(AP) — Three Catholic schools in southeast Omaha have closed as part of a realignment of schools.

Thursday marked the end of classes at Assumption-Guadalupe Catholic School and Holy Ghost School. On Friday, St. Stanislaus School closed.

The move was especially difficult at Assumption-Guadalupe because it had helped so many Latino families in recent years.

School principal Rob Laird says about 95 percent of the school’s students come from families that speak Spanish at home.

School officials are encouraging parents to send children to Sts. Peter and Paul School, where the Archdiocese of Omaha has been working to meet the needs of Spanish-speaking families.

Laird says about 56 percent of families with returning students will attend Sts. Peter and Paul and he expects that number to rise.

 

(AP) — A York man who prosecutors say placed his baby daughter in the care of her drunken mother faces sentencing on July 1.

James Collingham made a deal with prosecutors, who lowered the child abuse charge to a misdemeanor.

County Attorney Candace Dick says the baby was born in December. Police and firefighters were sent to the woman’s apartment in March after neighbors reported smelling smoke. Dick says officers found the baby’s mother passed out, the baby in a stroller and a pan of food burning on the stove.

Dick says Collingham told officers that he and the woman had been drinking but he didn’t know she was drunk when he left her with the baby.

(AP) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has pleaded guilty to charges the companydumped hazardous waste in California.

A company spokeswoman says Wal-Mart entered the plea Tuesday in San Francisco federal court to misdemeanor counts of negligently dumping pollutants from Walmart stores into sanitation drains across California.

As part of the plea, the company will pay $81 million, which will also cover charges in Missouri.

In 2010, the company agreed to pay $27.6 million to settle similar allegations made by California authorities that led to changes in the retailer’s practices nationwide. Wal-Mart was accused of improperly disposing pesticide, fertilizer and paint.

(AP) — Coroner’s officials say five people killed in a fiery California crash that split a car in half were teenage high school students, including two sisters.

Orange County sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino said Tuesday the teens were students in the Irvine Unified School District.

The names of the three girls and two boys were released a day after they were killed in the single-car accident in Newport Beach.

The driver was identified as 17-year-old Abdulrahman Alyahyan, a senior at University High School.

The passengers included 17-year-old Robin Cabrera, a senior at Irvine High School, and her 16-year-old sister Aurora, a sophomore at the same school. Also killed were Cecilia Zamora and Nozad Al Hamawendi, both 17-year-old juniors at Irvine High School.

Police say speed was a factor.

(AP) — A 7-year-old cancer patient who had a trading card issued in his honor after he ran roughshod over the Nebraska Cornhuskers has found new buyers for cards set aside for his charity.

Among those stepping up: actor James Denton, who was on “Desperate Housewives.”

Video of Jack Hoffman’s run during Nebraska’s spring football game was an Internet hit. The Upper Deck Co. issued a card for Jack, with signed blow-ups for his foundation to auction off.

The winning bidder for the first card declined to pay, saying he hadn’t authorized the $6,100 bid. Jack’s father, Andy Hoffman, says news coverage prompted three buyers to offer $10,000 each for a signed card.

Denton lives in suburban Minneapolis, and the Hoffmans traveled there to meet him Tuesday. They are from Atkinson, Neb.

(AP) — The adjutant general of the Nebraska National Guard has been named the deputy director of the U.S. Army National Guard.

Maj. Gen. Judd Lyons will assume his new role at the National Guard Headquarters in Arlington, Va., later this summer. His promotion was announced Tuesday by Gov. Dave Heineman.

The 50-year-old Lyons is Nebraska’s 32nd adjutant general. He assumed command of the Nebraska National Guard in August 2009.

The adjutant general serves as the senior uniformed officer responsible for leading nearly 4,700 Army and Air National Guard personnel in Nebraska. Lyons also is a member of the governor’s cabinet.

In his new role, Lyons will coordinate programs and policies that affect the Army National Guard and its 350,000 citizen-soldiers.

Colorado’s governor signed six marijuana regulatory bills into law Tuesday while the state awaits a federal response to recreational pot legalization. The new laws seek to regulate the newly legal drug and keep it away from children, without being so strict that weed stays in the black market. Some highlights from Colorado’s new green laws:

— YOU CAN COME BUY IT, BUT YOU CAN’T TAKE IT HOME: Visitors to Colorado will have purchasing limits of a quarter-ounce of marijuana in a single transaction. The law doesn’t ban adults over 21 from possessing a full ounce, residents or not. But the purchasing limits were seen as an effort to reduce interstate trafficking and help persuade the federal government not to crack down on recreational sales.

— THE POT BUSINESS ISN’T OPEN FOR BUSINESS, YET: Colorado’s marijuana industry will for the first few months be limited to people already licensed to sell or produce medical marijuana. Even once the grandfathering period expires, licensees will need to be Colorado residents for two years, and investors will face residency requirements, too. The residency requirements were added to try to prevent Colorado from becoming a production ground for criminal drug cartels.

— THE CAMERAS BETTER BE ROLLING WHEN YOU GROW IT: Colorado tried and failed to establish constant video surveillance of medical marijuana, establishing a seed-to-sale tracking system to keep the industry honest. The vaunted system hasn’t worked out as expected because of a lack of money, but the agency that oversees pot says it has learned its lesson and will have the money to follow through with seed-to-sale tracking next year.

— NOT EVERY TOWN WILL SELL IT: Colorado’s marijuana framework gives local and county governments broad power to ban retail pot sales if they wish, though home growing will be allowed statewide. Legalization backers say the next Colorado political battle to watch will be which communities ban pot shops, prompting the possibility that marijuana sales will be largely concentrated in big cities that currently allow retail medical marijuana shops.

— MARIJUANA CLUBS AREN’T SAFE: Entrepreneurs in Colorado have been testing the new marijuana law in recent months by opening private clubs that allow communal pot smoking, but no sales, for a membership fee. The legislation tries to crack down on the spread of such cannabis clubs by stating that they’re not exempt from clean indoor air laws, unlike membership cigar clubs.

— KIDS GET NEW PROTECTIONS: Colorado’s new laws aim to prevent youth marijuana use as much as possible. The laws create a new crime of sharing marijuana with someone under 21, an analogy to current delinquency laws and alcohol. The laws also mandate child-proof packaging for marijuana sales, and bans types of marketing thought to appeal to kids, such as cartoon characters in advertisements and packaging. The new 10 percent marijuana sales tax will be used in part on educational campaigns telling people under 21 to avoid the drug.

— DON’T SMOKE AND DRIVE: After years of debate, Colorado now has as blood-level limit for marijuana and drivers. The law says that juries can presume drivers are too stoned to drive if their blood contains more than 5 nanograms per milliliter of THC, marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient. Washington state adopted the same driving standard on the ballot last year, but Colorado left the question to the state Legislature.

(AP) — A West Texas sheriff wounded by a man who killed a woman and injured four other people in a rampage Sunday says the shooter “was intent on shooting anybody and everybody” as he drove.

Concho County Sheriff Richard Doane said Tuesday that Lance Cpl. Esteban J. Smith pulled up behind one car carrying three people and started firing at them. Doane says the shooter hit one passenger in the cheek before the driver slammed on his brakes, turned around and headed toward Eden where he hide the vehicle in a car dealership lot.

Doane says Smith later wounded him near his left ear after the Marine pulled over following a short chase.

Doane says he’s unsure whether Smith killed himself or was killed by authorities.

(AP) — After several days of heavy rain across the lower Missouri River basin, the amount of water released into the river is being reduced to help minimize flooding.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it began reducing the amount of water flowing into the river on Sunday because of concerns about flooding downstream.

Last week, 24,000 cubic feet of water per day was being released from the Gavins Point dam on the South Dakota-Nebraska border. By Wednesday morning, half as much water will be released.

The corps is also reducing the amount of water released from Fort Randall dam in South Dakota.

The corps’ Jody Farhat says the reductions should alleviate some downstream flooding along the Missouri River.

(AP) — Nike Inc. is cutting ties with the Livestrong cancer charity founded by cyclist Lance Armstrong.

The move by the shoe and clothing company is the latest fallout in the doping scandal surrounding the former cyclist, who now admits he used performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France seven times.

Nike had a licensing agreement for Livestrong apparel and footwear, and helped push the Livestrong brand globally. Most notable was Nike’s creation of the yellow wristband with the foundation’s Livestrong logo that became an international symbol for cancer survivors.

Nike dropped its personal sponsorship of Armstrong in October after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency outlined years of doping by Armstrong and his former U.S. Postal Service teammates.

Officials at Livestrong said Tuesday the charity remains strong and committed to helping cancer patients worldwide through its survivorship programs.