LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska wildlife officials are asking the public to keep an eye out for rare whooping cranes over the next several weeks.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission says the continent’s entire population of whooping cranes is expected to migrate through Nebraska over the coming weeks. Information on sightings is used for whooping crane conservation and recovery efforts.

The rare cranes have features that distinguish them from the more common Sandhill crane. Whooping cranes are approximately 5 feet tall and fly with their neck outstretched. Adults are all white with the exception of black wing tips and reddish-black facial pattern.

Whooping cranes were near extinction in the early to mid-20th century. Through conservation efforts, the birds’ numbers in the wild have increased slowly, now ranging from around 430 to 500.

KEARNEY, Neb. (AP) — A Utah-based airline is expected to add Kearney to its list of flights after the local airport finishes replacing its runway.

Kearney hasn’t had commercial passenger service since Sept. 10, when Anchorage, Alaska-based PenAir halted flights to Kearney, North Platte and Scottsbluff after filing a bankruptcy reorganization plan.

Officials for all three airports subsequently asked the U.S. Department of Transportation to award the federally subsidized service contract to SkyWest, which is based in St. George, Utah. The department has done so for North Platte and Scottsbluff, and Kearney City Manager Mike Morgan says he expects SkyWest to be approved for Kearney as well.

How soon the airline could start flying its jets to and from Kearney depends upon the runway. The work’s scheduled to be finished by Sept. 1.

Money approved by Congress last year to fight the opioid epidemic is gradually reaching places where it can do some good, with some setbacks along the way.

Republicans and Democrats shared impatience Wednesday as they questioned top administration officials at a hearing on the 21st Century Cures Act and other federal spending to address the nation’s all-time worst drug addiction crisis.

The Cures dollars are helping some people get medicine to treat their addiction for the first time. At Fellowship House in Birmingham, Alabama, John Montesano, is getting help and recently marked six months without a relapse. He’s a former long-haul truck driver who had a 20-year pill addiction.

In others places, bureaucratic hurdles prevent innovation, driving home the point that gaining ground on the epidemic will be difficult.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska attorney general’s office says it is dropping charges against four Whiteclay beer stores now that the establishments have lost their liquor licenses.

A spokeswoman said Wednesday the citations are being dismissed. Authorities had accused the stores of selling to bootleggers and failing to cooperate with investigators, among other liquor law violations.

State regulators effectively closed the stores in April when they voted not to renew their licenses. The stores sold the equivalent of about 3.5 million cans of beer annually in the unincorporated village with nine residents. The Nebraska Supreme Court rejected the stores’ appeal last month.

Whiteclay sits next to South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, which is plagued by a litany of alcohol-related problems. Critics say the stores contributed to the problems.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The last of two inmates who hid in a laundry truck to escape a Lincoln prison has made a last-minute plea deal.

Court records say 53-year-old Timothy Clausen pleaded guilty Monday to escape, theft and flight to avoid arrest as jury selection for his Lincoln trial was about to start. Prosecutors dropped a related felony charge and promised to seek habitual criminal enhancement for only one of the three felonies.

Clausen and fellow inmate Armon Dixon fled the prison on June 10 last year. They’d hidden in the back of a laundry cart that was loaded onto the truck. Dixon was caught the next day. Clausen was caught several days later.

Dixon has been sentenced to 50 to 80 more years behind bars. Clausen’s sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 10.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska’s new mountain lion management plan includes some protection for the state’s small population of bighorn sheep.

The plan approved Friday by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission pulls policies together in one management document to guide decisions.

Among the plan provisions, the commission director may authorize the killing of any mountain lion known to target bighorn sheep and jeopardize the existence of a herd.

Mountain lions are native to Nebraska but were eliminated by the end of the 1800s. Cougars from neighboring states started returning to Nebraska late in the 1990s.

Game and Parks started reintroducing bighorns in 1981 to reclaim portions of their native range. Officials say the predators have killed 13 bighorns in Nebraska over the past decade.

• Bo J Cribelli, 27, Sutherland and Jennifer Mercedes Conrad, 28, Sutherland

 

• Wyatt James Kipp, 23, Arapahoe NE and Hailee Ann Moore, 23, Wellfleet

 

• Adam Joel Walz, 30, North Platte and Chelsea May Eastwood, 30, North Platte

 

• Dylan Thomas Sines, 23, Cheyenne WY and Lois May Brown, 21, Cheyenne

 

• Colin Ray Knoelk, 21, North Platte and Tori Lea Peterson, 19, North Platte

 

• Juan Fuentes, 55, North Platte and Donna JoAnne Herrada, 55 North Platte

GERING, Neb. (AP) — A 24-year-old western Nebraska man has been sentenced to three years in prison for causing a crash last year that killed a passenger in his pickup truck.

Joshua Bolzer, of Mitchell, was sentenced Friday in in Scotts Bluff County District Court. He had pleaded no contest in late August to felony vehicular homicide after prosecutors dropped two related counts.

Authorities say Bolzer had been drinking and was driving 120 mph in his pickup truck on Aug. 20, 2016, when it went out of control on U.S. Highway 26 on the west edge of Mitchell and hit a utility pole, a tractor and a liquor store.

A passenger in the truck, 19-year-old Dereon Betancur, was pronounced dead at the scene. Two other 19-year-old passengers were hospitalized.

MITCHELL, Neb. (AP) — Authorities have identified a man killed in the crash of a grain truck and a train just west of Mitchell and say his 8-year-old granddaughter was also injured in the crash.

Officials say 64-year-old Michael Weimer, of Morrill, died in the crash that occurred Friday morning at a county road crossing just south of Highway 26.

The Scotts Bluff County Sheriff’s Office says Weimer was driving the truck that was hit by an eastbound BNSF train shortly after 7 a.m.

Weimer was killed. His granddaughter, who was also in the truck, was taken to a hospital with injuries.

The crossing is marked, but does not have an alarm signal or gates.