IOLA, Kan. (AP) — Rain-swollen rivers in southeast and northeastern Kansas have claimed one life and nearly took another.

Crews in Allen County recovered the body of 23-year-old Iola resident Zane Forbis-Burgardt in Elm Creek around 9 a.m. Sunday.

The sheriff’s department says three men on inner tubes went over a small dam on the creek Saturday afternoon.

The others were able to escape after their tubes flipped, but Forbis-Burgardt drowned.

In northeastern Kansas, a bystander helped Wamego police officers rescue a 9-year-old girl from the Kansas River on Sunday afternoon. The high water and swift current had pulled the girl about a mile from where she and her 17-year-old sister had been sitting on the bank.

Emergency management officials say high water remains a concern in much of central and southeastern Kansas.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Lawrence police say they have solved at least 20 burglaries and thefts that involved so much loot the thieves had trouble finding places to store it.

Police say two men and a woman arrested last week committed the thefts in April and May, and more suspects and arrests are possible.

Sgt. Trent McKinley says the thefts involved an estimated $77,000 in stolen items, many from storage units. He says there was so much loot that police had to store some of it in rented moving trucks parked outside the police station.

Investigators believe the suspects were involved with methamphetamine.

Many of the victims had some, but not all, of their property returned to them.

WARSAW, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri pond is the focus of a continuing search for a woman who has been missing for more than three weeks.

Teams are draining the pond in Benton County this week in search for any clues in the disappearance of 72-year-old Hellen Cook.  She was last seen July 13, when she walked away from a vacation home near Warsaw.

She suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.  The woman’s shoes and scarf were found in late July near the pond.

Investigators said they don’t think Cook’s body is in the pond but they want to be sure.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the pond was already scheduled to be drained this year.

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — The Hutchinson City Council is scheduled to take a peek at an ordinance that would ban public nudity in the city.

The ordinance before the council Tuesday includes very specific definitions of what constitutes public nudity.

City Attorney Paul Brown says laws against disturbing the peace and lewd and lascivious behavior don’t address the issue. He says those laws require that someone who is nude in public must have the intent either to disturb others or achieve sexual gratification before charges are allowed.

Brown acknowledges the city doesn’t have a serious public nudity problem, but he says police occasionally get calls about someone nude in public. The law wouldn’t apply to anyone under 10 years old, a nude model or a breastfeeding mother.

PRATT, Kan. (AP) — A man accused of killing a pregnant Pratt woman was scheduled for his first court appearance Monday after being charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Bryant Seba was charged Friday in the shooting deaths of 22-year-old Alexandria J. Duran and her unborn child. Seba is also charged with attempted first-degree murder in the shooting of Brandon Wright.

Witnesses told police Duran and Wright were shot July 24 while walking in front of a house in Pratt.

 

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt says if Seba is convicted of any charges less than first-degree murder, the state will ask the jury the find that the crimes were racially motivated.

Seba remains jailed on $2 million bond. It’s not immediately clear if he has an attorney.

PHILLIPSBURG, Kan. (AP) — A bucking horse has died after running into a fence during a Kansas rodeo event and breaking her neck.

The 6-year-old mare, Jitterbug, had her head down while bucking at the Phillipsburg Rodeo on Friday and went straight into a fence.

A veterinarian at the arena says the horse died instantly and did not suffer.

Veterinarian John Boyington says he has worked at the rodeo for 23 years and it was the first time he had seen a horse die in that manner.

An owner of the Elk City, Oklahoma company that owned the horse says Jitterbug was a valuable asset, and her loss was like losing a star freshman player.

The horse is being buried in Kansas.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Topeka man is on the run after escaping from a minimum security unit at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility where he was being held on burglary and shoplifting convictions.

Mark Edward Lucas fled from the facility between 1 and 2 p.m. Saturday. The 44-year-old is described as 6 feet tall, 180 pounds with brown hair and hazel eyes.

Officials believe he might have headed north toward Topeka.

 

A Kansas judge called Lucas a “serial shoplifter” when sentencing him in October 2012 for stealing a DVD player and wireless router from a Topeka Walmart where he was permanently banned.

Lucas told the judge his crack cocaine habit drove him to steal. He has entered guilty or no contest pleas to resolve at least 19 previous theft cases. His earliest possible release date is March 2023.

Court records also show Lucas was serving time for several crimes in the Topeka area.

DANVILLE, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say 15 children were taken to a hospital after a charter bus carrying students from the Missouri School for the Deaf overturned in eastern Missouri.

Department of Elementary and Secondary Education spokeswoman Sarah Potter says none of the students has life-threatening injuries. She says the injuries appear to be minor.

Police say the crash happened around 1:30 p.m. Friday near Danville as the bus was exiting Interstate 70.

Two chaperones and the driver also were taken to University Hospital in Columbia. Hospital spokeswoman Mary Jenkins says the adults also suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Interpreters from the school and the hospital are helping translate for the children, who range in age from 10 to 18.

Potter says children were heading home after the end of their summer term.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A former University of Central Missouri student from Saudi Arabia is free for the first time in nearly a year after first-degree murder charges against him were dropped.

Ziyad Abid was briefly taken into custody Friday by immigration officials then released on his own recognizance hours after Johnson County prosecutors dismissed all charges.

The 24-year-old Abid had been in jail since September, when detectives said his roommate, Reginald Singletary Jr., admitted killing a local bar owner in Warrensburg but said Abid had paid him to do it.

Singletary was a former bouncer at a bar owned by Blaine Whitworth. According to court documents, Singletary admitted fatally shooting Whitworth in the bar owner’s driveway. Singletary remains behind bars awaiting trial next February on charges of first degree murder and armed criminal action.

Abid’s attorneys have said Abid had nothing to do with the death.

Abid’s case gained national attention after the Saudi government posted $2 million bond in April, but a judge called him a flight risk and refused to release him.