(AP) — Nebraska lawmakers have voted to override Gov. Dave Heineman’s vetoes of state budget items, including funding for courtyard fountains and a new heating system at the Capitol.

The 37-11 vote on Tuesday comes days after Heineman announced that he had trimmed $65 million from the Legislature’s budget package. Heineman singled out the fountains as a less important priority than state-funded property tax relief.

Supporters of the override motion argued that the fountains are the last major, unfinished design feature of the Capitol. The fountain project was halted because of the Depression.

Construction is now expected to end just before Nebraska celebrates its 150th anniversary as a state.

Opponents say the project should sit near the very bottom of Nebraska’s priority list.

Thirty votes were needed for a successful override.

(AP) — A man accused of beheading a Topeka resident with a guitar string has pleaded not guilty to premeditated first-degree murder.

Police say 29-year-old James Paul Harris practiced voodoo and kept the head of 49-year-old James Gerety to talk to after the March or April 2011 killing.

Gerety’s partial remains were found a year later in Carbondale, 18 miles south of Topeka.

Harris’ former girlfriend testified in March that he told her he used a guitar string to sever Gerety’s head. She said he disposed of the body but kept the head. A Topeka police officer said the ex-girlfriend told him Harris practiced voodoo and that he liked to talk to the head.

A judge on Monday set Harris’ trial for June 23.

(AP) — Nebraska’s longest-serving lawmaker delivered an April Fool’s shocker to his colleagues when he announced that he was resigning.

Sen. Ernie Chambers looked somber Tuesday as he took the microphone during legislative floor debate. The Omaha senator told his fellow lawmakers that he had decided to step down, and he planned to submit his resignation to the governor and the speaker.

Lawmakers fell silent as the 76-year-old spoke. Chambers then grinned and said, “April Fools,” and the room erupted with laughter.

Chambers says the joke was intended to lighten the mood during a heated budget debate.

Chambers was first elected to the Legislature in 1970 and held office until January 2009, when he briefly was forced out by term limits. He was re-elected to another four-year term in 2012.

(AP) — “The Role of Water and Food Security in Early Childhood Survival and Development: A Global Perspective” is the title of an upcoming Heuermann (HYU’-ur-man) Lecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

This lecture is a panel presentation with Dr. Chris Elias, president of the Global Development Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Dr. Joan Lombardi, former deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and Dr. Nurper Ulkuer, former head of the Early Childhood Development Unit and senior adviser for early childhood development at UNICEF.

The lecture is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. on April 22 in the Great Plains Room of the Nebraska East Union on university’s East Campus.

(AP) — A monthly economic index for nine Midwestern and Plains states has risen slightly, suggesting economic growth over the next three to six months.

A report issued late Monday says the overall Mid-America Business Conditions Index inched up to 58.2 in March from 57.4 in February.

Looking six months ahead, the business confidence portion of the overall index declined to a still strong 59.0 from 59.7 in February.

The survey results from supply managers are compiled into a collection of indexes ranging from zero to 100. Survey organizers say any score above 50 suggests growth, while a score below that suggests decline.

The survey covers Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

(AP) — A 36-year-old Lincoln man has been given 46 months in federal prison for selling a gun to a convicted felon.

Prosecutors say Ashley Gerbig was sentenced on Monday in U.S. District Court in Lincoln. He’d pleaded guilty to one count in October after prosecutors promised to seek dismissal of five more counts.

Court documents say agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched Gerbig’s home on March 19 last year and found 678 firearms, including assault weapons, in addition to 13 hand grenades, some mortar rounds and other ammunition.

The documents say a convicted felon working as an informant bought several guns from Gerbig, even though the informant told Gerbig about being a felon.

State and federal laws bar convicted felons from owning or buying weapons.

(AP) — A dog that was shot as it charged a Lincoln man is expected to survive.

Lincoln police Capt. Michon Morrow (mih-SHAWN’ MOR’-roh) said the incident occurred Monday evening in the Capitol Beach neighborhood.

Morrow says the Labrador-pit bull mix jumped its owner’s fence into a neighbor’s backyard. It barked and growled as it tried to get through a dog door into the neighbor’s home. A man inside the house got the dog away from the dog door but ended up cornered in the yard. Morrow says the man fired a handgun at the charging dog when it was three feet away, hitting it in the head.

No citations have been issued.

(AP) — Authorities have released the names of a man who was killed and another who was injured in a Lincoln accident that may have involved the racing of their motorcycles.

Lincoln police identified the dead man as 24-year-old Petro “Peter” Denysyuk. The injured man was identified as 26-year-old Sergey Kapliyev.

Police say the accident occurred about 4 p.m. Sunday on the west side of Lincoln. Police Capt. Danny Reitan says the two men lost control of their motorcycles as they drove north on Folsom Bypass. Denysyuk’s motorcycle crashed into a stream. His body was found there. Kapliyev landed in a grassy area nearby. He’s been listed in fair condition at a Lincoln hospital.

Police spokeswoman Katie Flood says the two men may have been racing.

(AP) — The discrimination lawsuit of a former York firefighter and paramedic who was fired after breaking her foot will be heard by a jury.

Lisa Peter sued in 2012, accusing the city of discriminating against her because she’s a woman and because of her disability. She had surgery for a broken foot in 2010 for an injury that was not work-related.

Peter says she asked for light duty work until she could heal, but city officials refused, even though they had done so for an ill male firefighter. Peter was fired within months of her injury.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge John Gerrard rejected the city of York’s motion for summary judgment, saying a jury should decide whether Peter could have returned to work before running out of leave time.

(AP) — A 3-year-old boy has died in an Omaha hospital after being accidentally run over by his uncle at a trailer park in Hastings.

Taylor Wilson, of Nebraska Medical Center, on Tuesday confirmed the death of Aldo Ramirez-Lopez but declined to say when the boy died.

Hastings police say Aldo was struck Saturday evening as his uncle, 21-year-old Miguel Lopez, was parking a Ford Expedition at Smitty’s Trailer Park. Police say Lopez didn’t see the boy approaching from between several parked vehicles.