TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — New budget-balancing proposals from Kansas Governor Sam Brownback would require hospitals to pay higher fees and capture savings from companies managing the state’s Medicaid program.

The Republican governor outlined proposed budget adjustments Thursday before a meeting of the House Appropriations Committee.

One proposal would require hospitals to pay an additional $19 million in fees during the fiscal year beginning July 1st. The fees help sustain the Medicaid program’s health coverage for 368,000 needy and disabled Kansas residents.

The state uses revenues from the fees to attract federal dollars that go back to the hospitals for caring for Medicaid participants.

Other proposals reduce projected Medicaid spending by almost $33 million between now and the end of June 2016 to reflect lower payments to the three health insurers managing the program.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — More than 30 people have been arrested during an ongoing investigation into a phony driver’s license scheme in suburban Kansas City.

Authorities said Thursday that unqualified applicants paid as much as $2,500 apiece for the licenses. Samantha Jo Moore is the only suspect who used to work for the Kansas Department of Revenue.

She’s jailed in Johnson County on 51 felonies, including official misconduct. Bond for the 28-year-old has been set at $250,000. Her public defender, Joseph Astrab, didn’t immediately return a phone call from The Associated Press.

The Kansas City Star reports that Moore is accused of taking bribes to supply licenses to dozens of people while working as a driver’s license examiner at the office in Mission. Kansas Secretary of Revenue Nick Jordan called the case “disturbing.”

PLEASANT HILL, Mo. (AP) — The mother of a newborn found encased in concrete at a suburban Kansas City home has been convicted of second-degree murder.

The Kansas City Star reports that a jury also convicted 30-year-old Krystal Scroggs on Thursday of endangering the welfare of a child and abandonment of a corpse.

Police found the baby’s body in a concrete-filled bucket in a Pleasant Hill, Missouri, garage in 2013 while searching for drug paraphernalia. Investigators said the father told them the baby was stillborn at home, and he disposed of the body in the bucket.

An autopsy showed the baby died of methamphetamine intoxication caused by his mother’s drug use. The defense said the state didn’t prove that the baby would have survived with medical care.

Sentencing is set for June 15th.

KIRKSVILLE, Mo. (AP) — It’s a final act Jack and the Beanstalk would appreciate.

An approximately 50-year-old agave plant at Truman State University in Kirksville is entering its final stage, sending up a stalk so tall that maintenance personnel had to remove panels from the greenhouse ceiling so it wouldn’t smash through.

Lisa Hooper, associate biology professor, says the stalk could grow up to 25 feet before branching out and flowering in the next few weeks. It’s the plant’s final show before it dies.

Students first noticed the stalk growing a few weeks ago and it reached the greenhouse roof within weeks.

The Kirksville Daily Express reports part of the plant will live on, with new plants sprouting from its base. With the right pollinators, typically bats and moths, other plants could pop up.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Government scientists say more than a dozen regions in the United States have experienced a rise in man-made earthquakes in recent years.

A report released Thursday found that 17 areas in eight states have seen small quakes triggered by oil and gas drilling. They include parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas.

The U.S. Geological Survey says most of the shaking is caused by the oil and gas industry injecting wastewater deep underground, which can activate dormant faults. A few cases stemmed from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

The agency plans to study how often man-made quakes are expected to occur in the next year and how much shaking they would produce.

Scientists released the report at an earthquake meeting in Pasadena, California.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The University of Kansas is reporting a large increase in drug offenses in the last year but police contend it is caused by better drug education and enforcement, rather than more drug use on campus.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports annual crime statistics released Wednesday showed 177 drug offenses reported on campus in 2014, compared with 107 in 2013, a 65 percent increase.

University police Capt. James Anguiano says police are training student housing employees to recognize illegal activity and identify drugs. He says obtaining more search warrants also contributed to the higher numbers.

Anguiano says most of the drug offenses involved marijuana in residence halls.

The statistics showed 832 crimes were reported on campus in 2014, a 26 percent increase from 661 crimes in 2013.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City officials are unhappy that the city has lost out on homeland security funds.

Councilman John Sharp, chairman of the council’s public safety committee, said a recent Kansas City Star series on domestic terrorism had shed light on regional risks of terrorism attacks. He also pointed to the murders last year of three people at Jewish sites in Overland Park, Kansas, and the bombing in Oklahoma City 20 years ago

The Kansas City Star reports the city received $1 million last year but was not one of 28 communities that received at total of $287 million this year.

Mayor Sly James and other area officials have written Gov. Jay Nixon asking for an allocation from Missouri’s homeland security grant.

CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — Michael Brown’s parents have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city of Ferguson over the fatal shooting of their son by a white police officer.

Attorneys promise the case will bring to light new forensic evidence and raise doubts about the police version of events.

They say the lawsuit will include evidence that was ignored by the grand jury and the Justice Department, including bullets allegedly fired by officer Darren Wilson found in buildings. They say some of that evidence has been overlooked in previous investigations.

Brown was 18 and unarmed when Wilson shot him during a confrontation last summer.

The shooting led to sometimes-violent demonstrations and spawned a national protest movement. In the end, local and federal authorities ruled that the shooting was justified.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A trial regarding the constitutionality of a Missouri Department of Mental Health program for people convicted of sex crimes has begun.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the trial began Tuesday. A class action lawsuit alleges the Sex Offender Rehabilitation and Treatment Services program is a prison in disguise.

Missouri law identifies sex offenders nearing the end of their prison terms, and allows a process for civil courts to decide if inmates need to be kept from the community, but in treatment rather than in prison. There is no time limit for confinement, but state law says treatment should continue until the inmate’s risk to society falls.

The plaintiffs’ attorney says nobody has been released for successfully completing the program since it was created in 1999.

The Missouri attorney general’s office, which is defending the state, says the legality of the program is sound.

COUNCIL GROVE, Kan. (AP) — An American Indian tribe is returning to its land in northeast Kansas, beginning with a ceremony Saturday.

The Kaw Nation, also called the Kanza, will perform ritual dances Saturday south of Council Grove. It is a step toward establishing a gathering place to educate, promote and preserve the American Indian heritage for a tribe for which the state of Kansas is named.

The Wichita Eagle reports the dances will be performed at the site of the last Kaw villages in Kansas before the Kaw was forced to move to Indian Territory in Oklahoma in 1873.

On Feb. 28, 2000, the Kaw Nation bought 146.8 acres of land along the Little John Creek near Council Grove. It has been working with the state to re-establish its ties to Kansas.