OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska health officials are exploring how to use technology to provide mental health and substance abuse treatment for rural patients who must otherwise travel for hours to access behavioral health care.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services released a report last week assessing the state’s behavioral health needs.

The department’s deputy director, Linda Wittmuss, says data pulled from census statistics, studies, focus groups and surveys will inform the department’s strategy from 2017 to 2020.

She says the plan will include innovative ways to use technology. For example, through telehealth, a patient could talk to a doctor on a screen for medication management consultations or follow-up therapy sessions through a webcam.

Dr. Joseph Evans, assistant clinical director of the Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska, says telehealth has become a national movement.

KEARNEY, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a man has escaped from a canal in Kearney.

The Kearney Volunteer Fire Department said in a news release Monday that firefighters and two vehicles were sent around 1:45 p.m. Sunday to the scene west of the University of Nebraska at Kearney campus. Someone had reported that an elderly man was in the water and could be drowning.

The department says the man had gotten out of the water by the time firefighters arrived. They helped him up a steep canal bank, and he was taken to a hospital.

His name hasn’t been released.

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — A corn disease that is new to the heartland is infecting Kansas crops.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed the presence of the bacterial leaf streak in a swath that goes from Pratt County to Edwards County in late August.

Justin Gatz, a Preston-area farmer and crop consultant, says the disease probably contributed to this year’s decline in corn yield, but that weather was also a factor.

Kansas State University said that the department began a survey of cornfields across the region after the disease was discovered in samples submitted to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2014. It’s unknown how it entered the U.S.

The disease has been found in about a dozen states, including Nebraska, Colorado and Oklahoma.

NEW YORK (AP) — You probably already use Facebook at work. Now, Facebook is creating a separate version aimed at helping you do actual work instead of catching up on baby photos and political chatter.

Facebook is launching a communications tool Monday for businesses, nonprofits and other organizations. Called Workplace, the platform is ad-free and isn’t connected to existing Facebook accounts. Instead, employers sign up as an organization. Businesses have to pay, but Facebook is offering it to schools and nonprofits for free.

Organizations have used Workplace, previously called Facebook at Work, on an invite-only basis for the past 18 months. Facebook says more than 1,000 places use it, up from 450 six months ago.

Besides group chats and video calls, Workplace has live video and a news feed, much like the regular Facebook.

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• Isaac Duncan Ralston, 18, Sutherland and Brooke Renee Roberts, 19, North Platte