The construction project on Jeffers Street known as 1st-6th Street, North Platte is behind schedule.

Due to many factors, construction will not be completed this year. The project will continue into the 2016 construction season.

The northbound lanes, sidewalk, and associated work will be completed this 2015 construction season.

The southbound lanes will be reconstructed next year beginning in the spring. The Contractor will be required to provide any temporary surfacing to ensure Jeffers Street will be open to normal traffic at the end of this season for the winter. Construction projects are allotted “working days” which are charged each day Monday through Friday when weather allows.

Additional days may be granted when work is added to the project. Currently, the project has used approximately 70% of the working days and is 40% complete, based on monetary values. If a project over-runs the allotted working days, a monetary damage is assessed to the contractor for each day over-ran.

This project may be subject to monetary damage assessment depending on the 2016 construction progress. Please note that the work on the southbound lanes has fewer utilities to contend with and work should progress faster than the current northbound lanes.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — Nurse practitioners help fill the gaps left by a shortage of doctors in many places, and that is especially true in rural areas.

UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s hospital has gone from having no nurse practitioners seven years ago to employing 20 today in a variety of fields.

Priscilla Stokes says nurse practitioners are with babies in the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Luke’s around the clock, so they can respond quicker than the on-call doctor.

Especially in rural areas, doctors are in short supply and that is expected to get worse as more older physicians retire.

Nurse practitioners can help because 20 states, including Iowa and Nebraska, allow them to practice without a doctor’s oversight if they have a master’s degree or better.

HASTINGS, Neb. (AP) — Experts from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln try to help farmers prepare for the possibility prolonged dry weather and more severe storms without focusing on the climate change that might be causing them.

The experts offered farmers several strategies for dealing with climate extremes at last week’s Husker Harvest Days in rural Hall County.

The event highlighted ways to plan irrigation systems so they will be resilient and forage alternatives in beef systems. There was also education on the benefits of using cover crops to protect and enhance soil.

UNL Extension educator Tyler Williams says the university tries hard to keep politics out of the discussion while helping farmers cope with climate changes.