JACKSON COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating two suspects for alleged burglary.

Just after 8p.m. Friday, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office received a report of a suspicious vehicle parked behind a residence in the 13000 block of S. Road near Hoyt, according to Sheriff Tim Morse.

Jackson County Deputies and the Hoyt Police Department responded to the area and discovered that forced entry was made to the property.

Law enforcement stopped a white Saturn passenger car east of T. Road on 126^th Road. The occupants of the vehicle, Rachel Leeann Johnson, 34, of Wellsville, Kansas and Bradley Steven Cowling, 36, of Carbondale, Kansas were arrested during the traffic stop. The duo were alleged to be in possession of property that came from the residence at the time of their arrest, according to Morse.

Cowling was booked into the Jackson County Jail for burglary, theft, felony interference with law enforcement, and criminal use of weapons. Cowling also had outstanding warrants for his arrest from other Kansas jurisdictions. Johnson was booked into the Jackson County Jail for burglary and theft.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Border officials are aiming to more than quadruple the number of asylum seekers sent back over the southern border each day, a major expansion of a top government effort to address the swelling number of Central Americans arriving in the country, a Trump administration official said Saturday.

It was the latest attempt to ease a straining immigration system that officials say is at the breaking point. Hundreds of officers who usually screen cargo and vehicles at ports of entry were reassigned to help manage migrants. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen asked for volunteers from non-immigration agencies within her department, sent a letter to Congress late this past week requesting resources and broader authority to deport families faster, and she met with Central American and Mexican officials.

The efforts are being made while President Donald Trump is doubling down on threats to shutter the U.S.-Mexico border entirely, a move that would have serious economic repercussions for both the U.S. and Mexico but wouldn’t stop migrants from crossing between ports. His administration also announced it was cutting aid to the Central American countries home to most of the migrants.

Right now, about 60 asylum seekers a day are returned to Mexico at the San Ysidro, Calexico and El Paso ports to wait out their cases, the official said. They are allowed to return to the U.S. for court dates. The plan was announced Jan. 29, partially to deter false claimants from coming across the border. With a backlog of more than 700,000 immigration cases, asylum seekers can wait years for their cases to progress, and officials say some people game the system in order to live in the U.S.

Officials hope to have as many as 300 people returned per day by the end of the week, focusing particularly on those who come in between ports of entry, said the official, who had knowledge of the plans but was unauthorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

But the process so far has been slow-going, and such a sizeable increase may be difficult to achieve. The plan has already been marred by confusion, scheduling glitches and an inability by some attorneys to reach their clients. In San Ysidro alone, Mexico had been prepared to accept up to 120 asylum seekers per week, but for the first six weeks only 40 people per week were returned.

Plus, U.S. officials must check if asylum seekers have any felony convictions and notify Mexico at least 12 hours before they are returned. Those who cross illegally must have come as single adults, though the administration is in talks with the Mexican government to include families. Children are not returned.

Homeland Security officials have been grappling with an ever-growing number of Central American children and families coming over the border. Arrests soared in February to a 12-year-high and more than half of those stopped arrived as families, many of them asylum seekers who generally turn themselves in instead of trying to elude capture. Guatemala and Honduras have replaced Mexico as the top countries, a remarkable shift from only a few years ago. Migrants from Central America cannot be easily deported, unlike people crossing from Mexico.

Mexico has been treading lightly on the subject. After Trump lashed out, saying Mexico and the Central American nations were “doing nothing” about illegal immigration, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his country would do everything it could to help to maintain a “very respectful relationship” with the U.S. government and Trump.

Meanwhile, Nielsen sent a letter to the heads of other agencies within her sprawling, 240,000-person department, asking for volunteers to help with border duties. And she wrote to Congress asking for more temporary facilities to process people, more detention space, and the ability to detain families indefinitely and to deport unaccompanied minors from Central America. While children from Mexico can be returned over the border, laws prohibit deportation to other countries.

Democratic congressional leaders expressed deep concern, saying the administration wanted to revive “horrific” and “immoral” plans, noting its failed hardline border policies have created “senseless heartbreak and horror.”

“Democrats reject any effort to let the administration deport little children, and we reject all anti-immigrant and anti-family attacks from this President,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Missouri conservation officials have worked for four decades to increase the number of prairie chickens, but the population continues to drop.

The state now has fewer than 100 prairie chickens, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. The prairie chicken was added to Missouri’s endangered species list in 1999.

The conservation department is about to start a new count this spring, St. Louis Public Radio reported .

Hundreds of thousands of prairie chickens roamed Missouri in the 1800s. But over the decades, the grasslands that prairie chickens depend on have shrunk to less than 1 percent of the area they once covered in Missouri.

The conservation department has brought in hundreds of prairie chickens from Nebraska and Kansas, where they are not endangered. Still, the population drop continues. Remaining prairie chickens are found in small patches of prairie in western Missouri.

Max Alleger, a grasslands biologist for the conservation department, said the department has also worked with farmers and ranchers to restore prairie habitat.

“Although we can provide wonderful habitat quality, we haven’t been able to provide enough of it to meet the needs of those birds,” Alleger said.

The problem is partly that Missouri’s climate has become wetter than neighboring states, playing a role in causing forests to encroach on grasslands, Alleger said.

Prairie chickens are members of the grouse family. The distinctive orange pouches on their throats play a role in their mating rituals. To get females’ attention, males stomp their feet, fan their feathers and puff out the pouches, creating a booming noise that can be heard a mile away.

One way the conservation department is trying to improve habitat is by encouraging ranchers and farmers to allow cattle to graze in grasslands. Before human settlement, bison and elk would graze in prairies, and as the grasses grow back, the new plants would promote a variety of wildflowers and plants that benefit prairie chickens.

Experts say prairie chickens play an important part of the food web in grassland environments and help control populations of insects they eat.

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By STEPHEN KORANDA

The clock is ticking for Kansas lawmakers to figure out a school funding solution. Briefs making the case for a plan are due to the state Supreme Court April 15.

With only one week of the regular legislative session to go, there’s still significant division over how to satisfy the court that funding is adequate and end the nearly decade-old Gannon lawsuit.

The Senate is backing Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s plan to add $360 million for schools over four years. Republican leaders in the House think the solution is in targeting more money at struggling students, but they don’t want to promise funding hikes far into the future.

The House has not in fact debated a school funding bill. Instead, the chamber approved — by only the narrowest of margins — legislation making a host of changes to school finance policy. House and Senate negotiators will discuss that policy bill next week.

The changes would require more reports on test scores and spending by individual districts. Superintendents would have to certify that sufficient resources are being directed to core curriculum and kids who are at risk of falling behind.

Republican Rep. Kristey Williams said the policy changes will ensure state dollars are spent wisely.

“Accountability is the cornerstone of all good policy,” Williams said when explaining her vote in favor of the policy bill she helped draft.

But some provisions of the bill are causing heartburn for school districts.

The legislation wouldn’t just require more reporting of school spending. It would also limit state funding for bilingual education for students learning English. The Kansas State Board of Education would be asked to determine each year how money for special education is distributed, tossing out an existing target.

The state hasn’t hit that target for special education funding in recent years, but members of the Kansas Association of School Boards don’t want to see it eliminated.

“Many districts are disappointed that we just sort of give up on that,” said KASB lobbyist Mark Tallman.

The bill includes a mix of policies the KASB opposes and supports, but Tallman said policy issues should not be the focus of lawmakers right now.

“None of the policy is as important as resolving funding,” Tallman said. “That’s a major concern.”

Plus, the policy bill isn’t likely to get a warm reception from senators eager to move on from years of litigation.

The Senate signed off on the governor’s plan more than two weeks ago — a plan that adjusts for inflation funding levels that the court said last year were nearly enough.

“The Senate’s already established its position,” Republican Sen. Molly Baumgardner said. “We established that pretty clearly.”

House Republicans do have a proposal to provide an initial infusion of cash for schools. But it doesn’t include long-term increases many believe the court will want to see.

Republican leaders called off debate on the proposal this week for lack of support, but they still believe their caucus can agree on something.

“It’s just part of the process,” House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins said. “We’ve got 84 members of our caucus and we probably have 10 or 15 different ideas out there.”

There are a few different paths legislators could take to reach a school funding solution next week.

If the House approves its own funding bill, that would spark bargaining with the Senate. Or the group of senators and House members slated to negotiate the education policy bill could decide to craft a funding agreement too.

Another option, one that House Democrats like, is to simply sign on to the governor’s proposal that passed the Senate with a bipartisan majority.

“The Senate did their job,” House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer said. “We ought to just pass what the Senate did. Get it done.”

Stephen Koranda is Statehouse reporter for the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @kprkoranda.

By Dewey Terrill

Justin Cook and Gary Ryan took home top team honors at the King Kat Tournament Trail event at Milford Lake Saturday with a total catch of 98.64 pounds. Cook, from New Franklin, Missouri and Ryan from Columbia, Missouri combined to win a total of $4,200 for their first place finish. They also had the second biggest catfish caught in the tournament at 53.42 pounds.

.There were 45 two-man teams who braced the winter weather including snow, rain and a cold win to fish in the tournament. With their first place finish Cook and Ryan have qualified for the national championship event November 1st and 2nd in Decatur, Alabama.

The biggest fish was hauled in by Blake McPherren of Wakefield and Jamie Jackson of Clay Center, at 55.56 pounds.

Cabela’s will host another King Kat Tournament Trail regional qualifier at Milford Lake on March 28th, 2020 and they will bring their national championship event to the lake October 30th and 31st, 2020.

DOUGLAS COUNTY — One person died in an accident just after 7p.m. Saturday in Douglas County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2003 Ford Explorer drive by Telisa Sheree Walker, 41, Topeka, was westbound on Interstate 70 just east of the east Lawrence exit.

The driver lost control of the vehicle. It left the road, traveled down the embankment impacting the ground four times before coming to rest on its top. Walker was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Frontier Forensics. She was properly restrained at the time of the accdident, according to the KHP.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A former Pineville, Mo., youth pastor was indicted by a federal grand jury this week for producing child pornography.

Ryan Daniel Crawford, 32, currently a resident of Jacksonville, Ark., was charged with producing child pornography between Nov. 29 and Dec. 18, 2017, according to the United State’s Attorney.

Crawford was formerly the associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Pineville.

 

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — No citations have been issued in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade accident in Lawrence in which a woman tripped and was run over by a float.

A police report issued this week says officers don’t believe alcohol or drug use played a role.

The injured 41-year-old woman was taken to the University of Kansas Hospital. Neither she nor the driver of the float showed signs of impairment.

The report says the woman tripped while stepping off the curb to get beads that some people on the float were handing out. The driver told police he was looking forward and going slowly when he “felt a bump.” He said he stopped the truck and heard onlookers screaming.

The report provided no details on the woman’s injuries.