LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts is set to travel the state as part of a National Ag Week tour.

Ricketts will visit Omaha, Broken Bow North Platte and Seward on Monday for various events.

The tour includes stops at commodity-processing facility in Omaha; a lunch with farmers, ranchers and agribusiness representatives in Broken Bow; his monthly call-in show in North Platte; and an agriculture banquet in Seward.

Ricketts will travel with Department of Agriculture Director Greg Ibach, Sen. Jerry Johnson, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, and Nebraska Farm Bureau President Steve Nelson.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The newly hired superintendent of the Nebraska State Patrol was at the center of a gender discrimination lawsuit against the agency in which a female trooper was awarded damages eight years ago.

On Thursday, Gov. Pete Ricketts announced that Bradley Rice will assume the helm of the patrol. Rice retired from the patrol as a commander in 2011.

Rice was a patrol captain in Norfolk in 2004 and served on a job interview panel that twice denied trooper Carla Schreiber a promotion.

Schrieber sued and won in 2007. She was awarded $70,000 in back wages and damages, plus an additional $172,000 in attorneys’ fees.

GERING, Neb. (AP) — A Scottsbluff man has been sentenced to a year jail for a misdemeanor sexual assault conviction involving a preschool-aged girl.

22-year-old Howard Red Bear Jr. was convicted after pleading no contest to sexual assault without consent in the third degree. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors reduced the felony third-degree sexual assault Red Bear had faced.

According to an arrest affidavit, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services received a child abuse report involving a 4-year-old girl in October 2014.

The girl told authorities that Red Bear had touched her inappropriately.

Red Bear will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from jail.

CHAPPELL, Neb. (AP) — Repair work on Nebraska Highway 27 in the southern Panhandle is expected to slow traffic in the area.

The work is scheduled to begin Monday. The Nebraska Roads Department says work will include repairs on the highway bridge over Interstate 80 and on a bridge about a mile south of the interstate.

There will be lane closures and width restrictions. The work is expected to be finished sometime this summer.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Republican U.S. Senator Deb Fischer will chair a field hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in Lincoln.

The hearing 10:00 a.m. Saturday will focus on the impact on Nebraska of a proposed federal Environmental Protection Agency rule regarding navigable waters.

The EPA says the rule will clarify which streams and waterways are shielded from development under the Clean Water Act. Opponents worry it will let the federal government dictate what people can do with their own land and strip away state authority.

Fischer has led a number of efforts in the Senate to enhance public input on the rule, has repeatedly urged EPA officials to scrap the rule and has co-sponsored legislation to withdraw it.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska State Patrol troopers will put in more hours on state roads this St. Patrick’s Day to be on the lookout for drunken drivers.

The patrol says it received a more than $5,000 grant from the Nebraska Office of Highway Safety to pay for the enhanced enforcement.

The effort will run for all of Tuesday.

Those wanting to report suspected impaired drivers may call 911 or the Nebraska State Patrol Highway Helpline at (asterisk)55 from any cellular phone or 1-800-525-5555 from any landline.

LEWELLEN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission is no longer considering Ash Hollow State Historical Park in western Nebraska as a site for an all-terrain vehicle park.

The decision came after the commission met with Garden County leaders and listened to the concerns of the public.

The commission is still interested in developing an ATV park, possibly in the Lake McConaughy region, as well as other parts of the state. It will continue to seek public input while other sites are considered.

The commission applied for and received grant funding for an ATV park at Ash Hollow through the Recreational Trails Program, but those grant program funds can be applied to other projects.