OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska school district will soon incorporate opportunities for high school seniors to go to work for local businesses as part of a program designed to prepare students for careers.

Westside Community Schools will create a Center for Advanced Professional Studies to develop partnerships with businesses that will act as satellite campuses. Students may spend part of their day working on projects at the businesses.

The new program is part of the district’s larger effort to expand its career education programming, and to learn and fill in skill gaps in the workforce.

The Nebraska district is modeling its program on one developed by the Blue Valley district in Kansas City, Kansas.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Omaha Public Power District board decided to stick with its original choice for the utility’s next chief executive after completing a second search.

The utility said Wednesday that current OPPD vice president Tim Burke was again chosen from a field of finalists. The board is scheduled to vote on his selection at its meeting Thursday.

OPPD was criticized in January after its initial CEO search was conducted mostly in secret. The utility also refused to identify the original finalists.

The board said in January it wanted Burke to replace retiring CEO Gary Gates, but then it reopened the search. Burke and three other finalists interviewed with the board this month and met with the public.

Burke’s salary will increase to $419,217 from his current $356,605 if the board approve

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Lincoln house bought to become the official home of the University of Nebraska president is back on the market.

The 700,000-square-foot house is listed for $750,000. It has five bedrooms and five baths, and it was built in 1927.

The University of Nebraska Foundation bought the house in December 2013. The home was never lived in by former NU President J.B. Milliken or interim NU President Jim Linder. The foundation said this past January that “a different residence would better meet the future needs of the university.”

University spokeswoman Melissa Lee says housing arrangements for the university’s new president, Hank Bounds, have not yet been determined.

PAPILLION, Neb. (AP) — A former Sarpy County sheriff’s deputy who faced a misdemeanor sexual assault charge has pleaded no contest to a lesser charge.

Fifty-three-year-old Rick Wheeler has pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of public indecency. It’s punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

He had faced up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine if he was found guilty of the original charge of third-degree sexual assault.

Wheeler was accused of inappropriately touching a woman in September at a Papillion bar.

Wheeler was a sergeant who’d worked 26 years for the sheriff’s office. He was fired afterward.

Court records show he’s appealing a decision by the county merit commission that upheld his termination.

Wheeler will be sentenced in May.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska hospital monitoring five American aid workers who were exposed to Ebola in Sierra Leone says they were all doing well Tuesday.

Nebraska Medical Center spokesman Taylor Wilson says none of the people being monitored in Omaha was displaying symptoms of Ebola of Tuesday.

One person remained in the hospital’s biocontainment unit Tuesday as a precaution. That person developed some symptoms Sunday night, but then improved Monday.

Wilson says that person will leave the isolation unit Thursday if they remain free of symptoms and return to a less restrictive location on the hospital campus where the others are staying.

The aid workers were evacuated from Sierra Leone after one of their colleagues contracted the deadly virus.

VERDON, Neb. (AP) — A 37-year-old Falls City man has been killed in a rollover accident near Verdon in southeast Nebraska.

The Richardson County Sheriff’s Office says William Lester was headed south on Nebraska Highway 67 late Saturday night or early Sunday morning when he lost control of his pickup when he didn’t stop at the intersection with U.S. Highway 73.

The pickup ran into a ditch and then back onto the roadway before rolling several times, ejecting Lester. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The accident is being investigated.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A school board has approved a plan to convert Benson High School in Omaha into a career academy, which is a new twist on the traditional vocational schools.

The $1.8 million proposal to convert the school into Omaha Public Schools’ only career-oriented high school was unanimously approved Monday.

Career academies emphasize job training and give students multiple pathways to earn college credit or industry certifications. Benson students would study business and entrepreneurship; health professions; or construction and design.

Students will also learn how to obtain a job straight out of high school, or how to pursue a higher education degree.

Benson officials say that they need $1.8 million and a six-year commitment from the Omaha Public Schools’ school board to get the career academies going. The cost of the academy includes teacher training, eight new staff hires and other start-up costs.

NEBRASKA CITY, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska City school for the visually impaired is set to celebrate its 140th anniversary.

The Nebraska Center for the Education of Children who are Blind or Visually Impaired will celebrate by holding an open house Sunday to showcase its facilities.

The center works with school districts to assess the needs of students, which can include daily living skills, learning Braille, learning how to use the Internet and job exploration. The school serves about 800 students, ages 5 to 21, from across the state.

Students may stay at the school for a day, a week or longer depending on their individual programs. The center, which is open year-round, also works with younger children to assess their needs before they enter school.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A former U.S. trade representative and agriculture secretary has pledged $2.5 million toward establishment of a new international trade and finance institute at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The university announced Monday that Clayton Yeutter’s outright gift and commitment will be used for what will be called the Clayton K. Yeutter Institute of International Trade and Finance. The plan awaits a vote by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents.

Yeutter, who lives in Potomac, Maryland, was born in 1930 in Eustis, Nebraska, and has served four U.S. presidents in a career spanning several decades. He earned all of his degrees at the University of Nebraska, beginning with a bachelor’s in 1952.

HOSKINS, Neb. (AP) — Six people in a family have escaped safely from flames that destroyed their rural home in northeast Nebraska’s Stanton County.

County Sheriff Mike Unger says firefighters were dispatched around 1:30 a.m. Monday to the three-story house on Nebraska Highway 35 near Hoskins. Crews from Hoskins, Norfolk, Stanton and Winside were called in to help.

The couple and their four children were home when the fire started, but they fled to safety. The home and an outbuilding were destroyed.

The fire cause is being investigated.