LUTHER, Okla. (AP) — A grass fire started by a vehicle accident has spread into woods northeast of Oklahoma City, while shifting winds are making it difficult to fight.

While the fire remains small Monday — only 35 acres — Oklahoma Forestry Services have dispatched bulldozer crews and water-carrying airplanes to keep it from nearby homes.

The Storm Prediction Center warns the fire danger across the High Plains is critical, particularly for Monday afternoon. The area from southwestern Texas to southwestern Nebraska is expecting winds of 20-25 mph, with gusts, and humidity as low as 8 percent. The region has had very little rain or snow in the past month.

A fire near Bartlesville, Oklahoma, has burned 11 ½ square miles, and KOTV in Tulsa showed video of wild horses escaping the flames Monday.

GOTHENBURG, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a 53-year-old driver has been killed in a one-vehicle crash on Interstate 80 in Dawson County.

The Nebraska State Patrol says the accident occurred around 11:20 a.m. Saturday about five miles east of Gothenburg. The vehicle was headed east when it went out of control and rolled, ejecting the driver.

The driver was identified as Jeanette Murrain, of Gothenburg.

CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — The average price of gasoline has jumped by 7 cents over the past two weeks, to $1.84 a gallon.

Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday that despite the increase, the price is 70 cents per gallon cheaper than a year ago.

Lundberg says the moderate price hike is due to growing demand for gasoline across the nation and higher crude oil prices.

In the Lower 48 states, the highest average price of regular gasoline was $2.51 per gallon in Los Angeles. The lowest was $1.33 in Tucson, Arizona.

The U.S. average diesel price is $2.07 per gallon, down less than a cent from two weeks ago and down 96 cents per gallon from what it was a year ago.

MCCOOK, Neb. (AP) — Landowners in a southwest Nebraska county may be asked to pay higher taxes to support a struggling nursing home in McCook.

Red Willow County officials may ask voters to support a tax increase later this year to help cover the Hillcrest Nursing Home’s deficit. If voters don’t support the additional spending, the county may look at selling the nursing home.

Hillcrest administrator Colinda Nappa says the home is working to improve its financials, but it’s not clear how much of the nearly $500,000 it is owed can be collected.

The county already agreed last fall to help pay some of Hillcrest’s $608,000 in unpaid bills, but now it looks like they will have to raise additional money.

Assistant Allison Borio says Mrs. Reagan died Sunday at her home of congestive heart failure.

Her marriage to Ronald Reagan lasted 52 years until his death in 2004.

A former actress, she was Reagan’s closest adviser and fierce protector on his journey from actor to governor of California to president of the United States.

She rushed to his side after he was shot in 1981 by a would-be assassin, and later endured his nearly decade-long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. In recent years she broke with fellow Republicans in backing stem cell research as a way to possibly find a cure for Alzheimer’s.

Tanner Nordhues pleaded no contest last week in Buffalo County District Court. A defendant does not admit guilt in a no-contest plea, but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict.

Police say Nordhues had sex with a 14-year-old girl last March and that a month earlier, he sent a 15-year-old girl sexually explicit images of himself.

Nordhues is set to be sentenced in May, when he faces up to 55 years in prison on the counts.

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OVERTON, Neb. (AP) — New numbers show the sandhill crane spring migration through central Nebraska is well ahead of schedule this year.

The latest aerial count taken Monday of sandhill cranes along the Platte River from Chapman to Overton showed 213,600 cranes. Crane Trust vice president Brice Krohn says that’s the largest number recorded in February since weekly crane inventories during migration season began in 1998.

The most sandhill cranes previously recorded in the area during February was 30,000 in February 2005.

Experts are crediting warmer-than-normal weather.

The average daily temperature in February in Grand Island was nearly 7 degrees above the 30-year average.

The sandhill crane migration generally runs from mid-February through mid-April, when more than 500,000 sandhill cranes pass through the Platte River basin.

• Kile Blake Schilke, 27, Imperial NE and Kalli Jo Mann, 32, Imperial NE

• Frankie Seanz, 51, North Platte NE and Elizabeth Salazar, 41, North Platte NE

• Justin Curt Arnold, 32, North Platte NE and Kisha Marie Morland, 34, North Platte NE

• William Charles La Rue, 53, North Platte NE and Sharon Lee Wagner, 57, North Platte NE

• Jerry Bryan Owen, 43, North Platte NE and Jessica Diane Petrackis, 30, North Platte NE