GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — Hall County officials have what other county officials might say is a happy problem: what to do with excess revenue.

Spend the $695,000 on maintenance and other needs? Cut the tax levy?

The questions arose this year because the county has an estimated $432 million in new property valuation on the books.

Supervisor Gary Quandt said at the board meeting Wednesday that if the county can cut the levy a little, “I’d like to head in that direction.”

The supervisors decided to wait until their Aug. 25 budget meeting to determine whether to cut the levy.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Lincoln funeral has been scheduled for a 30-year-old Army soldier who died in Afghanistan.

The Defense Department says Staff Sgt. Benjamin Prange died July 24 after the vehicle he was riding in hit an explosive device.

His funeral is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Friday at Southwood Lutheran Church. Interment with full military honors will follow at Lincoln Memorial Park Cemetery.

Prange grew up near Roca and Hickman and attended Norris High School. He is survived by his wife, Liz Prange, and their two sons. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Collins, Colorado.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska authorities say a 46-year-old engineer stabbed to death at his daughter’s birthday party was killed by his father-in-law.

Seventy-seven-year-old Bayapa Lingala was charged Wednesday with second degree murder and use of a weapon to commit a felony. Lincoln Police say they arrived at an area residence Tuesday night and found 46-year-old Sujay Nooka with a 1.5-inch stab wound to his upper chest. He was taken to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Authorities say they found Lingala in the basement with an 8-inch knife covered in blood.

A police spokeswoman says investigators are trying to determine what prompted the stabbing.

It’s unclear whether Lingala has an attorney. The case isn’t listed yet in online court records.

 

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An Omaha-based public power utility paid out nearly $1 million in severance and vacation benefits to seven employees who resigned from its Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in eastern Nebraska — well over the $400,000 the utility initially reported.

The payouts came when Omaha Public Power District hired Chicago-based Exelon, the largest U.S. operator of nuclear power plants, in 2012 to run the troubled Fort Calhoun plant.

A Douglas County judge this week ordered OPPD to release the payout documents after a labor union sued to see them.

The documents show that former OPPD Chief Nuclear Officer David Bannister was paid nearly $256,000 in severance and more than $100,000 for unused vacation.

Several other employees who agreed to resign were paid nearly $600,000 in severance and unused vacation.

PILGER, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska families affected by June tornados have received help in the form of box springs, mattress and appliances.

Members of the Norfolk Church of Christ coordinated the application for and delivery of 90 items to 49 families in Pilger. Donations were provided by Nashville-based Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Effort.

The Norfolk church also set up a relief center stocked with $90,000 in supplies within two days after the storm. The relief center handed out hundreds of meal, infant care and personal hygiene kits. It also gave away clothing, linens, household items and cleaning supplies.

DIXON, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a 60-year-old man has died after being buried in a grain bin in northeast Nebraska.

Dixon County Sheriff Dean Chase says his office received a call Tuesday afternoon about the incident in rural Dixon.

Authorities say Timothy Hansen, of Laurel, was breaking corn loose in the bin when the grain broke loose and covered him. Chase says several people tried to free Hansen.

Hansen was dead by the time authorities recovered him.

ASHLAND, Neb. (AP) — One person has been injured in a train crash near Ashland.

A Burlington Northern Sante Fe spokesperson said a maintenance vehicle on the tracks collided with the train Tuesday afternoon. The train was traveling from Ashland to Lincoln. A maintenance crew was working on the tracks at the time of the crash.

The spokesperson described the injury as “very minor.”

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a man has been arrested in the fatal stabbing of a relative at a family birthday party in Lincoln.

Police spokeswoman Katie Flood says officers were dispatched to a southwest Lincoln home a little after 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. A wounded man found there was rushed to a local hospital. Flood says the man died at the hospital about 3 a.m. Wednesday.

Flood says a suspect was arrested at the scene of the party and jailed on suspicion of second-degree murder. She says officers also found a knife they think was used in the slaying.

Flood didn’t release the names of those involved or explain whether they are related.

ASHLAND, Neb. (AP) — Construction has begun on the final phase of a Platte River levee project near Ashland in eastern Nebraska.

In 1993 a massive ice jam forced floodwaters through Lincoln’s well fields near Ashland, exposing and damaging pipelines, closing Interstate 80 and U.S. Highway 6 and damaging homes and buildings along the river.

After the flooding, federal and local officials devised a plan to fix the levee system on both sides of the river. The project began in 2004 and has been completed in phases as federal and local funds became available.

Once complete, the levee project will protect homes and buildings, farmland, drinking water pipelines for Lincoln and Omaha, and the Nebraska Army National Guard’s training grounds at Camp Ashland.