OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say at least four people have been injured in a two-vehicle collision in Omaha involving an ambulance.

The Omaha Police Department says the crash in north Omaha happened Thursday afternoon after a vehicle collided with the ambulance. The ambulance was transporting a person to the hospital.

Police spokesman James Shade says three emergency personnel inside the ambulance were taken to the hospital in stable condition. The driver of the vehicle was also taken to the hospital in stable condition. It’s unclear if the patient being transported received additional injury in the crash.

Authorities have not released names or the extent of injuries.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A teenager has been killed in a single-vehicle crash in northeast Lincoln.

Lincoln police say 16-year-old Blake Burklund was driving late Wednesday night when his vehicle traveled beyond the intersection where the road ends at Highway 6.

Burklund’s car went off the road and hit an embankment before stopping near train tracks. He died at the scene.

Authorities are still investigating the circumstances of the crash. An autopsy has been ordered.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — University of Nebraska officials say they will work with students who have been affected by recent severe weather.

Several areas of the state have sustained significant damage in tornadoes and thunderstorms this year.

Financial aid officials at all four University of Nebraska campuses will waive some required documents if they can’t be found and they may be able recalculate a family’s income to reflect storm losses.

Nebraska students who qualify for federal Pell grants might qualify for free tuition in the Collegebound Nebraska program if they experienced significant storm losses.

Interim NU President James Linder says financial aid officers will work to minimize how much the severe weather affects students’ ability to attend college.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Lawyers for the Omaha Public Power District say employee severance deals worth upward of $700,000 are not public records.

The district’s attorneys argued in court on Wednesday that even if the deals with seven former employees were public records, they couldn’t be disclosed because they contain personal information beyond salary data.

The records dispute began with a public records request submitted to the publicly owned utility last fall by Mark Salerno, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1483. He sought details on the payouts. The district declined to say who was paid and why, so Salerno appealed to the courts.

The judge didn’t make a ruling Wednesday.

ELK CREEK, Neb. (AP) — A Canadian firm hoping to build a mine to collect a valuable and rare heat-resistant element from beneath southeast Nebraska says the first samples collected this year are encouraging.

NioCorp Developments said Thursday the initial analysis of 230 samples reinforces the company’s positive view of the niobium deposit near Elk Creek.

The drilling that Vancouver, Canada, based NioCorp is doing this summer is designed to gather more data on the niobium deposit, so the company can determine whether raising more than $300 million for a mine is feasible.

The U.S. currently imports nearly all the niobium that’s used in this country to harden steel and make it more heat-resistant for industrial uses.

NioCorp previously estimated that more than 100 million tons of niobium rests several hundred feet below the ground.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Authorities have released the name of a motorcyclist who plunged to his death from an overpass in Lincoln.

The accident occurred about 5 p.m. Tuesday when something caused the motorcyclist to hit a concrete barrier on Rosa Parks Way and fall from his bike to a parking lot below.

He was identified as 19-year-old Mark Wenzl, of Seward.

Investigators had thought another vehicle may have been involved but have ruled that out as a possible cause of the crash.

 

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A former doctor accused of killing four people with ties to an Omaha medical school will have a preliminary hearing Thursday on a separate charge of attempted burglary.

Prosecutors say forensic evidence links Anthony Garcia to an attempted break-in in May 2013 at the home of a Creighton University Medical School professor.

Garcia, of Terre Haute, Indiana, is also charged with first-degree murder for the 2008 deaths of the 11-year-old son of Creighton University pathologist William Hunter and the family’s housekeeper, as well as the May 2013 deaths of Creighton pathologist Roger Brumback and his wife.

Authorities say Garcia was motivated by revenge for being fired from Creighton’s pathology department in 2001. He has pleaded not guilty.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A 57-year-old Lincoln man has gone to court to keep from being sent back to prison because state officials had miscalculated his sentence.

Bruce Caton filed his action on Tuesday, asking a judge to reduce his sentence to 10 years.

He was released in October, having served 10 years of his sentence of 10 to 20 years. But he wasn’t put on parole, because officials thought he’d served his full sentence. Now officials say he should have served five more years before discharge.

Caton is among dozens of prisoners mistakenly released early. Prison officials didn’t correctly calculate sentences for at least 101 inmates.

State officials are discussing legal steps needed to retrieve the inmates.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha officers who were sent to a call about a break-in have found a fatally wounded man.

Police say the officers were dispatched about 11:40 p.m. Wednesday to a home in northeast Omaha. They found the wounded man inside the home. He died later at an Omaha hospital.

Police identified him as Timothy Marzettie, of Omaha. Other details about the shooting haven’t been released.

No arrests have been reported.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A project to digitize Nebraska homesteading case files has been completed after a decade of planning, preparation and execution.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln says the nearly 77,000 files contain more than 1.6 million digital images. The database can be searched and viewed for free at Homestead National Monument of America near Beatrice, UNL libraries, National Archives and Records Administration research centers nationwide and Family History Centers at several locations across the country.

The records are documents filed by homesteaders. They describe property improvements, including houses constructed, wells dug, crops planted, trees cleared and fences built. The case files also include records of military service and evidence of naturalization.

The records were used to ensure that those who claimed land through the Homestead Act of 1862 met the law’s requirements.