DENVER (AP) — Colorado is poised to award more than $8 million to research marijuana to treat diseases, a step toward addressing complaints that little is known about pot’s medical potential.

The grants to be awarded by the state Board of Health are going to studies on whether marijuana helps treat epilepsy, brain tumors, Parkinson’s disease and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The awards are relatively small, but they represent a new frontier for marijuana research. That’s because the Colorado grants are outside of the usual federal channels for approving marijuana research.

Marijuana activists complain that the federal approval process has stymied research on marijuana’s potential as medicine.

Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., allow marijuana use by people with various medical conditions. But under federal law, marijuana is considered a drug with no medical value.

GYPSUM, Colo. (AP) — A 14-year-old Colorado boy will spend 10 years behind bars after pleading guilty to killing his father and trying to conceal the slaying for six days by keeping the body at home and telling the man’s employer he was sick.

The boy entered the plea Tuesday and will be sentenced Thursday.

Investigators say the teen shot his 50-year-old father twice in the head in April, when the man was scheduled to meet with a sheriff’s deputy investigating a graffiti case involving the teen.

The father didn’t show up for the meeting or work. The son called his father’s boss for several days to say he was sick, but the employer became suspicious and alerted authorities.

The teen will serve seven years in youth prison before entering adult prison on his 21st birthday.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities in Omaha say a man faces charges after he failed to stop driving a car with four flat tires and a deployed air bag.

Omaha police say 57-year-old Richard Curzon was spotted driving a vehicle over the center line Monday night. An officer says Curzon refused to stop the car and a low-speed pursuit ensued.

Police say Curzon was eventually arrested. A preliminary test showed his blood alcohol level was above the legal limit to drive.

Curzon faces several charges, including driving under the influence, flight to avoid arrest and willful reckless driving. Court records do not list an attorney.

BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — The union representing Gage County Sheriff’s deputies has filed a complaint with Nebraska’s public-sector labor court in an effort to allow officers to continue driving their patrol cars home.

The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 45B filed the complaint Friday with the Nebraska Commission of Industrial Relations.

It follows Gage County Sheriff Millard “Gus” Gustafson’s decision to no longer allow deputies to drive patrol vehicles home when not on duty.

Gustafson says stopping the practice would result in 40,000 fewer miles being placed on patrol vehicles, adding life to the vehicles and increasing their trade-in value.

But the union says it amounts to a change in a benefit or condition of employment that must be agreed upon in contract bargaining.

FREMONT, Neb. (AP) — An eastern Nebraska health department is reporting several cases of whooping cough and influenza.

Three Rivers Health Department in Fremont says at least two cases of whooping cough have been confirmed in the district, which includes Dodge, Saunders and Washington counties.

Whooping cough, or pertussis (per-TUH’-sis), is spread when infected people cough or sneeze. It starts like the common cold but can progress into violent coughing spells.

The department also has received reports of and confirmed several influenza cases.

The department recommends vaccinating to prevent getting both whooping cough and the flu.

To help prevent the spread of those and other illnesses, officials recommend washing hands often, coughing and sneezing into an elbow and keeping hands away from your eyes, nose and mouth.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A 43-year-old Lincoln man is dead following a crash into a utility pole.

Michael Shonn Clancy was killed in the Sunday evening crash.

Police say Clancy’s car veered off a city street around 6 p.m. Sunday near 12th and K Streets and hit the light pole.

Rescue crews found Clancy unresponsive and took him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Investigators say Clancy’s air bag had deployed, but don’t know whether he was wearing his seat belt.

HASTINGS, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska man has been sentenced to life in prison for helping his mother fatally stab her boyfriend’s 68-year-old mother.

Twenty-four-year-old Andrew Casterline of Guide Rock was sentenced Monday. He was convicted in September of first-degree murder, use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony and burglary in the October 2013 death of Virginia Barone.

Authorities say Casterline and his mother, Shelly Casterline, stabbed Barone 22 times and hid her body beneath boards in her home.

Shelly Casterline tells authorities she killed Barone after the older woman angered her. She says her son wasn’t there but prosecutors say cuts on his hands indicated he wielded a knife.

His mother was sentenced to life in prison in September.

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. (AP) — Colorado’s mountain resorts are getting a little worried about how legal marijuana is changing their image.

Residents in Breckenridge voted last week to force the downtown’s lone dispensary to a less-visible area. And a nearby town annexed a piece of property to prevent the opening of a pot shop there.

Colorado is coming off a record year for tourism, and state officials say 2014 is shaping up to be even better. But there’s increasing debate about what role marijuana is playing in the boom.

Some say legal weed is drawing curious travelers. Others fear family travelers may be turned off by legal weed, and that Colorado ski towns should minimize retail marijuana until the drug is more commonly accepted in other states.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — Police say a Nebraska woman was injured after her son accidently pinned her against a church with their family’s truck.

43-year-old Maria Atjun was taken to an area hospital Sunday night and released. Sgt. Todd Dvorak says she suffered injuries to her legs and torso.

Dvorak says her 13-year-old sun started the truck while it was in gear and it drove forward, pinning Atjun. He says people at the church pushed the truck off of the woman before first responders arrived.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Officials in Seward County plan to break ground on a new justice center as early as April and move into the planned $12 million building by fall 2016.

The 44,000-square-foot building will go up next to the Seward County Jail, which will be demolished to make way for a parking lot.

The new building will consolidate several county offices under a single roof, including the jail, sheriff’s office, courts, county attorney’s office, emergency dispatch center, probation offices and public defender.

Seward County Sheriff Joe Yocum says the three-floor building will offer benefits in security, compliance, and increase the number of jail beds to alleviate the rising cost of housing prisoners out of county.