(AP) — A 3-year-old police dog in eastern Nebraska has been awarded a protective vest.

Tar, a Dutch shepherd working for the La Vista Police Department, was recently given the vest by a Massachusetts nonprofit organization called Vested Interest in K9s.

The vest costs about $1,000 and will provide bullet and stab proof protection for the dog.

Tar is one of two dogs working for the police department. The other dog, Leda, was outfitted with a protective vest several years ago through a different community partner.

(AP) — A Beatrice man has been fatally injured in a collision with a pickup.

Beatrice Fire and Rescue Capt. Jeff Vanwinkle said the accident occurred a little after 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Beatrice police say Richard Dreese was headed east when his motorcycle collided with the northbound pickup at the intersection of Commerce and U.S. Highway 77. Sgt. Jay Murphy says Dreese was flown to a Lincoln hospital, where he died.

The pickup driver was identified as Marvin Kelle. He wasn’t injured.

The accident is being investigated.

(AP) — The lawyer for former state Sen. Brenda Council says she’s agreed to plead guilty to a federal wire fraud charge.

The charge stems from Council’s spending some money from campaign donations to gamble at casinos.

Attorney Vince Powers said Council agreed to plead guilty after prosecutors said they’d ask a U.S. district judge to sentence Council to probation.

Council pleaded guilty last year to two state misdemeanor counts of filing false campaign finance reports. State prosecutors say the reports concealed her misuse of more than $63,000 in campaign donations at casinos. She was fined $500.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jan Sharp says Council is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 12.

(AP) — Older people may one day be able to sharpen some mental skills by playing a specially designed video game.

For a new study, volunteers 60 and older played the game for a total of 12 hours over a month. They showed gains in their ability to multitask, stay focused on a boring activity and remember things briefly — like a phone number before writing it down.

The game involves steering a car on a winding road while watching for particular signs to appear.

The study of 16 volunteers in California was reported Wednesday by the journal Nature. Experts said it will take bigger studies to see whether playing the game can make a difference in how well a person functions in daily life.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha’s police chief says the person responsible for killing four people in three separate shootings last month is “an indiscriminate killer.”

Chief Todd Schmaderer said during a news conference Wednesday that the killer crossed racial and gender lines — an occurrence police don’t often see.

Officials announced the arrest of 26-year-old Nikko Jenkins on Wednesday in the killings. Those include 33-year-old Andrea Kruger on Aug. 21, 22-year-old Curtis Bradford on Aug. 19,29-year-old Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz and 26-year-old Juan Uribe-Pena on Aug. 11. All were shot in the head.

Jenkins is being held on $500,000 bond on separate threat and weapons charges.

He is scheduled to make his first court appearance on four first-degree murder counts and a slew of weapons charges Thursday afternoon.

(AP) — A 77-year-old man has died after being run over by a tractor on his farm in northeast Nebraska.

George Baumert, who lived near Howells, was fatally injured Tuesday morning.

Stanton County Sheriff Mike Unger says Baumert was working alone when the accident happened on his farm about four miles northeast of Clarkson.

A neighbor found Baumert shortly after the accident, and he was taken to a hospital in Schuyler where he died.

(AP) — Preliminary autopsy results confirm the Cleveland man convicted of holding three women captive at his home for about a decade hanged himself in prison.

Officials say 53-year-old Ariel Castro was found hanging in his cell around 9:20 p.m. Tuesday at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, in central Ohio. Prison medical staff performed CPR before Castro was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The Franklin County coroner says an autopsy done early Wednesday showed it was a suicide, and the cause of death was hanging. She said toxicology tests still would be completed in the coming weeks.

A prisons spokeswoman says Castro was in protective custody because of the notoriety of his case, meaning he was checked every 30 minutes. But he was not on suicide watch.

(AP) — Health professionals who specialize in ear, nose and throat issues are making themselves available for questions at Husker Harvest Days in Grand Island.

The University of Nebraska Medical Center will have its health experts at a booth on Sept. 12 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visitors can also register to win one of two iPad mini computers. The booth will be staffed by three physicians, a physician assistant and a nurse.

Dr. Dwight Jones, a university department chairman, says some of the most common ailments for rural residents are chronic sinus disease and late summer and fall allergies.

(AP) — Attendance dropped slightly this year at the Nebraska State Fair in Grand Island.

Officials say attendance was nearly 335,000 for the 11-day fair, which ended Monday. That’s a drop of 0.6 percent from the 2012 fair, which drew nearly 337,000 people.

Officials say the hot, humid weather was a possible reason for the decline.

The Nebraska State Fair has set a new single day attendance record since moving to Grand Island with a total of 71,355 fairgoers on Sunday, September 1, 2013.

“This single day attendance record surpassed our previous record of 67,929 on the same Sunday in 2011,” according to State Fair Executive Director Joseph McDermott.  “It was only 367 visitors short of the all time State Fair single day attendance record of 71,627 set in 2009—the final year the State Fair was in Lincoln.”

“The heat was certainly an issue for the first 9 days when temperatures were much higher than weeks previous to the start of the fair, McDermott said. “Happily, our total attendance came in at 334,931 which is just 2,056 visitors behind 2012.”  “The one thing we’re not able to control is the weather, but happily we rallied the final two days of the fair when even Labor Day attendance was 3,500 higher than the same day a year ago.”

Each year, the Nebraska State Fair contracts with EventCorp Services to conduct electronic surveys on the fairgrounds to learn what fairgoers are thinking day by day.

While the full electronic survey has not been tabulated, McDermott said, “We do know that 60% of our attendance came from Grand Island and Central Nebraska and 17% came from Lincoln and Omaha.  The Lincoln/Omaha numbers are up a percentage point over 2012.”

State Fair Board Chair, Jana Kruger from Arlington, Neb. said, “Given our tremendous survey results, we know we’re continuing to do the right thing year after year to keep folks coming back for more.” “93.4% of our survey respondents said they would enthusiastically recommend the Nebraska State Fair to others.  This goes to customer satisfaction, and we’re very pleased we’re able to provide a family friendly venue for all of our visitors.”

Kruger said, “We want to thank all our guests and we are hopeful that each of them will continue to visit and tell others what they may be missing, if they haven’t attended.  This is truly a family event, and we don’t spare anything to make it better each year.”

The dates for the 2014 Nebraska State Fair are August 22 through September 1.