LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A former spokeswoman for Gov. Dave Heineman says she was illegally fired from a Nebraska state agency last year just before she was to go on maternity leave.

Jen Rae Wang says in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday that her $90,000-a-year communications and planning job was eliminated about a month after a new director starting working at the Department of Natural Resources.

Wang alleges in the lawsuit that Director Jeff Fassett treated her differently than non-pregnant employees. She says she submitted maternity leave paperwork on Sept. 11, and was told later that day that her job was being eliminated. According to the lawsuit, Fassett refused her request for a lower-paying job that was open.

The Department of Natural Resources did not immediately respond to a phone message.

Lincoln County authorities say they have recovered the body of a 19-year-old man from a sand pit near North Platte.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office says members of the Lincoln County Dive team recovered the body of Samson Charles at around 6:01 p.m., on Thursday.

Charles had been missing since Monday when the kayak he was maneuvering down the North Platte River was forced into a Western Engineering sand pit through a breach in a dike separating the pit from the river.  Charles went into the water and did not resurface.

Lincoln County Sheriff Jerome Kramer announced yesterday that the search had been suspended and that all efforts had been exhausted for the time being.  Divers and Game and Parks officials encountered a large amount of debris in the pit due to the river flowing through it. The sheriff’s office didn’t say what prompted searchers to return to the site of the accident.

Chief Deputy Roland Kramer says the body was positively identified and the cause of death has been ruled an accidental drowning.  Drugs and alcohol were not a factor in the case, according to Kramer.

The LCSO, in a statement on their Facebook page, thanked Western Engineering, the Lincoln County Dive Team and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission for their efforts in the search and recovery.  They also thanked the American Red Cross for their support during the investigation.

Charles was a basketball star from Tanzania and was a member of the North Platte Community College men’s basketball team.

Hundreds of Facebook posts have been made in remembrance of Charles and the amazing impact he had on fellow students, community members and members of his church.

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https://www.northplattepost.com/2016/07/12/victim-in-kayak-accident-identified-as-npcc-basketball-player/

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Governors from other states will hear about Nebraska’s state reemployment program later this week.

Gov. Pete Ricketts says he plans to discuss the program when he attends the National Governors Association’s summer meeting in Des Moines, Iowa. Ricketts plans to visit Friday and Saturday.

Nebraska’s re-employment program requires job seekers who receive unemployment benefits to enroll in a personalized “re-employment plan” through the state Department of Labor, unless the layoff is temporary.

Department employees work one-on-one with unemployed people to identify goals and connect them with other services that could help them land a new job. Job seekers also have to post a resume on the state’s employment services system, which employers can search.

Ricketts says he also expects to hear discussion about the nation’s opioid epidemic.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A federal appeals panel has vacated a 2014 ruling by a federal judge that could have made it easier for petition-drive organizers to place statewide initiatives on the Nebraska ballot.

In a split decision, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found Thursday that Kent Bernbeck did not have standing to challenge a state constitutional requirement that forces petition circulators to travel outside of large urban areas for signatures.

To qualify for the ballot, petition circulators must visit at least 38 of Nebraska’s 93 counties and collect signatures from at least 5 percent of the registered voters in each.

Bernbeck had argued that the requirement effectively makes rural votes more valuable than urban votes. Nearly half of the state’s population lives in five eastern Nebraska counties.