A 7.1-magnitude earthquake has been reported off the coast of Indonesia.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake struck offshore, with the epicenter 147 miles (236 kilometers) northwest of the city of Saumlaki. The quake was reported at a depth of 96 miles (155 kilometers).

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has no immediate tsunami warning.

The quake hit shortly before 1700 GMT.

Indonesia is located in the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where earthquakes and volcanic activity are common.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is confirming that famed Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera died in a plane crash in northern Mexico.

It is the first official confirmation of Rivera’s death, although she has been widely presumed dead since the wreckage of her plane was found Sunday.

The NTSB is sending a team to assist Mexican authorities with the investigation. NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway says Mexican aviation authorities had confirmed Rivera’s death to the NTSB.

With the completion of a training manual, an 18-member task force has taken a big step toward determining the nature and extent of human trafficking in Nebraska.

The Lincoln Journal Star reports that the task force delivered the manual and a report to the state Legislature last week.

The report says human trafficking occurs primarily in prostitution, pornography, farming and the drug trade. Victims include foreigners but also U.S. citizens, including runaway teens whom traffickers scoop up off the streets.

Task force member Al Riskowski says the size and nature of Nebraska’s problem isn’t clear. He says the task force will define the problem and then employ the training manual to prepare law enforcement personnel and others to help find the traffickers who are preying on people.

The Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) in conjunction with the Polk and York County Sheriff’s Offices, York Police Department and the Southeast Coalition conducted compliance checks at 43 alcohol retail outlets in Polk and York Counties on Saturday, December 8.

During the compliance checks, one business in Polk County and two businesses in York County were found to be non-compliant after selling alcohol to minors. The retail outlets checked included convenience, liquor, and grocery stores, as well as, restaurants and bars.

Compliance checks are conducted to help communities determine the extent of the problem of alcohol sales as a source of youth access to alcohol. Local law enforcement conducts compliance checks to ensure that businesses are in compliance with the state’s youth alcohol law.

The Nebraska Office of Highway Safety (NOHS) provided $1,980 in grant funds to assist with the enforcement efforts. Media requests for additional information may be made to Sgt. Jeromy McCoy at (308) 385-6000 during regular business hours.

Iowa authorities say an 18-year-old Nebraska man is expected to live after accidentally being shot by his father while the two were hunting pheasants in southwest Iowa.

Iowa Department of Natural Resources spokesman Kevin Baskins says Ryan Rearick, of Omaha, was shot at fairly close range in the back of his head by a shotgun being carried by his father, Christopher Rearick, also of Omaha. The two were hunting in Page County when the accident happened around 10:30 a.m. Saturday.

The younger Rearick was taken to a Red Oak hospital, then flown to Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha. Baskins says Rearick is in stable condition and expected to survive.

Baskins says the shooting likely would have been fatal if the gun had been loaded for deer instead of pheasant.

The University of Nebraska has signed an agreement with a Turkish university that could lead to more faculty partnerships and student exchanges.

The agreement with Ataturk University in Erzurum, Turkey will focus on food security, water management, education, public health and other issues. Leaders from both universities expect to share their resources for mutually beneficial projects.

The relationship between the two universities dates to 1957, when the University of Nebraska offered to help the Turkish government create Ataturk, the country’s first American-style land-grant university.

Authorities have released the name of an 18-year-old woman who was shot to death in northeast Omaha.

Omaha police identified her as Tre’Veona Smith.

The shooting occurred around 3:45 a.m. Sunday. Officers responding to a reported shooting near North 42nd and Browne streets found the young woman with a gunshot wound.

Police say Smith was taken to Creighton University Medical Center, where she died.

No arrests have been reported.

BACALAR, Mexico — Software company founder John McAfee said Sunday he wants to return to the United States and “settle down to whatever normal life” he can.

In a live-stream Internet broadcast from the Guatemalan detention center where he is fighting a government order that he be returned to Belize, the 67-year-old said “I simply would like to live comfortably day by day, fish, swim, enjoy my declining years.”

Police in neighboring Belize want to question McAfee in the fatal shooting of a U.S. expatriate who lived near his home on a Belizean island in November.

The creator of the McAfee antivirus program again denied involvement in the killing during the Sunday Internet video hook-up, during which he answered what he said were reporters’ questions.

His comments were sometimes contradictory. McAfee is an acknowledged practical joker who has dabbled in yoga, ultra-light aircraft and the production of herbal medications.

The British-born McAfee first said that returning to the United States “is my only hope now.” But he later added, “I would be happy to go to England, I have dual citizenship.”

He was emphatic that “I cannot ever return to Belize … There is no hope for my life if I am ever returned to Belize.”

“If I am returned,” he said, “bad things will clearly happen to me.”

He descibed the health problems that had him briefly hospitalized earlier this week after Guatemalan authorities detained him for entering the country illegally. He apparently snuck in across a rural, unguarded spot along the border.

“I did not eat for two days, I drank very little liquids, and for the first time in many years I’ve been smoking almost non-stop,” he said. “I stood up, passed out hit my head on the wall, came to,” though he now said he was feeling better.

McAfee praised the role his 20-year-old Belizean girlfriend, Samantha Vanegas, played in his escape from Belize, where he claims he is being persecuted by corrupt politicians. Authorities in Belize deny that they are persecuting him and have questioned his mental state.

“Sam saved the day many times” during their escape, he said, and suggested he would take her with him to the United States if he is allowed to go there.

He confirmed that journalists from Vice magazine who accompanied him on his escape after weeks of hiding in Belize had unwittingly posted photos with embedded data that revealed his exact location.

“It was an error anyone could make,” he said, noting they were under a lot of pressure at the time.

McAfee has led an eccentric life since he sold his stake in the software company named after him in the early 1990s and moved to Belize about three years ago to lower his taxes.

He told The New York Times in 2009 that he had lost all but $4 million of his $100 million fortune in the U.S. financial crisis. However, a story on the Gizmodo website quoted him as describing that claim as “not very accurate at all.”

McAfee’s Guatemalan attorney, Telesforo Guerra, says that he has filed three separate legal appeals in the hope that his client can stay in Guatemala, where his political asylum request was rejected.

Guerra said he filed an appeal for a judge to make sure McAfee’s physical integrity is protected, an appeal against the asylum denial and a petition with immigration officials to allow his client to stay in this Central American country indefinitely.

The appeals could take several days to resolve, Guerra said. He added that he could still use several other legal resources but wouldn’t give any other details.

Fredy Viana, a spokesman for the Immigration Department, said that before the agency looks into the request to allow McAfee to stay in Guatemala, a judge must first deal with the appeal asking that authorities make sure McAfee’s physical integrity is protected.

“We won’t look into (allowing him to stay) until the other appeal is resolved,” Viana said. “The law gives me 30 days to resolve the issue.”

McAfee went on the run last month after Belizean officials tried to question him about the killing of Gregory Viant Faull, who was shot to death in early November.

McAfee acknowledges that his dogs were bothersome and that Faull had complained about them, but denies killing Faull. Faull’s home was a couple of houses down from McAfee’s compound in Ambergris Caye, off Belize’s Caribbean coast.

Omaha-area residents will see their natural gas and water bills jump, thanks to a rate hike approved by the Metropolitan Utilities District.

The utility’s board has approved a 5 percent rate increase for water and a 2.6 percent increase for natural gas. That will mean an average increase of nearly $3 on residential customers’ monthly bills beginning in January, or a little more than $28 a year.

The utility’s board said the rate increase is needed to cover the costs of infrastructure replacement projects and debt service costs on 2006 and 2012 water bonds.

Despite the increase, the utility says its natural gas and water rates remain below the national average and are comparable to other utilities in the Midwest.

A Colorado man faces arson charges after police say he spat flaming streams of lighter fluid at two other men.

James Pachokas told officers he spits fire for money, but witnesses told police that he used a lighter to ignite the fluid as he spat it toward two other men last month.

According to the Greeley Tribune, Zachary Flowers told police Pachokas spat the flaming fluid 20 to 25 times and the flames came close to his head. No injuries or damage were reported, however.

Pachokas is charged with two counts of arson and two counts of reckless endangerment. He was being held Thursday at the Weld County jail. It wasn’t clear whether he had an attorney.

His next court date is Dec. 21.