KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A 22-year-old Kansas City, Kansas, man has been charged in the shootings deaths of two men.

Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerome A. Gorman said in a release that his office charged Christopher E. Lewis on Thursday with two counts of premeditated murder in the first degree in the deaths Tuesday of Deron Rucker and Antonio Rucker.

Gorman’s office says Lewis is being held in the Wyandotte County jail on $1 million bond.

Gorman’s office says Lewis will likely make a first appearance Friday, but a hearing time hasn’t been scheduled.

It was unclear if Lewis has a lawyer.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A man who was arrested in Kansas after escaping from an Oklahoma prison has been sentenced to more than four years in prison.

The U.S. Attorney’s office for Kansas said 40-year-old Lance D. Colbert was sentenced Thursday to four years and five months after pleading guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm after a felony conviction. The sentence will be served consecutively to his Oklahoma prison term.

Colbert was arrested March 11 in Spivey, Kansas, two days after he escaped from the Mack Alford Correctional Center in Stringtown, Oklahoma. Prosecutors say he had a .38 caliber revolver when he was arrested.

Colbert was convicted in the shooting deaths of two people in the early 1990s.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The U.S. attorney’s office in Nebraska is reviewing allegations by a civil liberties group that state officials are trying to violate federal law through their attempts to import lethal injection drugs.

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Deborah Gilg said Thursday that federal attorneys are looking over correspondence provided by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska.

Jan Sharp, the U.S. attorney’s Criminal Division chief in Omaha, says attorneys need time to review the allegations but should decide by next week whether to act.

The ACLU of Nebraska said in a letter Thursday that state officials are actively pursuing the drugs despite federal warnings that they can’t be imported. The group opposes capital punishment.

Gov. Pete Ricketts has said state officials are working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A federal court has filed a default judgment in a wrongful death lawsuit against a Nebraska prison inmate suspected in the disappearance of a college student.

Online court records say a judge granted a motion Tuesday filed by the attorney for the family of Tyler “Ty” Thomas.

The motion said defendant Joshua Keadle had failed to respond to the family’s lawsuit.

Thomas was 19 when she disappeared days before Christmas in 2010 after leaving a party near the Peru State College campus. Keadle, who’s serving a sentence for an unrelated 2008 rape case, has not been charged in Thomas’ disappearance. Authorities have said he made several statements that led investigators to believe he was involved.

On July 28 the court dismissed the Nebraska State College Board from the lawsuit.

HAZELWOOD, Mo. (AP) — The Army Corps of Engineers says it has discovered “low-level” radioactive contamination in residential yards that back up to Coldwater Creek in St. Louis County.

A Corps spokesman says homeowners have been notified, but he couldn’t give an exact number of affected properties because some samples are still being validated. In the places where contamination was confirmed, it’s several inches beneath the soil surface and isn’t dangerous unless it’s exposed.

Residents who pushed for additional testing near the creek’s floodplain tell the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that they aren’t surprised by the results.

The Corps is working to remove waste from the county’s early nuclear weapons program. It has identified radioactive contamination on private commercial property, but it’s the first time it has found contamination on residential properties.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — The city of Columbia will stop burning coal at its power plant in mid-October. City officials say the decision is in response to several new environmental regulations. The plant produces about 6 percent of the city’s power supply.

City officials cited a new federal law that limits the volume of pollutants the city can release from the plant.

Federal regulations also stipulate that the city won’t be able to operate its two coal units at more than 10 percent capacity after January. Another law changes the way coal ash is handled.

Power plant officials say the city is considering changing one or both of the two boilers to burn biomass. If that is not feasible, the two boilers will be retired.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A 2½-foot-long alligator listed for sale by a Sioux City teenager instead will end up at a Nebraska college. Sioux City officials learned of the posting and soon found the 16-year-old owner, whose posting said he wanted $400 for the reptile Allie, her 75-gallon aquarium, heat lamps and water heater.

The boy bought them from an Internet website. Animal control officials say Iowa has barred alligators from being kept as pets.

The alligator was turned over to Sioux City Animal Adoption and Rescue Center on Tuesday. Cindy Rarrat, who owns the center, says Allie is the third alligator her facility has received in three years.

Allie eventually will be sent to Southeast Community College in Lincoln, Nebraska, and become part of the school’s reptile lab.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A new survey suggests that the economic outlook for 10 Midwest and Plains states is weaker than in previous months.

The Rural Mainstreet Index sank to growth neutral 50.0 in August from 53.4 in July. The survey indexes range from 0 to 100. Any score below 50 suggests decline in that factor in the months ahead. Bankers from Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming were surveyed.

Creighton University economist Ernie Goss oversees the survey, and he says the weaker business conditions for agriculture and energy businesses accounted for the downtown.

The confidence index, which reflects expectations for the economy six months out, slumped to 42.0 from 46.6 last month.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s two U.S. senators are taking opposite positions on an Iran nuclear deal.

Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said Thursday she will vote to support the agreement negotiated by President Barack Obama’s administration and officials from other major countries.

The agreement would require Iran to dismantle most of its nuclear program for at least a decade in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions.

McCaskill said the deal isn’t perfect but the world could be worse off if the U.S. were to reject the agreement and a coalition that has been imposing sanctions were to fray.

Republican Sen. Roy Blunt said last month that he opposes the agreement. He called it a “dangerous step” in the advancement of Iran’s nuclear program that threatens the security of U.S. allies.