(AP) — Country Singer Billy Currington is being sued by a Georgia tour boat captain who pressed criminal charges against him last year.

Currington was sentenced to five years’ probation in September after pleading no contest to a charge of abuse of an elderly person. Prosecutors say he chased and threatened 70-year-old Charles Harvey Ferrelle after his boat passed Currington’s home on Tybee Island.

The Savannah Morning News (http://bit.ly/1mCgYCN) reports that Ferrelle filed a lawsuit Tuesday saying Currington mocked and libeled him on a fan website two days before his plea. The newspaper reports that in the lawsuit, Currington is accused of writing that Ferrelle “ran like a scared rabbit” and hallucinated.

Currington’s criminal attorney, Alex Zipperer, tells The Associated Press that he’s not involved in the lawsuit. A spokeswoman for Currington’s record label did not immediately return messages.

(AP) — A lawsuit against the state says officials should not have released from prison the eventual killer of an Omaha woman and three other people.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday on behalf of the estate of Andrea Kruger. A state prison spokeswoman declined to comment.

The 33-year-old Kruger was pulled from her car on Aug. 21 in northwest Omaha and shot four times by Nikko Jenkins. On April 16 the 27-year-old Jenkins pleaded guilty to killing Kruger and three other people in three separate ambushes after his July 30 release from prison.

The lawsuit says state prison officials “showed no common sense” in releasing Jenkins and thus placed Kruger at “great risk of harm” because the state knew Jenkins intended to kill people at random after his release.

(AP) — A 35-year-old man has been given three life terms the shooting deaths of an Omaha man and his two sons nearly two years ago.

Douglas County Court records say Anthony Davis was sentenced on Tuesday in Omaha. On March 7 Davis was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder for the slayings of 44-year-old Miguel Avalos and his sons, 18-year-old Miguel Avalos Jr. and 16-year-old Jose Avalos. They were slain on July 9, 2012.

An accomplice, Timothy Britt, of Omaha, also has been convicted. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on May 29.

Witnesses have testified that the men went to the Avalos home to steal drugs and money.

Online court records list an Omaha address for Davis but also show an Iowa driver’s license number.

(AP) — Budget cuts to cover a $4.65 million shortfall have been imposed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Chancellor Harvey Perlman told university workers in an email that the cuts were made effective Tuesday.

Trimming a point off a planned 3 percent increase to UNL’s salary pool next year will save $3.2 million. Other cuts include eliminating nonfaculty positions.

University officials have said factors contributing to the deficit include a $2.2 million shortfall carried over from the previous fiscal year, $800,000 from a systemwide budget reallocation and $570,000 in new building maintenance and operation costs.

Perlman also has said that UNL’s enrollment figures, which were flat this spring, did not alleviate the budget shortfall as planned.

(AP) — Organizers of this year’s Cattlemen’s Ball say there are still a few tickets left for the event.

The ball is scheduled for June 6-7 at the Hoot Owl Ranch near the Banner County community of Harrisburg in the Nebraska Panhandle.

The theme for the event is “Corral a Cure for Cancer.”

The Cattlemen’s Ball of Nebraska has been held yearly since 1998 at a different ranch. Ninety percent of the proceeds go toward cancer research at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The remainder goes to regional medical organizations.

Tickets are on sale at http://cattlemensball.com/ .

(AP) — A lawsuit filed after the drowning of an 11-year-old boy who was fishing in Lake Wanahoo has been settled for $300,000.

The lawsuit was approved March 26 in Saunders County Court.

The parents of Bayden Jacob Martinez-Rush filed the suit after he died June 12, 2012, while fishing alone at a dam spillway near Wahoo. His leg apparently became caught in a concrete pipe because of the water’s force and suction.

Under the settlement, the Lower Platte North Natural Resources District is responsible for $200,000 and Olsson Associates, the engineering firm that designed the dam and spillway, is responsible for $100,000.

The money will be divided between Bayden’s parents, Danelle June Rush and Raul Ernesto Martinez. Rush’s share will go to Bayden’s three siblings.

(AP) — After a mammoth tornado wiped out most of Greensburg, Kansas, in 2007, supporters of clean energy seized on an unusual opportunity to rebuild a town from the ground up with the latest green technology.

They came up with a sustainable-power dreamscape: wind turbines to power hundreds of homes, futuristic buildings with environmentally friendly features and a gleaming new school that runs on less than half the water of its flattened predecessor.

But the reimagining of Greensburg has failed to provide what it needs most: people. The storm sent half the town packing, accelerating an exodus from rural Kansas that had been underway for decades.

Those who stayed now acknowledge that the reborn town is serving a population of only about 800 and is still looking for answers.

(AP) — A Florida-based company says it’s buying Three Eagles Communications and its 48 stations in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and South Dakota.

Digity Cos. made the announcement on Monday. Terms are not being disclosed and the purchase requires approval from federal regulators.

Three Eagles is based in Lincoln. Digity is based in West Palm Beach, Florida, and owns, operates or has under contract 113 stations around the country.

(AP) — Firefighters have found marijuana growing in the basement of a south Omaha house where they battled a blaze after a water heater exploded.

Firetrucks were sent to the home around 2:15 p.m. Monday. Two men reported that after the water heater blew up, flames spread throughout the basement and up to the main floor. The men were taken to an Omaha hospital for treatment of their burns.

Investigators later removed nearly three dozen marijuana plants from the basement, as well as some psychedelic mushrooms and grow lamps.

Police Sgt. Mark Noonan says the injured men are suspected of growing the marijuana in the basement space they were renting. Charges are pending.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — An elderly Missouri woman on trial in Wyoming says she shot her husband in the mid-1970s to protect her toddler daughter.

Seventy-five-year-old Alice Uden, of Chadwick, Missouri, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Ronald Holtz.

Uden testified Tuesday she shot the 25-year-old at their home in Cheyenne. She says Holtz drove a taxi at night and became enraged when Uden’s 2-year-old daughter cried while he was trying to sleep.

She says Holtz stormed into the girl’s room, and she shot him next to the crib.

Prosecutors say Uden shot her husband as he slept.

Police arrested her and 71-year-old Gerald Uden in September. Gerald Uden has pleaded guilty to murdering his ex-wife and her two children in central Wyoming in 1980.

Prosecutors haven’t linked the cases.