OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Agriculture Department is getting ready to survey farmers about what they are planning to grow this year.

The USDA will survey about 84,000 farmers nationwide about their plans.

The survey will form the basis for the USDA’s annual prospective plantings report. That report is scheduled to be released March 31.

The USDA’s Dean Groskurth says this report is important because it is the basis for the projections officials will make about this year’s crop.

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — A conference next month will focus on the best ways to raise awareness about the dangers of radon gas.

The Environmental Protection Agency is working with health officials in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa to put on the conference in Manhattan, Kansas, on March 7.

The odorless colorless radon gas is the nation’s second-leading cause of lung cancer, behind smoking, and is the most common cause in nonsmokers.

The meeting will highlight ways to help the public reduce radon exposure.

Organizers say anyone interested in attending the free meeting should register before Tuesday online at http://svy.mk/2kOzd96 .

GERING, Neb. (AP) — The trial of a western Nebraska man charged in a fatal crash last year has again been delayed.

The motor vehicle homicide trial for 23-year-old Joshua Bolzer, of Mitchell, is now set for May 1. The trial had been set to begin in March.

Authorities say Bolzer was driving a pickup truck Aug. 20 when it went out of control on U.S. Highway 26 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 taken to a Scottsbluff hospital. Authorities say one of them reported that Bolzer had been driving 120 mph or more just before the crash.

McCOOK, Neb. (AP) — Students in McCook will again hold Project Empty Bowl, an annual fundraising event for the Saint Patrick School Art Program that helps feed the needy.

The McCook Daily Gazette reports (http://bit.ly/2kTnxEF ) that the school’s sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade student auction off their creations of handcrafted pottery bowls and glass art pieces this weekend.

The silent auction will be held Sunday, along with the annual Spaghetti on Sunday dinner in the basement of St. Patrick’s Church.

A portion of every piece sold will go to McCook’s local food pantry. The rest will go to the schools art program to help buy another pottery wheel and a new clay extruder.

LINCOLN, Neb. – The three hunting accidents reported to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission in 2016 were the fewest recorded in a year since the state began keeping track in 1958. None of the 2016 hunting incidents was fatal.

The 2016 incidents mark a decrease compared to the 10 incidents – none fatal – recorded in 2015.

“Hunting in Nebraska continues to be a very safe outdoor recreational activity in which many families participate,” Nebraska Hunter Education Coordinator Wendy Horine said.

The record-low number of hunting incidents in 2016 coincided with a year in which a record 10,111 hunter education certificates were issued. Hunter education in Nebraska dates to the 1970s, but the program was revamped in 2015 to allow students the option of taking the course online, with the youngest group of students required to attend a two-hour Hunt Safe Session. The online option made certification more readily available to all Nebraskans.

“The average number of hunters in the state has remained stable for the past 17 years, while incident numbers have steadily declined during the same period and have dramatically declined since the inception of hunter education in Nebraska,” Horine said.

For more information about hunter education in Nebraska, visit HuntSafeNebraska.org. Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer hunter education instructor or mentor should call Horine at 402-471-6134.

“It goes without saying that if we didn’t have the dedication and commitment of our nearly 1,000 volunteer instructors, the hunter education program wouldn’t be possible,” Horine added.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Alumni of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at Creighton University in Omaha dispute allegations that a frat member accused of attacking another student was drugged as part of a hazing ritual.

Nineteen-year-old Christopher Wheeler, from Kansas City, Kansas, is accused of using a pocket knife to cut another student’s throat in her room Saturday. She was hospitalized. Wheeler faces felony assault and weapons charges.

Wheeler’s attorney contends Wheeler was forced to take a hallucinogenic drug before the attack and has no memory of the attack.

A statement issued Thursday by alumni Bryan Mick and Eric Hamilton says an alumni investigation “does not support the allegations and speculation of the parents and counsel” of Wheeler. The statement also says any alcohol or drugs consumed by Wheeler appear to have been voluntary.

BRIDGEPORT, Neb. (AP) — Sentencing has been delayed for a Nebraska man convicted of killing a Colorado man and hiding his body in a barrel.

Twenty-five-year-old Zachary Mueller is facing a life sentence for first-degree murder in the slaying of 33-year-old Pedro Adrian Dominguez, of Greeley, Colorado. A jury convicted Mueller last month of the murder and of two weapons charges.

His new sentencing date is March 13. The original date was Feb. 27.

Authorities say Mueller shot Dominguez in the back of the head while riding in a car in Bridgeport on Nov. 22, 2015. The body of Dominguez was discovered in a barrel on a Morrill County farm in December 2015.

CHADRON, Neb. (AP) — Pregnant bighorn sheep ewes have been fitted with special transmitters in an effort to improve the health of wild herds in northwest Nebraska.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission says a helicopter was used to help in the capture of 20 this week. They were fitted with monitors in their reproductive tracts. The monitors are expelled when the lambs are born, alerting commission staffers who will race to the area.

Their goal is to find and fit each lamb with a tracking collar to help biologists learn what’s causing so many of the lambs to die in the Pine Ridge area of Dawes and Sioux counties. The commission says the experts think no lambs survived last year and that most died within a couple months of birth.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has rejected the latest appeal of a Texas man on Nebraska’s death row for killing two Grand Island men in 2007.

Marco Torres Jr., formerly of Pasadena, Texas, had sought post-conviction relief, saying his trial lawyer was so ineffective that it violated his right to a fair trial. A lower court dismissed his motion, and he appealed.

Torres was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and other charges in the robbery and shooting deaths of 48-year-old Timothy Donohue and 60-year-old Edward Hall.

On Friday, the state’s high court ruled that Torres’ arguments of prosecutorial misconduct and that his defense lawyer failed to obtain surveillance video beneficial to his case were without merit.