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State spending will increase 7.3 percent over the next 15 months under the $6.15 billion budget passed today by the Legislature.

The Nebraska Legislature gave first-round approval Monday to a sweeping bill aimed at strengthening Nebraska's sex offender law, including allowing authorities to commit some offenders after their prison time is served.

Sidney once was a wicked little town. Born at the end of the tracks just weeks after Nebraska statehood in 1867, it took less than a decade for the frontier outpost to stumble into years of bloody and violent lawlessness. But townspeople took a stand in March and April 1881. To set an example, they rounded up a notorious outlaw and hanged him. They posted notices around town that "all murderers, thieves, pimps and slick-fingered gentlemen . . . must go." The Sidney City Council tonight commemorates the 125th anniversary of this little-known episode with a proclamation celebrating the community's "Independence and Judgment Day."

A Saunders County woman accused of suffocating her 17-month-old daughter wants to keep certain evidence from being used in her trial. Defense attorney Tom Klein wants to keep a videotaped police interview involving Jodi Yager, 23, from being seen. Klein also wants to suppress recent tape-recorded phone calls between Yager and her husband. Yager has remained in custody since November 2004.