RILEY COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Riley County are investigating an alleged sexual assault, aggravated battery and burglary.

A 16-year-old girl told police a suspect known to her forced his way into her residence in Manhattan and raped her, according to the Friday morning Riley County Police incident report.

This is the 17th rape reported in Manhattan in the first quarter of 2017, compared to 8 over the same period last year.

Manhattan authorities reported a total of 40 rapes in 2016.

No additional details were released.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Police are searching for a driver accused of crashing into the rear of a stalled vehicle as two people tried to push it off a Lawrence road.

KMBC-TV reports that the hit-and-run crash happened just before 1 a.m. Friday. The two people who were pushing the stalled vehicle were taken to area hospitals in critical condition. Two people inside the stalled vehicle were taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Police say they found the truck, but are still looking for the driver.

HARPER COUNTY – A pair of earthquakes hit Kansas early Friday. The first quake just before 2 a.m. measured a magnitude 2.5 and was centered approximately 7 miles southeast of Harper, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Just after 2:30 a.m. a 3.0 magnitude quake was reported in approximately the same area.
The USGS has reported 4 earthquakes in Kansas in May. A 2.7 magnitude quake hit 10 miles northwest of Conway Springs on May 10.

The agency reported a 3.5 magnitude quake in Harper County on May 5.

The USGS recorded nearly a dozen Kansas earthquakes in April, seven in March and six in February. They measured from 2.5. to 3.3.

There are no reports of damage or injury from Friday’s quakes, according to the Harper County Sheriff’s Department.

SALINA -Thursday’s storm brought heavy rain, large hail, high winds, funnel clouds and seven tornadoes to Kansas.

According to the National Weather Service there were two tornadoes in Barton County.

One was 3 miles north of Great Bend and another approximately one mile southwest of the city. Two were reported in Barber County, one in Pawnee County northwest of Larned, another south of the town of Seward in Stafford County

A tornado one mile west of the airport in Salina did the most damage.

The Salina Speedway, 2841 S Burma Road, reported heavy damage to buildings and track equipment. The roof of the press box had been partially blown off and the catch fence on the north side of the track was pushed over. Power line poles had also been broken off down Burma Road.

Westar Energy reported 1200 Saline County customers without power following the storm.

In addition to the tornadoes, officials reported large hail responsible for most of the damage in Barton County.

The National Weather service reported hail across the state Thursday night. In addition, many communities reported street flooding and damage to trees. There were no injuries reported.

The cleanup will begin on Friday in preparation for more severe weather is in the forecast.

BUTLER COUNTY -Law enforcement authorities have made an arrest in connection with the fatal hit and run near Andover early Saturday May 13, according to a social media report.

Authorities say it appears that a man was run over in rural Butler County and his body dumped six miles away

Detectives later found the missing clothing items and a cell phone in a ditch near the Andover YMCA. Sheriff Kelly Herzet says the man was last seen alive walking away from a nearby Arby’s restaurant just after midnight Friday.

Virginia Moore, 33, Augusta, is begin held in the Butler County Jail. The arrest and a successful conclusion to this case was the result of a tip from a citizen, according to the sheriff’s department.

-The Associated Press contributed to this report.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Board of Regents says the University of Kansas must change one clause from its concealed weapons policy.

Kansas wanted to require anyone carrying a concealed handgun in a handbag, purse or backpack to keep those items physically with them at all times.

The regents voted Wednesday that the university needed to remove that clause.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports the university’s policy will read “Each individual who lawfully possesses a handgun on any of the University campuses shall at all times have that handgun in the person’s custody and control.”

Kansas Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said the clause was meant to reduce the chance of accidental discharge or of others from gaining control of the weapon.

Critics, including the National Rifle Association, said the clause unreasonably limited guns.

REPUBLIC COUNTY – The Kansas Bureau of Investigation issue a statewide Silver Alert for an 81-year-old man who is missing from Cuba, Kansas.

On Tuesday, May 16, Charles “CL” Adams, age 81, went missing from his home in the rural Cuba area of Republic County. Charles recently suffered a stroke, and his family has not heard from him since Tuesday.

Mr. Adams is a white male, 5 feet 6 inches tall, with grey hair and hazel eyes. He weighs approximately 165 pounds. He was wearing overalls at the time he disappeared.

The Republic County Sheriff’s Office located Charles’ van, a white 2002 dodge caravan, in the area of K-148 highway, near his home. The Republic County Sheriff’s Office, numerous other state and local agencies, and volunteers have searched the area and found no sign of him. Authorities believe that Charles may have been picked up by a motorist and traveled outside of the immediate area. He could be confused or disoriented.

The Republic County Sheriff’s Office requests the public’s assistance locating anyone who may have seen Mr. Adams since Tuesday, or who has information regarding his whereabouts. Anyone with information is asked to call the Republic County Sheriff’s Office at 785-527-5655.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Work in the Kansas Legislature has stalled on a plan that would fully repeal past income tax cuts championed by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.

House and Senate negotiators failed to agree Thursday evening on a plan to raise taxes to fix the state budget and boost spending on public schools.

They reviewed a plan that would return Kansas to the income tax laws in place in 2012 before tax cuts touted by Brownback began. Rates would have risen and an exemption for farmers and business owners would have ended.

It was the most aggressive plan lawmakers have considered and would have raised $1.4 billion over two years.

Kansas faces projected budget shortfalls totaling $887 million through June 2019, and the state Supreme Court has ruled that education funding is inadequate.

SALINA, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors have dismissed charges against two Kansas men accused of plotting to kill people in Illinois.

Assistant Saline County Prosecutor Amy Norton dropped the charges Wednesday against 25-year-old Xavier Lewis and 22-year-old Xavier McCray, both of Salina. The Salina Journal reports the charges could be refiled.

The men were charged with conspiring with Alex Karcher to kill three people in Illinois. Charges were dropped in April against Karcher, who has been indicted Jackson County, Illinois, on allegations of being involved in a drug ring. McCry and Lewis were not indicted in Illinois.

A Carbondale, Illinois, police officer was wounded in the same time frame in which the men were accused of planning to travel to Illinois to kill three other men.

No one was killed

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Topeka hospital being purchased by the University of Kansas Health System plans to continue banning guns from its facilities.

The University of Kansas Health System and Ardent Health are in the process of buying St. Francis Health in Topeka. That deal comes as the Kansas Legislature is debating whether guns can be carried into state-operated mental health and medical facilities, which includes the Kansas Health System.

However, St. Francis Health spokeswoman Nikki Sloup says the Topeka hospital does not plan to change its policy banning concealed weapons. She says any new law would apply to public hospitals and St. Francis will not be a public hospital.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports Kansas Health and Ardent will monitor the Legislature’s actions to determine any effect on St. Francis.

JOHN HANNA, AP Political Writer

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kris Kobach is preparing to help lead a new presidential commission on election fraud with the certitude that he’s found significant evidence of problems in Kansas.

As Kansas secretary of state, he was the first state elections chief to gain a prosecutor’s powers.

Kobach said he’s not pre-judging what might be happening in other states before the commission appointed by President Trump begins compiling hard data.

In Kansas, he has described the dozens of non-citizens on voter rolls and nine successful prosecutions as evidence of a significant problem.

Voting rights advocates have criticized the commission and Kobach’s appointment.

He has been advising Trump for months and said he talks to the White House each week. He is the new commission’s vice chairman, with Vice President Mike Pence as the chairman.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A homeless man accused of trying to charge for parking near a Wichita arena has admitted to two misdemeanors.

The Wichita Eagle reports that 53-year-old Daniel Lerma was sentenced to 90 days in jail after admitting Monday to two criminal restraint counts. He initially was charged with two felonies.

Lerma was arrested in March after people headed to a hockey game at Intrust Bank Arena said he was demanding $10 to park in front of a bar and became threatening when he was denied payment. The affidavit says Lerma told the hockey goers that the bar owner owed him money.

The affidavit says Lerma told authorities he had permission from another business to charge for parking and that he didn’t remember most of the encounters because he’d been drinking.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A rule nearing approval in the Kansas Legislature would require abortion providers to give women information on their doctors’ history in black, 12-point Times New Roman font.

Republican House and Senate negotiators agreed Thursday on the bill’s language. They also took procedural steps to bypass committee Democrats, who say the bill treats abortion providers differently than other doctors.

The bill would require that providers give women information about the physician performing the abortion at least 24 hours ahead of time. The information would include the doctor’s credentials, start date at the clinic, malpractice insurance, hospital privileges, state of residency and disciplinary record.

The bill’s supporters say women need the information to make an informed decision.

Abortion rights supporters say the bill is meant to discourage women from having abortions.