OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing has been awarded a $300,000 federal grant to provide financial support to graduate nurse practitioner students from underserved or rural Nebraska areas.

Nursing professor Karen Grigsby says the grant — an Advanced Education Nursing Traineeship — is projected to help 14 or more qualified students across Nebraska in the next year.

The grant comes from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration. The goal is to increase the number of primary health care providers who can deliver care to those living in areas lacking primary care physicians.

The university says about half of the resident students who’ve graduated from the UNMC College of Nursing master’s degree in nurse practitioner specialties live in rural or underserved areas.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Police in Wichita have arrested a suspect in the rape of a 100-year-old woman during a break-in at her home.

The 35-year-old man was being held Friday in the Sedgwick County Jail on suspicion of rape and aggravated burglary. He’s expected to be charged next week.

Police have not released the Wichita man’s name, but say he’s a known gang member with an extensive burglary record.

Police Capt. Troy Livingston says he was in custody for burglary when the sex crimes unit was alerted that he was a known burglar in the area. Livingston says forensic evidence linked him to the rape.

The woman, who lives alone, told police she was awakened the night of Sept. 29 by intruders.

Livingston described the victim as a strong and brave woman.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska hospital treating an American video journalist with Ebola says he’s shown modest improvement.

Dr. Phil Smith, director of the Nebraska Medical Center’s 10-bed isolation unit, said Friday that 33-year-old Ashoka Mukpo’s condition “is slightly improved.”

Mukpo, of Providence, Rhode Island, is the second Ebola patient treated at the Omaha hospital.

Mukpo is receiving an experimental Ebola drug called brincidofovir and IV fluids. That’s similar to the treatment the hospital’s first Ebola patient, Rick Sacra, received during his three weeks there.

Mukpo became infected while working as a freelance cameraman for Vice News, NBC News and other media outlets. He returned to Liberia in early September to help highlight the toll of the Ebola outbreak.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health officials have approved a daily pill that can cure the most common form of hepatitis C without the grueling pill-and-injection cocktail long used to treat the virus.

It was not immediately clear how much the drug from Gilead Sciences would cost. But the $1,000-per-pill price tag for the company’s previous hepatitis drug has recently drawn scorn from patient groups, insurers and politicians worldwide.

The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it cleared the new combination pill, Harvoni, for patients with genotype 1 of hepatitis C, a form of the liver-destroying virus that accounts for roughly 70 percent of U.S. cases. For the first time these patients will not have to take a combination of antiviral pills and shots that causes flu-like side effects.

Gilead Sciences Inc. is based in Forest City, California.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Lincoln Public Schools superintendent says people who have criticized the district’s gender identity training are misinformed.

Before the academic year began, district officials spoke with school leaders to help them better understand issues transgender students face. Handouts were given to teachers that suggested words to replace gendered terms like “girls” and “boys.” Among the neutral words were “campers” or group names like “purple penguins.”

Superintendent Steve Joel reiterated Thursday at a news conference that the handouts were suggestions and strategies and not mandates. He says no changes are being made to policy or procedures. Joel was responding to national attention directed at the district’s training.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Two staffers with the state ombudsman’s office say they repeatedly warned Nebraska prison administrators about a violent inmate who later killed four people in Omaha, but their advice was ignored.

Jerall Moreland and James Davis told a legislative committee Friday that they pushed prison officials to set forth a plan a transition-to-release plan for Nikko Jenkins, who had been kept in isolation for 3 ½ years.

Jenkins was released directly from segregation in July 2013, despite his pleas for a mental-health civil commitment. He was later convicted of four murders that took place in August 2013.

Davis says he spoke directly with Bob Houston, the corrections director at the time, and top deputies because he was concerned Jenkins would make good on this threats to kill people if released.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has reversed a lower court order for a 4-year-old boy’s last name to be changed to his father’s.

The Friday ruling says the lower court wrongly gave preference to the paternal surname over the best interests of the child. The high court said the boy’s last name should remain his mother’s maiden name.

The boy was born out of wedlock in 2008, and both the mother and father later married other people. In 2012, both petitioned to have the boy’s last name changed. The father wanted the boy to have his last name; the mother sought to have the boy’s name changed to her new married surname.

The high court said the boy can decide when he’s older if he wants to change his last name.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Mexican citizen has been sentenced to four years and nine months in federal prison in a Nebraska methamphetamine distribution case.

25-year-old Juan Carlos Garcia-Gamino received the sentence this week. He was convicted of possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine.

Garcia-Gamino was ordered to serve four years of supervised release after his sentence. He also faces deportation.

Federal prosecutors say he sold meth to an undercover officer in Lincoln in December 2013 and January 2014. Officers found two pounds of meth in his car in April.

NORTH BEND, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska road officials have talked with residents about a proposed alternative route for the U.S. 30 expressway between Schuyler and Fremont.

More than 200 people attended an open house Wednesday to meet with Nebraska Department of Roads officials at the North Bend City Auditorium. One engineer says residents asked about intersections and the impact of the planned route on farmland and irrigation systems.

About six miles from Schuyler to Rogers would be built for the alternative route, and 20 miles would be constructed from Rogers to Fremont.

The Nebraska Department of Roads also wants to realign the U.S. 30 expressway and expanded it to four lanes. One rural North Bend farmer says the highway’s realignment would cut through his corn fields.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Witnesses told police that a Wyoming man with a gunshot wound to his stomach was begging for his life when a 16-year-old who had opened fire into a group of teens shot him in the head at point-blank range.

Phillip Sam was in court Wednesday on a first-degree murder charge in the death of 19-year-old Tyler Burns. He is being tried as an adult.

Charging documents say Sam was at a park Sunday for a fight. Prosecutors say Sam fired a gun at a group of teens that gathered and one shot hit Burns.

Sam told a detective that he shot Burns twice more because he didn’t want him to suffer.

His attorney didn’t return a phone call from The Associated Press seeking comment.