WICHITA – A Clearwater woman was sentenced Wednesday to four years in federal prison on a drug trafficking charge, according to U.S. Attorney Tom Beall.

Kraysalias Lynn Bernhardt, 21, Clearwater Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of using a telephone in furtherance of drug trafficking.

In her plea, she admitted that on Jan. 16, 2016, she talked by phone with co-defendant Samuel Below, who was being held in the Sedgwick County Jail.

Below told her to sell methamphetamine that he was storing at her residence. Following his direction, she sold a pound of meth.

Below was sentenced in December to 10 years in federal prison.

SALINA – Law enforcement authorities in Salina are investigating an alleged threat Thursday at Central High School and made an arrest.

Sammi K. Nichols, 15, faces criminal threat charges after a School Resource Officer was notified that he threatened to “Shoot up the school,” according to a Salina Police Department press release.

The threat was said to have occurred at approximately 8:36 a.m. Thursday through Facebook Messenger.
Police put the school on heightened security as authorities searched for Nichols. Officers arrested him just after 4 p.m. this afternoon at a rural, according to Police Capt. Mike Sweeney.

He is being held in the Juvenile Detention Center.

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SALINA – Law enforcement authorities in Salina are investigating an alleged threat Thursday at Central High School.

A known suspect made an indirect threat, according to Police Captain Mike Sweeney. Authorities notified all schools in USD 305.

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He would not release any additional details.
Central High School remains on heightened security as classes continue as usual.

HUTCHINSON– Family members found a four-year-old boy not breathing and with no pulse in a pool at a home in the 1100 block of Bramble Bush Drive in Hutchinson Thursday afternoon.
The child was taken to a Wichita hospital in critical condition, according to Hutchinson Police Lt. Josh Radloff.

Just after 4p.m., first responders were dispatched to the residence and were able to get the child breathing before EMS arrived, but then at the hospital the child stopped breathing again. However, they continued to work on the child and were able to get the boy breathing again.

The child apparently lived a few houses down, with his mother going into her home to check on another child and when she came back found the four-year-old missing.

The home owner with the pool had put a hose in her pool to fill it up and was inside when she noticed the hose was out of the pool and a gate to that pool was open.

She went to check on the hose and saw pants by the pool. That’s when she saw the child.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that claimed a Kansas sheriff fired a detective for refusing to end an investigation into a man who faces sex crime charges from five women and a teenage girl.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that U.S. District Senior Judge Sam Crow took the action Friday. Former senior detective Al Dunn alleged in the suit that Jackson County Sheriff Tim Morse tried to suppress an investigation into Jacob Ewing of Holton.

Dunn’s lawsuit claimed Morse faced complaints from family and friends of Ewing who believed they could influence Morse’s bid for re-election. Court filings claimed Morse pressured Dunn to back off of the investigation.

Dunn sought about $150,000 for lost salary and mental and emotional distress. But Crow found “no viable constitutional” violations.

SALINE COUNTY –Law enforcement authorities in Saline County are investigating an alleged kidnapping and asking for help to locate suspect.

Just after 8:30 p.m. Wednesday police responded to a home in south Salina after report of a possible kidnapping, according to a media release.

Officers determined Matthew Collier, 30, allegedly kidnapped two acquaintances at gunpoint.

Several hours after the initial report, the victims returned to the residence safe and unharmed, according to police.

Police issued a Saline County arrest warrant for Collier on requested charges of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault. Collier is described as a white male, 5 foot 10 inches tall, approximately 210 pounds with blond hair and blue eyes.

He is considered armed and dangerous.   Anyone with knowledge of Collier’s whereabouts, should immediately call 911.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Latest on the Kansas Legislature’s debate over its budget problems and raising taxes to fix them (all times local):

3:45 p.m.

The Kansas Senate has rejected a proposal to raise additional revenue with a “flat” personal income tax that had Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s endorsement.

The vote Thursday was 37-3 against the bill. The only yes votes came from Republicans, President Susan Wagle of Wichita, Majority Leader Jim Denning of Overland Park and Sen. Gene Suellentrop of Wichita.

The proposed budget fix would have imposed a 4.6 percent rate for all filers starting next year. That is the top rate for higher-income earners, and the bill would eliminate the 2.7 percent rate now in place for lower-income filers.

It would have ended an exemption championed by Brownback for 330,000-plus farmers and business owners.

The measure would have raised about $652 million over two years.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas House has voted to give grocery stores the right to sell full-strength beer, overcoming the state’s history of strict liquor laws.

The bill passed 80 to 45 Thursday. Most of the opposition came from lawmakers who were concerned that competition with large grocery chains would put small liquor stores out of business.

Under the bill, grocery stores could sell beer that has up to 6 percent alcohol by volume. Now they can only sell cereal malt beverage with just 3.2 percent alcohol by volume.

The bill still needs a Senate vote.

The House vote contrasts with the state’s intense temperance movement, led in part by Carrie Nation in the early 1900s. Kansas’ prohibition began in 1881 and didn’t end until 1948. National prohibition lasted just 14 years.

HARVEY COUNTY – Prosecutors filed charges in Sedgwick County Wednesday against 31-year-old Myrta Rangel in connection with an October triple-murder in Harvey County.

Harvey County District Attorney David Yoder dismissed charges against Rangel and canceled a scheduled Thursday hearing, according to a media release.

“The joint decision of this office, and the Office of the Sedgwick County District Attorney, is that Sedgwick County is the best venue for pursuit of charges against Myrta Rangel,” according to Yoder.

Harvey County prosecutors had charged Rangel and 35-year-old Jereme Nelson each with one count of capital murder and three counts of first-degree murder.

In January, Nelson and Rangel were arrested in Mexico and returned to the U.S., before extradition to Kansas.

On October 30, Authorities found the bodies of 33-year-old Travis Street and 37-year-old Angela May Graevs, both of Moundridge, and 52-year-old Richard Prouty of Newton, outside a rural home near Moundridge. An 18-month-old child was found unharmed.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — School districts all over Kansas are experiencing delays in state assessment testing this week, forcing some to shut down the tests altogether.

Kansas State Department of Education spokeswoman Denise Kahler tells the Topeka Capital-Journal that state education officials have been in contact with the Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation to determine the delays’ cause. The center is a University of Kansas entity the education department contracts with to host the tests.

Kahler says she’s been told the issues are with the center’s information technology arm, the Kansas Interactive Testing Engine. The Testing Engine says the problem is with the servers, not the tests themselves.

The newspaper was unable to reach Testing Engine officials.

Annual state reading and math tests for third- through eighth-graders and 10th-graders is March 14 through April 28.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Comedian Don Rickles has died at age 90.

Paul Shefrin, his longtime publicist and friend, said Rickles died Thursday of kidney failure at his Los Angeles home.

For more than half a century, “Mr. Warmth” headlined casinos and nightclubs from Las Vegas to Atlantic City. N.J., and appeared often on late-night TV talk shows.

Click HERE for more.

GREAT BEND, Kan. (AP) — A former Kansas high school coach has pleaded no contest to sexual exploitation of a child after a nude picture of a minor was found on his cell phone.

The Great Bend Tribune reports that 55-year-old Todd Kaiser entered the plea Thursday in Barton County District Court. Barton County Attorney Amy Mellor says authorities obtained a search warrant in June and found the nude picture.

At the time, Kaiser was a physical education teacher at Eisenhower School. He also was a head cross country coach, winter weights coach, track head coach and driver’s education teacher for the Great Bend district. He had worked for the school system since 1987.

Sentencing is set for June 23.

JEWELL COUNTY – A third earthquake this week hit north-central Kansas on Thursday.

The quake just after 11a.m. measured 3.0 and was centered approximately six miles southeast of Mankato, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The agency reported a 2.7 quake 9 miles southeast of Mankato just after 5:30 Wednesday morning.

Just after 1p.m. Tuesday a 3.4 quake was centered nine miles southeast of Mankato.

On Sunday, the USGS reported a 2.8 earthquake was centered approximately 2 miles southeast of Medicine Lodge at 6:15p.m.

The agency recorded 7 earthquakes in March including a 2.9 quake March 30, near Belle Plaine.

The USGS also recorded 6 earthquakes in February. They measured from 2.5. to 3.3.

There are no reports of damage or injury from Thursday’s quake, according to the Jewell County Sheriff’s Department.

SALINA – Four people were injured in an accident just after 2p.m. on Wednesday in Saline County.

A 2011 Ford Fusion driven by Laura Cates, 49, Salina, was westbound on Kansas 4 at Old Highway 81, according to Saline County Sheriff Roger Soldan.

The driver failed to yield at the intersection and pulled out in front of a 1999 Chevy pickup driven by 81-year-old Udena McKee.
Cates, McKee, a 7-year old and a 3-year-old in the Ford were transported to Salina Regional Medical Center.

Cates suffered a broken rib and facial injuries. The 7-year-old also suffered a possible rib injury, according to Soldan.

All were properly restrained at the time of the accident.

The pickup took out a sign at the intersection and just missed traveling into a neighbor’s yard, according to Soldan.