LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska judge has ordered the state to release records about its supplies of lethal injection drugs, but officials say they plan to appeal the decision.

In a decision issued Monday, Lancaster County District Judge Jodi Nelson ruled the state Department of Correctional Services must release documents related to the acquisition of execution drugs. The judge decided the state could withhold documents that identify state employees.

The judge gave the state seven days to comply with her ruling, but an Attorney General’s office spokesman says the state will appeal. That likely will delay any action.

The ACLU of Nebraska, Lincoln Journal Star and Omaha World-Herald filed lawsuits seeking release of the information, arguing information such as photos of drug packaging and purchase orders were public records.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Lancaster County judge will fill a vacancy on the Nebraska Supreme Court.

The governor’s office Monday announced the selection of 48-year-old John Freudenberg. Freudenberg is replacing Justice John Wright, who died in March. He’d served 24 years on the court.

Freudenberg has been a county court judge in Lancaster County since 2017. Freudenberg spent a decade as the criminal bureau chief in the state attorney general’s office before being named a court judge. His Supreme Court appointment takes effect July 6.

Gov. Pete Ricketts has now named four of the seven members of the state’s highest court.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A national professors organization has rebuked the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for the way the university treated a graduate student lecturer who’d confronted a student.

On Saturday the American Association of University Professors placed the university on its list of censured administrations. The association’s committee on academic freedom and tenure found credible the conclusions of a report indicating that the university had violated the academic freedom of the lecturer who’d confronted the student, who was recruiting for the conservative group Turning Point USA.

The report says the university succumbed to political pressure in suspending lecturer Courtney Lawton and later barring her from teaching there.

University Chancellor Ronnie Green has said he disagrees with the report.

The censure brings no sanctions, but officials say it could harm the university’s ability to recruit staffers and students.

By KATHLEEN FOODY and P. SOLOMON BANDA, Associated Press

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A British pharmaceutical company is getting closer to a decision on whether the U.S government will approve the first prescription drug derived from the marijuana plant, but parents who for years have used cannabis to treat severe forms of epilepsy in their children are feeling more cautious than celebratory.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide by the end of the month whether to approve GW Pharmaceuticals’ Epidiolex. It’s a purified form of cannabidiol — a component of cannabis that doesn’t get users high — to treat Dravet and Lennox-Gastaut syndromes in kids. Both forms of epilepsy are rare.

Cannabidiol’s effect on a variety of health conditions is frequently touted, but there is still little evidence to back up advocates’ personal experiences. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has long categorized cannabis as a Schedule I drug, a category with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

That strictly limits research on potential medical uses for cannabis or the chemicals in it, including cannabidiol, or CBD.

But for years, parents desperate to find anything to help their children have turned to the marijuana-based products made legal by a growing number of states.

Meagan Patrick is among the parents using CBD to treat symptoms in their children. She moved from Maine to Colorado in 2014 so she could legally get CBD for her now-5-year-old daughter, Addelyn, who was born with a brain malformation that causes seizures.

“My child was dying, and we needed to do something,” Patrick said.

As for the potential approval of a pharmaceutical based on CBD, she said fear is her first reaction.

“I want to make sure that her right to continue using what works for her is protected, first and foremost. That’s my job as her mom,” Patrick said.

Advocates like Patrick became particularly concerned when GW Pharmaceuticals’ U.S. commercial business, Greenwich Biosciences, began quietly lobbying to change states’ legal definition of marijuana, beginning in 2017 with proposals in Nebraska and South Dakota.

Some worried the company’s attempt to ensure its product could be legally prescribed and sold by pharmacies would have a side effect: curtailing medical marijuana programs already operating in more than two dozen states.

The proposals generally sought to remove CBD from states’ legal definition of marijuana, allowing it to be prescribed by doctors and supplied by pharmacies. But the change only applies to products that have FDA approval.

Neither Nebraska nor South Dakota allows medical use of marijuana, and activists accused the company of trying to shut down future access to products containing cannabidiol but lacking FDA approval.

GW Pharmaceuticals never intended for the changes to affect other marijuana products, but they are necessary to allow Epidiolex to be sold in pharmacies if approved, spokesman Stephen Schultz said.

He would not discuss other places where the company will seek changes to state law. The Associated Press confirmed that lobbyists representing Greenwich Biosciences backed legislation in California and Colorado this year.

“As a company, we understand there’s a significant business building up,” Schultz said. “All we want to do is make sure our product is accessible.”

Industry lobbyists in those states said they take company officials at their word, but they still insisted on protective language ensuring that recreational or medical marijuana, cannabidiol, hemp and other products derived from cannabis plants won’t be affected by the changes sought by GW Pharmaceuticals.

Patrick Goggin, an attorney who focuses on industrial hemp issues in California, said the company would run into trouble if it tried to “lock up access” to marijuana-derived products beyond FDA-approved drugs.

“People need to have options and choices,” he said. “That’s the battle here.”

Legal experts say the changes are logical. Some states’ laws specifically prohibit any product derived from the marijuana plant from being sold in pharmacies. The FDA has approved synthetic versions of another cannabis ingredient for medical purposes but has never approved marijuana or hemp for any medical use.

A panel of FDA advisers in April unanimously recommended the agency approve Epidiolex for the treatment of severe seizures in children with epilepsy, conditions that are otherwise difficult to treat. It’s not clear why CBD reduces seizures in some patients, but the panel based its recommendation on three studies showing a significant reduction in children with two forms of epilepsy.

Denver-based attorney Christian Sederberg, who worked on the GW Pharmaceuticals-backed legislation in Colorado on behalf of the marijuana industry, said all forms of marijuana can exist together.

“The future of the industry is showing itself here,” Sederberg said. “There’s going to be the pharmaceutical lane, the nutraceutical (food-as-medicine) lane, the adult-use lane. This shows how that’s all coming together.”

Alex and Jenny Inman said they won’t switch to Epidiolex if it becomes available, though their son Lukas has Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

Alex, an information technology professional, and Jenny, a preschool teacher, said it took some at-home experimentation to find the right combination of doctor-prescribed medication, CBD and THC — the component that gives marijuana users a high — that seemed to help Lukas with his seizures.

“What makes me a little bit nervous about this is that there’s sort of a psyche amongst patients that, ‘Here’s this pill, and this pill will solve things,’ right? It works differently for different people,” Alex Inman said.

The Inmans moved from Maryland to Colorado in 2015 after doctors recommended a second brain surgery for Lukas’ seizures. The couple and other parents and advocates for CBD said children respond differently to a variety of strains.

The Realm of Caring Foundation, an organization co-founded by Paige Figi, whose daughter Charlotte’s name is attached to the CBD oil Charlotte’s Web, said it maintains a registry of about 46,000 people worldwide who use CBD.

For Heather Jackson, who said her son Zaki, now 15, benefited from CBD and who co-founded the foundation, Epidiolex’s approval means insurers will begin paying for treatment with a cannabis-derived product.

“That might be a nice option for some families who, you know, really want to receive a prescription who are going to only listen to the person in the white coat,” Jackson said.
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Banda and Foody are members of members of AP’s marijuana beat team. Follow them at Twitter at https://twitter.com/psbanda and https://twitter.com/katiefoody . Find complete AP marijuana coverage here: https://apnews.com/tag/LegalMarijuana

KEARNEY, Neb. (AP) – Police say they aren’t giving up on a 10-year-old central Nebraska homicide case and are still actively pursuing leads despite having no suspects.

Kearney Police Department Captain Mike Kirkwood says officers work on the Kelcey Fike murder investigation on almost a daily basis. He says police remain confident they’ll find Fike’s killer, particularly once technology advances to test and decipher the DNA found on the victim’s body.

Kirkwood has shared more details about Fike’s death at her trailer in Kearney in June 2008. He says police believe there’s a high probability the killer knew Fike and that an attempted sexual assault may have occurred.

An autopsy found that Fike died of a ligature strangulation and blunt force trauma to the torso and head.

The Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) is seeking the public’s help in locating a person wanted on multiple charges.

An arrest warrant has been issued in Chase County for Kody G. Huff, 30, for the following offenses: first-degree assault, kidnapping, terroristic threats, use of a weapon to commit a felony, possession of a weapon by a prohibited person.

If you have any information on the whereabouts of Kody Huff, please call the NSP tip line at (308) 535-8137.

One of the feature events of Nebraskaland Days, Family Night, will go on as planned but will be moved under cover.

NLD Executive Director David Fudge said recent moisture has left the arena floor at the Wild West Arena “soft and muddy.”

Fudge says the event will go on as planned but will take place in the Wild West Arena Pavilion.