DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The latest farm real estate values are out and the U.S. Department of Agriculture says the average acre of farmland in Iowa rose 1.9 percent from a year ago to $8,000 an acre, returning to the same value posted in 2015.

Iowa is the only state in the five-state corn belt region which also includes Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Ohio to see an increase in value. The USDA’s farm real estate value includes all land and buildings on farms. The report was released Thursday.

Midwest farmland values fell or leveled off in many states from 2015 to 2016 but Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota also saw increases this year.

Nebraska saw a 1.7 percent decrease to $2,900 an acre.

The national average is up 2.3 percent to $3,080 an acre.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Gov. Pete Ricketts is set to reveal more details about an investigation that led him to fire the Nebraska State Patrol’s superintendent.

Ricketts and the state’s human resources director will unveil the findings at a news conference Thursday at 2:30 p.m.

Ricketts announced in June that he had fired Col. Brad Rice and sent the investigation’s initial findings to the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office. He declined to discuss in detail what was found.

Ricketts ordered the review after state patrol troopers were accused of changing their story about a high-speed chase that killed a South Dakota driver.

The patrol also faces a lawsuit alleging that that female recruits were forced to submit to invasive, medically unnecessary pelvic exams by a male doctor before the patrol would hire them.

SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) — People seeking roles in an upcoming movie spent an evening lining up and then auditioning in Scottsbluff.

The casting call for what is being called “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” took place Tuesday night at the Midwest Theater.

The future Coen brothers production is a collection of Western stories set in the 1800s. Some of the film will be shot in the Scottsbluff area throughout September.

Movie officials said they were looking for ordinary Nebraskans to play settlers on a wagon train.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Lincoln woman has been sent to jail for having a forbidden relationship with an inmate while working as a caseworker at the Nebraska State Penitentiary.

Erin Harris was sentenced Tuesday to 300 days. She’d pleaded no contest to unlawful acts by a corrections employee.

Authorities say a Nebraska Correctional Services Department intelligence officer discovered several unauthorized phone calls and emails over a two-month period between Harris and a 30-year-old inmate serving time for burglary.

Judge Jodie Nelson told Harris during the sentencing hearing that if Harris wanted to have a relationship with the inmate, she needed to have resigned first.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Attorney General Jeff Sessions says the Justice Department will dispatch 12 federal prosecutors to cities ravaged by addiction.

The prosecutors will focus exclusively on investigating health care fraud and opioid scams that are fueling the nation’s drug abuse epidemic.

Sessions unveiled the pilot program during a Wednesday speech in hard-hit Ohio, where eight people a day die of accidental overdoses.

Sessions is calling the group of prosecutors the “opioid fraud and abuse detection unit.”

The attorney general says prosecutors will rely on data in the efforts to root out pill mills and find health care providers who illegally prescribe or distribute narcotics.

More than 52,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2015 — a record — and experts believe the numbers have continued to rise.