(AP) — The Nebraska Army National Guard is working to retain more of its soldiers as the war in Afghanistan winds to a close and deployment opportunities dwindle.

Maj. General Daryl Bohac, the Guard’s adjutant general, raised the issue as a priority for the Guard in July, when Gov. Dave Heineman appointed him as the top uniformed commander for more than 4,800 Guard personnel throughout Nebraska. Retention rates have hovered between 70 percent and 80 percent annually in recent years. That’s a higher turnover than in previous years.

Bohac says the Guard is taking a series of steps to improve retention. The Guard is having two sergeants talk one-on-one with members, to try to address their concerns. The Guard is also offering signing bonuses and a “battle buddy” program to maintain morale.

(AP) — More and more parents are telling their kids to stay home the day of standardized tests.

They’re opposed to standardized tests for many reasons and don’t want kids taking them.

Some say they’re being used to measure teacher performance and fear testing narrows the curriculum.

This year, teachers, students and parents from a Seattle high school refused to administer or take a standardized test. In response, the Seattle schools superintendent now says schools can choose not to administer the tests.

Robert Schaeffer of the nonprofit National Center for Fair and Open Testing says the consequences of opting out of standardized tests vary from state to state. He says so far there have been very few consequences for children, but that might change.

(AP) — A 36-year-old Illinois truck driver has pleaded no contest to five felony counts for a crash last year that killed a family.

Court records say 37-year-old Josef Slezak pleaded no contest Friday to four counts of motor vehicle homicide and one count of motor vehicle homicide involving an unborn child. In exchange, prosecutors dropped four counts of manslaughter. Slezak will be sentenced on Oct. 16.

Authorities say Slezak had been driving virtually nonstop from Milwaukee, Wis., and was in western Nebraska on Interstate 80 when he fell asleep at the wheel last September. His semitrailer slammed into the back of a car, killing Christopher Schmidt, his wife Diana Schmidt, and the couple’s two young children. Diana Schmidt was 30 weeks pregnant at the time.

(AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court says state laws regarding notification in child welfare cases are constitutional, but has ruled that a biological father who pays child support must be notified of any action to place his child in foster care.

The case stems from a 2008 lawsuit filed by Michael Eggleston against the state. Eggleston said state employees violated his rights when they failed inform him that his 3-year-old had been taken into protective custody after her mother attempted suicide. Eggleston said the state had his contact information, because he faithfully paid child support.

The ruling Friday reversed a lower court’s finding that the state’s notification laws are unconstitutional because they don’t require the state to notify a noncustodial parent when a child has been taken into emergency protective custody.

(AP) — A 26-year-old Burwell man is scheduled to be in court Monday for a hearing in his manslaughter case.

Authorities suspect Joseph White was exchanging texts with his wife when his car rammed into the rear of a tractor near Westerville in south-central Nebraska’s Custer County on April 30. The tractor driver died. He was identified as 55-year-old Joe Willhoit.

In court records a Nebraska state trooper says an examination of White’s cellphone and cellphone records showed that just about the time of the crash, White received a text from his wife and that an unsent text to his wife was still on his phone.

A public phone listing for White couldn’t be found. Online court records don’t list the name of his attorney.

(AP) — Johnson & Johnson is recalling 200,000 bottles of Motrin Infants Drops formula due to the risk that they contain tiny particles of plastic.

J&J’s McNeil unit says it is unclear if the recalled bottles actually contain the particles, which were found in a different product during the manufacturing process. The company decided to issue the recall because both products contain the same shipment of ibuprofen from a third-party supplier. Ibuprofen is a common pain reliever and fever reducer, also used in Advil.

The company is asking retailers to take the affected products off store shelves. Consumers should stop using the bottles and throw them away.

Friday’s announcement is the latest in a series of about 40 product recalls announced by the U.S.-based company since 2009.

(AP) — Officials have issued health alerts for toxic blue-green algae at three lakes in eastern Nebraska.

The state Department of Health and Human Services says water samples at the lakes were above the Nebraska’s health alert threshold for a toxin released by certain strains of blue-green algae.

The lakes are Bluestem Lake in Lancaster County, Kirkman’s Cove in Richardson County and Willow Creek Lake in Pierce County.

A late August alert for Lake McConaughy near the Nebraska Panhandle has ended.

The alerts will continue at the lakes for at least two more weeks for additional testing.

More than $52,000 in unclaimed property was returned to Nebraskans who visited the state treasurer’s booth at the Nebraska State Fair in Grand Island that ended Monday.

State Treasurer Don Stenberg says 133 claims totaling $52,279 were filed by visitors to the booth during the 10-day fair. One claim for $15,761 was paid to a McCook resident. Other claims ranged in size from $7.59 to $960, which was paid to an Ashland woman.

Stenberg says the amount was three times the amount of claims paid during last year’s Nebraska State Fair.

More than $7 million has been paid so far in 2013 to 11,730 owners, averaging almost $600 a claim.

(AP) — It’s a startling contrast to some observers — the glamorous, bikini-clad Miss America from 2011, Teresa Scanlan, finding her home at the tiny, super-conservative Patrick Henry College. The school requires students to dress modestly and “seek parental counsel when pursuing a romantic relationship.”

But the match has been a good one. Scanlan returned to campus in late August to begin her sophomore year. Among the things she loves about her classmates and her campus: “I’ve never had to sign an autograph, and I’ve never had to take a picture. Here, I can be just another student,” she said.

Blending in is not always easy for Scanlan, who won the Miss America Contest at 17, representing Nebraska. The youngest Miss America in more than 70 years, she spent a year fulfilling her duties and enrolled at Patrick Henry in 2012. She says the school’s workload matched the grueling schedule as Miss America.

The school was established in 2000 with the goal of giving home-schooled Christian conservatives a foundation to help them effect change in government, the law and journalism.

The school started with 90 students and a single major — government. It is still a tiny campus in the outer suburbs of Washington, D.C., but now has 320 students and five majors, including journalism, literature and history. The SAT scores of its students are comparable to top-tier state universities.

Scanlan, who came from a homeschooling family, says she wanted to go to Patrick Henry ever since she was 8.

She said she’s frustrated by stereotypes that some hold about Patrick Henry students. She recalled a recent photo essay published about the school that she felt went out of its way to depict students as cloistered weirdos. The reality, she said, is that while the students are Christian, they come from a variety of backgrounds.

“There’s this idea that we don’t struggle with the same problems, that we don’t understand real world problems … that everyone comes from wonderful, happy families, that we’re close-minded and brainwashed. That kind of pushes my buttons,” she said.

The degree to which some people are willing to make snap judgments about her has occasionally taken her aback. As a teenager, she admits her schedule as Miss America and some of the accompanying expectations, wore on her. The negativity she faced from anonymous Internet critics was hurtful.

“To have someone look at a picture of you and decide just based on that picture that they hate you, and that they’re going to tell the world that they hate you — that takes some getting used to,” she said.

During her year as Miss America, she began to feel depressed and, at times, even suicidal. The depression continued during her freshman year, she said, when she found her coursework grueling, with a heavy emphasis on reading and writing. She earned a 3.75 grade-point average, but was disappointed because she had set a goal of a 3.9 or higher, which she feels she needs to get accepted into Harvard Law School.

She reached out to her parents for help during her spring semester, and she’s now taking fewer classes and worrying less about others’ expectations.

“I’m finally starting to let go of some of the stress, some of the responsibility,” she said.

While she loves her school, she said she has occasionally received criticism from some there who feel the Miss America pageant, particularly the swimsuit competition, is not compatible with a Christian lifestyle because it shows too much skin or objectifies women. Scanlan respectfully disagrees.

“I have never violated my conscience. I was never compromising my morals,” she said. “For myself, I have never believed it’s wrong for a female to wear a swimsuit that would show the same amount of skin a man. It’s a bit of a double standard.”

The school’s founder and chancellor, Mike Farris, also said he received sporadic complaints that Scanlan’s status as a Miss America was supposedly contrary to the school’s code and values.

“I don’t view getting into the pageant world to be incompatible with Christian values,” said Farris — who made his name as a lawyer defending homeschooler families.

Farris never had any doubts that Scanlan would be a good ambassador for the school. Farris sensed she could be a starter on Patrick Henry’s Moot Court team, which Farris coaches and regularly wins national championships.

“She’s very bright, a great communicator,” Farris said, noting she placed third in a regional in Moot Court championships as a freshman. “Yeah, no doubt I expect a national championship out of her.”

Kira Clark, a Moot Court teammate of Scanlan’s and now a roommate, described Scanlan as “a caring, incredibly ambitious, smart, compassionate person who puts her friends first.”

On the small campus, she said students don’t dwell on the fact that Scanlan was Miss America.

“We see her as a sister we can be proud of, rather than a celebrity we can be taking advantage of,” Clark said.

Despite her plans to reduce stress, Scanlan remains ambitious. On her LinkedIn profile, she lists herself, among other things, as “2028 presidential candidate.” She would be 35, the constitutional minimum to serve as president.

Farris, who designed the school with the idea of launching Christian conservatives into the public sphere, said Scanlan and many other Patrick Henry students set such goals and he encourages them to aim high.

“If they mess up and only get to be governors and senators, I’ll live with it,” Farris said.

(AP) — Taiwanese importers have agreed to buy up to $472 million in Nebraska corn, soybeans and wheat under a new trade agreement.

Lt. Gov. Lavon Heidemann announced the deal Friday during a state trade mission to Asia. Heidemann is leading a delegation to Taiwan and Japan as part of an ongoing effort to expand Nebraska trade opportunities abroad.

The agreement includes representatives of the Taiwan Flour Mills Association, Taiwan Feed Industry Association and the Taiwan Vegetable Oil Manufacturers Association. It’s similar to agreements signed by Gov. Dave Heineman during previous trade missions in 2007 and 2010.

Nebraska Director of Agriculture Greg Ibach says those agreements have been fulfilled. Ibach says the trip demonstrates the importance of proactively seeking trade opportunities.