(AP) — University of Nebraska-Lincoln will have to cut about 1 percent of its budget next year to offset a $4.65 million shortfall.

Chancellor Harvey Perlman met Monday with deans, program directors, faculty representatives and other campus groups to discuss strategies for balancing the budget for the 2014-15 fiscal year.

UNL spokesman Steve Smith says factors contributing to the deficit include a $2.2 million shortfall carried over from the previous fiscal year and $570,000 in new building maintenance and operation costs. Perlman said in an email to university staff last week that UNL’s enrollment figures, which were flat this spring, did not alleviate the budget shortfall as planned.

(AP) — A 33-year-old Columbus man is accused of taking his 18-month-old son along for a drug deal in Colfax County.

Brian Blattner is charged with attempted possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and negligent child abuse without serious injury.

An arrest affidavit says Blattner had agreed to sell methamphetamine to a person who turned out to be a police informant on Sunday. The deal was to be done at a convenience store parking lot in Schuyler.

Schuyler Police Chief Leonard Hiltner says in the affidavit that officers found the little boy in a car seat in Blattner’s van. Hiltner says the boy was “absolutely filthy.”

Jail records say Blattner remained in custody on Thursday. Court records don’t list the name of his attorney.

(AP) — Given the ever-growing use of debit and credit cards for even casual purchases, some crime pays less than it used to in Lincoln.

Lincoln Public Safety Director Tom Casady said that crooks last year got about a quarter as much cash as they got a decade ago when robbing Lincoln retailers.

Casady, the city’s former police chief, says that because customers are whipping out cards instead of cash so often, businesses don’t have as much money on hand nowadays.

He says “cash has gone the way of cursive.”

(AP) — A Columbus man convicted of stealing gasoline from multiple cars last year has been given probation.

23-year-old Jeffrey Halvorsen was recently sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay nearly $30,000 in restitution to theft victims. He has spent more than 300 days in jail.

Halvorsen pleaded guilty in September to four felony charges of criminal mischief in connection with a three-month crime binge beginning in January 2013.

Prosecutors say Halvorsen drilled holes into cars’ gasoline tanks and drained the liquid into a bucket. He then allegedly used the gasoline for his personal vehicle.

Halvorsen was arrested in March, following a fire tied to one of the vehicles.

(AP) — The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska is establishing a new appellate court to hear cases in its 15-county service area.

The tribe will welcome three new judges at a swearing-in ceremony on Feb. 27. Chief Justice Mary Jo Hunter and judges Eldena Bear Don’t Walk and Richard McGee will take their oath at 9 a.m. at the Fred LeRoy Health and Wellness Center in Omaha.

The judges were selected by the Ponca Tribal Council. The tribe has previously relied on the Northern Plains Intertribal Court of Appeals for appeals from the Ponca Tribal Court.

The tribe’s service area includes Boyd, Burt, Douglas, Hall, Holt, Knox, Lancaster, Madison, Platte, Sarpy, Stanton and Wayne counties in Nebraska; Pottawattamie and Woodbury counties in Iowa; and Charles Mix County in South Dakota.

(AP) — The former executive director of the Lincoln YWCA has been sent to prison for stealing thousands of dollars while working there.

Online court records say 42-year-old Denise Serrett on Tuesday was given four to five years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of more than $27,800. She’d pleaded no contest to felony theft.

Serrett, who also is known as Denise Scholl-Serrett, had resigned in February last year, just days before she was sentenced to probation for stealing from a former employer.

YWCA officials audited the nonprofit’s books for December 2011 through February 2013 after learning that Serrett had stolen thousands of dollars from Omaha-based property management company DEI Communities, where she had been vice president of human resources.

Serrett has since moved to Brookings, S.D.

(AP) — A bipartisan group of Nebraska lawmakers is calling for reform of the nation’s immigration laws, including a pathway to legal status for people who entered the country illegally.

Sen. John Wightman of Lexington has introduced a measure intended to pressure Nebraska’s congressional delegation into supporting an immigration bill in the U.S. House. Supporters were to present the measure Wednesday to the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Jeremy Nordquist of Omaha says the federal action would fix a state-by-state patchwork of immigration policies, while boosting the state economy.

The measure is sponsored by seven Democrats and seven Republicans in the Legislature. It’s also backed by Nebraska retail, restaurant and ranching groups.

(AP) — Nebraska still has no means to carry out an execution because state officials have not replaced their supply of one of three drugs needed for lethal injection.

The state’s batch of sodium thiopental expired last year, and prison officials said Tuesday that they haven’t yet restored it. Sodium thiopental renders inmate unconscious.

The Swiss company that made the drug says it was sold to Nebraska without authorization after being stolen by a broker in India. Nebraska’s execution protocol specifically mentions the drug, which is no longer produced domestically.

The drug was discussed during Nebraska Supreme Court oral arguments for former cult leader Michael W. Ryan. Ryan was sentenced to death in 1985 after being convicted of first-degree murder of one of his followers.

(AP) — Authorities are investigating the death of a man whose body was found near train tracks in south Lincoln.

The Lincoln Police Department says a train crew with Burlington Northern Santa Fe found the man at about 7:50 a.m. Wednesday.

Lincoln Police spokeswoman Katie Flood says investigators believe the man was hit by a train, but they’re not sure which one. They’re also trying to determine his identity and when he may have died.

Additional information has not been released.

(AP) — An Omaha man has been ordered to pay restitution and penalties in connection to a lawsuit over an alleged Ponzi scheme that bilked more than 100 people out of more than $4 million.

The U.S. District Court in Omaha recently ruled that Michael Kratville was liable for operating the scheme and must pay $524,000 in restitution and $1.17 million in civil penalties as part of a lawsuit filed in 2011 by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The commission claimed Kratville and two other men lost $3 million in participants’ funds and misappropriated more than $1.5 million in investments. The men were indicted last year and face federal criminal charges related to the case.