BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — This week’s celebration of a new quarter celebrating the Homestead Act will feature large wooden replicas of the coin made by a Beatrice company.

Ratigan Schottler Manufacturing made two sets of the wooden coins for Tuesday’s celebration at the Homestead National Monument.

The company usually makes church pews and courtroom furniture.

Sales manager Mark Miller says the company agreed to make the replicas after parks officials requested them.

Miller says he did wonder if the company could get in trouble for making a copy of U.S. currency. But park superintendent Mark Engler told them the wooden quarters were too big to be a problem.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — City leaders plan to vote on a proposed trail that would downtown Council Bluffs to Omaha, Nebraska, across the Missouri River.

The Council Bluffs City Council is scheduled to vote Monday on the plans and funding sources for the second phase of the Mid-City Trail, which is part of the West Broadway Corridor development project.

The western portion of the trail would hook up with the current River’s Edge Park/Iowa Riverfront Trail that allows trail users to go back and forth between Omaha and Council Bluffs on the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge.

NEBRASKA CITY, Neb. (AP) — Three derailed train cars caused a 350-ton coal spill and halted traffic at three intersections in eastern Nebraska.

Omaha Public Power District spokesman Mike Jones says no one was injured in the derailment that occurred Thursday morning just north of Nebraska City. He says the train was shipping coal to the company’s plant located south of the city.

Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis says crews wrapped up track repairs and coal cleanup early Friday morning. He says the train was able to transport the remainder of the coal and the spilled coal would be shipped by truck.

Davis says he doesn’t know what cause the 135-car train carrying coal from Wyoming to the plant to derail.

 

DENVER (AP) — Colorado lawmakers rejected a proposal to let terminally ill patients choose when they die with the help of doctor-prescribed medications.

Lawmakers on a House committee Friday voted against the proposal 8-5 after about 10 hours of testimony.

The legislation would have required dying patients to get two doctors to sign off on their verbal and written requests to end their lives. The patients would have also needed to be found to be mentally competent, and able to administer the life-ending medication themselves.

Some doctors and religious organizations opposed the measure, saying it facilitated suicide and ended a patient’s hope of a possible recovery. But supporters argued terminally ill patients should have the option to choose when to die.

Five states allow patients to seek aid in dying.

WESTMINSTER, Colo. (AP) — Friends and family are planning to gather for the funeral of a 17-year-old girl shot to death by Denver police.

A funeral Mass for Jessica Hernandez will be held Saturday at a church north of Denver, near where she grew up.

Police say Hernandez was shot Jan. 26 after she drove a stolen car toward an officer in a residential alley in Denver. However, a teen passenger in the car says Hernandez lost control of the vehicle because she had already been shot and was unconscious. The shooting is still under investigation.

The shooting sparked protests and came amid a national debate about police use of force fueled by racially charged episodes in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City. Hernandez’s family and others have called for an outside prosecutor to investigate what happened.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Many Nebraska communities rely on volunteers to provide emergency care on ambulances.

That’s true in Cass County, but officials there recently decided to hire two paramedics to supplement the volunteers especially on daytime calls.

The program is a partnership with the University of Nebraska Medical Center that state officials say might serve as a model for other counties.

Dr. Eric Ernst says getting quality care is crucial when a person is having a health crisis.

The new program that started Jan. 1 assigns one paramedic and one emergency medical technician to ambulance calls during the day when volunteers are usually working.

The county budgeted $356,000 to get the program started and pay for salaries and equipment.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has found no fault with a lower court’s dismissal of an Omaha man’s appeal of his first-degree murder convictions without an evidentiary hearing.

Terry Sellers was convicted in 2007 and sentenced to two life sentences for the 2005 murders of Kevin Pierce and Victor Ford.

The high court upheld Sellers’ convictions on direct appeal in 2010. Sellers then sought post-conviction relief, which is typically filed once all other appeals are exhausted. Inmates often claim in the motions that their lawyers were ineffective.

That was Sellers’ claim, and he says a Douglas County District Court judge should have held a hearing on his claims.

But on Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court disagreed, saying there was no merit to Sellers’ claims.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A judge has ordered an Omaha couple accused of kidnapping and torturing a woman last month to stand trial.

A Douglas County judge ruled Friday that there is enough evidence to try 25-year-old Shavontae Green and 33-year-old Ronald F. Ford Jr.

Police say Green and Ford kidnapped a woman on Jan. 15 and took her home, where they sexually assaulted and tortured her.

Green has been charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment, sexual assault, tampering with physical evidence and assault. Ford faces the same charges, as well as use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony and an additional count of sexual assault.

Online court records do not list an attorney for Green. An attorney for Ford could not be located.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — Florida authorities have decided not to come to Nebraska now to retrieve a woman wanted on a Florida warrant alleging felony theft.

Nebraska authorities have charged 56-year-old Cynthia Anderson with animal neglect, accusing her of drowning a puppy in a Grand Island airport bathroom. She’s free on bond awaiting Nebraska action, now that she’s not being held for Florida authorities.

Hall County Attorney Jack Zitterkopf said when Florida officials learned they would have to come to Nebraska for Anderson, they decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

A spokesman for Florida’s 7th Judicial Circuit, Spencer Hathaway, said Friday that the Florida case will remain pending and a decision about any effort to return Anderson to Florida will be reviewed after the Nebraska case is completed.

DAKOTA CITY, Neb. (AP) — A 23-year-old Iowa man has been given life in prison for killing a northeast Nebraska woman.

Raymond Gonzales Jr. had been convicted of first-degree murder and a weapons crime. He was sentenced on Thursday in Dakota County District Court.

Police say Gonzales shot 28-year-old Bonnie Baker 16 times in her South Sioux City home on Dec. 15, 2013. His attorney, Todd Lancaster, of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy, says he will appeal the verdict. Lancaster had argued during the trial that police focused only on evidence that pointed toward Gonzales.