Kylr Yust is charged with knowingly burning 21-year-old Jessica Runions’ vehicle. She was last seen Thursday night.

Investigators haven’t said whether Yust knows Runions.

Police say Yust is a person of interest in the 2007 disappearance of his ex-girlfriend, Kara Kopetsky. She was 17 when she vanished in 2007.

Yust has also spent time in jail for assaulting a pregnant then-girlfriend in 2011.

Court records show investigators with search warrants related to Runions’ vehicle and a “missing persons investigation” seized two bullets from a home occupied by Yust, as well as clothing, hair, fingernail scrapings and swab samples from him.

The appeals court this week rejected Dwight Jurgens’ appeal of his sentence for aggravated human trafficking and other crimes. He is serving a 21-year sentence.

The Hutchinson News reports that Jurgens was convicted of forcing four women he bonded out to perform sex acts or go back to jail.

Jurgens’ attorneys argued in the appeal that the evidence didn’t support the convictions, his constitutional right to speedy trial was violated, and that the district court should have told the jury not to reach a verdict out of sympathy for the women.

The appeals court rejected all of those arguments.

Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, a St. Louis Democrat, says her silent protest Wednesday on the Senate floor was intended to show solidarity with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Kaepernick has kneeled for the national anthem in protest of police brutality and racial oppression. Nasheed, who is black, says she wants to call attention to those issues and isn’t “anti-America.” Nasheed’s protest was met with silence in the chamber.

Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, a former GOP candidate for governor who presided over the Senate Wednesday, released a statement calling Nasheed’s protest an “occasion for great sorrow.” He said he worried about “the example she is setting, particularly for our young people.”

The Lincoln Journal Star reports that one group wanting to legalize marijuana entirely with a broader constitutional amendment has filed 2018 petition language with the Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office.

Another group pushing to eliminate the state’s penalties for those caught with small amounts of pot has begun gathering signatures to put the issue before voters in 2018.

Volunteers began gathering signatures for the more limited proposal Aug. 5. The group is targeting high-traffic areas and events such as last week’s Omaha rally by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.

Mark Elworth Jr. wrote the petition, which would allow voters to eliminate penalties for people caught with an ounce or less of marijuana.

PLATTSMOUTH, Neb. (AP) — Southeast Nebraska law enforcement officials are warning businesses and the public to be on the lookout for counterfeit cash. The Plattsmouth Police Department issued the warning after fake $100 and $20 bills were found at local businesses in recent days.

Police tell Omaha television station WOWT that they have no leads on who is responsible for the counterfeit money, or if the bills went through several hands unknowingly.

Police Chief Steve Rathman says the bills were discovered during the time money was being counted, not at the time of payment.

Police say the bills are being forwarded to the U.S. Secret Service.

GENEVA, Neb. (AP) — A 26-year-old Geneva man convicted this summer of causing his infant son’s death has been sentenced to up to 80 years in prison. The Nebraska Attorney General’s office said in a news release that Anthony Long was sentenced Tuesday in Fillmore County District Court.

He received 50 to 60 years for child abuse resulting in death and 10 to 20 years for a count of child abuse resulting in serious injury.

Prosecutors say Long abused his 5-week-old son on April 26, 2014. Doctors had told police that the boy had brain injuries consistent with being shaken. The baby died June 3.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Twenty-six years after a woman’s body was found by hikers in a secluded area of northeast Missouri, authorities have identified the victim. Now, the focus is bringing the killer to justice.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol said Tuesday that the victim was Cynthia L. Day of the East St. Louis, Illinois, area.

Hikers found the decomposing remains on Aug. 26, 1990, beneath a bluff in Pike County, about 70 miles north of St. Louis.

Sheriff Stephen Korte says a patrol investigator taking a new look at the cold case was able to match fingerprints of the victim with those of Day, who was 38 at the time of her disappearance.

Korte says police are aware of a “person of interest,” but he declined to say more about the investigation.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — An appeals court judge has ruled that a do-over election in a state representative Democratic primary in St. Louis can go on as planned on Friday.

Incumbent Rep. Penny Hubbard defeated challenger Bruce Franks by 90 votes in the Aug. 2 primary.

But concerns were raised about absentee voting, where Hubbard received 78.5 percent of the vote. Circuit Judge Rex Burlison on Sept. 2 called for a new election.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the Missouri Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the new election can proceed.

Hubbard’s attorney says she has not yet spoken to her client to see whether an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court would be made.

A Post-Dispatch investigation revealed multiple problems with absentee balloting. Burlison made his decision two days later.

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — A transgender soldier imprisoned in Kansas for leaking classified information to WikiLeaks says she is ending a hunger strike because the Army has agreed to allow her to get medical treatment for her gender dysphoria.

Manning began a hunger strike Friday to protest her treatment at Fort Leavenworth.

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a news release Tuesday that Manning’s treatment will begin with surgery that her psychologist recommended in April. Manning says in the release that she’s relieved the military approved the treatment but frustrated that it took so long.

Manning, who was arrested as Bradley Manning, was convicted in 2013 in military court of leaking more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents.

Army spokesman Wayne Hall didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.