KANSAS CITY —The Federal Bureau of Investigation, along with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have announced that 84 minors were recovered and 120 traffickers arrested as part of Operation Cross Country XI.  It was a nationwide effort focusing on underage human trafficking that ran from October 12-15.

Over the course of those four days the FBI Kansas City Division, along with its local, state and federal law enforcement partners conducted the operation in 10 cities throughout areas in Kansas and Missouri, according to a media release.

The results of the combined operation led to the recovery of three minors ranging in age from 16 to 17 and the arrest of 10 traffickers.

Junction City Police Chief Dan Breci confirmed his department assisted the FBI in the human trafficking operation last Friday night in Junction City. “They set up at a local hotel, last count I saw was 30 plus people from around the state including Junction City, Grandview Plaza, Geary County SO, and FBI agents out of Kansas City and their task force. From my understanding they did this operation in several cities, and while here they arrested six individuals last Friday.” Breci confirmed there were various charges against those arrested, ‘but they all had to do with the sex trade. ”

Geary County Sheriff Tony Wolf said his department supported the entire operation with a couple of deputies from the Sheriff’s Department assisting in the investigation. “It was kind of like a prostitution sting situation where individuals were caught that were soliciting the sexual favors from minors.”

The 11th iteration of the FBI-led Operation Cross Country included 55 FBI field officers and involved 78 state and local forces across the nation, including hundreds of law enforcement partners. There were coordinated operations with international partners including Canada, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines.

As part of the operation, FBI agents and task force officers staged operations in hotels, casinos and truck stops as well as on street corners and internet websites. The youngest victim recovered during this year’s operation was three months old, and the average age of victims recovered was 15 years old.

Multiple law enforcement agencies partnered with the FBI Kansas City during Operation Cross Country XI including those from  Kansas City, Independence, Lee Summit, Riverside and North Kansas, Missouri plus Overland Park, Olathe, Topeka and Wichita.

DOUGLAS COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating the October 1 fatal shooting on Massachusetts Street in Lawrence. and have a third person in custody, according to a media release.

On Wednesday, the United State Marshals arrested Anthony Laron Roberts Jr, 21, Topeka, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Upon extradition to Douglas County, Roberts will be booked in on an arrest warrant from Douglas County District Court for one count of 1^st Degree Murder, two counts of 2^nd Degree Murder, and one count of Attempted 2^nd Degree Murder. It is not known at this time when Mr. Roberts will be extradited, according to police.

Two additional suspects are in custody and identified as Ahmad Malik Rayton, 22, and Dominique Jaques Mcmillan, 19, both of Topeka. Rayton is charged with Attempted Second Degree Murder and Criminal Possession of a Firearm by a Felon. McMillon is charged with Aggravated Assault and Battery, according to Officer Drew Fennelly.

Three people died in the shooting including Leah Elizabeth Brown, 22, Shawnee, Colwin Lynn Henderson, 20, and Tremel Dupree Dean 24, both of Topeka. Two victims were treated at area hospitals for non-life threatening injuries.

By DAVID PITT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture has killed a rule designed to protect the legal rights of farmers who raise chickens and hogs for the nation’s largest meat processors.

RANDOLPH COUNTY, MO —   A woman from Kansas is in custody in Huntsville, Missouri after an arrest Tuesday night, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Just after 8p.m., Danielle J. Harvey, 26, was jailed on a felony fugitive warrant in connection with the alleged charge of parental kidnapping of a minor child.

She is being held without bond awaiting extradition to Kansas.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is acknowledging that it illegally diverted specialized fees to help cover general government spending as part of a 2009 budget fix to settle a lawsuit filed by a legislative leader.

Former Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal said Wednesday that the settlement is a victory for businesses and individuals who pay fees to cover the costs of state regulation. Shawnee County District Judge Franklin Theis approved the settlement last month.

O’Neal was House speaker when as an attorney he filed the lawsuit for providers of workers’ compensation insurance coverage that paid annual fees.

The settlement declares that the diversion of nearly $3.1 million in fees from workers’ compensation, bank regulation and real estate regulation funds was illegal. Legislators paid those funds back in budget legislation approved earlier this year.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) – A new report sheds light physical confrontations between a Missouri hospital’s staff and patients that put the facility at risk of losing Medicare funding.

A spokeswoman for Mercy Hospital Springfield tells the Springfield News-Leader that the August report resulted in the firing of a dozen employees and the threat of losing funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The federal agency investigated following a complaint regarding patient care. The agency found instances of staff neglecting patients’ request for medical help and employees being physically forceful with patients.

The report flagged four occurrences of “abuse and/or neglect” between April and August.

An agency spokeswoman says that as of last month, the hospital was still out of compliance on two conditions needed to participate in Medicare. The agency will revisit Mercy this month.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) – An Arkansas man who made bomb threats to a county courthouse in Missouri so his court hearing would be canceled has been sentenced to 2.5 years in federal prison without parole.

Federal prosecutors say 36-year-old Phillip Ray Robison Jr., of Hartford, Arkansas, was sentenced Wednesday for making the threats against the Cedar County Courthouse because he didn’t want to go to jail for a case in that county.

He admitted that he made three separate bomb threats on Jan. 11, 2016, which caused two evacuations of the courthouse in Stockton. He called another bomb threat into the courthouse on Jan. 25, 2016.

Prosecutors say Robison was afraid of being sent to state prison for 120 days for violating probation after a prior conviction for distribution of illegal narcotics.