LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — An Omaha man has been sentenced to at least a year in prison after pleading guilty to soliciting sex from an investigator posing online as a 15-year-old girl.

A Lancaster County district judge sentenced 38-year-old David Kucinsky to one to three years in prison. He pleaded guilty to a felony charge of enticing by electronic communication device.

According to court documents, Kucinsky posted an online ad seeking regular contact with a young girl. An investigator with the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office pretended to be a teenage girl and answered the ad.

The two exchanged emails for a month, and authorities say Kucinsky asked for nude photos.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The shooting death of a 16-year-old Omaha student last year has inspired the creation of a smartphone app to help students safely walk home from school.

The Smart Walk, or SMALK, app uses crime, weather and traffic updates to give kids the safest walking route home. It can also help organize groups to walk together, call police and let parents know when kids safely arrive at school and home.

The app was inspired by Johntavious Swift, who was shot and killed in September minutes after he got off of his school bus.

The app, developed by middle school students at King Science and Technology Magnet Center, was recently named Nebraska’s best in the Verizon Innovative App Challenge and will compete Friday for a regional Top 24 spot and $5,000.

WEST ALLIS, Wis. (AP) — For women who have survived breast cancer, breast or nipple reconstruction can be a first step toward looking like their old selves.

Now, a Colorado organization called P.ink is helping some of those women, and others who don’t choose reconstruction, in their emotional healing — through tattoos to help conceal their scars.

Its first annual P.ink Day was in 2013, when it connected tattoo artists with 10 women in Brooklyn, New York. In 2014, the event expanded and helped 38 women in 12 cities in the U.S. and Canada.

P.ink’s charitable arm also raises money to pay experienced tattoo artists for working with survivors during other parts of the year.

P.ink also created a smartphone app where women can look at designs and try one on via photo.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A video shows officers failed to guard an Iowa drunken driving suspect who escaped from a State Patrol car while handcuffed and was struck by a van and killed.

Matthew Lentzkow’s death has brought attention to how Iowa State Patrol vehicles lack cages to transport suspects to jail.

Lentzkow’s father, Gary Lentzkow, says the trooper who made the Nov. 1 stop and two sheriff’s deputies who arrived as backup should not have allowed his son to unbuckle himself and get out of the patrol car.

Jasper County Sheriff John Halferty says officers in hindsight should have put the 36-year-old Newton man in the cage of a sheriff deputy’s car and had someone watch him.

He says the officers believed they were doing everything right at the time.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say they have broken up a branch of a Mexican drug cartel dealing methamphetamine in the Omaha area.

Police announced Tuesday the arrests of 20 people associated with the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico following an 18-month investigation.

The Omaha Police Department and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency deployed investigators who received tips that a woman in charge of a sizeable methamphetamine ring was operating near Omaha. The investigation led officials to the source of the supply in California and the discovery of Nebraska and Iowa customers, who bought the methamphetamine and resold it in smaller amounts.

Authorities say they gathered about 12.5 pounds of methamphetamine and more than $35,000.

Most are charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, an offense that could mean 20 years to life in prison.

COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) — Street department workers have a new weapon to battle winter weather in Columbus, and it’s made by a local company.

The salt brine production system is built by Duo Lift Manufacturing, of Columbus. Officials say it provides a brine that melts snow and ice faster than rock salt alone and uses up to 40 percent less rock salt that the city’s old application process.

Jim Hellbusch, who runs Duo Lift with his wife and two sons, says roads can be pretreated before a storm, and then another coat can be applied after the snow stops. Hellbusch says the process melts the snow from the top and bottom, turning it to slush that can be easily plowed away before it becomes a hardened snowpack.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Farmers Union is seeking a grant for a worm farm that would turn Lincoln school food scraps into useful compost.

The goals are to reduce waste that goes into the city landfill and create a soil product for community and school gardens. The group’s Jeremiah Picard says he’s applied for a grant of more than $169,000 from the Nebraska Environmental Trust to fund the project. A grant decision is expected in April.

Food scraps would be taken to the future worm farm and ground up by machinery and heated by air forced through it. The resulting material would be fed to red wiggler worms. The worms excrete undigested material, soil and bacteria, creating a prized natural fertilizer.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Former Republican Rep. Lee Terry, who represented Nebraska’s Omaha-centric congressional district, has found a job at a District of Columbia law firm on K Street, home to many of the city’s influential lobbying firms.

Terry says he has been hired as a senior adviser at the government relations and public policy firm.

Under federal law, members of the House must wait one year after leaving office before engaging in lobbying activity.

Like many former members of Congress, Terry’s new job will see him advise clients on legislative matters during his cooling-off period, during which he cannot have direct contact with lawmakers.

Terry served 16 years as Nebraska’s 2nd District congressman, but lost his bid for a ninth term in November to Democrat Brad Ashford.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Two people from the African nation of Benin are being deported after lying to authorities.

The office of U.S. Attorney Deborah Gilg says Cossi Deguenon married a U.S. citizen in 2011 and applied to become a permanent resident as the spouse of a citizen. Immigration authorities later concluded the marriage was a sham. The investigators learned that Deguenon had married fellow Benin citizen Micheline Bolarywa after obtaining a marriage license in Douglas County in 2009.

Immigration agents also learned that Bolarywa lied about being a U.S. citizen when she applied for a job.

Deguenon pleaded guilty to marriage fraud and was sentenced to the nine days he’d served in custody. Bolarywa pleaded guilty to lying under oath and was sentenced to the six days she’d served in custody.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Officials at an Omaha hospital say an American health care worker who was exposed to Ebola in Sierra Leone has not developed the virus.

The patient arrived in Omaha on Jan. 4 for treatment in the biocontainment unit at Nebraska Medical Center. The hospital said in a news release Monday that the patient will remain in the unit throughout the virus’s 21-day incubation period, which began before he or she arrived at the hospital. A discharge date was not released.

The hospital says the patient doesn’t want to be publicly identified but authorized the condition update.

Nebraska Medical Center treated three people with Ebola last fall. One died and two recovered. One of the survivors, Dr. Rick Sacra, said Monday that he’s returning to Liberia, where he was infected.