WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The Robert J. Dole Veterans Affairs Medical Center says it expects to finish three renovations this summer and open its new $7.5 million primary care building next May.

The Wichita Eagle reports this summer’s renovations include a solar panel project, expanded parking and emergency generators.

The VA says its new primary care facility will provide team-based care as part of an industry-wide movement for patients’ medical providers to work closer with one another. The center will be designed in pods, so that providers can work together.

Primary care patients are now seen on the west side of campus. The VA plans to fill that space with other medical offices when the new building opens in May 2016.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A top Kansas education official and a school superintendent are preparing to testify in a state district court hearing on a new school funding law.

Deputy Education Commissioner Dale Dennis was expected to face questions Friday in Shawnee County District Court from attorneys for four school districts suing the state over education funding.

The Dodge City, Hutchinson, Wichita and Kansas City, Kansas, districts are asking a three-judge panel to block the new law.

Their attorneys said Hutchinson Superintendent Shelly Kiblinger also would testify.

The new law took effect in April. It scrapped the state’s per-pupil formula for distributing aid to public school districts in favor of predictable “block grants.”

The state contends the changes provide stability. Critics question whether the state is providing a suitable education to every child.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — The Art Institutes International-Kansas City has laid off a dozen employees due to the closing of its Lenexa campus.

The Kansas City Star reports the layoffs were announced Wednesday. The college, which is owned by Education Management Corp., is one 15 Art Institutes International campuses being phased out over the next two to three years.

The phasing out process will affect about 200 employees and more than 5,400 students worldwide.

According to EDMC spokesman Chris Hardman, the 300 students currently enrolled at the Lenexa campus will be allowed to finish their degrees.

Hardman says EDMC, which owns 51 Art Institutes International campuses, was restructured last month and reduced its debt of $1.5 billion to $400 million.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Court of Appeals is getting a new judge.

Kathryn Gardner was being sworn in Friday in the Supreme Court courtroom in the Kansas Judicial Center in Topeka.

Gov. Sam Brownback nominated Gardner in January and she was confirmed by the Kansas Senate in March.

Gardner served as the law clerk for U.S. District Judge Sam Crow since 2000 after spending 12 years as a practicing lawyer in Wichita and two years as an assistant state attorney general.

Gardner disclosed in documents to the Senate that she taught and studied at seminars organized by the conservative law group Alliance Defending Freedom. She is also a member of the Christian Legal Society.

The public can watch the ceremony live on the Kansas Judicial Branch website at www.kscourts.org .

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts today joined 97 senators in voting overwhelmingly in favor of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Bill, legislation that ensures Congress has the ability to review or reject a potential nuclear agreement with Iran.

“We preserved economic sanctions on Iran while the Congress is reviewing any proposed agreement,” Roberts said. “We ensured the Congress has the ability to reject any deal, or can immediately re-impose sanctions should Iran not uphold its end of any agreement.

“I fear the Administration is giving in to Iranian demands to end sanctions without securing any guarantees that will curb their nuclear program. This bill ensures Congress has a voice. Any deal that would eventually allow Iran to become a nuclear state is a bad deal, which is why the passage of today’s bill was so critical.”

The bill now goes to the House for a vote.

Senator Roberts is a former Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He is the most senior Marine in the Congress.

MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — A government investigation found that Blue Bell ice cream had evidence of listeria bacteria in its Oklahoma manufacturing plant as far back as March 2013.

A report made public Thursday found that the Texas-based company continued to ship ice cream produced in that plant after what the Food and Drug Administration said was inadequate cleaning.

Three listeria deaths in Kansas are now linked to the ice cream, along with seven illnesses in Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona. Blue Bell Creameries recalled all of its products last month, following several smaller recalls.

The government investigations involved Blue Bell plants in Oklahoma, Texas and Alabama. The most extensive violations were found in Oklahoma, where the FDA listed 17 separate positive tests for listeria on equipment from March 2013 through February 2015.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A compromise between the wind energy industry and critics of the state’s green energy mandate has gained first-round approval in the House.

The deal advanced by the House on Thursday would remove a requirement that renewable resources account for 20 percent of utilities’ capacity to generate electricity by 2020. If passed by a final vote, the measure would go to the Senate for consideration.

The mandate would become a non-binding goal, but legislators would drop a proposal to impose a 4.33 percent tax on the electricity generated from renewable resources in return.

The agreement would also give all new green energy projects tax-free status for their first 10 years and require them to pay commercial property taxes thereafter. Renewable power plants are currently exempt from property all tax.

HUTCHINSON- Law enforcement authorities in Hutchinson made an arrest of a stolen vehicle suspect on Thursday morning.

Police reported officers responded to the area near Hutchinson Regional Medial Center just before 7 a.m. on Thursday for report of a suspect who forcibly removed a driver from a vehicle.

After a search, officers in South Hutchinson located the vehicle being driven through their city.

A pursuit ensued and ended with the capture of and arrest of Ricky Ray Smith Jr., 39, Hutchinson.

He is being held on multiple felony charges that will include the robbery of the vehicle and felony flee and elude.

Authorities say Smith also has other felony convictions and served time in prison for forgery, felony flee and elude, driving while suspended, reckless driving in additional to three convictions for theft and burglary. Those convictions in 1996, 2003 and 2010.

TOPEKA – A former private in the U.S. Army stationed at Fort Riley has been indicted on charges of stealing his fellow soldiers’ identities according to U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom.

Todd M. Newbrough was charged Wednesday with four counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, four counts of aggravated identity theft and one count of computer fraud. The crimes are alleged to have occurred at various times from 2011 to 2015 at Fort Riley, Kan.

The indictment alleges Newbrough used personal identifying information of fellow soldiers to obtain lines of credit and credit cards in their names. He got the information through his access to Leave and Earning Statements, Enlisted Record Brief and Alpha Roster records.

If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison and a fine up to $1 million on each wire fraud and each bank fraud count, a mandatory consecutive two years on the aggravated identity theft counts, and a maximum penalty of five years and a fine up to $250,000 on the computer fraud count. The Army Criminal Investigation Division investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Kenney and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Robin Graham are prosecuting.

“This is the culmination of a great deal of investigative work conducted by Special Agents from CCIU and our other law enforcement partners who were so critical to this investigation,” said Daniel Andrews, Director of the Computer Crime Investigative Unit (CCIU) for the U.S. Army

Criminal Investigation Command.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The House has given first-round approval to a measure that would decrease penalties for marijuana possession, allow the limited use of medical marijuana and study the use of industrial hemp.

The House advanced the bill on a voice vote Thursday and will make its final vote Friday.

Most first- and second-time marijuana offenders would avoid jail time under the bill. That would decrease the population in the state’s overcrowded prisons and save more than $1.7 million over the next two fiscal years, according to state estimates.

Two amendments to the bill also would legalize the sale and production of hemp oil for seizure treatments and initiate a state study into industrial hemp.

Opponents say they’re worried that the bill would open the door to wider marijuana legalization.