LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors have dropped charges against two men accused of raping two women in a University of Kansas residence hall during homecoming weekend.

The Douglas County prosecutor’s office said in a written statement that evidence initially suggested a crime occurred. But the statement said there was no longer sufficient evidence to proceed after more people were interviewed and cell phone and medical records were reviewed.

One former suspect is from Lawrence and the other from Olathe. Police said one of the men is a KU student.

Court documents had said the 21-year-old men knew the victims and had sex with them without consent. The charges had stated that that the victims were incapable of giving consent because of either mental deficiency or the effect of alcohol or drugs.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Officials are preparing for the first ever mail-ballot election in Douglas County.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports that the election will determine the level of funding Lawrence schools will receive. School officials are seeking to recoup about $1.4 million of funding by keeping the local option budget at its current level.

A local option budget represents funding that is raised by local property taxes for school districts. The size of a district’s local option budget can be no larger than 33 percent of its general operating fund, which in Lawrence’s case is about $72.2 million.

At a cost of $100,000, the Lawrence district will mail the ballots to registered voters Jan. 7. School officials are hoping residents don’t mistake the mail-in ballots for junk mail.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas hasn’t decided whether to join a lawsuit filed by other states against Colorado over its legalization of marijuana even though the two states share a border.

Spokeswoman Jennifer Rapp said Friday that Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has been considering legal action against Colorado for months.

But she said in an email that his office is still weighing its options.

Nebraska and Oklahoma filed a lawsuit Thursday with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to declare Colorado’s legalization of marijuana unconstitutional. They argue it’s a public safety issue.

They’re seeking to prevent Colorado from enforcing an initiative approved by voters in 2012 to legalize marijuana despite federal laws against it.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A former Johnson County physician who killed two of her children in an arson fire wants a new sentencing hearing.

The Kansas City Star reports that Debora Green argues that her life sentence with no chance of parole for 40 years is unconstitutional. Green, now 63, was found guilty of starting the 1995 fire that engulfed her Prairie Village home.

A number of Kansas inmates are seeking to be resentenced after a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found that the kind of sentence Green received must be considered by a jury. Green’s sentence was imposed solely by a judge.

Since the ruling, the Kansas Supreme Court has reversed several murder sentences that were decided by judges, not juries.

A hearing on Green’s motion is scheduled for Jan. 22.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri’s legislative leaders say anti-abortion measures are not among their main priorities next session.

Eight bills have been filed so far, as the legislative session that starts Jan. 7 nears.

Legislative leaders say their focus will be on economics and education instead of potentially divisive abortion bills.

The dimmed interest follows Republican lawmakers’ success in September in overriding a veto by Gov. Jay Nixon to enact one of the nation’s longest waiting periods for abortions.

The GOP now has even greater numbers to override a veto by the governor.

Anti-abortion lobbyist Sam Lee of Campaign Life Missouri says a bill for annual health inspections of clinics has the best chances of passing.

Other abortion-related bills include a hotly contested measure to require the father’s permission for an abortion.

OGDEN, Kan. (AP) — Police are investigating a death at a shooting range in Kansas.

The Manhattan Mercury reports that police and other emergency personnel responded Saturday night to a call at Ogden’s Best Guns and Gun Range. Witnesses said there was a gun-related incident inside the gun range area.

Riley County Police Department spokesman Matthew Droge says there wasn’t a robbery and that the public wasn’t in danger. No other details were immediately available.

WASHINGTON (AP) — It turns out this Congress did not produce the fewest laws since the days of Harry Truman. But it was pretty darn close.

Thanks to a late flurry of bill signings by President Barack Obama, the perpetually gridlocked Congress that just adjourned has had 286 bills enacted into law during its two years of work.

That’s according to congressional records. The number includes 51 that the White House says Obama signed Thursday.

The 286 laws barely exceed the 283 enacted by the previous Congress.

But both totals are the lowest in congressional records dating to the 1940s.

And the numbers pale compared to what Truman called the “do-nothing Congress” of 1947 and 1948. It saw more than 900 measures enacted.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts has finished a two-day tour of Iraq and says he’s seeing signs of progress in the fight there against Islamic State militants.

Roberts said Sunday that he left Thursday for his tour of Kuwait and Iraq “expecting the worst.” He went to visit American troops in advisory and training roles, including about 400 from the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, headquartered at Fort Riley.

The Republican senator told The Associated Press that he believes the situation in Iraq has changed dramatically since the summer, when the Islamic State group captured control of parts of northern and western Iraq.

He met Saturday with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and said al-Abadi has improved his military’s leadership and worked to unify Islamic groups in the past 100 days.