OSHKOSH, Neb. (AP) — A judge is considering a verdict after the trial of a western Nebraska school superintendent accused of assaulting a student.

On Wednesday Judge Randin Roland heard testimony regarding the misdemeanor assault charge against Garden County Schools Superintendent Paula Sissel.

A prosecutor said Wednesday that Sissel had put her hands on the 8-year-old girl. A video of the Nov. 13 incident shows Sissel pulling the girl down a hallway before the girl’s placed in what was referred to as a “chill out room.” It’s alleged the girl suffered a rug burn on a shoulder.

Sissel acknowledged pulling the girl, in part to protect a physical therapist who was trying to deal with the girl’s outburst. The girl’s mother says the girl is possibly autistic and functions at the level of a 3- or 4-year-old child.

A ruling is expected within two weeks.

A trooper with the Nebraska State Patrol (NSP), working with the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office, was able to revive a subject suffering from an opioid overdose by administering a dose of NARCAN Tuesday evening near Dunning.

Late Tuesday afternoon, the Sheriff’s Office was called with a report of a suicidal person and requested assistance from NSP. Upon arrival at the scene, the subject was discovered to be unconscious and appeared to be suffering from an opioid overdose.

The trooper administered a single dose of NARCAN (naloxone) nasal spray. The subject immediately regained consciousness.

“This is exactly why our troopers all carry NARCAN,” said Colonel John Bolduc. “With a quick assessment of the situation, they have that valuable tool with them that can save a life, which is just what happened in this case.”

The trooper and Sheriff Sierks were able to keep the subject awake until an ambulance arrived. The subject was transported to Jennie Melham hospital in Broken Bow.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by two employees of the Nebraska Crime Commission who accused two county sheriffs and a police chief of harassment.

The lawsuit was filed last October by Lisa Stamm and Vanessa Humaran against Cheyenne County Sheriff John Jenson, Scotts Bluff County Sheriff Mark Overman and

Scottsbluff Police Chief Kevin Spencer. The lawsuit said among its allegations that the officials improperly used a state criminal database to check out Stamm and Humaran in an attempt to discredit and harass them. The lawsuit said the actions occurred after the commission denied funding to an anti-drug task force that included the city and both counties.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf said in his dismissal filing earlier this month that even if the officials had violated governmental policy in using the database, the women didn’t prove they were deprived of their Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska motorists could soon pay less to the state at gas pumps.

The Department of Revenue announced Wednesday that the state motor fuels tax will drop fourth-tenths of a cent on July 1, to 28 cents per gallon (nearly 4 liters) from 28.4 cents.

The fuels tax is composed of a wholesale, variable and fixed tax. The wholesale is based on the wholesale price of fuel. That tax will rise to 9.7 cents from 8.7 cents.

The variable tax is based on legislative appropriations for transportation. That rate will drop to 3.5 cents from 4.9 cents.

The fixed tax will remain unchanged at 14.8 cents per gallon.

The new rate runs through Dec. 31.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska officials are forging ahead with plans to execute the state’s longest-serving death-row inmate without disclosing where they obtained lethal injection drugs, despite a judge’s order this week to identify their supplier.

The Nebraska attorney general appealed the judge’s ruling on Tuesday as it pushes in a separate case to set a July 10 execution date for Carey Dean Moore.

State officials are scrambling to execute Moore before their supply of a key execution drug expires in August, while simultaneously fighting a legal battle that could force them to reveal who gave them the drugs. Gov. Pete Ricketts’ administration also has sued the Legislature to block a subpoena that would force the state corrections director to testify about Nebraska’s execution protocol.

Ricketts and Attorney General Doug Peterson have said the state is long overdue to execute Moore, 60, who has spent nearly four decades on death row for the 1979 shooting deaths of two Omaha cab drivers. But a leading death penalty critic contends state officials want to execute an inmate before the November election — and before they’re forced to disclose how they obtained their drugs.

“If they got these drugs in a legitimate way from a legitimate provider, then all they’d have to do is ask for another batch,” said Sen. Ernie Chambers, of Omaha. “If everything was legitimate, the supplier would say, ‘Sure, coming right up.'”

Chambers said the request to have the Nebraska Supreme Court set an execution date is politically motivated, given promises by the Republican governor and attorney general to revive capital punishment and their pending re-election bids this year. Ricketts and Peterson have denied the allegations, saying they’re trying to carry out the will of voters.

Nebraska’s last execution took place in 1997, using the electric chair, and the state has failed to carry out any others because of legal challenges and lack of access to the required drugs. Lawmakers abolished capital punishment in 2015, overriding Ricketts’ veto during his first year in office. But voters reinstated it the following year through a petition drive partially financed by the governor.

On Monday, a judge ordered the Department of Correctional Services to release public records that could identify the state’s supplier, including invoices, photographs of the drugs’ packaging, and correspondence between state officials and the supplier. Judge Jodi Nelson also ruled that the state can withhold any documents that directly identify members of Nebraska’s execution team, whose identities are confidential under state law.

The order came in response to lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska and the state’s two largest newspapers, the Omaha World-Herald and Lincoln Journal Star, after state prison officials denied their requests for the records.

“We appreciate that Nebraskans of goodwill hold divergent viewpoints on the death penalty, but the citizens’ referendum did not grant permission to state officials to cloak the death penalty in secrecy,” said Danielle Conrad, the ACLU of Nebraska’s executive director. The order to release the records “ensures transparency and accountability as the state seeks to carry out its most grave function.”

Corrections department officials have traditionally released such records without objection, and a bill that would have given them the legal authority to withhold them stalled in the Legislature last year. The Nebraska attorney general’s office argued that releasing the records could eventually lead to identifying an execution team member.

In April 2017, The Associated Press used a records request to identify and contact the manufacturer of one of Nebraska’s lethal injection drugs to see if the company was aware of how the department planned to use them.

A spokesman said the company never wanted its drugs to be used in executions and only sold it to Nebraska corrections officials because one of its distributors made a mistake. Fresenius Kabi spokesman Matt Kuhn said the company discovered the error through an internal audit and asked state officials to return the drug, but the state refused.

Suzanne Gage, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Doug Peterson, said state attorneys were pleased that the state doesn’t have to disclose records that identify execution team members.

“We respectfully disagree with the court’s analysis on the remaining records and plan to appeal,” she said.

Spokespeople for Ricketts and the Department of Correctional Services did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

Nebraska’s situation is unique among states with the death penalty because lawmakers have never given the department permission to withhold such records, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center. Other state legislatures have enacted so-called shield laws to keep their suppliers’ identities confidential. Supporters say shield laws protect suppliers from intimidation and harassment by death penalty opponents, but Dunham described the practice as troubling.

“This is the type of questionable activity that undermines public confidence in the institution of capital punishment,” said Dunham, whose group has criticized the way states carry out executions. “We shouldn’t be hiding this information from the public when they have an interest in making sure the process is carried out fairly.”

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska State College Board of Trustees has approved raises for top leaders of the state college system.

The trustees gave approval Tuesday for 1.5 percent raises during a meeting at Hillcrest Country Club in Lincoln.

The move means Chancellor Stan Carpenter, who oversees the three-college system and has announced plans to retire, will be paid $270,589 if he works the full fiscal year. Carpenter was paid $266,590 this past year.

Peru State President Dan Hanson will receive $200,554, up from $197,590. Wayne State President Marysz Rames will make $212,227, up from $209,090. And Chadron State President Randy Rhine will earn $195,249, up from $192,363.

The raises match the 1.5 percent increase given to professional staff and faculty. Support staff will get 1 percent raises.

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 http://twitter.com/psbanda and http://twitter.com/katiefoody . Find complete AP marijuana coverage here: http://apnews.com/tag/LegalMarijuana