TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators are among those in several states considering measures to prohibit local governments from refusing to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

One bill would ban so-called sanctuary cities. The other would also withdraw state funding from cities that don’t cooperate with immigration officials.

It’s the latest in a series of anti-sanctuary measures across the nation following the July killing of a San Francisco woman. The man charged is a Mexican man living in the country illegally. At least a dozen states, including Wisconsin and Florida, are considering similar legislation.

Rep. Charles Macheers, a Shawnee Republican, said he wants to ensure Kansas communities comply with federal law.

Some Kansas sheriffs began refusing immigration officials’ requests after a federal ruling in Oregon that holding a woman violated her constitutional rights.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Supporters and opponents have weighed in on a proposed bill that would give the Kansas Department of Children and Families secretary the authority to cross-check lottery winnings against a list of welfare recipients.

The department’s economic and employment services director, Sandra Kimmons, said at a Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee hearing Monday that anyone who wins more than $10,000 would have to verify their income and resources to see if they’re still eligible for poverty programs.

Recipients who are excessively replacing their benefits cards would be reviewed by the department’s fraud division. The agency would also verify the identities of all the household’s adults.

The Wichita Eagle reports that several groups oppose the bill.

Amanda Gress of Kansas Action for Children says the bill creates barriers for children and families to participate in poverty programs.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri lawmakers have turned their scrutiny of public universities toward mandatory student fees and services.

A House panel heard testimony Tuesday on proposals to prohibit universities from requiring students to buy a meal plan or live in campus dormitories.

Rep. Jason Chipman said his legislation is based off his own college experience, not the recent turmoil at the University of Missouri.

University officials said students can already opt out of those requirements and Chipman’s bills could affect campus infrastructure and contracts designed for certain levels of student participation. They also said dorms encourage more campus involvement and better academic performance.

Chipman said those reasons aren’t good enough to coerce students into taking on more debt, and they shouldn’t have to ask for an exemption to live where they want.

zzouCOLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A leading bond-rating company is downgrading the outlook of the University of Missouri System’s credit rating.

Standard & Poor’s announced Monday that the outlook of the four-campus system’s AA+ credit rating has dipped from stable to negative. The agency says in a report that maintaining the current rating on the system’s facilities revenue bonds will require a “marked improvement in available resources to debt.”

The report also touched on the departures of two top administrators amid student protests over the handling of racial issues on the Columbia campus. The report says the upheaval could “affect demand and enrollment in the short term.”

System spokesman John Fougere says the rating will “remain exceptionally strong” compared to “higher education peers” regardless of whether S&P ultimately classifies it as AA+ or AA.

PERRY, Ga. (AP) — Authorities say a Missouri couple suspected in several Alabama robberies and kidnappings have been spotted in central Georgia, where police have accused them in another crime.

Police in Perry, Georgia, issued an advisory Tuesday about Blake Fitzgerald and Brittany Nicole Harper. Police say the two were involved in an armed robbery and kidnapping about 11 p.m. Monday at a gas station but give no further details. Perry is about 30 miles south of Macon.

Police say the couple was last seen headed south on Interstate 75 in a stolen silver 2010 Ford Edge.

Fitzgerald and Harper, both of Joplin, Missouri, also are suspected of robbing and abducting a hotel clerk, attempting to rob a McDonald’s manager and briefly kidnapping a woman in the Birmingham, Alabama, suburbs before stealing her SUV.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Union officials say Nebraska could avoid many of the recent problems in state agencies by rewarding employees with experience and institutional knowledge.

Workers’ advocates urged a legislative committee Monday to advance a bill that would offer longevity raises.

The measure by Sen. Matt Hansen of Lincoln would begin with a pay increase of 6.25 cents per hour, or about $130 a year for salaried employees, after five years.

The raise would increase every five years by the same amount, to a maximum of 50 cents per hour at 40 years.

Hansen says more than a dozen states set longevity pay in law.

Opponents say the bill could be unconstitutional because state wages are set through collective bargaining with the executive branch and not state law.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A lawmaker says his bill to limit censorship was spurred by a confrontation in November between a University of Missouri staffer and a student videographer during campus protests.

The bill by Republican Rep. Elijah Haahr, of Springfield, would prohibit public K-12 schools and colleges from blocking reporting in school-sponsored media.

Exceptions include reporting that is slanderous, libelous or otherwise breaks laws.

Haahr says he was partly motivated by a run-in between assistant communications professor Melissa Click and a student videographer.

Student photographer Tim Tai, who was confronted by another university employee during the protests, will testify Monday during a hearing.

The journalists covered protests at the Columbia campus over what some saw as university leadership’s indifference to racial issues.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Investors will be able to watch Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting online for the first time ever this spring.

That will make it easier for people to see Warren Buffett and Berkshire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger spend several hours answering questions.

Last May, more than 40,000 people from around the globe filled an Omaha arena and several overflow rooms for the meeting as Buffett and Munger celebrated 50 years of leading the conglomerate.

Berkshire’s Chief Financial Officer Marc Hamburg confirmed the change to the Omaha World-Herald. Berkshire officials didn’t immediately respond to questions about the move from the AP on Monday.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri high school’s protest over a transgender teen’s locker room use has prompted state legislators to file a handful of bills that would make schools enforce gender-specific bathrooms and locker rooms.  More than 100 Hillsboro High School students walked of school last fall to protest a transgender teen’s use of the girls locker room to change for gym class.

Republican state Sen. Ed Emery has sponsored one of the bills. It says a student must use the restroom, locker room and showers of the gender indicated on their birth certificate and identified at birth by his or her anatomy.

The bill also stipulates that schools must accommodate students who assert, with their parents’ permission, that their gender is different from what’s listed on their birth certificate.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska lawmakers could lay the groundwork this year for statewide 911 services with the ability to receive video and photos from cellphones.

Sen. Jim Smith of Papillion presented a legislative committee Monday with a bill that would create a plan to implement the technology.  The proposal would put the Nebraska Public Service Commission in charge of developing the plan and reporting back to the Legislature with its recommendations by December 2017.

Smith says the bill represents the next step for the state, which has studied the issue but not yet moved forward. The services would be paid for with existing telephone service fees.

Lobbyists for counties, 911 service employees and cell service carriers say Nebraska’s services need to be updated.