TOPEKA – Five people were injured in an accident just before 6 p.m. on Wednesday in Shawnee County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2012 Volkswagen Golf driven by Hannah E. Borchers, 16, Topeka, was eastbound on Interstate 70 at Gage.

The driver hit the brakes causing a 2002 Mitsubishi Galant driven by Katrena M. Millard, 17, Topeka, to slam on the brakes.

A 2001 Chevy Malibu driven by Leetha M. Smith, 71, Hoyt, struck the rear of the Mitsubishi and pushed it into the Volkswagen.

Smith, Millard and passengers in the Mitsubishi Angela Lynn Stoneburner, 17; Dylan L. Millard, 19; Brian A. Heinrichs, 15, all of Topeka were transported to St. Francis Medical Center. Borchers was not injured.

The KHP reported Dylan L. Millard and Smith were not wearing seat belts.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback isn’t ruling out pay increases for government workers despite projected budget shortfalls.

Brownback said during an interview Wednesday that he wouldn’t say yet that the state’s budget problems will prevent raises for state employees.

He said such decisions usually are made in the spring at the end of the Legislature’s annual 90-day session. He said the state’s budget picture could improve by then.

The state faces projected budget shortfalls totaling more than $700 million for the current fiscal year and the next fiscal year beginning in July. The shortfalls follow aggressive personal income tax cuts aimed at boosting the economy.

State workers did not get an across-the-board raise in the current budget, but full-time employees are receiving a $250 bonus this month.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A government report forecasts cotton production in Kansas this year at 52,000 bales, up 27 percent from a year ago.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service reported Wednesday that the number of harvested cotton acres is up 12 percent, with 29,000 acres cut.

The agency says the yield is forecast at a record 861 pounds per acre. That is 104 pounds per acre more than last year.

Dry edible bean production in the state is forecast to be up 37 percent this year compared with a year ago. The estimated production is expected to total 118,000 hundredweight.

Pinto beans account for 78 percent of the state’s dry bean production.

PARK CITY, Kan. (AP) — Utility officials say they have short- and long-term fixes to combat sewage smells wafting through Park City.

A Chisholm Creek Utility Authority spokesman told KAKE-TV  Wednesday that workers will install a charcoal filter on a sewage air release pipe. He says there should be a reduction in the sewage odor within a few weeks.

The spokesman says the utility plans to later add an oxygen injection system that will prevent the odor from being produced.

Residents started complaining about the smell earlier this month. The utility says air release pipes for the system were recently moved because of a new development.

RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study says primary care doctors seeing low-income patients face a steep cut in Medicaid fees next year when a temporary program in President Barack Obama’s health care law expires.

That could reduce access for patients just when millions of new people are gaining Medicaid coverage under that same law.

Wednesday’s study from the nonpartisan Urban Institute estimates the cuts will average about 40 percent nationwide. But they’ll be 50 percent or more for primary care doctors in California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois — big states that expanded Medicaid under the health law.

To improve access for the poor, the health law increased Medicaid fees for primary care doctors from 2013 to 2014. But that boost expires Jan. 1, and an extension got bogged down in Congress.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Where did the Earth get its water?

It’s a mystery that got murkier today as some astronomers essentially ruled out one of the chief suspects: comets.

Over the past few months, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta space probe closely examined the type of comet that some scientists believed could have brought water to our planet 4 billion years ago. It found water, but the wrong kind. It contains more of a hydrogen isotope than water on Earth does.

The author of a study in the journal Science says it could be that asteroids brought water to Earth. But others disagree.

Many scientists have long believed that Earth had water when it first formed, but that it boiled off, so that the water on the planet now had to have come from an outside source.

The Associated Press

Delayed are increasing on U.S. airlines.

The Department of Transportation said Wednesday that 80 percent of domestic flights arrived on-time in October, down from 81.1 percent in September and 84.1 percent in October of last year.

Industry trade group Airlines for America says many of the delays were due to a fire that reduced operations at an air traffic control center in Chicago for 12 days in late September and early October.

Hawaiian Airlines, Alaska Airlines and Delta had the best ratings, while regional carrier Envoy Air had the worst.

About 1.1 percent of October flights were canceled. That was better than September but worse than the previous October.

DAVID PITT, Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Aside from increased demand for corn to make food sweeteners and a boost in soybean exports, few adjustments are found in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest crop update.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not change in Wednesday’s report the number of corn acres planted this year, as some analysts expect it may.

The agency will likely wait until January to make adjustments, because there is still corn in some Michigan and Wisconsin fields.

Currently, the number of acres reported in federal program applications exceeds USDA estimates by about 5 million acres, a larger discrepancy than usual.

Farmers in 22 states including Iowa and Nebraska expect record corn yields this year as part of the anticipated record 14.41 billion-bushel crop. Soybean farmers expect a record 3.96 billion bushel harvest.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Mexican man accused in a bizarre identity theft scheme would likely still be able to circumvent tough new Kansas voting laws because he had the proper documents.

Eighty-one year-old Ramon Perez-Rivera entered a not guilty plea Wednesday in Wichita after being charged in a 33-count indictment. Federal prosecutors say he took another man’s identity to get food stamps and Medicaid, obtain a U.S. passport and driver’s license, and register to vote.

While Perez-Rivera did not have to prove his citizenship to vote because he registered in 1999, he still would have likely fooled the state even under the strict requirements now in place because he would have had the needed paperwork.

Election officials say he remains eligible to vote pending a conviction.

As of Wednesday, more than 25,000 voter registrations in Kansas were suspended because they had not provided the necessary paperwork.

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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Tough election laws that have kept 25,248 Kansas residents from voting would not have affected a Mexican man accused in a federal indictment of lying about his citizenship status when registering to vote.

Eighty-one year-old Ramon Perez-Rivera makes a court appearance Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Wichita on charges accusing him of assuming a false identity to obtain food stamps and Medicaid, register to vote and obtain a U.S. passport and driver’s license, among other charges.

Perez-Rivera did not have to prove his citizenship since he was grandfathered in because he registered in 1999 to vote. But even if had he registered under the state’s new strict documentation requirements he still would have had the needed paperwork.

Election officials say he remains eligible to vote pending a conviction.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says sign-ups picked up last week under the president’s health care law.

More than 618,000 people selected a plan for 2015 from Nov. 29 through Dec. 5, the Health and Human Services department reported Wednesday.

It was the highest weekly number since open enrollment began Nov. 15.

Sign-ups were about evenly split between new customers and consumers making changes to existing coverage.

Cumulatively, nearly 1.4 million people have enrolled through HealthCare.gov, the online market that offers subsidized private insurance in 37 states. Statistics for states running their own websites will be reported later.

The administration set a target of 9.1 million people enrolled across the country for 2015. That includes 6.7 million current customers, most of whom will be automatically re-enrolled.

Sign-up season runs through Feb. 15.