Matt Olberding

3 days ago | nebraskapublicmedia.org | Matt Olberding

A man struggling with mental illness killed his entire family and then himself over the weekend, according to the Nebraska State Patrol. The State Patrol said in a news release that the Dawson County Sheriff’s Office was sent to a residence at Johnson Lake in a rural part of the county about 9:45 a.m. Saturday morning and found four people dead inside the home.

1 week ago | nebraskapublicmedia.org | Matt Olberding

The three men killed in a plane crash last month near Fremont were taking a quick sightseeing flight along the Platte River when they hit power lines, federal officials said in a preliminary report released this week. According to the report from the National Transportation Safety Board, 43-year-old Jeff Williams and his wife had arrived safely at the Fremont Municipal Airport around 8 p.m. on April 18 after flying from Moundridge, Kansas.

1 week ago | nebraskapublicmedia.org | Matt Olberding

Nebraska farm income is projected to set a record this year, likely boosted by government aid. The Spring 2025 Nebraska Farm Income Outlook, a collaboration between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Missouri, forecasts the state’s farmers will make $9.42 billion in 2025. That would be a 55% increase over 2024 and would break the record of $9.27 billion set in 2023.

1 week ago | nebraskapublicmedia.org | Matt Olberding

The cancellation of a federal grant means Nebraska school districts will have to find other ways to fund school-based mental health services. The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday canceled approximately $1 billion in federal grants that were part of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The bill, passed after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 students and two teachers, was intended to help schools deal with an intensifying mental health crisis among students.

2 weeks ago | nebraskapublicmedia.org | Matt Olberding

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen extended a burn ban on Tuesday for the western three-fourths of the state. Last week, Pillen issued a statewide ban after a prescribed burn in Brown County in the north-central part of the state got out of control and burned more than 7,000 acres. The new ban covers an area that runs south along U.S. Highway 81 from the South Dakota border to Nebraska Highway 92. The line then goes west to U.S. Highway 281 and runs south to the Kansas border.