SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a criminal threat and have a suspect in custody.

Early Monday, Washburn University Institute of Technology (Washburn Tech) received a phone call stating there was an explosive device in one of their buildings, according to Lieutenant Andrew Beightel.

The call forced an evacuation at the school.  During an investigation, Topeka Police Officers we’re able to gather information and work with the Washburn University Police Department to identify the possible suspect that placed the call for the bomb threat, according to Beightel.

Just after 1:30p.m., officers were able to locate 35-year-old Antwon Deon Walker. Police arrested him on requested charges of aggravated criminal threat.

Anyone with information on this crime is asked to call the Topeka Police Department at 785-368-9400 or Crime Stoppers at 785-234-0007.

WICHITA – A Pennsylvania man who owns a company called Horseshoe Hill Outfitters was sentenced to five years on probation, banned from doing business in Kansas and fined $30,000 for violating the Lacey Act, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister.

Robert P. McConnell, 48, Slippery Rock, Penn., pleaded guilty to four counts of importing deer into Kansas in violation of the Lacey Act, which regulates the trade in wildlife, fish and plants that has been illegally taken, possessed, transported or sold. Horseshoe Hill Outfitters advertises what it calls “trophy North American big game hunting adventures” in Kansas, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Ontario.

In two counts, McConnell admitted importing deer that were not from an accredited heard, were not officially identified and did not have a certificate of veterinary inspection. In two other counts, he admitted importing domesticated deer.

McAllister commended the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks & Tourism and Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Hough for their work on the case.

JOHNSON CITY, Kan. (AP) — A city in southwest Kansas is reflecting on a man who is still missing more than a dozen years after his disappearance.

Michael Golub was 27 when he went missing 13 years ago. Golub was on his way to pick up his 5-year-old son at the Stanton County home of Shannon Floyd, his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his child. He never returned, and his vehicle was discovered days later on an isolated county road.

Floyd and her husband were accused of killing Golub, but charges were dismissed after two juries couldn’t reach verdicts in the case.

Golub was 15 when his family moved to Johnson City in 1994. His stepfather Jim Hines says the town has carried on after the disappearance, but he’s “just waiting for the truth to be known.”

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Lack of rainfall and above-average temperatures are prolonging the drought conditions that have stressed crops and rangelands and placed new pressures on groundwater sources across the U.S. Southern Plains, climatologists from the region said Monday.

While some areas of the Texas Panhandle and southwestern Oklahoma have received plentiful precipitation in recent days, other parts of those states plus New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas have experienced only spotty precipitation since October, New Mexico State Climatologist Dave Dubois said during a national briefing.

“Over the majority of the area it’s been pretty light,” DuBois said.

Drought conditions are so severe across much of the Southwest that they rival those during the disastrous Dust Bowl period of the 1930s, when severe dust storms killed livestock and caused crops to fail.

Oklahoma State Climatologist Gary McManus said some climatological stations in the western part of his state have recorded less than 2 inches of rain since October.

“Some of those stations are pegging the driest 7-to-8 months on record for those locations,” McManus said.

DuBois said the region’s low rainfall totals have been aggravated by temperatures that he said have been as much as 10 degrees above normal during the past couple of weeks. Higher temperatures cause what little rain that does fall to evaporate rather than soak into the ground and recharge water tables.

“Drought is not just precipitation, it’s a bunch of things,” DuBois said.

Less-than-normal rainfall affects the viability of vegetation in the region, including fields cultivated by the region’s farmers and open prairies that provide habitat for wildlife, DuBois said.

“That’s a big concern with croplands and also rangelands,” DuBois said. “There’s a lot more stress on our plant systems.”

He said there’s a link between drought conditions and a decline in Oklahoma’s wheat harvest in recent years. The Oklahoma Wheat Commission has estimated that farmers will harvest about 36 percent less wheat this year than they did a year ago.

“So far, the numbers coming in are not very good,” DuBois said.

Precipitation generally increases across the region during the winter and spring months as rainfall and snowmelt replenish water supplies, but DuBois said the Southern Plains has received “very little to no runoff” from snow this year.

Consequently, farmers and ranchers are being forced to rely more heavily on groundwater supplies, which could lead to a decline in the levels of many water wells.

“Irrigation can jump significantly in drought years,” DuBois said.

Dubois said the months from July to September could relieve the worst of the drought conditions in New Mexico and elsewhere in the arid Southwest, when monsoonal rains traditionally saturate the region.

“The further you go west, the further influence you get from monsoon,” DuBois said.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Police have arrested 18 people protesting inside Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s office as part of a demonstration against policies he champions.

Kansas Highway Patrol spokesman Adam Winters said the demonstrators were arrested Monday for criminal trespassing by the Capitol Police.

About 40 protesters with the Poor People’s Campaign gathered outside the building housing Kobach’s office to decry his stance against illegal immigration and for tough voter identification laws. The protesters called those policies tools of white supremacy.

Kobach was not in the building after attending a political luncheon in Leavenworth. He issued a statement defending his fight against illegal immigration, saying, “the law is the law.”

It was the second of six weeks of planned protests. The campaign is focused on array of social and economic issues.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man who yelled “Get out of my country!” before killing one Indian immigrant and wounding another in a suburban Kansas City bar has pleaded guilty to three federal hate-crime charges.

Fifty-three-year-old Adam Purinton entered the plea Monday in federal court. He previously pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in state court in the February 2017 death of 32-year-old Srinivas Kuchibhotla. The shooting in Olathe, Kansas, also wounded Kuchibhotla’s friend and a man who tried to intervene.

The attack stirred fears that immigrants were facing more violence after the election of President Donald Trump. It also attracted attention in India, where officials publicly wondered if Indian citizens are safe in the U.S.

Witnesses said Purinton was asked to leave the bar after uttering racial slurs, then returned and opened fire.

By MADELINE FOX

Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer signed into law a measure allowing faith-based adoption and foster care agencies to get state reimbursement for placement services — even if they turn away prospective parents on religious grounds.

Colyer and the head of Kansas’ child welfare agency, Department for Children and Families Secretary Gina Meier-Hummel, have said they want to keep Kansas open to as many adoption agencies as possible as the state grapples with a record number of kids in foster care. As of April, there were 2,540 Kansas children in DCF custody up for adoption.

“It is imperative that we have policies and law that encourages more child placement agencies, not less,” said Colyer, flanked by conservative Republican lawmakers for the bill signing Friday at Youth Horizons Kinloch Price Boys Ranch in Valley Center.

Opponents of the measure object to taxpayer dollars going to agencies that won’t serve all Kansas families, calling it state-sponsored discrimination.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Barnett, who sent out a statement immediately after the bill was signed, said it could lead to fewer adoptions of Kansas kids, as single parents and same-sex couples are turned away.

Kansas Democrats also chimed in, taking aim at Colyer and independent state Sen. John Doll, who is gubernatorial candidate Greg Orman’s running mate, for supporting the measure.

The Legislature only narrowly passed the adoption bill earlier this month, with debate over the religious protections going into the wee hours, and the issue could be pivotal in the upcoming campaigns for governor and the Kansas House.

The state’s major contractors still must serve all prospective foster parents and adoptive families referred to them, but their subcontractors do not.

A spokeswoman for St. Francis Community Services, one of the state’s two case management contractors, said of the 2,043 children it currently has placed with foster families, 288 were placed through faith-based subcontractors. The agency does not subcontract adoptions through any other child placement agency.

KVC, the state’s other case management contractor, wasn’t able to provide data by deadline.

Even before the law was signed, child placement agencies that refuse to place children with same-sex couples, single parents or non-Christians could get state reimbursement for adoptions they facilitate on behalf of a DCF contractor.

The new law, however, means that future administrations won’t be able to shut out subcontractors that factor their organizations’ religious views into choosing adoptive and foster parents.

Similar policies in other states have prompted legal pushback. The ACLU sued Michigan in 2017 over its practice of permitting state-contracted child placement agencies to reject qualified same-sex couples based on the agencies’ religious beliefs.

Madeline Fox is a reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can reach her on Twitter @maddycfox. Kansas News Service reporter Brian Grimmett contributed to this report.