LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A national group of state agricultural leaders will meet in Nebraska next week.

The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture will meet in Lincoln from Wednesday through next Saturday and celebrate its 100th anniversary.

The head of Nebraska’s Agriculture Department, Greg Ibach (EYE’-bah), has been serving as president of the group.

The group promotes policies that promote American agriculture and protect the environment.

The group’s members will be looking ahead to what the next president and next farm bill might mean for agriculture. And there will discussions of current regulatory challenges farmers and ranchers face.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Lincoln high school player has joined San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick in taking a knee during the national anthem, protesting racial oppression and inequality.

Sterling Smith of Southeast High School says he did so before last week’s game and will do so again Friday against Omaha North and continue through the rest of the season.

Smith says the discussions that followed Kaepernick’s protests shed light on the difficult subject of race and give people a chance to talk about those issues. Smith says he, too, wanted to start a conversation.

The school district says it encourages athletes and spectators to stand during the national anthem but also recognizes the nation’s freedom of speech. It says no one is legally required to stand.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The University of Nebraska at Omaha has been fined $900 for false alarms at Baxter Arena, which has been open to the public for less than a year.

University spokesman Charley Reed said that “fire-alarm sensitivity has been an issue at Baxter since it has opened” but also says they’ve been infrequent. City records say there have been five false alarms since September 2015.

Associate athletic director Mike Kemp says the problem occurs when the scoreboard is moved up and down. He says the university will get the problem resolved.

City Treasurer Donna Waller says no fines were issued for the first two false alarms. False alarms on Oct. 5 and Jan. 22 drew $200 fines. A fifth alarm on April 13 cost the university $500.

ELK POINT, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota authorities have confirmed that a body recovered from the Missouri River was that of a missing Iowa college student.

The Union County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday that the medical examiner’s office in Sioux Falls says the body was that of 23-year-old Tom Patterson. He disappeared in the water around 5 p.m. Sept. 4 near a beach about four miles southwest of Elk Point. Authorities have said witnesses reported that Patterson was trying to help some companions swim from the Nebraska shoreline back to South Dakota when he was swept away by the current.

Patterson was from Frostburg, Maryland, and was a student at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa.

YUTAN, Neb. (AP) — A rural Yutan man has been charged with manslaughter in the death of his sister more than two years after she was beaten.

Records say 64-year-old Randall McDuffee has bonded out of jail. His attorney, Christopher Lathrop, declined to comment Thursday beyond saying that McDuffee will be pleading not guilty.

Authorities say 49-year-old Michelle McDuffee was visiting her brother in December 2013. He told officers that he and his sister had been drinking the night of Dec. 7 and that he found her the next morning on the kitchen floor. She was treated at an Omaha hospital for head and other injuries.

Authorities say she never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead on March 3 this year. An autopsy showed she died of complications from a blunt force head injury.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Omaha city prosecutor wants an electronic system that would streamline the time it takes to obtain a judge’s signature on a warrant seeking a blood test for suspected drunken drivers.

City prosecutor Matt Kuhse says there are legislative proposals coming from his office as well as the Douglas County Attorney’s Office and the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office to alleviate a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that makes it harder to prosecute drunk driving cases.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 on June 23 that police can’t forcibly draw blood from people suspected of driving drunk without a warrant.

Kuhse says he hopes the Nebraska Legislature can create a digital warrant system to make the process more efficient.

He says the ruling has impacted about 20 DUI cases so far.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a man suspected of killing a Lincoln convenience store clerk in July has been slain in Mississippi.

The clerk, 51-year-old Robert Hanna, was fatally shot during a robbery at a Kwik Shop early on July 7.

The Lincoln Police Department said in a news release Thursday that the suspect, 20-year-old Rodzela Jones, was found dead 12 days later in Jonestown, Mississippi. Lincoln investigators say they identified him through the store’s video surveillance and through phone records and family interviews that placed him in Lincoln at the time of the shooting.

Lincoln police say Jones was killed before they received enough information to conclude that he was the man who shot Hanna. A spokesman for the Coahoma County, Mississippi, sheriff didn’t immediately return a call from The Associated Press.

United States Attorney Deborah R. Gilg for the District of Nebraska and Barbara L. McQuade for the Eastern District of Michigan announced that Brandon L. Hennerberg, 31, formerly of Fairbury, Nebraska, was sentenced today to 35 years in federal prison for his participation in a child exploitation enterprise.  Hennerberg was sentenced by U.S. Senior District Court Judge Richard G. Kopf in Lincoln, Nebraska.  He was originally charged, along with five co-defendants, in the Eastern District of Michigan in a 28-count indictment with the crimes of child exploitation enterprise, numerous counts of conspiracy to produce child pornography, conspiracy to receive and access with intent to view child pornography, and aiding and abetting online enticement.  On June 21, 2016, in Lincoln, Nebraska, Hennerberg pleaded guilty to one count of child exploitation enterprise, carrying a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence.

The investigation determined that from at least January of 2014 to February of 2016, Hennerberg was a member of a group of individuals that worked together online to entice minor females to produce child pornography.  The group members created fraudulent social media accounts posing as teenagers. Using the assumed identities, group members searched social media websites and engaged minor females, specifically targeting 10 to 14-year-old girls, in conversation using internet chat and video applications. The group members worked together for hours and sometimes even days to deceive their victims and convince them to undress and engage in sexually explicit activity live on a web camera, which the group members recorded.

The group members used an elaborate scheme to entice, coerce, and deceive their victims.  Each group member had at least one role, although at times a group member would play more than one role or switch from one role to another.  The “hunters” visited social media websites commonly used by minors to locate minors and bring them back to the other group members.  The “talkers” were primarily responsible for conversing with the minors.  They asked the minors to do “dares” which escalated into sexual activity.  If a victim was suspicious of the group members or reluctant to engage in sexual activity, the “loopers” would then play a previously recorded video of a minor engaged in sexual activity, pretending to be that minor, in order to convince the victim to engage in the same type of activity.  Meanwhile, the “watchers” in the group were in charge of ensuring that no suspected law enforcement members or unwanted persons were present.

The group victimized at least 100 minor girls, most of whom have yet to be identified. If you have any information to help identify victims of this online conspiracy, fill out the FBI’s confidential survey at fbi.gov/sextortion or contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) atwww.missingkids.com. A confidential email can also be sent to [email protected]. Or call 1-800-CALL-FBI FREE (225-5324).

Co-defendants Virgil Napier, Jr. and John Garrison entered guilty pleas in June and July respectively and are currently scheduled to be sentenced in October by U.S. District Court Judge Judith E. Levy in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Co-defendants Justin Fuller, Thomas Dougherty and Dantly Nicart cases are at various stages in the proceedings.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Southeast Michigan Trafficking and Exploitation Crimes Task Force and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys April Russo and Sara Woodward.

PLATTSMOUTH, Neb. (AP) — Southeast Nebraska law enforcement officials are warning businesses and the public to be on the lookout for counterfeit cash.

The Plattsmouth Police Department issued the warning after fake $100 and $20 bills have been found at local businesses in recent days.

Police say they have no leads on who is responsible for the counterfeit money, or if the bills went through several hands unknowingly.

Police Chief Steve Rathman says the bills were discovered during the time money was being counted, not at the time of payment.

Police say the bills are being forwarded to the U.S. Secret Service.

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CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Police say a gunman shot three people outside a Cheyenne nursing home Wednesday morning before killing himself as police closed in on him.

Police spokesman Dan Long says one of the three people shot by the unidentified gunman is dead. There’s no immediate word on the condition of the other two victims.

Long described the gunman as an elderly male and says he was a resident of the nursing home on Cheyenne’s northeast side. The shootings happened shortly after 11 a.m.

Long says the gunman fled the scene, but he killed himself as officers approached him at a location nearby.

The investigation into the shooting is continuing. Long says it’s not known yet whether the three shooting victims lived at the nursing home.