OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Police in Omaha say a 10-year-old boy has drowned in a backyard swimming pool.

Police say officers were called to the east Omaha home around 12:30 p.m. Thursday for a boy pulled from a pool.

Officers first on the scene found 10-year-old William Chapman unresponsive, with family members performing CPR.

The boy was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb. (AP) — Officials in northeastern Nebraska’s South Sioux City say a proposed five-megawatt natural gas power plant could be operating as early as the end of 2018.

The project would be the latest of several recent moves by the city to diversify its public energy portfolio and keep electricity rates low.

The city plans to place the single-story, 50-by-80-foot structure in the Roth Industrial Park. City Administrator Lance Hedquist says once completed, the plant would use natural gas purchased from MidAmerican Energy or Northern Natural Gas pipelines to generate electricity.

The City Council will vote Monday on two items related to the project: an agreement for soil testing at the proposed site and an ad for bids on the proposed $5 million natural gas plant.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A 20-year-old woman accused of starting a fire in an Omaha college bathroom has been found not responsible by reason of insanity.

Sarah Piccolo had pleaded not guilty to a felony arson charge, accused of setting the Nov. 5 fire at Metropolitan Community College’s Elkhorn campus. After a nonjury trial Tuesday, Judge J. Russell Derr declared Piccolo was not responsible for the blaze and also a danger to herself and others because of mental illness. He ordered her to be evaluated at the state psychiatric hospital in Lincoln.

Piccolo is on five years’ probation because of a Lancaster County conviction. Authorities say she used a hunting knife and a claw hammer to attack a 17-year-old girl at Lincoln Pius X High School in October 2013. The girl was hospitalized.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — State health and environment officials have issued health alerts for toxic blue-green algae at Iron Horse Trail Lake in Pawnee County and Pawnee Lake in Lancaster County.

Officials say in a news release Friday that the alerts were issued following tests of the lake water.

Skin exposed to the toxin from certain strains of blue-green algae can develop rashes and blisters. Someone who drinks water containing the toxin is at risk for headaches, nausea and muscular pain.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The parents of a young woman strangled by her boyfriend and dumped in an open cemetery grave will be allowed to pursue their lawsuit against an Omaha mental treatment facility where the boyfriend was being held.

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Friday that the lawsuit Melissa Rodriguez’s parents filed against Lasting Hope Recovery Center of Catholic Health Initiatives should not have been dismissed.

Mikael Loyd is serving a 30- to 35-year prison sentence for the August 2013 death of the 19-year-old Rodriguez. Loyd was initially found not mentally competent to stand trial.

Loyd was being held at Lasting Hope at the police’s request in the days before Rodriguez was killed. The lawsuit blames the center for failing to call police after Loyd walked away from the center and killed Rodriguez.

MONROE, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a 36-year-old driver died after his car struck a bridge railing and rolled in Platte County.

The crash occurred around 2 p.m. Wednesday, about a half mile (1 kilometer) north of Monroe. The Platte County Sheriff’s Office says the car drifted off the roadway into the railing.

The driver was pronounced dead at the scene. The Sheriff’s Office identified him as Robert Clifford, who lived in Cedar Rapids.

The crash is being investigated.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Lincoln man has taken a plea deal in the slaying of his roommate.

Online court records say 45-year-old Trenton Reiner pleaded no contest Tuesday to second-degree murder after prosecutors lowered the charge. His sentencing is scheduled for July 17.

Police say Reiner killed 35-year-old Robert Leazer sometime after May 7 last year in the mobile home they shared. An autopsy showed Leazer died of blunt force trauma to the head.

Police were called to the Contempo Lincoln Mobile Home Park on May 26 to check on reports that Reiner was breaking the windows of his car. Officers found Leazer’s decomposing body inside the home.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Police say an Omaha man was injured after hopping on a van for joyride, then jumping off onto a busy street.

The 30-year-old man jumped on the back of the delivery van Wednesday afternoon while it was stopped for a red light in northeast Omaha.

Police say he stayed on the back of the van for about three blocks before he decided it was going too fast and jumped off. Officers say he suffered a gash on the back of his head, a cut to his left elbow and extensive road rash on his back. He was taken to a hospital for treatment and released.

The man told police he had been smoking methamphetamine before he went for the joyride.