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.

The president of Omaha State Bank remains on leave after he brought his new gun to work last month to show it to a friend.

The Omaha World-Herald reports Michael Dahir’s actions violated a bank policy prohibiting employees from bringing guns into the bank.

Bank vice president Karen Cenovic filed a police report later saying she felt threatened. But prosecutors haven’t decided yet whether to file charges.

The incident on Nov. 20 happened after the bank closed. Dahir had just picked up a new 9mm handgun that he’d purchased, and he brought it inside the bank to show it off.

Dahir says he’s sorry about the incident and realizes it was a mistake to take the gun into the bank. Dahir says he never meant to threaten anyone.

Gov. Dave Heineman is reminding Nebraskans to fly their flags at half-staff in observance of Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day on Friday.

Heineman says lowering the flag is a way to remember the victims and honor the heroes of Pearl Harbor.

Congress has designated Dec. 7 as National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, and each year the President signs a proclamation ordering flags to be flown at half-staff.

The Dec. 7, 1941, surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii claimed some 2,400 American lives and pushed the U.S. into World War II.

The concepts of climate change and American exceptionalism remain in the final draft of new social studies standards for Nebraska schools.

The two issues had been the most contentious as public comment was taken on the proposed standards.

The Lincoln Journal Star reports that the phrase “American exceptionalism” doesn’t appear in the wording on the concept contained in the sixth- through eighth-grade U.S. history standards.

In the sixth- through eighth-grade geography standards, climate change is presented as theory, and the standards suggest students be asked to evaluate the evidence that supports or refutes the theory.

The state Education Board is scheduled to vote Friday on the proposed standards.

Nebraska’s revised Stateside Transportation Improvement Program plan has been made available for public comment through Dec. 12.

The plan has been posted on the state Roads Department website.

Copies also may be obtained from the department’s communication office in Lincoln by calling 402-479-4512 or emailing maryjo.oie@nebraska.gov.

Federal law requires that residents and other interested parties be given a chance to comment on the proposed plan. The plan lists all highway and transit projects that will be using federal funds, as well as regionally significant transportation projects using nonfederal sources.

The plan is referred to as Revision 2 and covers a four-year period.

A third man has been convicted of selling pot in a case that began when his brother asked strangers at a bar whether any of them wanted to buy some marijuana. Turns out the bar patrons were Lincoln police officers at a party.

The Lincoln Journal Star reports that 57-year-old Richard Carr was convicted Tuesday of delivering a controlled substance.

Prosecutors say Carr’s younger brother, John Carr, had made the pot offer on Jan. 9, 2011. No immediate sale resulted, but two undercover officers followed up two days later at John Carr’s apartment. Prosecutors say Richard Carr was there and participated in the transaction.

John Carr got probation after pleading no contest. Another man involved, Jay Rickman, also got probation.

Richard Carr is scheduled to be sentenced in February.