(AP) — Construction of a 75-megawatt wind farm is underway in southeast Nebraska.

A series of flatbed trucks loaded with sections of the 262-foot-tall wind turbines will begin arriving soon.

The $138 million project is being built by NextEra Energy Resources in southwest Gage and southeast Jefferson counties.

The Nebraska Public Power District has agreed to buy all the power from the site.

When the wind farm is complete later this year, it will have 44 tubines.

Diller Village Clerk Leatha Christ says the area is already seeing some economic benefits because many of the workers building the towers are camping in Diller and Steele City.

(AP) — Nearly 50 gravestones have been pushed over and some damaged at a south-central Nebraska cemetery.

Hamilton County Sheriff Kirk Handrup said his investigators had some leads, but no arrests have been reported. A man who lives near Farmers’ Valley Cemetery discovered the damage Tuesday morning.

The cemetery was established in 1876 along the banks of the Big Blue River south-southwest of Henderson.

The cemetery association is offering a $1,000 reward to help solve the case.

(AP) — A judge has announced his intention to retire after dispensing federal justice in Nebraska for more than 44 years.

Senior U.S. District Judge Warren Urbom said Thursday that he’s sent a letter to President Barack Obama, telling the president that he’ll step down from the bench in April.

Urbom told the president: “My term has been one of thorough happiness.”

The 87-year-old Urbom says he reduced his schedule a few years back to three or four days a week. He says now it’s time to quit.

What will he do with his free time? The judge says he doesn’t know, “other than have a good time.”

(AP) — A 67-year-old private investigator in Omaha has denied federal allegations that she scammed a woman out of more than $850,000.

Patricia Walker-Halstead is listed on the Nebraska State of State’s Office list of licensed private investigators. Prosecutors say Walker-Halstead used the client’s money for gambling and personal expenses instead of on background checks and other security services.

Prosecutors say in documents backing up 11 counts of wire fraud that Walker-Halstead told her client that the client was being stalked and used other scare tactics to get the client’s money.

Walker-Halstead said at a Thursday news conference that she is not guilty. Walker-Halstead says she was hired in March 2011 to investigate several people, including the client’s former husbands and people she dated.

(AP) — Republican state Sen. Beau McCoy is planning to jump into the 2014 Nebraska governor’s race.

A campaign spokesman said Friday that McCoy, of Omaha, was meeting with supporters and people who have worked in his previous legislative campaigns. The spokesman says McCoy will file campaign paperwork with the state in advance of a formal announcement.

McCoy, who owns a home improvement contracting business, has been active in the Republican Party since his teens. The 32-year-old was elected to the Nebraska Legislature in 2008 and re-elected last year.

McCoy will compete against state Sens. Charlie Janssen of Fremont and Tom Carlson of Holdrege in the GOP primary. Republican Pete Ricketts of Omaha is also expected to join the governor’s race.

(AP) — Authorities say they’ve captured an inmate who escaped the Thurston County Jail in the northeast Nebraska city of Pender.

Norfolk police took 39-year-old Mark Kuehn into custody around 5 p.m. Thursday. He’d been spotted at an apartment building on the southeast side of Norfolk.

Jailers discovered that he was missing on Wednesday morning. Thurston County Sheriff Shelly Perez says Kuehn pulled a window air-conditioning unit out of his cell window and squeezed between two metal bars behind it.

The jail is just blocks from Pender schools, so they were locked down. Schools in nearby Wayne were locked down, too.

Kuehn has been in jail since his conviction on two counts of theft. He’s also a sex offender who was convicted in Stanton County.

(AP) — Nebraska college administrators say a combination of financial aid and outreach programs have helped increase the percentage of high school students who go on to college.

Administrators from the University of Nebraska and the state’s colleges said Thursday that a grant program has helped more high school students visit college campuses. University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken says the university has also worked to offer tuition assistance and a two-year freeze proposed by Gov. Dave Heineman.

Nearly 65 percent of Nebraska high school students went on to college in fall 2006, and the state was ranked 19th nationally. The state climbed to 7th place in 2010, with nearly 70 percent of Nebraska high school students enrolling in college, according to the newest available data from a report this year.

(AP) — Four companies intend to sell health insurance to Nebraskans who can’t get coverage from their employers.

The companies are Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska; Coventry Health Care, of Bethesda, Md.; CoOportunity, a cooperative health care provider in Iowa and Nebraska that was created with federal financing; and Health Alliance Midwest Inc., a managed care company from Urbana, Ill.

The companies’ proposed rates, forms and plans are being reviewed by the Nebraska Department of Insurance, which is working federal authorities on compliance issues.

Starting in October, people who don’t have health insurance through their workplaces will be required by the federal Affordable Care Act to buy coverage.

(AP) — Officials say an Iowa man has died in an Omaha jail.

The Douglas County Department of Corrections reported that 65-year-old Robert Basten, of Zwingle, Iowa, was found unresponsive Wednesday morning in a housing unit of the Douglas County Department of Corrections. Paramedics responded, and Basten was pronounced dead at the jail.

Basten had been held in the jail since May 2 on a charge of flight to avoid arrest in Douglas County. Officials say he also was facing pending charges from Dodge County for flight to avoid arrest, theft of services, and willful reckless driving.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office is investigating. Nebraska law also requires a grand jury investigation when someone dies in custody.

 

(AP) — Additional cameras have been added to live stream livestock shows at the Nebraska State Fair in Grand Island.

The three additional cameras will allow all the fair arenas to be viewed via streaming video on the Internet.

The video will show the Swine Arena, the Five Points Bank Arena and the Sheep Barn Arena.

Joseph McDermott, executive director of the Nebraska State Fair, says the camera additions are a result of streaming video being so popular during last year’s fair.

A schedule of live streaming events is available on the fair’s website. The Nebraska State Fair is scheduled to run from Friday through Sept. 2.