for treatment after a fight broke out at their home in western Iowa.

Police officers were sent to the Red Oak home around 5:15 p.m. Sunday.

Assistant Police Chief Derrick Walker says the Viola Rinehart’s younger son, Luke Rinehart, intervened when she and her elder son, Kain Rinehart, got into an argument. Walker says Kain grabbed a kitchen knife and attacked his mother and his brother, so she armed herself with a hammer while her younger son, Luke, also got a knife.

Each of them suffered several wounds and were flown to Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

Police say Kain Rinehart is being charged with two counts of attempted murder. Online court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for him.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The city of Omaha and its fire and police departments are teaming up with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program to help make the holiday season memorable for less-fortunate children.

The program gives to children in Omaha and neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa, Lincoln and the Hastings and Grand Island areas.

Most Omaha fire stations and police precincts will be accepting public donations of new, unwrapped toys through Dec. 1. Two Men and a Truck will be picking up the donations from all locations beginning Dec. 3.

A map of all toy drop-off locations can be found online.

Donated toys should be for children between birth and mid-teens. The charity cannot to accept realistic looking weapons or gifts with food.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Omaha Public Schools district has curtailed special education services for some private school children who live outside the district, a move that’s led to criticism from parents.

The Omaha district this school year reduced the type of special education services available to nonresident private school students, the Omaha World-Herald reported. The district will now only provide occupational and physical therapy to nonresident students.

The move comes after the district was forced to cut nearly $30 million from its budget earlier this year.

Private schools don’t fall under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, receive special education funding or are required to provide special education services. But public school districts must spend a portion of federal special education funding toward students who attend private schools, which applies to both those living within and outside of the district.

District officials said they were previously providing services beyond what’s required by law.

OPS spokeswoman Monique Farmer said the district needs to be efficient with its spending.

Quinn Fitzpatrick, a first-grader at St. Margaret Mary Catholic School, is among the students affected by the decision. Quinn has trouble hearing so-called “soft sounds” and the Omaha district had helped pay for his speech therapist and microphone system to amplify his teacher’s voice.

Quinn and his family live within the Westside district’s boundaries, but his school is within Omaha’s district.

Quinn’s parents found out just days before school started in August that the district wouldn’t cover his speech therapy services any longer.

“It was definitely a punch in the gut,” said Quinn’s mother, Brooke Fitzpatrick.

The Fitzpatricks said the timing of the notice gave parents and schools little time to figure out alternative arrangements.

“If they had, we could have made plans to move or otherwise deal with the change before it was right upon us,” said Quinn’s father, Jeremy Fitzpatrick. “We weren’t given that chance.”

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An Omaha man has been sentenced to two life sentences for the 2015 shooting deaths of two people.

The Omaha World-Herald reports that 28-year-old Preston Pope was sentenced Friday in Douglas County District Court for the deaths of DePrecia Neelon and Garion Johnson. He also received 160 years for other counts in the crime. He is not eligible for parole.

Neelon was found Aug. 6, 2015, after police and firefighters were called to a house on fire in northeast Omaha. The 23-year-old Neelon was pronounced dead at the scene. Police determined she had been shot to death when she went onto the home’s back stoop to put out the flames.

Police say Johnson was shot to death three days later in his car when he was ambushed by Pope and Short.

Short faces trial in January.