(AP) A campaign staffer for Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Janssen resigned Friday following a flap over his online posting of a vulgar slur aimed at state Sen. Danielle Conrad.

The slur was the latest in a string of offensive remarks and actions aimed at women in Nebraska politics over the past week.

“Jeremy and I agree that his comments were offensive and wrong,” said Janssen, a state lawmaker from Fremont. “His conduct in this instance is clearly not reflective of my campaign or my values, and his resignation is appropriate. Jeremy remains a friend and a good man who will learn from this mistake.”

Jensen had been hired recently as field director for Janssen’s campaign for governor. Before that, he worked as a field coordinator for conservative political action committee Americans for Prosperity.

Jensen had posted an offensive remark about Conrad last month on his Facebook page.

“It’s one thing for elected officials to disagree with each other. It’s quite another to be flat-out disrespectful,” the post said before going on to use a vulgar term for part of the female anatomy. The post is believed to have been in response to a post by Conrad on her Facebook page lauding the withdrawal of Gov. Dave Heineman’s plan to eliminate Nebraska’s state income tax.

Jensen said it was a private post, intended to be seen only by his 423 friends on Facebook. Jensen did not return a Facebook message left for him by The Associated Press on Friday, and there was no answer on his home phone in Lincoln.

Authorities say an investigation is under way into the deaths of a skydiving instructor and a student, both from Iceland, who died during weekend jumps with a group in Florida.

Pascoe County sheriff’s spokeswoman Melanie Snow said the two men took part with 20 other people Saturday in jumps in Zephyrhills, about 30 miles northeast of Tampa. Authorities say a search began when only 20 of the 22 skydivers returned.

Snow said the bodies were found near each other Saturday evening in woods south of the Zephyrhills Municipal Airport. She would not comment whether their parachutes of the skydivers had opened, saying that was part of the investigation.

The spokeswoman later said the dead were identified as 41-year-old instructor Orvar Arnarson and 25-year-old student Andrimar Pordarson. No hometowns were given.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the anguish of closing 54 schools pales in comparison to the damage done by “trapping” kids in failing schools.

Emanuel spoke publicly Saturday for the first time since Chicago Public Schools officials announced the closings this week. It is the largest number of CPS schools to be closed in a single year.

Critics say the plan disproportionately affects minority neighborhoods and will endanger children who may have to cross gang boundaries to get to a new school.

Emanuel says he knows shuttering schools will be difficult. But he says it’s necessary if all students are going to receive a quality education.

CPS currently has more than 500,000 seats and about 403,000 students. The district also is facing a $1 billion budget shortfall.

A Scribner man has been sentenced to up to 30 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl.

Abran Aragon was sentenced in Dodge County District Court on Thursday.

He was arrested in June and pleaded no contest in November to second-degree sexual assault of a child.

County Attorney Oliver Glass sought prison time, noting that Aragon had told officials that he “experimented with (the girl) because she was there.”

Aragon must register as a sex offender upon his release from prison.

Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer says his department has launched an internal investigation after a video turned up online showing an officer punching a restrained man.

Police say the incident began Thursday, when officers responded to an on-going parking complaint in a north Omaha neighborhood.

Police were preparing to have some vehicles towed for expired tags when they say 28-year-old Octavius Johnson pulled up and approached officers in an aggressive manner.

But video secretly taken by a neighbor shows an officer grabbing Johnson, who does not appear combative, from behind and violently throwing him to the ground. Later, the officer is seen punching Johnson in the face several times while Johnson is prone on the ground.

Schmaderer has called a Saturday afternoon news conference to address the incident.

(AP) A federal judge is again blocking efforts by a central Missouri technical college to drug-test its students.

U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey in Jefferson City granted a preliminary injunction Friday. It temporarily prevents Linn State Technical College from screening all first-year students and some returning students for cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone and eight other drugs.

The two-year school also cannot report the test results from September 2011, when it began the program before the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of six students. The lawsuit claims the program violates students’ Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful searches and seizures.

Laughrey’s ruling comes after a federal appeals court decision in January that overturned a previous restraining order she had issued. The ACLU quickly filed another challenge.

(AP) Hundreds of law enforcement officers are raiding Southern California auto parts shops and other businesses suspected of illegally selling nitrous oxide for use as a recreational drug, in one of the largest such raids to date.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s Lt. Rod Armalin says nearly 300 law enforcements officers served 17 simultaneous search warrants Friday.

It’s the result of a year-and-a-half-long joint operation dubbed “No Laughing Matter” by the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

FDA special agent Lisa Hartsell says the agency has recently focused on the illegal use of nitrous oxide.

The gas is legally used by dentists for anesthesia, to pressurize whipped cream canisters and to speed up race cars. But authorities say its illegal use has spurred fatal car accidents, rapes and teen deaths — all in the name of a temporary high.

A Lincoln firefighter’s wife has been charged with felony welfare fraud.

Online court records list a Fremont address for 32-year-old April Houchin. But an affidavit from a Nebraska Health and Human Services Department official says the couple bought a house in Lincoln in February 2008, sold it in April 2012 and bought a Fremont home in December 2009.

The records say the couple married in September 2010 but had lived together longer.

The affidavit says Houchin fraudulently obtained nearly $15,000 in benefits over varying time periods by lying about her relationship with her husband and failing to list the homes and car she owned with him.

Court records say a 20-year-old Nevada woman has been given 360 days in jail following convictions for possessing methamphetamine and marijuana in southeastern Nebraska.

Ashtyn Thomas, of Sparks, Nev., was sentenced on Thursday in Lancaster County District Court. She’d pleaded guilty to lesser charges after making a deal with prosecutors. Prosecutors also dropped two charges.

Prosecutors say Thomas and two other Nevada women were arrested after a traffic stop by a Nebraska state trooper in November 2011 along Interstate 80 in Lincoln. Officers say they found 22 pounds of pot, some meth and a gun in the vehicle.

Valerie Bailor, of Washoe Valley, Nev., was given five to 10 years in prison. Ashley Rapisura, of Reno, Nev., was given two to four years.

Officers have captured a 30-year-old man after searches that caused three Lincoln schools to be locked down.

Chadrick Fitzgerald was found in a storage closet at an apartment complex on Thursday. He’d been spotted walking out of the apartment building that morning but fled as Metro Area Fugitive Task Force officers approached.

Officials locked down Northeast High, North Star High School and Pershing Elementary schools on Thursday afternoon as officers searched for Fitzgerald after he’d run from them at another apartment complex.

Authorities say Fitzgerald is wanted on a federal warrant and also is suspected of shooting at his Lincoln girlfriend on Wednesday. She was not injured.

Online court records don’t list the name of his attorney.