SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) — A 30-year-old Scottsbluff man has taken a plea deal in a child pornography case.

30-year-old James Larive has pleaded no contest to two felony counts of possessing and distributing child pornography. He faces up to 70 years in prison when he is sentenced in December.

Larive was originally charged with four counts of visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct and four counts of child pornography but most of the charges were dropped in the deal.

The Nebraska State Patrol says Larive was arrested in March after sharing the files. They found more than 200 files of porn on his computer.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The CEO of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services says he is leaving the agency in mid-December.

Kerry Winterer announced his departure on Thursday. Winterer was appointed by Gov. Dave Heineman in 2009.

Winterer thanked department employees for the services they provide to Nebraskans, and says he was honored to lead the agency. He says his greatest disappointment was the public focus on the department’s shortcomings rather than its successes.

The department has faced criticism in recent years for problems with the child welfare system as well as ACCESS Nebraska, a state-run service that helps Nebraskans apply for and renew public benefits.

Gov.-elect Pete Ricketts has said he will conduct a national search for a new department head.

Failure to pay a visit to the motor-vehicles department has resulted in three North Platte men facing felony charges.

At around 10:40 p.m., on November 12, an officer with the North Platte Police Department was on patrol when he observed a vehicle displaying expired license plates near Vine Street and 2nd Street.

The officer conducted a traffic stop and made contact with the driver, 21-year-old Cody Richards, and two passengers, 24-year-old Andrew Lauber and 27-year-old Juan Nila.

After detecting the smell of burnt marijuana coming from the vehicle, the officer conducted a search and located prescription drugs and two small baggies of a white powdery substance, which later field-tested positive for methamphetamine.

Following further investigation, officers determined that there was probable cause to arrest all three subjects for felony possession of methamphetamine.

The prescription pills, Clonazepam, were found on Richards’ person, so he was also charged with felony possession of Clonazepam.

The trio was transported to the Lincoln County Detention Center and jailed.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Time to stock up on the ramen noodles. The average cost of attending college crept up again this year, the College Board said Thursday.

The average sticker price, with room and board included, for undergraduate students attending a four-year college or university in their home state was $18,943. Out-of-state students at those schools paid, on average, $32,762. At two-year public schools, in-state students paid an average $11,052.

The cost to attend a private, four-year nonprofit college: $42,419, on average, including housing and meal plan.

For-profit schools cost about $15,230, but housing figures weren’t available.

Books and transportation costs can add more than $2,000 to the cost of attending college, and that rises even more for commuters.

The highest rate of increase of 3.7 percent was among private, nonprofit colleges. And even though the increases across higher education outpaced inflation, the rates of increase were lower than those students saw five, 10 or 30 years ago, the College Board said.

When adjusted for inflation, students are paying more than triple what students paid 30 years ago to attend a public, four-year institution and about 2.5 times more to attend a private nonprofit or two-year public one.

“The price increases are actually quite moderate this year, but still, what people are paying, and this is before financial aid, is the accumulation of many years of price increases,” said Sandy Baum, a co-author of the nonprofit College Board’s annual college pricing report. “So, if the price goes up just a little bit this year, people aren’t really going to breathe a sigh of relief because the price is already high from their perspective.”

Baum said during tough economic times, college costs tend to go up because public institutions receive less in state dollars and private ones see a decrease in endowments and in giving. Other contributing factors are wide ranging from the increasing costs of technology to health insurance for university employees.

Only the wealthiest of Americans are seeing their incomes rise, so most students feel the tuition upticks more, Baum said.

The number of full–time undergraduate students increased by 16 percent in the three years leading up to fall 2010 to 13.7 million, but then declined to 13 million in fall 2013. The number of students taking out student loans and the amount taken out, on average, by students has been declining, the College Board said. It said about 60 percent of students who earned a bachelor’s degree in 2012-2013 from public or private, nonprofit schools from which they began their studies graduated with debt, borrowing an average of $27,300.

The breakdown in pricing:

—Sticker prices, on average, for in-state tuition and fees at public four-year schools increased to $9,139 this school year — a 2.9 percent increase over the 2013-2014 school year. The average out-of-state price tag was $22,958, an increase of 3.3 percent increase. Room and board was $9,804.

—Public two-year schools had a $3,347 published price on average for tuition and fees— an increase of 3.3 percent. Room and board was $7,705.

—Tuition and fees at private, nonprofit schools rose 3.7 percent to an average of $31,231. Room and board was $11,188.

—For-profit schools saw a 1.3 percent increase in tuition and fees.

Published prices don’t necessarily reflect what students actually pay because they don’t include grant dollars provided by institutions or government aid such as Pell Grants, the GI Bill and tax credits. This school year, full-time students received an average of about $6,110 in aid at public four-year schools, $5,090 at public two-year ones, and $18,870 at private colleges.

The average in-state prices at four-year schools ranged from $4,646 in Wyoming to $14,712 in New Hampshire.

For out-of-state students, the most affordable tuition of $9,910 was in South Dakota. On the other end, the most expensive was $34,331 in Vermont.

A North Platte man, who is a convicted felon, is facing charges after police found him in possession of an assault rifle.

At around 2:00 p.m., on November 12, officers with the North Platte Police Department responded to a residence in the 1300 block of East 12th Street, after receiving a report that a fugitive was in the residence.

Officers arrived and made contact with 26-year-old Anthony Apodaca, Jr., who was a resident of the home.

According to Officer Rodney Brown, the responding officers reported smelling burning marijuana coming from inside the residence.

As a result, officers conducted a search of the house and located a baggie containing less than an ounce of marijuana and a SKS assault style .762 rifle and a 50-round clip.

Further investigation revealed that Apodaca was a convicted felon, and was prohibited from possessing firearms.

He was taken into custody and transported to the Lincoln County Detention Center, where he was jailed on a charge of possession of a deadly weapon by a prohibited person.  He was also cited for possession of marijuana.

If convicted of the Class 1D felony, Apodaca faces a minimum of three years in prison and a maximum of 50 years.

 

Brown said the wanted subject officers were originally called for, 23-year-old Virgil Apodaca, Jr., was not located.

 

 

 

 

CLAY CENTER, Nebraska (AP) — A truck driver facing manslaughter charges in connection to a fatal crash in Clay County has reached a plea deal with prosecutors.

53-year-old Kenneth Johnson pleaded no contest Wednesday to two counts of manslaughter. A plea deal dropped a third count of manslaughter and a habitual criminal charge.

Authorities say Johnson was driving on Highway 14 in August when his semitrailer stuck a sport utility vehicle near U.S. Highway 6. Three people were killed: 53-year-old Gary Isom; his wife, 52-year-old Susan Isom; and their daughter, 26-year-old Tiffany Isom. The couple’s teenage son survived the collision.

• Today: Sunny, with a high near 21. Wind chill values as low as -10. Northwest wind around 6 mph becoming light and variable.
• Tonight: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 5. Wind chill values as low as -7. Southeast wind 5 to 8 mph.
• Friday: A 20 percent chance of light snow before noon. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 26. Wind chill values as low as -8. South southeast wind 9 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.
• Friday Night: A 20 percent chance of snow after midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 12. Wind chill values as low as zero. Southeast wind 6 to 9 mph.
• Saturday: A 40 percent chance of snow. Cloudy, with a high near 22. East northeast wind 6 to 11 mph becoming north 12 to 17 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 26 mph.
• Saturday Night: A 20 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 1.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House and Senate will vote in coming days on legislation to build the Keystone XL pipeline in a high-stakes political poker game.

The two candidates in the Dec. 6 runoff for a Louisiana Senate seat are both pushing the bills. They are three-term Democrat Mary Landrieu in the Senate and Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy in the House.

The House is virtually certain to approve the bill on Thursday. Landrieu says she has the votes to pass it in the Senate next Tuesday.

That would leave the fate of the bill up to President Barack Obama. The White House had no immediate comment on the day’s developments.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Gov.-elect Pete Ricketts says he will retain Bruce Ramge as the director of Nebraska’s Department of Insurance.

Ricketts announced Wednesday that Ramge will remain the head of the agency, which regulates Nebraska’s insurance markets.

Ramge joined the Department of Insurance in 1984. He was appointed to his current position by Gov. Dave Heineman in 2010. As director, he oversees 100 department employees.

Ramge graduated from Dana College in 1979. He received an MBA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1982.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Gov. Dave Heineman says Nebraska will defend itself against an expected legal challenge to the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

The Republican governor said Wednesday that Nebraska will “not take a pass” on the lawsuit, which the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska plans to file next week.

Heineman notes that voters in 2000 overwhelmingly approved a constitutional measure, which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The measure prohibits same-sex marriage, civil unions and legalized domestic partnerships.

Danielle Conrad, executive director of the ACLU of Nebraska, says the legal and political landscape has changed rapidly, and the issue is one of fairness.

A federal judge struck down Nebraska’s measure in 2005, but a three-judge federal appeals court panel reinstated it the following year.