KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City Power & Light is warning customers it is seeing a dramatic increase in the number of scams directed at customers.

The electric company said Wednesday that it has tracked 326 attempted utility collection call scams in the first quarter this year. That’s a 76 percent increase from 185 similar calls last year.

KCP&L officials say the scams generally involve someone posing as a KCP&L employee telling a customer a bill is past due and threatening to disconnect service if payment isn’t made immediately. Generally, customers are told to buy prepaid cards, then call back and give the caller the card’s number and PIN.

The utility says it does call customers but employees will never demand immediate payment or the purchase of a prepaid card.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Authorities say a woman has died on an Alaska Arilines plane that took off from Seattle and landed at Kansas City International Airport.

Kansas City police said in a news release that firefighters responded Tuesday to a medical emergency on Flight 478 and found the woman dead. Police said it appeared that she had suffered from cardiac arrest but that the exact cause of death won’t be known until after an autopsy.

The airline’s website says the flight was direct from Seattle to Kansas City.

The woman’s name wasn’t immediately released.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ third-largest school district is reviewing complaints that administrators infringed on students’ freedom of speech during a national classroom walkout to protest gun violence, including by taking away student photographers’ cameras.

The issues arose Friday at Shawnee Mission North High School and Hocker Grove Middle School. Students said they were censored, and Shawnee Mission North junior Grace Altenhofen told board members at a meeting Monday that an administrator told students photographers they weren’t allowed to cover the event because the administrator “didn’t approve of the subject matter.”

Shawnee Mission School District Interim Superintendent Kenny Southwick said he would “take personal responsibility for some of the things that happened.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas says it has received numerous complaints and is investigating.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must resume a program that has shielded hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation but gave it 90 days to restate its arguments before his order takes effect.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates in Washington, if it survives the 90-day reprieve, would be a new setback for the administration because it would require the administration to accept requests from first-time applicants for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Two nationwide injunctions earlier this year applied only to renewal requests.

Bates said the administration’s decision to end DACA, announced in September, relied on “meager legal reasoning.” He invited the Department of Homeland Security to try again, “this time providing a fuller explanation for the determination that the program lacks statutory and constitutional authority.”

The judge, ruling in favor of Princeton University and the NAACP, wrote Tuesday that the administration’s explanation was “particularly egregious” because it didn’t mention that many of the hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries had obtained jobs and pursued education based on the assumption that they would be allowed to renew.

The Homeland Security Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The administration said in September that it would phase out DACA over six months, calling the program started in 2012 under President Barack Obama an abuse of executive power. It said it was forced to act because Texas and other states threatened to sue, raising the prospect of a chaotic end to the program.

Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber said he was “delighted.”

“While the decision does not fully resolve the uncertainty facing DACA beneficiaries, it unequivocally rejects the rationale the government has offered for ending the program and makes clear that the (Department of Homeland Security) acted arbitrarily and capriciously,” he said.

In January, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ruled that the administration failed to justify ending the program and his nationwide injunction forced the administration to resume accepting renewal requests within a week. U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis in New York issued a similar ruling in February.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied the administration’s unusual request to leapfrog appeals courts on Alsup’s injunction in February, ensuring that DACA would stay for at least several months and perhaps until well after midterm elections in November. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals put its review of Alsup’s decision on fast track, but legal experts don’t expect a decision until June at the earliest. From there, it is expected to go to the Supreme Court.

A federal judge in Maryland has ruled in the administration’s favor.

Nearly 690,000 people were enrolled when the Trump administration said in September that it was ending the program, eight out of 10 from Mexico. To qualify, they needed to have arrived before their 16th birthday, been under 31 in June 2012, completed high school or served in the military, and have clean criminal records. The two-year-permits are subject to renewal.

JEFFERSON COUNTY— Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect for armed robbery.

After an extensive investigation, an arrest warrant was issued for  Joseph Michael Lopez, 35, Kansas City, KS for the armed robbery of the Casey’s General Store in Perry, KS on June 18th, 2017, according to a media release from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s office.

Lopez, who was being held in the Wyandotte County Jail on unrelated charges, was charged with and arrested for 2 Counts of Aggravated Robbery, and 2 Counts of Criminal Restraint in relation to the June 18th incident.

Lopez was transported to the Jefferson County Jail where he is being held in lieu of a $100,000 Bond.  Lopez is awaiting his first appearance in the Jefferson County District Court.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A suburban Kansas City mother has been found competent to stand trial on charges that she gave her three children medication to try and kill them before taking it herself.

Attorneys for 37-year-old Therese Roever requested a mental evaluation for the Olathe woman. A judge reviewed the results before finding Friday that Roever is able to understand the proceedings and help her attorneys defend her in the attempted capital murder case.

Court documents say two of the children would have died if they hadn’t been found and rushed to a hospital. The records also show Roever and her ex-husband have been involved in long-running litigation involving domestic issues, including child custody.

Roever is jailed on $1 million bond.

By JIM MCLEAN

A behind-the-scenes struggle over proposed changes to Kansas’ Medicaid program is coming down to the wire.

Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer has offered concessions. But he appears determined to stick with his proposal to make some non-disabled recipients work, or undergo job training, for their health care coverage.

Jon Hamdorf, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment official who oversees the state’s privatized Medicaid program known as KanCare, said the governor believes “very strongly that work is a pathway to independence.”

The Colyer administration is seeking federal approval of a work requirement as part of its KanCare 2.0 proposal. That plan, submitted late last year, would extend a federal waiver that allows the state to contract with three private companies to operate KanCare, a $3 billion program that covers more than 420,000 low-income, elderly and disabled Kansans.

Historically, federal officials have rejected requirements that could deny coverage to people who would otherwise be eligible. The Trump administration wants to reverse that policy.

“We need to stop KanCare 2.0 where it is and there is limited time to do so,” said Sean Gatewood, a former Democratic legislator who now heads the KanCare Advocates Network.

At the outset of the 2018 session, bills were introduced in both the House and Senate to block the administration from implementing KanCare 2.0. Neither has passed, but language prohibiting the administration from moving forward was added to the Senate’s budget bill.

Even if the House agrees with that provision, Gatewood said it may not be enough to stop KanCare 2.0 because Colyer’s line-item veto power would allow him to strike just that language before signing the bill.

If that happens it would probably be after the end of the session, meaning lawmakers wouldn’t have a chance to override the governor’s veto.

House Minority Leader Jim Ward, a Wichita Democrat running for governor, said a majority of lawmakers oppose KanCare 2.0.

“It is appalling,” Ward said, that the voices of those legislators “are being stifled.”

In addition to the work requirement, Colyer’s KanCare 2.0 proposal would impose a lifetime benefit limit on some enrollees.

To show that he’s heard the concerns of lawmakers and stakeholder, Hamdorf said, the governor would be willing to back off his call for benefit caps if allowed to pursue a work requirement.

No deal, Ward said.