(AP) — Nebraska lawmakers have advanced a bill to ban new forms of popular synthetic drugs, including K2 and bath salts.

The bill won first-round approval on Tuesday with a 33-0 vote. The bill by Sen. Ken Schilz of Ogallala was introduced this year as part of Attorney General Jon Bruning’s annual legislative package.

Nebraska’s current ban on K2 was enacted in 2011 and updated last year, but overseas chemists have kept adjusting the drug’s formula to skirt the ban. K2 mimics the effects of marijuana.

Lancaster County authorities say the drug was responsible for the October death of 18-year-old Billy Tucker after a weekend party in Lincoln. Tucker died while sleeping at a friend’s house in nearby Waverly.

(AP) — The bishop of the Lincoln Catholic Diocese has issued a letter reminding the diocese’s nearly 98,000 members that the church stance has not changed over the millennia: The use of contraceptives is forbidden.

Bishop James Conley said he chose to issue the letter during Lent because of its theme of love and sacrifice being the language of love.

Conley told the newspaper that “we really live in a wounded world when it comes to the family.”

In his letter issued Tuesday, Conley says marriage was created “to be unifying and procreative” and that the church “has always taught that rejecting the gift of children erodes the love between husband and wife.”

(AP) — Grand Island leaders haven’t given up on retaining the state veterans home instead of seeing the state build a replacement in Kearney.

Grand Island Mayor Jay Vavricek said Grand Island leaders are fleshing out their counterproposal to the plan approved by Gov. Dave Heineman. The state plan already has been sent to federal officials in Washington, where it awaits funding.

Grand Island officials say the counterproposal would cost an estimated $80 million to update and expand the local facility, compared with the $121 million needed to build new in Kearney.

An early version of the counterproposal was directly sent to the Veterans Affairs Department in Washington, but VA officials have since said the decision about where to build rests with state officials.

(AP) — Two Nebraska sisters have been supporting each other as they dieted and exercised their way to a combined weight loss of 270 pounds.

Forty-nine-year-old Kathy Ladehoff, of Columbus, is overjoyed by her loss of 160 pounds over the past year. She said that she’s finally living, “not just existing.”

Ladehoff’s 44-year-old sister, Wendy Konz, of Genoa, weighed 335 pounds at one point. She’s lost 110 pounds and has dropped from a size 26 down to size 16.

To drop the weight, they exercised, changed their diets and eating habits and took a weight loss supplement.

Their mutual goal is to reach 150 pounds.

(AP) — A former Nebraska woman has been given two years of probation for lying about ground beef sold to Omaha Public Schools in 2011.

Kelly Rosberg was sentenced on Monday for making false representations that tubes of ground beef sold to the district had been federally inspected when they had not.

She and her husband, Paul, ran Nebraska’s Finest Meats in Randolph. Its operations since have been suspended, and, in 2012, a grand jury indicted the couple. They have separated, and Kelly Rosberg moved to Tennessee.

In December Paul Rosberg was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $8,450.