OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A third person is charged in the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old Olathe student.

18-year-old Matthew Lee Bibee Jr., is charged with first-degree murder in the March 29 death of 17-year-old Rowan Padgett of Overland Park.

A 17-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl also are charged with first-degree murder in Padgett’s death. Prosecutors are seeking to try both teens as adults.

Authorities say Padgett’s killing in an Olathe neighborhood occurred during a drug deal.

Bibee was arrested March 31 after he became a suspect in a robbery. Police say Bibee shot at a police officer and missed. The officer returned fire, hitting Bibee, whose injuries were not life threatening. Bibbee faces an attempted capital murder charge and several other charges in that case.

Bibee remains jailed on $1 million bond.

KANSAS CITY (AP) — Kansas City Chiefs offensive lineman Ryan Hunter has tackled the halls of government.

As part of the NFL Players’ Association’s Externship program, the pre-law graduate from Bowling Green State University worked for Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, of Missouri. He focused in part on helping improve rural internet access.

The Players’ Association promotes the externship program online as the “premier opportunity for NFL players to gain valuable experience with top organizations across the country.” Participants work in both political and business settings for several weeks in February and March.

Hunter entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent with the Chiefs in 2018. He didn’t appear for the team last season.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Mexican national accused of killing four people in Kansas and one in Missouri in 2016 died Tuesday after being found hanging from a light fixture in his St. Louis jail cell.

Pablo Serrano-Vitorino was found alone in his cell at 2:02 a.m. He was pronounced dead at a hospital about an hour later, said Koran Addo, spokesman for St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson.

Addo declined further comment but St. Louis Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards said that Serrano-Vitorino hanged himself and left a note written in Spanish. Edwards was out of town and didn’t know if Serrano-Vitorino was on suicide watch or when jailers had last checked on him.

Serrano-Vitorino, 43, who was in the U.S. illegally, was accused of fatally shooting four men at a home in Kansas City, Kansas, on the night of March 7, 2016. He was arrested a day later and 170 miles away in Montgomery County, Missouri, where he was accused of killing Randy Nordman of New Florence. He was charged with first-degree murder in all five deaths.

He was being held in St. Louis awaiting an October trial in Nordman’s death on a change of venue. Missouri prosecutors were seeking the death penalty.

He had tried to take his own life before, with a safety razor, shortly after his arrest while jailed in Montgomery County. After a hospitalization he was returned to the jail.

Authorities say the shooting spree began when Serrano-Vitorino gunned down his Kansas City, Kansas, neighbor, 41-year-old Michael Capps, and three other men at Capps’ home — brothers Austin Harter, 29, and Clint Harter, 27, and 36-year-old Jeremy Waters. Before dying, one of the victims managed to call police.

Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive.

Serrano-Vitorino then allegedly fled in his pickup truck into Missouri. Authorities say he killed Nordman, 49, at Nordman’s rural home near Interstate 70 about 70 miles (113 kilometers) east of St. Louis. He was captured hiding face-down in a ditch a few miles from Nordman’s home, and had a rifle with him, the Missouri State Highway patrol said at the time.

A lawsuit filed in Kansas City, Kansas , by the father of one of the victims accused U.S. immigration officials of missing two chances to detain and deport Serrano-Vitorino.

Serrano-Vitorino was deported to Mexico after he was convicted of a felony in 2003 but illegally re-entered the U.S. He was arrested in 2014 and 2015.

After his 2014 arrest in Kansas for battery, Wyandotte County jail officials notified ICE he was in custody. But Serrano-Vitorino was released after the federal agency didn’t send an agent to the jail, according to the lawsuit.

Serrano-Vitorino was fingerprinted in Overland Park, Kansas, Municipal Court in September 2015 after he was cited for traffic infractions. ICE officials asked that he be held in custody but sent the paperwork to a different jail in Johnson County, Kansas, the lawsuit contends. He was once again released from custody.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal authorities said Tuesday they’ve broken up a $1.2 billion Medicare scam that peddled unneeded orthopedic braces to hundreds of thousands of seniors via foreign call centers.

The Justice Department announced charges against 24 people across the U.S., including doctors accused of writing bogus prescriptions for unneeded back, shoulder, wrist and knee braces. Others charged included owners of call centers, telemedicine firms and medical equipment companies.

The Health and Human Services inspector general’s office said the fast-moving scam morphed into multiple related schemes, fueled by kickbacks among the parties involved. The FBI, the IRS, and 17 U.S. attorney’s offices took part in the crackdown. Arrests were made Tuesday morning.

Medicare’s anti-fraud unit said it’s taking action against 130 medical equipment companies implicated. They billed the program a total of $1.7 billion, of which more than $900 million was paid out.

Telemarketers would reach out to seniors offering “free” orthopedic braces, also touted through television and radio ads. Beneficiaries who expressed interest would be patched through to call centers involved in the scheme. Officials described an “international telemarketing network” with call centers in the Philippines and throughout Latin America.

The call centers would verify seniors’ Medicare coverage and transfer them to telemedicine companies for consultations with doctors.

“The telemedicine we are talking about is basically a tele-scam,” said Gary Cantrell, who oversees fraud investigations for the HHS inspector general’s office. “We are not talking about the use of advanced technology to provide better access to care.”

The doctors would write prescriptions for orthopedic braces, regardless of whether the patients needed them or not. In some cases several braces were prescribed for the same patient.

The call centers would collect prescriptions and sell them to medical equipment companies, which would ship the braces to beneficiaries and bill Medicare. Medical equipment companies would get $500 to $900 per brace from Medicare and would pay kickbacks of nearly $300 per brace.

The scam was detected last summer, officials said. Complaints from beneficiaries were pouring in to the Medicare fraud hotline, and some consumer news organizations warned seniors. As the investigation progressed, Cantrell said, federal agents gained cooperation from people familiar with the various schemes.

Officials said it’s one of the biggest frauds the inspector general’s office has seen. Charges were being brought against defendants in California, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas.

“The breadth of this nationwide conspiracy should be frightening to all who rely on some form of health care,” IRS criminal investigations chief Don Fort said in a statement. “The conspiracy…details broad corruption, massive amounts of greed and systemic flaws in our health care system that were exploited by the defendants.”

Health care fraud is a pervasive problem that costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year. The true extent of it is unknown, and some cases involve gray areas of complex payment policies.

Experts say part of the problem is that Medicare is required to pay medical bills promptly, which means money often goes out before potential frauds get flagged. Investigators call that “pay and chase.”

In recent years, Medicare has tried to adapt techniques used by credit card companies to head off fraud. Law enforcement coordination has grown, with strike forces of federal prosecutors and agents, along with state counterparts, specializing in health care investigations.

The Medicare beneficiaries drawn into the orthopedic braces scam didn’t have to pay anything up front, but Cantrell said they have been harmed as well: A beneficiary’s private information, once in the hands of fraudsters, can be resold for many illegal purposes.

Additionally, if a beneficiary whose information was misused ever does need an orthopedic brace, he or she may encounter waiting periods from Medicare. The program limits how often it pays for certain supplies and equipment.

“It can be very attractive to receive equipment,” Cantrell said. “But after giving out your identifying information, it could be compromised to perpetuate additional fraud. There is no fraud without the ID number of a Medicare beneficiary.”

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A captain in a Kansas National Guard brigade has resigned over what she says is a lack of concern from guard leadership over recent suicides.

Capt. Tara Fields is a behavioral health officer. She has served 12 years in military, eight on active duty. She said her resignation will be final by the end of April.

Kansas Guard Maj. Gen. Lee Tafanelli said the guard has had nine suicides in the last five years, with three in the past 18 months.

Fields says suicides of a civilian worker and a man who had just been discharged weren’t included in the guard’s official number.

Tafanelli said the guard is concerned about every death and offers several programs to help struggling members.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Outside allies of President Donald Trump have launched a public campaign urging him to nominate former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach as his next secretary of Homeland Security.

That’s despite the uphill battle Kobach would likely face getting confirmed by the Senate.

NumbersUSA, a group that seeks to reduce immigration rates, released a statement Tuesday saying there is “no one more qualified” for the job and claiming Kobach has the support of Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

They’re also rallying to defend Lee Francis Cissna, the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, whose job is said to be in danger.

Kobach did not response to a request for comment Tuesday morning.

The White House declined to comment on the push.

By JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A legislative fight over expanding Medicaid in Kansas is delaying approval of the state’s next annual budget as expansion supporters try to keep Republican opponents from blocking it for another year.

Some top GOP lawmakers are conceding that an expansion plan could pass because expansion is a priority for Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and has bipartisan support in the Republican-controlled Legislature. However, opponents hope for time this summer and fall to develop a smaller program than Kelly wants with restrictions she opposes, such as a work requirement for participants.

THANK YOU to all supporters of KanCare expansion who stood up and spoke out at the Capitol today! We can’t do this without you. #ksleg #ExpandKanCare pic.twitter.com/byGW6dM8dA

— Expand KanCare Now! (@ExpandKanCare) March 19, 2019

Expansion became a sticking point in budget negotiations between the House and Senate, causing lawmakers to put off votes until May on any part of the state’s spending blueprint for the fiscal year beginning in July. Potential expansion costs are hotly debated, but the disagreement in budget talks is over how much to tie Kelly’s hands as she pursues expansion this year.

“We have a Democrat governor,” Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, a conservative Kansas City-area Republican. “There will be a time when we won’t be able to maneuver around it.”

Supporters argue that Medicaid expansion will benefit working-class families, help struggling rural hospitals and boost the economy with an influx of federal funds. Opponents predict expansion will prove far more expensive than advertised, even with the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act’s promise that the federal government would cover 90 percent of the cost.

Thirty-six states, including GOP-led ones, have expanded Medicaid or have seen voters approve ballot initiatives.

In Kansas, Republicans who oppose expansion still hold key positions in both chambers and prevented even a committee vote for weeks. However, supporters forced a debate in the House last month, and it passed a modified version of Kelly’s expansion plan over GOP leaders’ objections.

The Senate didn’t take up the measure before lawmakers began their annual spring break Saturday. However, Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, notified colleagues that he will try to pull it out of committee May 1, when legislators reconvene to wrap up business for the year.

In arguing for further delay, GOP leaders note that Republican-led Utah is pursuing a scaled-back version of an expansion approved by voters last year to control the potential costs.

Kelly’s administration projects that her plan to extend Medicaid health coverage to as many as 150,000 more Kansas residents would come with a net cost of the state of $34 million in the program’s first full year. Top Republicans are skeptical and believe the net cost easily could be twice as much.

They also want Kansas to consider work requirements, though a federal judge blocked them in Arkansas and Kentucky. Republicans also have suggested drug testing for people receiving the expanded Medicaid coverage. Kelly opposes both ideas, but it’s not clear what she would do if either was included in expansion legislation.

GOP leaders announced plans last week to have a committee study possible alternatives to Kelly’s plan this summer and fall.

“We’re going to do it on our own schedule,” Denning said.

To help build pressure for Medicaid expansion, Kelly is having a town hall meeting Tuesday in Wichita, and Lt. Gov. Lynn Rogers is touring western Kansas hospitals.

“We’ve studied this for multiple years,” Rogers said Monday. “When they (Republican leaders) say we need more discussion, it’s on them. It’s not on the Kansas people.”

Legislators initially planned to pass a bill containing most of the next state budget before the spring break, to make finishing their work in May easier.

However, the budget talks stalled last week. Medicaid expansion was among a few remaining issues in reconciling differences between the House and Senate versions of the spending blueprint.

Neither chamber included funds to cover expansion costs, but Denning persuaded senators to add an amendment to their version to prevent the state from spending any dollars on expansion paperwork.

A 2014 law already requires prior legislative approval for expansion, but Denning said he wants to ensure that putting funding in the budget isn’t interpreted as a go-ahead for a specific plan.

House negotiators balked, with even expansion foes seeing the provision as overkill. The dispute — and resulting budget impasse — gives expansion supporters extra unexpected political leverage.

“That amendment could have caused us problems for passing expansion,” said state Rep. Kathy Wolfe Moore, a budget negotiator and Kansas City Democrat who supports expansion. “As long as that was in there, anyone who voted for expansion would not vote for the budget.”

POTWIN, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say one person and around a dozen head of cattle have died in a head-on wreck in rural Kansas.

KWCH-TV reports that the crash happened late Monday on Kansas 196 near the Butler County town of Potwin, which is about 25 miles northeast of Wichita. The Butler County Sheriff’s Office says it’s unclear whether a tractor-trailer or passenger vehicle crossed the center line before the collision.

The driver of the passenger vehicle was killed; the cattle truck’s driver wasn’t hurt. More than 30 cattle survived the wreck. They were either stuck inside the rig or wandering around a nearby wooded area. Deputies warned drivers in the area to be on the lookout.

HUTCHINSON — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a Kansas felon convicted over a dozen times on new charges after a weekend chase.

Gabriel Sanchez Jr., 28, was arrested Saturday after he attempted to flee law enforcement.

During a Monday court appearance, police said they were looking for Sanchez and spotted him at the Texas T-Bone Steakhouse on East 11^thStreet in Hutchinson. Officers tried to stop his vehicle but Sanchez fled at a high rate of speed. He finally stopped near 6th and Cleveland and  entered a home that was not his own and hid in the bathroom.

Police got permission to enter the home and eventually forced Sanchez from the bathroom and made an arrest.

In court Monday, Sanchez was also read the charge against him including cruelty to animals and burglary of a residence from an earlier incident.

He reportedly grabbed a puppy by its neck and threw it in the air. The puppy died from the ordeal. Sanchez is also accused of breaking into a home in the 700 block of East 1st. Both of these crimes occurred on March 30.

Additional charges include two counts of felony interference, criminal damage felony flee and elude, reckless driving and driving while suspended.

He is being held on a $60,000 Bond and is scheduled to be back in court April 15.  Sanchez previous convictions include forgery, burglary, theft and criminal possession of a weapon.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A panel of lawmakers on Monday considered enacting a ban on discrimination against unvaccinated children, an effort that comes as other states look to increase immunization amid disease outbreaks.

Parents testified to lawmakers that their unimmunized children were turned away from daycares and doctors. Republican Rep. Lynn Morris, a pharmacist from southwest Missouri, said parents are being pressured to vaccinate their children.

“Parents are getting bullied,” Morris said. “They’re getting bullied by county health departments. They’re getting bullied by schools. They’re getting bullied by their doctors. They’re being intimidated, and I just don’t think that’s right.”

The Republican’s bill would ban discrimination against unimmunized children in doctors’ offices, daycares, public schools and colleges if families have legal exemptions. Missouri grants exemptions for religious and medical reasons.

The hearing came just days after a judge temporarily blocked a suburban New York county’s emergency order banning children from public places unless they’ve been vaccinated against measles.

Lawmakers from other states also are looking to ramp up vaccinations in response to outbreaks of diseases such as measles and whooping cough .

Washington lawmakers in March passed a measure to strip exemptions for measles vaccinations after an outbreak sickened dozens. There’s a push to end non-medical exemptions for vaccines in Maine, where there were 95 cases of whooping cough through February.

While overall vaccination rates remain high in the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of kids under two who haven’t received any vaccines is growing. The CDC attributes much of this to lack of health insurance — uninsured kids are much more likely to be unvaccinated than children who have health insurance.

Janessa Baake, from the city of Peculiar in southwestern Missouri, cited concern over potential medical risks and told lawmakers Monday that her 3-year-old daughter is unvaccinated. She said after being denied by a Missouri doctor, she now takes her daughter to a Kansas pediatrician.

Another man said his two children developed autism after being vaccinated as toddlers.

“All of the stories and the anecdotes that we heard are very important, but I don’t think that they can be used to refute science,” Ferguson Democrat Rep. Cora Faith Walker said during a break in the hearing.

Multiple studies have debunked claims that measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations increase the risk for autism, and the National Institutes of Health says reports of serious reactions are rare: about one every 100,000 vaccinations. In the U.S., more than 90 percent of the population nationally is properly vaccinated.

“What we know and what we have in study after study of scientific fact is that vaccines are safe, and they’re effective,” said Jefferson City pediatrician Katie Blount, a member of the Missouri chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Ultimately what it boils down to is it’s one of the best ways that I know how to take care of a kiddo.”

A similar bill didn’t make it to the floor last year.

The House Health and Mental Health Policy Committee also is considering legislation to require physicians to provide information on the benefits and risks of vaccines, information from CDC and other information before giving vaccines.

SHAWNEE COUNTY- Law enforcement authorities are investigating a pair of armed robberies at cash advance stores in Kansas and are offering a reward.

According to a media release from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they are offering up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest of whoever is involved in the robbery of the Advanced America stores on February 21, in the 2200 block of Louisiana Street., in Lawrence and on March 29,  at 1747 NW Topeka Blvd. in Topeka.

In both robberies, a suspect walked into the stores wearing a black zip-up sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head, approached the counter with a silver pistol pointed at the clerk and left with an undisclosed amount of money.

Anyone with information about either robbery is asked to call the FBI’s Topeka office 785-231-1700 or local law enforcement.

KANSAS CITY (AP) — A south Kansas City school district says police are investigating a report that at least one student became ill after eating marijuana-laced brownies.

The Hickman Mills district said in a statement Monday the incident happened in late March at Hickman Mills Freshman Center.

Assistant principal John Miller said a student complained March 28 that she felt strange after eating a brownie given to her by another student.

Another student said she felt fine after taking a bite of the same brownie. And Miller said the girl accused of having the brownies denied they were laced with anything.

The school nurse were checked the students, who were then sent home. Miller reported the incident to the Missouri Division of Family Services.