WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas priest has been charged with alleging stealing nearly $151,000 from his two parishes and the Catholic Diocese to fund his extensive gambling.

A criminal information filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Kansas charges Father Thomas H. Leland with bank fraud.

The court issued a summons for a Sept. 23 initial appearance.

Leland was assigned in 2010 as the sole priest at St. Francis Parish in St. Paul and St. Ambrose Parish in Erie, both located in southeast Kansas.

Court records do not show a defense attorney, and church officials had no contact information for him.

Prosecutors allege that between 2012 and April 2014, Leland embezzled funds by taking overpayments of his salary and of stipends for conducting Mass. He also alleged took unauthorized reimbursements for personal expenses.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts says his administration is still pursuing lethal injection drugs for executions but will not decide how to proceed until state officials verify the signatures on a petition to keep capital punishment legal.

Ricketts said Tuesday that he first wants to ensure that Nebraskans for the Death Penalty has collected enough valid voter signatures to prevent the law from being repealed.

 

Nebraska lawmakers voted in May to abolish the death penalty, overriding the governor’s veto. Death penalty supporters responded with the petition drive that sought to halt the repeal before it went into effect and place the issue before voters in 2016.

The group announced last week that it had collected nearly 167,000 signatures. At least 113,883 valid signatures are needed to suspend the repeal.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha police say a man severed one of his own hands with a knife at his home, then fled in his car before crashing it into a bridge in east Omaha.

Police say the incident began around 9:20 p.m. Monday when a woman called to report her husband had stabbed himself several times with a knife, then left. Officers were unable to find the 32-year-old man.

Shortly after 7 a.m. Tuesday, police were called back to the home when someone reported that the man had returned and completely severed one of his hands with the knife and again fled in a car. A short time later, police responding to the crash found the man and took him to a hospital.

Police say his severed hand was found at his home.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A southeastern Nebraska couple is demanding the firing of a Wilber police officer, saying he shot their dog in front of their 13-year-old daughter. Their attorney Dustin Garrison says the collie boxer mix was shot Wednesday by an officer responding to a report of a dog at large.

Garrison says the teenage girl opened a back door to see the officer in her yard with a gun pointed at the dog. Garrison says the girl screamed for him not to shoot, but that the officer shot the dog twice.

Wilber Police Chief Stephen Sunday said Tuesday he’s been ordered not to comment by City Attorney Tad Eikman and Mayor Roger Chrans.

Eikman and Chrans didn’t immediately returned messages left Tuesday.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge in North Dakota is giving attorneys until Tuesday night to file briefs arguing the scope of his injunction blocking a new Obama administration water rule.

U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson last week issued a temporary injunction requested by North Dakota and 12 other states to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers from regulating some small waterways under the Clean Water Act.

The EPA says the injunction applied only to the 13 states that filed the lawsuit. Attorneys for the 13 states say the judge’s ruling has “nationwide scope.”

The states say the regulation is an overreach by the federal government. The federal agencies say the rule clarifies the law and actually makes it easier for the states to manage some waterways.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri appeals panel has dismissed a man’s case arguing that a lower court wrongly threw out his affidavit claiming Ferguson officer Darren Wilson assaulted Michael Brown before fatally shooting him.

The Missouri Court of Appeals’ Eastern District dismissed Cleve Molette’s case Tuesday.

Online court records list Forest Park, Georgia, as Molette’s home but don’t list an attorney.

Molette claimed Wilson grabbed Brown’s shirt and hit Brown’s friend with his vehicle door before fatally shooting Brown in August 2014. A grand jury declined to indict Wilson.

Molette argued the St. Louis Circuit Court violated his rights by dismissing his affidavit without giving him a hearing.

But the appeals court panel says it’s up to prosecutors and grand juries, not individual citizens such as Molette, to determine whether to prosecute.

HILLSBORO, Mo. (AP) — An effort by a transgender student to use the girls bathroom is splitting Hillsboro High School, with some of her peers walking out in protest and others holding a counter demonstration to show their support.

Lila Perry says she wants to be treated like other female students and told school administrators that she wasn’t content in continuing to use a unisex faculty bathroom this year.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the 17-year-old’s decision prompted some students to leave the campus Monday. The school’s gay-straight alliance and other supporters held their own protest to show their support for Perry.

Superintendent Aaron D. Cornman declined to comment to the newspaper on the issue, but gave a written statement that said the district respects the rights of all students.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A 38-year-old man has been found guilty in the shooting of a Sedgwick County sheriff’s deputy in March 2013.

The Wichita Eagle reports Jason Perez was found guilty Monday on several charges including attempted first-degree murder and two counts of burglary in the shooting of deputy Lucas Powell.

According to officers, officers tried to stop Perez and Clara Crosser, who were weaving in and out of traffic, and a chase through three counties ensued. The pursuit ended when Powell confronted the two on a farm outside of Potwin.

Police say Crosser shot the deputy in the right eye, while Perez fired multiple shots at the officer but missed. Crosser was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison.

Perez is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 13.