OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the convictions of a former Omaha middle school teacher accused of molesting and enticing female students.

Shad Knutson was a social studies teacher at Nathan Hale Magnet Middle School in 2010 when he was accused of having inappropriate relationships with girls ages 13 to 15 starting in 2008. A Douglas County jury convicted him last year of child abuse and using a cellphone to entice a child, and he was sentenced to 9 to 14 years in prison.

Knutson appealed, arguing that some of the charges against him should have been tried separately and that his cellphone records should not have been used as evidence in his trial.

On Friday, the state’s high court said it found no merit to Knutson’s arguments.

HASTINGS, Neb. (AP) — Adams County authorities say a county jail inmate found dead in his Hastings cell on Saturday had hanged himself.

The body of 39-year-old Matthew Arterburn was found in his cell around 6:30 a.m. Saturday. County Attorney Donna Fegler Daiss (deyes) released her ruling on Wednesday in her role as county coroner.

Sheriff Gregg Magee says the jail had been waiting on paperwork to send Arterburn to a state prison so he could serve his time there on convictions for child pornography.

Fegler Daiss says state law requires grand juries to investigate whenever someone dies in custody or while being arrested.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The chief curator of the Marquette University’s art museum in Milwaukee has been named the new director of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Sheldon Museum of Art.

UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman announced this week that Wally Mason will take over the post on Oct. 15.

Mason replaces Jorge Daniel Veneciano, who resigned in December to become director of El Museo del Barrio in New York.

Mason earned a master of fine arts degree at Indiana University. Before joining Marquette in 2007, he directed galleries at the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, the University of Idaho and the University of Maine.

He has organized more than 60 exhibitions and was selected to the Nebraska post following a national search.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Construction is underway on a Nebraska State Patrol crime laboratory that is double the size of its current facility.

Crews broke ground on the $9-million lab in northwest Lincoln on Thursday. The 28,000-square-foot facility will replace a nearby lab that’s served Nebraska for the past 40 years.

The nationally accredited forensic operation provides free services to all law enforcement in the state. The crime lab works on an average of 4,000 cases for 160 agencies each year.

A patrol spokeswoman says the Lincoln Airport Authority will pay for the construction. The patrol will reimburse the authority through a long-term lease. She says construction should be completed by next fall.

The patrol superintendent says the new building will allow the patrol to assist law enforcement in “an efficient, professional manner.”

VALPARAISO, Neb. (AP) — Authorities have released the name of a man who died after his pickup collided with a school bus carrying 11 children at a rural intersection in eastern Nebraska.

The Saunders County Sheriff’s Office identified the man as 50-year-old Steven Jedlicka, of Schuyler. He was pronounced dead at a Lincoln hospital where he’d been flown after the accident Thursday morning. Two other men in his truck also were hospitalized.

The collision occurred around 7:30 a.m. about six miles north-northwest of Valparaiso. The children were taken to hospitals for treatment of minor injuries and released to their parents or guardians. They ranged up to sixth grade.

The bus driver also was taken to a hospital and then released. He was identified as 59-year-old Lyle Divis, of Brainard.

BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — It took just a few hours for 300 tons of tires to be collected at the Gage County Fairgrounds in Beatrice.

The 2014 Gage County Tire Amnesty was supposed to run for nine hours on two days but took just seven hours to reach the 300-ton limit on Wednesday after the event began at 8 a.m.

At the last tire amnesty, just 197 tons of used tires were collected.

Champlin Tire Recycling, from Concordia, Kansas, will be paid $82 a ton to haul way the tires. The company’s website says Champlin processes, manufactures and sells products made from scrap tires and plastics.

The 10 Tire Amnesty events held in Gage County since 1998 have collected more than 1,969 tons of tires.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Officials say a body recovered from the Missouri River near Omaha is that of a man reported missing.

The Douglas County Coroner’s Office said Thursday that an autopsy confirms the body is that of 23-year-old Aung Thu. Officials say he drowned.

Thu was reported missing Sunday night after witnesses said he swam toward the center of the river and disappeared. He had been swimming earlier with his family.

Anglers spotted a body in the river Wednesday. It was caught in submerged branches.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Eric Holder says he’s concerned that the use of military equipment by police in Ferguson, Missouri, is sending a “conflicting message.”

Holder said in a statement Thursday that Ferguson law enforcement authorities have accepted the Justice Department’s offer of crowd-control help as it continues to investigate a police officer’s shooting of an unarmed black teenager.

He said the response by law enforcement to protests there “must seek to reduce tensions, not heighten them.”

The attorney general said representatives from the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, which works to mediate race disputes, have also been sent to Missouri.

The FBI and Justice Department are conducting a civil-rights investigation into Saturday’s shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Holder said eyewitnesses have already been interviewed.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A 44-year-old Lincoln man has been given 30 to 40 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl while she slept.

A cellphone video Russell Spevak made of the assault had led to his arrest. He was sentenced Wednesday.

Authorities say Spevak had left the phone in a friend’s van. The friend’s wife found the phone, saw the video and turned the phone over to police. He was arrested in February. He eventually pleaded no contest to first-degree assault and attempted possession of a controlled substance.

Spevak’s criminal record includes convictions for making obscene calls and exposing himself to strangers.

VALPARAISO, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a pickup driver has died after his pickup collided with a school bus at a rural intersection in eastern Nebraska’s Saunders County.

Sheriff Kevin Stukenholtz (STOO’-kehn-hohltz) says several children on the bus suffered minor injuries. The accident occurred around 7:30 a.m. Thursday about six miles north-northwest of Valparaiso (val-puh-RAY’-zoh).

Stukenholtz says the pickup was headed south on County Road 29 when it collided with the bus, which was going west on County Road H. The intersection had no stop signs.

The sheriff says the pickup driver died at a Lincoln hospital where he’d been flown. Two other people in the pickup also were injured.

The bus was carrying children from East Butler Public Schools. The district superintendent didn’t immediately return a call Thursday from The Associated Press.