OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — The Shawnee Mission School District will settle a lawsuit that alleged school officials didn’t act when a male student was repeatedly accused of sexual offenses before he assaulted a student in a middle school classroom.

The amount of the settlement was not disclosed. The lawsuit claimed an eighth-grade student at Westridge Middle School was accused of making unwanted advances toward three students before he assaulted a female student in 2017.

The district says in court documents that it was investigating the reports of unwanted advances when it learned about 2017 assault.

The student was expelled in March 2017 and the school resource officer filed a police report that month.

The boy was convicted in December 2017 of three counts of battery and one count of aggravated liberties with a child.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is allowing nationwide enforcement of a new Trump administration rule that prevents most Central American immigrants from seeking asylum in the United States.

The justices’ order late Wednesday temporarily undoes a lower-court ruling that had blocked the new asylum policy in some states along the southern border. The policy is meant to deny asylum to anyone who passes through another country on the way to the U.S. without seeking protection there.

Most people crossing the southern border are Central Americans fleeing violence and poverty. They are largely ineligible under the new rule, as are asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and South America who arrive regularly at the southern border.

The shift reverses decades of U.S. policy. The administration has said that it wants to close the gap between an initial asylum screening that most people pass and a final decision on asylum that most people do not win.

“BIG United States Supreme Court WIN for the Border on Asylum!” President Donald Trump tweeted.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the high-court’s order. “Once again, the Executive Branch has issued a rule that seeks to upend longstanding practices regarding refugees who seek shelter from persecution,” Sotomayor wrote.

The legal challenge to the new policy has a brief but somewhat convoluted history. U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco blocked the new policy from taking effect in late July. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed Tigar’s order so that it applied only in Arizona and California, states that are within the 9th Circuit.

That left the administration free to enforce the policy on asylum seekers arriving in New Mexico and Texas. Tigar issued a new order on Monday that reimposed a nationwide hold on asylum policy. The 9th Circuit again narrowed his order on Tuesday.

The high-court action allows the administration to impose the new policy everywhere while the court case against it continues.

It’s not clear how quickly the policy will be rolled out, and how exactly it fits in with the other efforts by the administration to restrict border crossings and tighten asylum rules.

For example, thousands of people are waiting on lists at border crossings in Mexico to claim asylum in the U.S. And more than 30,000 people have been turned back to Mexico to wait out their asylum claims.

Asylum seekers must pass an initial screening called a “credible fear” interview, a hurdle that a vast majority clear. Under the new policy, they would fail the test unless they sought asylum in at least one country they traveled through and were denied. They would be placed in fast-track deportation proceedings and flown to their home countries at U.S. expense.

Lee Gelernt, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is representing immigrant advocacy groups in the case, said: “This is just a temporary step, and we’re hopeful we’ll prevail at the end of the day. The lives of thousands of families are at stake.”

Justice Department spokesperson Alexei Woltornist said the agency was “pleased that the Supreme Court intervened in this case,” adding, “This action will assist the Administration in its objectives to bring order to the crisis at the southern border, close loopholes in our immigration system, and discourage frivolous claims.”

SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect after an alleged incident at a Kansas elementary school.

Just after 11:30a.m. Tuesday deputies were dispatched to Wineteer Elementary School 8801 E Ent Drive in Wichita,  for report of a suspicious character later identified as Tyler J. Debarea, 38, walking around the school parking lot and playground, according to Lt. Tim Myers with the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Department.

As deputies were getting close, dispatch advised the man was in a truck and tried to ram the McConnell Air Force Base gates leading onto 31st Street south.

The truck hit barricades which were concrete filled pipes in the ground and the truck stopped. Debarea jumped the fence and ran. When deputies arrived, it was determined Debarea had a ten minute lead. The truck was found to have been stolen from McConnell Air Force Base.  Deputies searched a mile perimeter diligently.

A deputy went to the school where the school security officer advised he heard, third hand that some children were grabbed, pushed and pulled. Shortly after this,  dispatch was contacted with a suspicious character walking on in the 3800 Block of Webb Road where a deputy found and took him into custody, according to Myers.

After the arrest, deputies returned to Wineteer Elementary where he was alleged to have confronted children on the playground.  Deputies identified five victims from ages seven to eight who said DeBarea either swatted them on the arm or tried to grab their shirt.

A spokesman for the Derby school district says staff was able to scare him away and move students inside.

Debarea is being held on suspicion of kidnapping, battery and criminal threat, according to online jail records.

 

KINGMAN COUNTY — A Kansas man avoided injury in an accident just after 12:30p.m. Wednesday in Kingman County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported the landing gear on a 1975 Piper aircraft piloted by Daniel Jeremiah Brandt, 42, Wichita,. did not operate.

He conducted a gear-up landing on the Kingman County Airport.  Jeremiah was not injured. The accident remains under investigation.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Cheyenne in Wyoming says it has reported to police three new credible allegations of child sexual abuse against a retired bishop.

Diocese officials said in a statement Tuesday the new complaints against Bishop Joseph Hart are in addition to three separate allegations previously determined to be credible.

Cheyenne Police Officer David Inman said the department is aware of the new complaints. Police have recommended Laramie County prosecutors file charges over the previous complaints.

The prosecutor has not commented and no charges have been filed against Hart in Laramie County.

Hart, who led the Diocese of Cheyenne from 1976 to 2001, has consistently denied the allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct.

The diocese in Kansas City says it has settled lawsuits in 10 cases involving Hart who served in the diocese  from 1964-76.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A man accused of beating another man in a Dillons grocery store parking lot has been charged with second-degree murder after the victim died from his injuries two weeks after the attack.

Thirty-five-year-old Steven Speakman made his first appearance Tuesday in Sedgwick County District Court. His bond was set at $250,000.

He has been in custody since Aug. 21, when police say a fight broke out between Speakman and 33-year-old Haley Collins, of Bel Aire. When police arrived, Collins was unconscious. He died Sept. 5.

Police say the two men knew each other.

RENO COUNTY— One person died in an accident just a before 11:30a.m. Wednesday in Reno County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2017 Ford Focus driven b Mary M. Rosenberger, 55, Medicine Lodge, was westbound on Kansas 96 at Halstead Road.

The Ford rear-ended a semi that had slowed to make a right turn onto Halstead Road.

Rosenberger was pronounced dead at the scene. The semi driver Mark Alan Bridges, 56, Garden City was not injured. Rosenberger was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.