McCOOK, Neb. (AP) – Lawyers for a 20-year-old Bartley man have notified the court that he’ll use an insanity defense at his murder trial.
Stathis Kirkpatrick is accused of killing 14-year-old Kailee Clapp. The teen’s burned body was found the evening of Jan. 21, 2011, in a Bartley cemetery. She had been reported missing that morning from her McCook home.
Kirkpatrick has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and three other felony charges.
In September, Red Willow County District Judge David Urbom ruled Kirkpatrick wasn’t mentally competent and committed Kirkpatrick for treatment at the state psychiatric hospital in Lincoln.
Last month Urbom ruled Kirkpatrick competent to stand trial. The judge  said he’d reviewed a letter from a psychiatrist and psychologist who treated Kirkpatrick at the hospital.
A trial date has not been set.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – The head of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services says the state has now reclaimed management of the child welfare cases that were handled by one private lead agency.
Department CEO Kerry Winterer announced that the transition from KVC Nebraska to the state is complete. KVC Nebraska had served a 19-county area in southeast Nebraska, including one-third of the cases in the Omaha area.
Nebraska state officials have now assumed case management duties in 17 of those counties. Another lead agency, Nebraska Families Collaborative, is taking over the cases in Douglas and Sarpy counties.
State officials have said they will hire case managers from KVC Nebraska to keep them working with the same children as much as possible.

SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) – The Justice Department has filed a lien for over $729,000 against the Scottsbluff office property of former University of Nebraska Regent David Hergert.
The Mitchell businessman was sentenced in January to five years of probation for federal bank fraud. He was ordered to pay $654,000 restitution to the First National Bank of Omaha.
The lien was recorded in the Scotts Bluff County Register of Deeds office in February. It says it’s a lien on all property belonging to Hergert and should be considered a notice in lieu of the restitution ordered at his January sentence.
Hergert admitted inflating business assets to keep a $3 million loan from the Omaha bank.
Hergert was removed from the university’s board of regents in 2006.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – A plan to allow gambling outlets in Nebraska to run keno games every 3 minutes instead of 5 minutes has failed.
Lawmakers on Monday morning decided that people who play keno in bars and restaurants don’t need to be wagering their money faster.
Under current law, a keno operator must wait 5 minutes between games. Supporters of Legislative Bill 1067 say making that waiting time 3 minutes would raise more money for city governments.
Cities with keno use profits to pay for city services, ambulances and police cars.
Opponents said Monday that the state should not be encouraging people to gamble faster.
Sen. Russ Karpisek of Wilbur is the bill’s sponsor. He says more than $81 million would have been raised per year if lawmakers had approved the keno change.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Local project costs are going up for most of Nebraska’s airports.
A provision of the Federal Aviation Administration legislation passed last month by Congress doubles the share airports must provide for projects paid for mostly with federal grants.
They’ll now have to provide 10 percent of a project’s funding instead of the 5 percent they have been paying.
Director Mike Olson of the Central Nebraska Regional Airport in Grand Island says that means the airport will have to come up with an additional $850,000 to $900,000 for its match on $17 million to $18 million worth of projects planned for the next several years.
The 25 percent match that Omaha’s Eppley Airfield pays won’t change.