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A U.S. Senate candidate travels the state, unveiling his ideas to improve health care.
Nebraska's ethanol production will increase with a new plant planned near Aurora.
And Grand Island Police continue to investigate a fatal double shooting.
And that is our top story tonight on News 5 at 6.
Good evening.
I'm Lauren Maloney.
Rob Osmond has the night off.
Grand Island Police tonight are investigating what they call an attempted murder-suicide.
A 31-year-old woman was shot in the face in the 1700 block of Houston Street late Saturday
night.
News 5's Scott Dabrowski is in the newsroom now with what details on what led to the double
shooting in G.I.
Scott?
Well, Lauren, police say the couple was fighting when the man grabbed a 9-millimeter handgun,
shot his girlfriend in the face, and then took his own life.
This is my parents' bedroom right here.
I mean, it's amazing we didn't hear anything.
Danielle Sauter, still in shock.
The scene of an attempted murder 20 feet from her doorstep.
I've never even heard of something that extreme in Grand Island, let alone right next door
to my own house.
Police say Pedro Rodriguez shot his girlfriend Raquel Rivera in the face.
It's just horrible to think that someone would do something like that.
It happened after the couple was fighting in the basement apartment of this house late
Saturday night.
I just still can't believe it, you know, not to happen in this town.
Police are investigating the case as an attempted murder-suicide.
It's pretty rare.
Moments after shooting his girlfriend, police say Rodriguez shot and killed himself.
I mean, it's not a public safety at large type of a crime.
It's so oftentimes, as we see, a lot of them are domestic related.
There is some sort of connection that way.
The couple above the basement apparently heard the gunshots.
Ms. Rivera had been assisted upstairs by the people upstairs and was being cared for there.
No one answered the door though, while we were there.
Meantime neighbors say no one on the block really knew the couple.
There's been a couple different, seems like families that have been in and out of that
house in the past couple years, so it's been hard to keep track.
Well an autopsy is underway tonight.
Police don't know when they'll get the results back.
Rivera is now listed in critical but stable condition in an Omaha hospital.
Meantime, both of them worked at Swift and Company in Grand Island and tonight the investigation
is ongoing.
Okay, Scott, thank you very much tonight.
Well a rainy and chilly start to our work week and it's going to get a bit colder before
we see any relief.
John Walsh has our first forecast.
John?
And we are seeing some scattered showers again firing up, particularly to the north and west
of the Tri-Cities.
We will have a chance of seeing a little bit of rain late, well not late tonight, during
the evening hours and another slight chance late tonight.
The big story though is going to be the cooler air that's spreading in here over the next
24 hours.
We could be staring at some frost tomorrow night.
With the cloud cover in place, it will not get quite that cold tonight.
40, the midnight temperature, 38 for the evening low.
Again scattered showers, maybe an isolated thunderstorm this evening.
We'll have more details upcoming just a little bit.
Lauren?
Thank you, John.
The Aurora Co-op and an Illinois company announced plans today to build the 220 million gallon
ethanol plant in West Aurora.
News 5's Adam Freeman was at the future site today.
He joins us now with details.
Adam?
Lauren, the total cost of this project is around 300 million dollars.
In addition to the ethanol plant, Aurora Co-op will be adding new facilities which they say
will give them capabilities unlike anyone else.
When the entire project is finished, it will help the producers of Aurora and the surrounding
area as well as bring in new jobs for the community.
When you drive into Aurora, the sign reads Promise, Progress, Productivity, which is
exactly what they're hoping this new development will provide.
We're always looking for quality jobs in Hamilton County and ethanol is proven to be a source
of that kind of job.
It's proven to be a good source because Aurora is already home to a 50 million gallon ethanol
plant, which is right next to where this new plant will be built.
I think it's a perfect fit for our economy.
Aurora Co-op will also be adding new state of the art grain, fertilizer and seed warehouse
facilities.
There is no other facility in North America that can do what this facility will do and
that's pretty exciting that we can get something like that developed right here in central
Nebraska.
The railroad will also play a big role.
A double loop railroad system will go around the entire new facility, making it easier
to receive or ship out grains.
All in an attempt to bring more value to the grains that our producers produce.
In total, the development will provide 50 new jobs and will show the progress, productivity
and promise they're looking for in Aurora.
Makes perfect sense in Hamilton County where we produce so much corn and now with the ability
to bring in corn from other areas, I think it's a good fit.
The new grain and fertilizer part of the project should be done by the fall of 2007.
The Aurora Co-op says they're not sure when construction will begin on the ethanol plant,
mainly because there's still some paperwork and details needing to be worked out.
Lauren helped have the entire plant up and running by sometime in 2009.
Good signs of growth then in Aurora.
It is, especially with gas prices being what they are and more ethanol is a good thing.
Very well.
Yes, thank you Adam.
The U.S. Senate candidate who wants to be viewed as the candidate of ideas unveils his
new health care plan.
David Kramer is traveling around the state today unveiling his plan for better health
care, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security reform.
Among his ideas, Kramer wants to transition from an employer provided health care to an
individually purchased system of health insurance.
He also wants to make sure anyone can see any doctor they want.
We have to empower the consumer and let the market work its magic by encouraging transparency
in pricing, giving consumers the option and the ability to go out and to choose who their
health care provider is going to be and encourage us to be responsible about how we spend our
money.
And you can read more about David Kramer and his ideas at KramerForSenate.com.
The man vying to be the next representative for Nebraska's third district goes on a learning
adventure.
Congressional candidate Jay Vavrchik toured the Meat and Animal Research Center and Clay
Center.
He called it a learning opportunity, a way to get up to speed with a federally funded
facility.
All at a time where exporting American beef is a top issue across the board.
While our food safety is undefined around the world, we need to be sure we are on the
cutting edge of that technology so we can be supportive of the livestock industry to
make sure our consumers have the type of food that they expect and as we get into exporting
this, of course it has ramifications that are huge in trade.
Vavrchik got to look at how the center brings together both federal and local resources.
The candidates who want Jay Vavrchik's job will take part in a forum tonight.
The leadership tomorrow will host a candidate forum.
It will be at the College Park Hornady Marshall Auditorium at 7 p.m.
The candidates include Margaret Hornady, Tim O'Neill and Jackie Peelstick.
The amount of Nebraska women in the workforce is above the national average.
Nebraska ranks third highest in the nation with 67 percent of women working outside the
home.
But still, most of those working women are not getting paid the same as men.
Nebraska women earn 71 percent of what men earn, which is 6 percent below the national
average.
There's no difference of whether you're a man or you're going to get paid more because
they're doing the same job.
So I guess I do feel like if women are doing the exact same job, they should be paid the
same.
There are 4,000 single mothers earning minimum wage in Nebraska.
News 5's Corinne Hatala will have more on this wage battle tonight at 10.
And there's still much more to come tonight at 6.
John Walsh will have a look at our start of the work week forecast.
And later, Kearney middle schoolers try out some fancy footwork, Spanish style.
But up first, a local artist helps students think outside the box when it comes to art
class.
News 5 at 6 will be right back.
Our dad, Jay Vavrchek, is a conservative businessman and mayor.
My mom and I are teachers, and Joe's headed to med school at Nebraska.
Dad taught us to work hard and have faith in the future.
He wants opportunities for all of us.
And when you look at what dad's done as mayor, balancing the budget, cutting taxes, and creating
new jobs, you know in Congress he'll help Nebraska families enjoy a brighter future.
I'm Jay Vavrchek, and I definitely approve this message.
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The Grand Island artist will go into the classroom this week to help youngsters get Beyond crayons
and markers.
Artist and former president of the Grand Island Sketch Club, Stephanie Hanson, was at Dodge
Elementary today.
Today she helped kindergartners learn about watercolor techniques.
She'll help all students this week work with primary colors, and they'll hopefully walk
away understanding abstract art.
Her favorite part of this week will be...
Oh, just the kids.
They're great.
They're so eager and so willing.
I mean, who doesn't love painting and getting messy?
Hanson will present school-wide assemblies to kindergarten through fifth graders all
this week at Dodge.
It was all made possible with a grant from the Nebraska Arts Council.
And John is here now with another look at a chilly forecast.
Indeed it is.
Tonight we'll drop into the 30s, but we'll be in the low 30s for tomorrow night.
Still some rain to talk about, which we'll do right after the break.
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Good evening everyone.
Sometimes you can get a little bit of everything in late spring in Nebraska and we're seeing
that not only tonight but will again tomorrow night.
We'll talk about our forecast first however.
Upper 30s expected for tonight.
Some scattered showers out there with cloudy skies and the clouds will hang around until
about tomorrow night.
Mid 40s will be the best we'll be able to do tomorrow afternoon and all the way down
into the low 30s for tomorrow night.
So if you have those plants out there we could see some patchy frost.
Not looking for a hard freeze here in the Tri-Cities or surrounding areas.
Now out to the west.
Yeah, they could be dropping into the 20s.
As we take a look at our radar right now off to the west of us notice the scattered shower
activity that's taking place from Franklin County up through Phelps, Holdridge areas,
Kearney and extending northward.
And that's where the biggest shield of precipitation is well to the north of us.
That's kind of been ongoing all day today.
Also just to the west of Lexington some shower activity out there.
Not so much across Grand Island and Hastings but a few specs may pop up here and there
before the evening is out.
As we take a look at the big picture, upper level energy coming on to the central plains
states this out here has been snow.
Been snowing for much of the day out in sections of the panhandle.
Portions of the Black Hills as a matter of fact earlier today they already saw their
share of snow so far in the past couple of weeks and that snow has continued to increase
over much of northern Nebraska.
Around the Broken Bow area they could see one to two inches maybe three to five in north
central Nebraska.
We're not looking for snow here but we are looking for some cooler temperatures as this
cold core of high pressure begins to settle southward now over the next couple of days.
Winds right now of a northerly direction.
They're a bit brisk anywhere from oh 15 to nearly 25 miles an hour.
It's going to stay breezy and look at the cold temperatures out to the west of us already
in the 20s out in Alliance.
31 in Valentine, 37 in Ord and Kearney has dropped below 40 degrees as well.
Then you look out here toward Hebron, 61, 68 in Beatrice.
There's a cold front coming through here and it is drastically changing our temperatures.
Highs today did manage to make it into the 60s, upper 50s across the Tri-Cities and here
is that look at that upper level energy and that's pulling down some of that cold air
and if you want to look at what we're looking at in terms of freezing temperatures I'll
get on the other side here and the average last freeze that we typically see is usually
in the last week of April at least for the Tri-Cities there you see the dates there.
But we have recorded freezes as late as May 14th in Hastings, May 15th Grand Island and
as late as May 28th in Kearney so it is not out of the realm of possibility and that's
from records going back about 35 years.
Well we take a look, energy to the south will continue to push to the south and east and
as that does so we will still have the chance for scattered showers tonight into the early
morning hours but here comes that high pressure.
Frost and freezes likely to occur tomorrow night and that high will sink to the south
of us and we will gradually start to warm up as that does so.
As far as tonight, upper 30s for overnight lows tonight with a continued chance for rain
showers, isolated thunderstorm and then a slight chance late tonight.
Scattered rain shower not out of the question tomorrow morning as well.
Forty-six for the afternoon high remaining cloudy but the clouds will disperse tomorrow
night and our temperatures will drop as the winds lighten up around 32 for the overnight
low.
We'll do better though as we climb back into the 60s on Wednesday and then the 70s for
Thursday and Friday and for the rest of the week it looks like it is going to just be
some beautiful spring temperatures.
Well that's good and at least we had a great weekend so today wasn't too bad to deal with.
We needed the rain and saw a little bit of it around Miller.
They picked up about 8200s last night.
That was about the most we could find.
Exactly.
Thank you so much, John.
Coming up, what it's like to learn a second language from experts in the field of dance.
We're going salsa dancing next when News 5 at 6 continues.
Nebraskans are already paying the eighth highest tax burden in the nation.
And now state spending is going up more than 14% over the next two years.
More than 400 million dollars.
We need tax relief but first we have to control runaway state spending.
Tom Osborne has a solid practical plan to do just that.
Creating public private partnerships to make government more efficient.
Long term tax relief starts with controlling state spending.
Tom Osborne knows that.
As governor he can get the job done.
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More and more people are telling me they're concerned about illegal immigration.
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A lot of people say that my voting record in the unicameral makes me a conservative.
I am for protecting rights of the unborn, lowering taxes, and fighting waste in government.
I'm proud to be a conservative.
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Middle school students in Kearney took their language class to a whole new level today
with a lesson in salsa dancing.
Eighth graders at Sunrise Middle School put aside the Spanish textbooks for a little dance.
Two international students from UNK, originally from Columbia, helped illustrate the Spanish
dance.
The students had a chance to get some first hand learning from the Colombian natives.
You know salsa has that myth behind that it's a sexy dance and that it encourages people
to be shy.
I think that in Americans, through Americans, it's a big interest in salsa.
William Barrera is a computer engineering major at UNK.
He's learning a lot about English in his past eight months in Nebraska.
And Ed Littler is here now with the check of sports, an Ed and Nebraska football player
leaving the team.
Yeah, not uncommon for teams to lose players like this, especially players that project
that they won't play much in the future.
Leon Jackson is the guy that is leaving Nebraska.
Of course a running back, a transferring, he was a five star recruit from the state
of Washington.
But the Hastings Bronco basketball team is having players.
Hastings Bronco basketball coach Lance Greech believes he's on his way to getting the program
to the top of the league.
He signed three players today and the coach believes they'll help him do that.
The story is straight ahead right here on News 5 at 6.
When Governor Dave Heineman cut millions of dollars in spending, it saved taxpayers money.
He's controlling state spending and delivering tax relief, income and sales tax cuts and
property tax relief.
I respect the fact that taxes come out of your family's pockets.
That's why I work so hard for tax relief.
Our Governor Dave Heineman, hard work results Nebraska common sense.
I'm Bill Marshall and it's clear to me that the most important thing we do at Five Points
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Five Points Bank is the business bank for more companies than any other bank in central
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Throughout the 24 years of Jackson's Car Corner history, some very exciting things have happened.
And here's another.
I think young Clark Kent just went into our phone booth.
I wonder if, yep, they're Superman, but he kinda looks like Braden.
Maybe he's here to remind everybody the super deals, super staff and the super experience
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Also the super specials on a few remaining hail cars and a great variety for you to choose
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Hastings Bronco basketball coach Lance Kreitz believes there is no reason his squad cannot
once again be one of the top teams each season in the G-PAC and play deep into the postseason.
Many agree with him.
The coach has been on the recruiting trail and assigned Jeremiah Slough from Donovan
Trumbull, Drew Emkin from the Carney Bearcats and Brent McNerlin of Papio South.
All are outside shooters whom the coach feels will be able to give the Broncos instant offense
anytime they want it.
And certainly guys that he feels will step in and score plenty of points in the future
for the Broncos.
On the perimeter we lost five seniors this year and three of those were kind of that
small forward to a shooting guard spot.
So obviously that was a big need for us to fill.
Drew helped the Carney Bearcats to the Class A state semifinals with his clutch outside
shooting averaging 14 a game.
Jeremiah did it all for Donovan Trumbull averaging 24 points and nine rebounds.
A contest so these two guys really can get it done from the outside.
I had a bunch of G-PAC schools that I was looking at and a couple of community colleges
and you know Hastings worked with me better than any other schools and it's local.
It's always been something I wanted to do is play college ball and further my skills
there I know.
I concentrated on one sport.
Mitch Free he went to my high school last year he came here.
I kind of followed in his footsteps I was comfortable with the program I was comfortable
with the school just comfortable being here.
Competitors want to play with good people and good players so when you get the likes
of Bobby Kempf and Turner Scholl and Michael Edson Miller and some of the good good local
talent that we have the last few years kids want to be a part of that and I think they
see what can happen if everybody can be on the same page.
This season the Broncos were 15 and 16 overall and 6 and 12 in the G-PAC a huge improvement
from the 2004-05 season the Broncos opened the 2006-07 season on Tuesday November 1st
visiting the York College Panthers.
Each year the NFL draft is watched with interest by many Nebraska fans wondering which Huskers
will be drafted and which teams they will go to.
Though in recent years the NFL talent coming from Nebraska hasn't been as coveted by teams
there are still plenty of Husker players the pros will look at.
It's time for the big red blitz.
One of those players is eye back Cory Ross the Huskers leading Russia the past two seasons.
Cory will not likely be picked in the first two or three rounds but he'll definitely get
a shot somewhere though he has no idea where he'll go.
I had about I'd say four or five workouts but you know you get a lot more calls than
that so it's just you know a waiting game now we got teams that say they really like
you but probably won't end up going to you know so you never know who you're going to
go with that's part of the draft.
When the NFL looks for a player like Cory who by the way was at an all-star basketball
game in Aurora last week those hidden gems are guys they'd love to find and Cory feels
that he'll be a selling point to whatever team might take him he can do other things
as well.
I can also play special teams you know I can catch front returns kick returns and you know
they probably don't see that because I didn't do it in the last two years but you know some
of the guys some of the coaches they come out and they see me catch catch balls catch
returns they see that I can do that also.
Cory said he feels teammate and safety Daniel Bullocks will get drafted Saturday and will
like his twin brother Josh be an excellent pro prospect defensive lineman Stephen Smith
also looks to be taken by some team in the NFL draft we'll see on Saturday.
After the Husker baseball team lost to Texas Friday night and trailed 4-0 Saturday it looked
like it would be a bleak weekend in Austin.
Nebraska rallied to defeat Texas Saturday 7-5 and shut out the Longhorns 6-0 yesterday.
GI Johnny Dorn extended his scoreless string to 19 straight innings pitching 7 yesterday
against the Longhorns.
Jake Mort was the hero with the bat driving in four for the fourth ranked Huskers who
are now percentage points ahead of Texas for first place in those big 12 standings though
with 12 more conference games to go so there's a lot of excitement but plenty of season to
go for Nebraska.
Fans can't get too excited there you see baseball America's top five Nebraska still fourth behind
Cal State Fullerton Rice and North Carolina with Oregon State fifth Texas and that poll
drops to seventh place and of course Nebraska plays Wichita State tomorrow night then welcomes
in Texas Tech for a three game series so great season so far for Nebraska but still too early
to get too excited 12 league games left and Nebraska really wants that top eight national
seed when the bids come out next month that's what they're shooting for.
Of course okay thanks so much Ed and we'll be right back stick around.
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Some people get away to relax for most of us this is only a brief escape from the hectic
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Coming up tonight on News 5 at 10 Nebraska ranks third in the nation for the highest
percentage of women in the workplace but they get paid far less.
Grand Island's candidates for mayor go head to head tonight debating who'd be the best
leader for GI.
And a government report cites concerns the Food and Drug Administration isn't doing
enough to monitor the dangers of drugs that have already been approved and are on the
market.
All those stories and much more tonight at 10.
And to keep up with the latest local, state, national and world news be sure to log on
to our website at KHASTV.com.
And John the Chill is definitely coming this way.
Yes it is and a few rain showers as well as we take a look at the radar right now.
Some areas of rain developing off to the west of us running through Buffalo County, Kearney
County northward.
And maybe we can get a few more scattered showers in here this evening adding to these
rainfall totals today.
Hastings picked up a little more than a tenth heavier amounts in Grand Island.
Kearney picked up about a quarter of an inch today.
There you see the surplus in departure from averages since January 1st.
So scattered showers tonight, some snow to the north of us tonight as that cold air is
really racing in here.
By tomorrow night we could see some frost or freezing temperatures.
Excuse me.
Frost?
It's crazy in April.
Yeah, well it can happen though.
That's the news at St. Ted.
Good night.