DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Farmers have made further progress harvesting corn and soybeans in Iowa and Nebraska but rain in Iowa and heavy dew in Nebraska has slowed the process.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says Iowa farmers reported waiting for crops to dry in the field before harvesting. Nebraska also saw last week freezing temperatures across a wide area.

About a third of the Iowa corn crop is harvested, about a week behind the five-year average and 62 percent of soybeans are out of the field. The five-year average at this point in the year is 74 percent.

In Nebraska 34 percent of corn is harvested, behind the average of 40 percent and 62 percent of soybeans are completed behind the average of 74 percent.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a Hershey woman has been sent to prison for nine years for conspiring to distribute child pornography.

Federal prosecutors said Monday that 35-year-old Rayanne Paulman was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Lincoln. She must serve 10 years of supervised release after she leaves custody.

Prosecutors say Paulman sent several sexually explicit images of prepubescent children over social media to her boyfriend and others. Court records say Paulman and her boyfriend, William Jones, of North Platte, both pleaded guilty after prosecutors agreed to drop two other charges against each. Jones is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 3.

RELATED CONTENT:

https://www.northplattepost.com/2016/03/24/np-couple-federally-indicted-on-child-porn-charges/

https://www.northplattepost.com/2015/12/14/np-couple-accused-of-using-social-media-to-transfer-child-porn/

*Red Flag Warning October 17, 12:00pm until October 17, 07:00pm*

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska governor’s residence is a divided house, with Gov. Pete Ricketts and first lady Susanne Shore backing different candidates for president.

Ricketts, a Republican, has endorsed GOP nominee Donald Trump. But the Lincoln Journal Star says (https://bit.ly/2ecQH0D ) federal filings show Ricketts’ wife has donated $4,700 to Hillary Clinton and another $1,000 to the Hillary Victory Fund, which raises money for Clinton and other Democrats.

Shore changed her party registration from Democrat to Republican in 2014 when her husband was a candidate for governor. She then registered as an independent before switching back to the Democratic Party.

While Ricketts is backing Trump, he pledged not to contribute money to Trump’s campaign after a video emerged earlier this month of Trump making lewd remarks about women.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska State Fair has decided to discontinue its Sunday night outdoor concert during the first weekend of the fair.

Fair director Joseph McDermott said this year’s Sunday concert, which featured San Francisco-based group Train, did not draw as many people as anticipated. McDermott faulted the timing, noting that people have to be at work and school early the next day on Monday.

While the fair won’t have an outdoor concert on Sunday in 2017, McDermott said officials still plans to bring in high-quality acts for Friday and Saturday of the opening week of the fair.

He says the State Fair has hired a firm that will use social media to help determine which bands it will pursue for the 2017 fair.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say an inmate who tried to escape from the Nebraska State Penitentiary was caught before he could climb over an internal fence.

The Department of Correctional Services says the unidentified prisoner tried to escape around 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Officials say a tower officer fired a warning shot at the inmate. Corrections officers immediately responded to the fence and deployed chemical agents. The inmate continued to climb but staff members were able to remove him.

Corrections Director Scott Frakes says the inmate never breached the prison’s inner perimeter, and the public was never at risk. An investigation is under way, and the results will be forwarded to the county attorney.

The penitentiary is surrounded by two chain link fences topped with razor wire and a tower with armed officers.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The percentage of Nebraska students deemed proficient in a statewide writing test dipped from 72 percent to 70 percent in the last year the state administered the much-maligned exam.

The Nebraska Department of Education delayed the release of the writing test results until Friday after some districts questioned how the results were calculated.

Valorie Foy, the department’s director of assessment, says the only problem found was an error in how English Language Learners were calculated, which affected the scores of districts with large ELL populations.

Results of reading, math and science tests were released last month. The writing test is given to fourth-, eighth- and 11th-graders.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Voter disgust with the presidential election could give a boost to Nebraska’s Libertarian Party.

Although it’s still dwarfed by the Republican and Democratic parties, the Libertarian Party has seen a 28 percent increase in voter registrations since the May primary.

The number of registered Libertarians is on pace to top 10,000 before the Nov. 8 election, and a state senator who recently joined the party is using her experience as a former GOP political activist to teach its members how to campaign.

Sen. Laura Ebke of Crete says party leaders hope to pitch the party’s civil liberties platform to Democrats and its focus on fiscal conservatism to Republicans. Ebke is campaigning for Libertarian presidential hopeful Gary Johnson but also focusing on local city council and county commission races.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice has approved a statewide body-worn camera policy.

The policy was adopted Friday after three hours of testimony from law enforcement officials.

The policy doesn’t require agencies to buy or use body cameras, but creates minimum standards for their use. Among those is the requirement that most interactions of police with the public be recorded. Exceptions listed in the policy include interviews with domestic assault and rape victims and casual interactions at festivals and some policy-sponsored events, such as National Night Out.