(AP) — The price tag for the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s new arena has gone up nearly $12 million, and officials are blaming rising construction costs and design revisions.

The cost of the arena being built at 67th and Center Streets has jumped to $87.9 million. It had been $76.3 million.

Erin Owen, director of university communications, says UNO intends to pay for the $11.6 million in additional costs with $4 million more in bonds, $4 million more in private donations and $3.6 million in university funds.

UNO planned to ask the University of Nebraska Board of Regents to approve the revised cost and a financing plan that asks permission to issue up to $73 million in bonds.

(AP) — A woman who bragged on Facebook about cashing counterfeit checks around Lincoln has been sentenced to up to 12 years in prison.

23-year-old Aloni Jones was sentenced Tuesday to six to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to two forgery counts. In exchange for her plea, two other forgery counts were dropped.

Police say Jones cashed at least four counterfeit income tax refund checks, each made out for nearly $7,300, in March.

An arrest affidavit says Jones posted a picture of herself on Facebook flashing $100 bills, along with comments indicating that she had fraudulently gotten the money.

(AP) — A federal judge says lawsuits by two men falsely accused of murder can proceed against southeast Nebraska law enforcement officials.

Matthew Livers and Nicholas Sampson sued Douglas County and Cass County law enforcement officials in 2008 and 2007, saying officials violated their constitutional rights.

The two men were initially charged in the 2006 shotgun slayings of Wayne and Sharmon Stock in their farmhouse in southeastern Nebraska. The men spent months in prison before being cleared of murder charges.

A Wisconsin pair was eventually convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

The Lincoln Journal Star reports (https://bit.ly/1eoTYSg) that U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Bataillon on Friday rejected a request by the defendants to dismiss the lawsuits. Trial in the case has been set to begin Oct. 21.

(AP) — The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office says a man believed to have helped commit one of four linked Omaha killings last month has been arrested.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s office says Warren J. Levering was arrested Wednesday on the Winnebago Indian Reservation in northeast Nebraska. Authorities had issued an arrest warrant for the 51-year-old Levering a day earlier.

Levering is accused of being an accessory to a felony in the Aug. 21 death of 33-year-old Andrea Kruger, who was shot and killed in an intersection northwest of Omaha as she was headed home from work.

Prosecutors have charged 26-year-old Nikko Jenkins, who is Levering’s nephew, with four counts of murder in connection with Kruger’s death and three other killings.

Levering is in the custody of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

(AP) — Union Pacific railroad is repairing flood-damaged tracks in Colorado, and working to protect its main line crossing Nebraska as the floodwaters flow east into the Plains.

Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis says flooding damaged about 20 miles of its line west over the mountains out of Denver and damaged another 19 miles of track between Denver and Cheyenne, Wyo.

Davis says the north-south track is expected to reopen Wednesday afternoon, but the line over the mountains will likely be closed for repairs until October 1.

UP is rerouting the 10 trains a day that normally use that line, and Amtrak is busing passengers over the mountains.

In Nebraska, UP raised seven miles of track near Ogallala 4 inches and piled rock along tracks between Julesburg, Colo., and Big Springs, Neb.

 

(AP) — A former Verdigre village clerk has been fined $6,000 by the Nebraska Accountability & Disclosure Commission for abusing her position as a public officer.

The Norfolk Daily News reports (https://bit.ly/1eoXkVk) that the commission found Alisha Bartling made a housing loan to herself and her husband. It also found she had made loans to her husband’s business and brother-in-law and failed to keep accurate records of the loans or enforced timely payments on them.

The commission voted unanimously Friday to impose the $6,000 fine. Bartling, who was named the 2011 Outstanding Clerk of the Year, agreed to the fine.

The commission’s finding and fine are separate from three criminal charges of theft that Bartling faces in Holt County.

(AP) — Thousands of people who don’t have flood insurance could face staggering costs to rebuild after last week’s devastating floods in Colorado.

And they may be dismayed to learn that aid from the government is limited, and focused primarily on getting them temporary help with renting a new place or paying for relatively minor repairs on their homes.

For residents who lack flood insurance to cover bigger, longer-term costs, their only option might be a low-interest government loan or community-based relief groups.

More than 7,200 homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed in Larimer and Boulder counties, the hardest-hit areas of Colorado. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency says fewer than 6,000 people in those two counties had flood insurance.

It’s unknown how many of the insured homes and businesses suffered flood damage.

Larimer County insurance agent Eric Weedin calls it heartbreaking.

(AP) — Sewer rates in Grand Island will likely soar for the next few years to pay for $73 million in improvements.

The City Council will likely approve 12 percent increases this year and next year, followed by a 6 percent raise in 2015 and 5 percent in 2016.

Councilman Mitch Nickerson says “the sticker shock on a project like this is alarming,” but it appears officials have little choice.

The improvements to the wastewater treatment plant and sewer collection system as well as billing process upgrades are long overdue.

Public Works Director John Collins says most of the sewer system is about 50 years old. Officials have postponed major maintenance projects for a decade and now, Collins says the system is in “theoretical structural failure.”

(AP) — The University of Nebraska Medical Center has been awarded a more than $11.2 million grant to continue and expand its nanotechnology research.

The grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences will be awarded over five years.

UNMC researcher Tatiana Bronich, director of the Nebraska Center for Nanomedicine, says the award will further and solidify the center’s efforts in the areas of drug delivery and nanomedicine.

Nanotechnology involves manipulating matter at the molecular level.