SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating an aggravated assault and have made an arrest.

Just after 6:30 Thursday police responded to a business in the 4000 Block of SW Huntoon in Topeka, according to Lt. Colleen Stuart. An employee of the business told officers told officers a man with a gun came into the store several times threatening the him and his family.

Police used a K-9 unit but to track the suspects but were unsuccessful.  They did research calls in the area, identified a suspect, located a residence, obtained a search warrant, found several pounds of marijuana and made an arrest.

Police took 27-year old Giovanni Coleman and 28-year old LaShawn Kelley, Sr., into custody. They are being held at the Shawnee County Jail. Coleman faces charges of aggravated assault and criminal threat, according to Stuart. Kelly was jailed for alleged criminal possession of a firearm, possession of stolen property, and drug charges.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A couple considered persons of interest in the death of a Nebraska woman now face a series of charges in an unrelated case.

A grand jury has leveled 14 counts against 51-year-old Aubrey Trail and 23-year-old Bailey Boswell for allegedly defrauding two people of more than $400,000 in a gold coin scheme.

Trail’s lawyer says he’ll likely plead not guilty next week.

The pair met in Missouri in 2016 and traveled to antique shows and shops around the U.S. Federal prosecutors charged them last year with transporting stolen goods across state lines from Kansas to Nebraska.

Trail and Boswell are also persons of interest in the death of 24-year-old Sidney Loofe, who disappeared in November after going on a date with Boswell. Loofe’s body was found in December in rural Clay County.

MANHATTAN — Law enforcement authorities are investigating two suspects on drug charges.
Just before 10p.m. Thursday, police arrested 32-year-old Joshua Jacobs and 26-year-old Jessica Jacobs both of Manhattan in the 3300 block of Valleywood Drive, according to a media release from Riley County Police.

Joshua was jailed on a requested charge of distributing marijuana, possession of paraphernalia, use communication facility, and endangering a child. His total bond was set at $15,000.00.

Jessica was jailed on requested charges of distributing marijuana, possess paraphernalia, use communication facility, endangering a child and a Manhattan Municipal Court warrant for failure to appear. Her total bond was set at $17,000

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — An internal review by the Topeka police department found two officers who fatally shot a man in September acted in compliance with the department’s policy on use of force.

Deputy city manager Doug Gerber said Friday the department would not say publicly whether officers Justin Mackey and Michael Cruse were disciplined because it is a personnel matter.

The two officers have been on paid leave since they shot 30-year-old Dominque White Sept. 28 near a Topeka park. Authorities have said the officers struggled with White and shot him after he appeared to be reaching for a gun as he ran away.

Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay announced in December that he would not file criminal charges against the officers.

White’s family has criticized the officers’ use of force.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump and his views on abortion rights (all times local):

1:15 p.m.

President Donald Trump says he’s committed to building “a society where life is celebrated, protected and cherished.”

Trump spoke Friday via video from the White House Rose Garden to thousands of anti-abortion activists gathered for the annual March for Life. He says he is the first president to address the gathering in its 45-year history.

The former Manhattan real estate magnate was stepping to the forefront of the movement, a significant distance from the days when he supported abortion rights. He says he changed his mind around 2011.

Last year, Vice President Mike Pence addressed the march in Trump’s absence.

But nearly a year into the presidency, Trump has delivered rules, policy changes — and Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

___

11:25 a.m.

President Donald Trump is addressing the anti-abortion March for Life from the White House Rose Garden.

Organizers say the video address Friday makes him the first president to speak to the march using that technology. Anti-abortion activists say their fight against abortion rights is in the strongest position it’s been in in more than a decade.

That’s despite Trump’s onetime advocacy for abortion rights, a stance he says changed around 2011. A year into his presidency, Trump has sought to curtail abortion rights by making rules and policy changes across agencies. He also preserved the Supreme Court’s conservative majority by getting Justice Neil Gorsuch confirmed.

Abortion-rights groups say Trump’s actions amount to a sweeping rollback of reproductive rights.

___

11:15 a.m.

President Donald Trump’s administration is spelling out how it plans to protect medical providers who refuse to perform procedures such as abortions because of moral or religious scruples.

The Department of Health and Human Services said Friday it is proposing a new regulation that details how existing federal conscience protections will be enforced in real-world situations. That follows an announcement Thursday of a new division in the HHS Office for Civil Rights devoted to protecting the conscience rights of clinicians.

Also Friday, HHS took action that may help conservative states restrict or eliminate Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood. The department rescinded Obama administration guidance to states that limited the circumstances in which they could exclude a medical provider.

The announcements coincided with the annual march on Washington by abortion opponents.

 

————

WASHINGTON (AP) — He once called himself “pro-choice.” But a year into his presidency, Donald Trump is stepping to the forefront of his administration’s efforts to roll back abortion rights.

And though his record is mixed and a midterm election looms, abortion opponents say they have not felt so optimistic in at least a decade.

“I don’t think anybody thinks that the White House is a perfectly regimented and orderly family … but that doesn’t change their commitment to the issue,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which is expanding its door-knocking operation across states with Senate incumbents who have voted for abortion rights.

With a Republican-controlled Congress at his back on this issue, Trump is cementing his turnaround on abortion with a video address Friday to the annual March to Life. That’s a symbolic change from last year, when Vice President Mike Pence — in practical terms, the leader of the anti-abortion movement in the United States — addressed the group in Trump’s absence.

“In one short year, President Donald Trump has made a difference for life,” Pence told march leaders Thursday night.

Trump has given anti-abortion activists a few key victories.

Chief among them: the confirmation of conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Trump also has revived and expanded a ban on sending U.S. aid to groups overseas that provide abortion counseling. And he signed legislation allowing states to withhold federal family planning dollars from clinics that provide abortion services. The administration has made its priorities clear in other ways, too — including appointments to key government posts and a new mission statement for the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency announced it is dedicated to supporting Americans at “every stage of life, beginning at conception.”

On Thursday, the administration announced the creation of a new office to protect the religious rights of medical providers, including those who oppose abortion. Supporters of abortion rights say it adds up to a president doing administratively what he’s often failed to accomplish through Congress.

“Time and again, we have seen this administration radically redefine religious freedom to impose one set of ultraconservative beliefs on all Americans,” said Sarah Hutchinson Ratcliffe, vice president of Catholics for Choice.

Trump has failed to deliver on promises to strip Planned Parenthood of federal funding or permanently ban taxpayer dollars from being used for abortions. The effort to defund Planned Parenthood, for example, failed with the Republican effort to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Behind the mixed record is Trump’s complicated personal history on abortion. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway says his transformation from supporting to opposing abortion rights dates back to at least 2011. And while she says he has shown his commitment to the anti-abortion movement “early and often,” he has at times seemed uncomfortable with the issue.

Dannenfelser recalls her struggle in 2016 after the SBA List told GOP primary voters in Iowa and elsewhere that Trump could not be trusted on the issue. But Trump’s pro-choice Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, made the choice easy, Dannenfelser recalled. One wobble came in October, when the “Access Hollywood” recording was released with Trump’s voice boasting of assaulting women. He denied having done so; and a conversation with an aide to Pence helped Dannenfelser stay aboard.

A year into Trump’s term, abortion opponents see the stall of anti-abortion legislation as a product of the slim Republican majority in the Senate. So, they’re focusing on the midterm elections. Conway says abortion is a key part of discussions with prospective GOP candidates. And groups like the SBA List are boosting their ground games in an effort to turn out people who want to roll back abortions, including Hispanics, but don’t tend to vote in non-presidential election years.

The group’s band of door-knockers, who make about $10 an hour, are among about 220 canvassers on the ground targeting Democratic Senate incumbents in Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Missouri and North Dakota. A spokeswoman said the group is aiming to quadruple the number of paid canvassers in 2018 and expand its operations into Senate races in West Virginia, Wisconsin and likely Minnesota.

In Madeira, Ohio, on a recent chilly Sunday, Alison Pavlicek led a band of six women down Miami Hills Drive, to homes suggested by an app that tracks voter information. They knocked and asked people who answered if they were aware of Sen. Sherrod Brown’s voting history. Pavlicek said she sometimes looks for statues of the Virgin Mary in front of homes — signals in stone of residents “friendly” to the anti-abortion cause.

“People are really receptive now,” she said.

Polling shows Americans have complicated feelings on the divisive issue of abortion nearly 45 years after the Supreme Court legalized it in the Roe v. Wade decision. A recent poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that just over a third of Americans think abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. That includes a majority of Republicans and about 20 percent of Democrats and 4 in 10 Hispanics.

More than 6 in 10 say abortion should usually be legal, though that includes just a quarter of Americans who think it should be legal under all circumstances.

Overall, 62 percent of Americans say they disapprove of how Trump is handling the abortion issue.

But the anti-abortion movement is facing challenges. Groups that favor abortion rights, such as Emily’s List, dwarf their anti-abortion counterparts when it comes to raising campaign cash or spending on lobbying, according to OpenSecrets.org.

And traditionally, the president’s party loses seats in the midterm elections, especially when his approval rating is below 50 percent, according to Gallup. Trump’s overall rating has never risen that high.

Madeira, Ohio, resident Ginger Ittenbach isn’t so sure the Trump administration is to be trusted, and that makes her a key “persuadable” voter in the eyes of anti-abortion activists. She says she is “very much pro-life” — but voted for Clinton.

“There were enough other red flags with Donald Trump just in how he treated women,” Ittenbach, 52, said after talking with the canvassers.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas saw its unemployment rate drop slightly in December to 3.4 percent and reach its lowest point in nearly 18 years.

The state Department of Labor reported Friday that last month’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was lower than both the 3.5 percent reported in November and the 4.3 percent rate in December 2016. The state’s unemployment rate has remained below 4 percent since March 2017.

According to department statistics, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate last dropped to 3.4 percent in February 2000.

The department also said the number of people working in private-sector, nonfarm jobs also grew by about 8,000 in December from December 2016. The increase was 0.7 percent.

Labor Secretary Lana Gordon said hours worked and real earnings also increased over the years as employers sought workers.

SALINE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating two teen suspects for alleged sexual assault,

On Wednesday, police responded to Salina Regional Health Center and interviewed a St. John’s Military school student in connection with an alleged sexual assault, according to Salina Police Captain Mike Sweney.

The teen victim told police he was assaulted by two others in a dorm on the school campus, 110 West Otis in Salina, according to Sweeney.

School officials took the student to the hospital after learning of the assault and called law enforcement.

Police have arrested a 15 and a 16-year-old. Both are cadets at the school. They are being held in the Juvenile Detention Center in Junction City on requested charges of aggravated criminal sodomy, according to Sweeney.