KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Kansas City civic leaders are trying to interpret data that show a sharp change in the number of people with college degrees who left the region.

The Kansas City Star reports that in 2015, 3,000 more people with bachelor’s degrees moved to Kansas City than moved out. But in 2016, that trend was reversed, with about 4,000 more people with bachelor’s degrees moving out than moving in.

Frank Lenk, with the Mid-America Regional Council, cautions that a one-year change isn’t a trend. But he acknowledges the change between the two years is a big one and needs to be watched.

Lenk says one possible factor is more opportunities elsewhere.

Another possible factor would be an increase in baby boomers retiring in 2016 and leaving Kansas City for warmer climates.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A conservative Republican who has supported President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that millions of illegal votes cost Trump the popular vote in 2016 will have to prove Kansas has a problem with voter fraud if he’s to win a legal challenge to voter registration requirements he’s championed.

The case headed to trial starting Tuesday has national implications for voting rights as Republicans pursue laws they say are aimed at preventing voter fraud but that critics contend disenfranchise minorities and college students who tend to vote Democratic and who may not have such documentation readily available. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is running for governor and was part of Trump’s now-disbanded commission on voter fraud , has long championed such laws and is defending a Kansas requirement that people present documentary proof of citizenship — such as a birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport — when they register to vote.

“Kansas is the site of the major showdown on this issue, and Kris Kobach has been such a prominent advocate for concerns about noncitizens voting and other fraudulent behavior. He essentially led the Trump commission on vote fraud and integrity and he has been a lightning rod — which makes him a hero to people on his side of the argument in trying to tighten up voting laws, but makes him kind of a mischief-maker and a distraction for people who are on the other side,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Courts have temporarily blocked Kobach from fully enforcing the Kansas law, with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver calling it “a mass denial of a fundamental constitutional right.”

The trial before U.S District Judge Julie Robinson in Kansas City, Kansas, centers on the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as the Motor Voter Law, which allows people to register to vote when applying for a driver’s license. Robinson will decide whether Kobach has legal authority to demand such citizenship paperwork, and a key consideration will be whether Kansas has a significant problem with noncitizens registering to vote.

Dale Ho, director for the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union said the case is about what national standards the U.S. will have for voter registration.

“It is also a case about this false narrative of noncitizens participating in elections — which Kobach has said for years has been happening in large amounts — and now we are going to see his evidence,” Ho said. “His evidence is going to be put on the stand in open court for a federal judge to rule on, and I think the public will finally get to see how little evidence he actually has.”

Kobach’s office didn’t respond to an interview request ahead of the trial, but he has argued in court filings that the law is necessary to prevent voter fraud, contending that even a small number of noncitizens voting could sway a close election.

No other state has been as aggressive as Kansas in imposing such proof-of-citizenship requirements. Alabama and Georgia have proof-of-citizenship laws that are not currently being enforced, according to the ACLU. Arizona is the only other state with a similar law in effect, but that law is far more lenient and allows people to satisfy it by writing their driver’s license number on the voter registration form.

“All of these states are in limbo while we wait for courts to settle the dispute,” Burden said, adding that other states might be interested in similar laws if Kobach prevails.

Kansas has about 1.8 million registered voters. Kobach has told the court he has been able to document a total of 127 noncitizens who at least tried to register to vote. Forty-three of them were successful in registering, he says, and 11 have voted since 2000. Five of those people registered at motor vehicle offices, according to Kobach.

In the first three years after the Kansas law went into effect in 2013, about one in seven voter registration applications in Kansas were blocked for lack of proof of citizenship — with nearly half of them for people under the age of 30, according to court documents. Between 2013 and 2016, more than 35,000 Kansans were unable to register to vote.

In temporarily blocking the law for people who register at driver’s license offices, Robinson in May 2016 said it likely violates a provision in federal election law that requires only “minimal information”— such as an oath under penalty of perjury that the person is a citizen — to determine a voter’s eligibility.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia also has temporarily blocked the enforcement of the law for people who register to vote using the federal form in a separate legal challenge.

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MANHATTAN– First responders were on the scene of a drowning again Sunday.

Just after 3p.m. Saturday, the Riley County Police Department was called to Tuttle Creek Lake for the report of an apparent drowning, according to a media release.

Officers with RCPD responded to the scene along with the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office, Manhattan Fire Department, Riley County EMS, Riley County Emergency Management, Kansas Highway Patrol and the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

The subject, identified as Anthony Berg, 21, of Stillwell, Kansas, has not yet been recovered. Recovery efforts were to continue Sunday.

By BRIAN GRIMMETT

Kansas regulators have found that more than one thousand applications for new wastewater disposal wells failed to give the required 30-day public notice period.

Since October 2008, applicants hoping to get approval to begin operating wastewater disposal wells have been required to alert the public about a 30-day protest period.

Instead, regulators found that 1,007 applications connected to more than 2,000 wells came with public notices alerting people to just 15-day periods.

That means almost a quarter of the applications received during that time led people to believe they had half the alloted time to register their objections.

Kansas has more than 16,000 wastewater injection wells. The wells are used to dispose of what’s left over from extracting oil and gas. It’s mostly saltwater, but it can also contain chemicals.

Matfield Green resident Cindy Hoedel was the first to suggest to the Kansas Corporation Commission that there was a problem. She discovered the issue when preparing to protest against a well, and at first, didn’t realize anything was wrong about a 15-day period. The list she used, which only went back about four months, only had about 25 incorrect notices. She says she never expected the total to be so high.

She also says all those well owners should be forced to give people another chance to protest.

“The applications did not comply with the regulations that are on the books,” she said. “And they should be shut down and they should have to reapply.”

The KCC is considering what action to take in wake of the investigation.

Since 2002, only contested wastewater injection well applications got a formal hearing. All others were either approved or denied by KCC staff.

Only three of the applications on the incorrect notice list received a hearing.

Brian Grimmett is a reporter focusing on the environment and energy for the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @briangrimmett.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Officials say a prisoner has died after being found unresponsive in her cell at the Johnson County Detention Center in Olathe.

The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office says in a news release that 59-year-old Wanda Denise Kendrick was found unconscious in her cell Friday morning while jail staff were conducting a welfare check. Staff attempted to resuscitate her, and she was taken to a nearby hospital. She was declared dead later that afternoon.

Officials say Kendrick was alone in the cell. She had been jailed since Feb. 23 on two counts of misdemeanor theft and one count of obstructing legal process.

Officials say they don’t know how she died, and an investigation is being conducted.

KANSAS CITY (AP) — A man already charged with killing three people in the Kansas City area was indicted Friday in the deaths of three more men, all of whom were shot in apparently unprovoked attacks along or near hiking trails, Jackson County prosecutors said.

The suspect, Frederick Demond Scott, a 23-year-old black man, once threatened to “kill all white people.” All the victims were white, but investigators and prosecutors have not discussed a motive for the killings.

After the indictments, Scott faces six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of armed criminal action in a string of killings that began in August 2016. The last killing currently linked to Scott occurred Aug. 13, 2017. He has pleaded not guilty in the previous three cases.

Scott’s mother previously told authorities and The Kansas City Star that her son is schizophrenic.

All five of the male victims were shot as they walked on or near the trails or, in one case, walked home after getting off a bus. The female victim was homeless and her decomposing body was found in a tent in woods in Grandview. She also was shot, police said.

Kansas City Police spokesman Lionel Colon said he has “no information that suggests the investigation” into other potential victims is ongoing.

Scott made his comment about wanting to kill people while he was a student in January 2014 at an alternative school near Kansas City, according to a municipal citation for harassment regarding the case. His mother said she did odd jobs for white people and she wasn’t aware he had any problems with them.

Scott was indicted Friday in the deaths of David Lenox, 67, Timothy Rice, 57, and Michael Darby, 61.

The first victim was John Palmer, 54, who was shot Aug. 19, 2016. His body was dragged off the Indian Creek Trail and was found in nearby woods. The last victim, Steven Gibbons, 57, died Aug. 13, 2017, after he got off a bus in south Kansas City. The woman, 64-year-old Karen Harmeyer, was found in her tent by friends.

Lenox was killed Feb. 27, 2017, as he was returning home from walking his two dogs. His daughter, Mindy Lenox of San Francisco, told The Star that she and her family appreciated the efforts of investigators and prosecutors to provide a charge in her father’s death.

“We’re thankful that he is off the street and hopefully he’ll be held accountable for what he has done,” Lenox said. “I don’t know for me personally that there is any closure. Nothing can bring my dad back and nothing can take that pain away, but at least knowing that the person responsible will be held accountable, it will certainly be helpful.”

Rice, of Excelsior Springs, was found dead from multiple gunshots on April 4, 2017, inside a shelter at a park where he was camping, his family said.

Darby’s son, Brian Darby, said Friday he appreciated the work of police and prosecutors. “I feel like we are one step closer to where we need to be,” he said.

Scott was arrested after Gibbons’ killing, when surveillance video showed Scott following Gibbons, according to court records. Detectives later linked Scott to the scene with DNA from an iced tea bottle and a cigarette butt. He was linked to the Palmer killing with DNA from a T-shirt left at that scene.

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OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Police say charges are pending against a person identified as a first responder who allegedly spit on and called a child by a racial slur in a suburban Kansas City restaurant.

The incident happened Monday night at a Hooters restaurant in Overland Park, Kansas.

Police Sgt. John Lacy said that the suspect is a first responder, but didn’t say for which agency. Lacy says the person doesn’t work in Kansas.

Police told KCTV that possible charges could include battery and making a criminal threat. Police haven’t released the person’s name.

Witnesses and family members of the child told police the suspect called the child, who is black, a slur while saying someone should get the child “up off the floor.”

Police say the boy’s family was at the restaurant celebrating a birthday.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The University of Kansas will use a $1 million gift to provide scholarships to LGBTQ students.

The university announced Thursday that 60-year-old Chad Leat donated the gift this week to his alma mater. Leat, of New York City, is retired vice chairman of global banking at Citigroup.

Leat, a native of Tonganoxie, had already established a scholarship fund through the KU Endowment in 2006, with a goal of promoting a multicultural, inclusive environment at the university.

The university says the new scholarship is one of the largest gifts in support of LGBTQ’s students in the school’s history.

FARMINGTON, Mo. (AP) – A Missouri man is charged with second-degree animal abuse for allegedly shooting a dog and hitting the animal in the head with a hammer.

Charges were filed Thursday against 56-year-old Jason Edward Hampton of Farmington. He is jailed on $10,000 bond and does not have a listed attorney.

A probable cause statement says the dog, Trooper, belonged to someone else. Authorities say Hampton shot and paralyzed the dog and then struck the animal in the head to try and kill it.

The probable cause statement says the dog was placed in a sack and dumped in a ditch in late January or early February.

Trooper survived. Organizers of a fundraiser say he is showing signs of improvement. More than $6,000 has been raised on the dog’s behalf.