LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Nebraska lawmakers says the state is failing to keep track of important case information about children who are in state custody due to abuse, neglect, and other problems.
Some blame the problem on an outmoded computer system as well as high turnover and overwhelming caseloads. They say it has complicated their efforts to overhaul the state’s child welfare system in the wake of a report that found substantial problems with a privatization effort that began in 2009.
On Thursday, the Health and Human Services Committee will hold a public hearing on a bill that would return many case management duties to state employees.
A Department of Health and Human Services spokesman said agency officials believe the computer tracking system is adequate.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Former U.S. Senator and Nebraska governor Bob Kerrey has found himself in the middle of a tug-of-war between Democrats desperate for him to run for Nebraska’s U.S. Senate seat this year and Republicans just as eager for him to stay out.
Kerrey announced earlier this month that he’s mulling a run to replace U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, who is not seeking a third term this year.
Since then, Nebraska’s airwaves have been crowded with radio and television ads by conservative groups attacking Kerrey as a liberal and carpetbagger who should stay in New York, where he’s lived for the past decade.
Conservative groups say Nebraska voters need to know what they’d be getting with Kerrey. State Democrats say the ad blitz shows Republicans are afraid of a Kerrey run.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) – Nebraska State Fair organizers hope they’ll be able to attract an even bigger crowd to Grand Island this year by selling the event to residents of the state’s two largest cities.
This year will be the fair’s third in Grand Island after more than a century in Lincoln. Last year’s fair attracted about 330,000 people.
Nebraska State Fair Executive Director Joseph McDermott said that the marketing budget will increase this year to make sure every corner of the state hears about it, especially people in Omaha and Lincoln.
The fair board met Friday in Kearney. McDermott says fair attendance from eastern Nebraska isn’t as strong as he’d like.

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama and Congress are back where they were before Christmas, locked in an election-season tussle over a proposed 1,700-mile oil pipeline from Canada to Texas.
Republicans hope to again force Obama to make a politically risky decision, while the president is seeking to put it off until after the November elections.
Obama blocked the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline on Wednesday, at least temporarily, but Republicans immediately signaled their intention to try again to force the issue. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, says he will call Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who recommended the rejection, to testify at a hearing as early as next Wednesday, the day after Obama gives his State of the Union address.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Occupy protesters have been told to remove their tent settlement from Centennial Mall by March 1.
The city expects the area to become a staging site for contractors working on the mall.
Parks and Recreation director Lynn Johnson says the city is starting Centennial Mall renovation work a year early so it can be coordinated with resurfacing work on adjacent streets this spring and summer.
Protester Jo Tetherow says the Occupy occupants are researching their response to the city.
The Occupy movement began in New York, decrying what protesters see as corporate greed and the growing gap between rich and poor.

GERING, Neb. (AP) – A 50 year old Gering man has been arrested, accused of sexual assault and aggravated domestic assault.
Authorities say a 48-year-old woman reported that the man came home and forced her to have sex three times on Thursday, despite her pleas to stop. She was treated later for bruises, abrasions and other injuries.
An arrest affidavit says the man acknowledged being at the home, but he made no other statements.
He was arrested Saturday night.
The Associated Press is not using his name in order to protect the woman’s privacy.
A Scotts Bluff County jailer said the man remained in custody on Tuesday, pending $700,000 bail. Online court records don’t list the name of his attorney.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – People who give jail or prison inmates contraband in Nebraska would be detained and penalized equally, under a measure set for legislative debate.
Lawmakers are scheduled to discuss a bill Tuesday that would apply the same contraband rules and penalties at state facilities, as well as county and city jails.
Sen. Norm Wallman of Cortland says the definition of contraband can differ from place to place. He says local officials in his area want penalties and criteria to be the same for all facilities.
Current law pertains only to weapons or tools that could be used for escape. Wallman’s bill covers any item that is considered unlawful.
Wallman says people push the limit on what is considered contraband, and this bill would help county attorneys apply the law evenly.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Nebraska is losing trees to high grain prices.
The prices have left many farmers with a decision to make – bulldoze trees to maximum profit or leave the trees as windbreaks and habitat plantings for land management.
This month, those sticking with trees are meeting with the 23 Nebraska resource districts to order seedlings from the Nebraska National Forest and Bessey Nursery near Halsey. In 1990, the nursery sold more than 3 million seedlings. In 2010, it was 780,000.
Dennis Adams of the Nebraska Forest Service is part of a group trying to increase plantings to 1.7 million.
He says windbreaks protect topsoil from erosion. They also catch snow that melts and increases soil moisture in the spring.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Teresa Scanlan is no longer Miss America.
The Nebraska beauty turned over her Miss America crown to a new winner Saturday night, 23-year-old Miss Wisconsin Laura Kaeppeler.
Scanlan, of Gering, who was crowned Miss America last January, was the first Miss Nebraska to win the pageant. At 17, she also was the youngest Miss America to have won the crown since the pageant set up age limits in 1938.
Her Miss America platform was the risks of eating disorders.
Scanlan plans to use her Miss America scholarship to pay for law school.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – A controversial voter ID bill slated for debate in the Nebraska Legislature has been removed from the agenda.
Debate on the measure (LB239) had been expected to start as early as Tuesday. The bill by Fremont Sen. Charlie Janssen would require a government-issued identification to vote in Nebraska.
Critics say the measure would suppress voter turnout, especially among low-income and minority populations. Several Democratic senators in the officially nonpartisan Legislature have attached amendments to the bill for a filibuster.
Nearly 70 people gathered at the Capitol this week to protest the measure, which was introduced last year but carried over to this session. Lawmakers and interest groups have argued over whether voter fraud occurs in the state, and how widespread it is.