U.S Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is making a two-day visit to Kansas.

During his first stop Friday night at Strong City in east-central Kansas, he and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will dedicate a new $6 million visitor’s center at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve.

From there Salazar will head to Manhattan’s Flint Hills Discovery Center. Gov. Sam Brownback will join him Saturday in announcing that the Kansas River is being designated as the newest addition to the National Water Trails system. The national designation will provide money for highway signage directing people to boat and canoe access ramps along the river.

Both projects are part of President Barack Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative. Its goals include improving access to outdoor recreation and restoring ecosystems.

A government-backed research panel said the Department of Homeland Security should continue with its plans for a biosecurity lab in Kansas but consider ways to reduce costs.

A study released by National Research Council on Friday said the need for the $1.14 billion National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan hasn’t diminished since the project was first conceived.

But the council said Homeland Security has options: It could continue with the current plan, reduce the size and scope of the project and distribute its work among research centers around the country.

Homeland Security asked the council to review the risks of studying animal diseases at the lab, the capabilities needed to address those threats and analyze three options. One included keeping the current research at Plum Island, N.Y

A state board in Kansas has denied parole to a man who’s spent three decades in prison after being convicted of killing a state Highway Patrol trooper.

The Kansas Prisoner Review Board rejected a request from George Rainey. The board won’t consider paroling Rainey again until July 2017.

Rainey, 53, an inmate at the state prison in Hutchinson, is serving a life sentence for the shooting of Trooper Ferdinand “Bud” Pribbenow in July 1981 in Butler County. Pribbenow stopped a car speeding on the Kansas Turnpike north of El Dorado and was shot six times.

During a hearing in May, members of Pribbenow’s family asked the board to keep Rainey in prison. Also, Highway Patrol Superintendent Ernest Garcia submitted a letter opposing Rainey’s parole.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has formally filed criminal charges against three inmates who escaped from the Kansas Department of Corrections while they were placed at the Ottawa County Jail in April.

The Attorney General filed charges of aggravated escape from custody and battery on a law enforcement officer against 22-year-old Santos M. Carrera-Morales, 23-year-old Drew Edward Wade, and 23-year-old Alberto Jon Barraza-Lujan.

Assistant Attorney General Steve Karrer from Schmidt’s office is prosecuting the cases.

Four people were injured in a strange accident on I-70 (207 milemarker, or 1 mile east of the I-70 & K232 junction) Thursday, around 9:25 pm.

According to the Kansas Highway Patrol, three males and one female from New Orleans were west bound on I-70 in a construction zone when their vehicle ran out of gas. While the car was still rolling the driver, 23-year-old Pokharel Rabin, tried to make a u-turn in an attempt to make it to a gas station he had just passed. The vehicle came to a stop before he could complete the turn, partially blocking the west bound lanes. Pokharel and a passenger, 22-year-old Sharma Jirjan, exited the vehicle and attempted to flag down traffic when another vehicle that was westbound on I-70, struck Rabin and their vehicle head-on.

Rabin along with two passengers; 52-year-old Kumari Pokharel Gita, and 60-year-old Kumar Pokharel Rohini, were injured. Gita and Rohini were transported to Ellsworth County Hospital, while Rabin was transported to Salina Regional.

The driver of the other vehicle, 29-year-old Francisco E. Lemus-Arita of Kansas City, was not injured but a passenger, 23-year-old Osmany Vazquez-Arita was transported to Ellsworth County Hospital with injuries.

Thirty-five defendants are charged in a federal indictment unsealed here today alleging they worked for a drug trafficking organization that distributed $16.9 million worth of high-grade marijuana and cocaine in Johnson and Douglas Counties, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Warner said today.

The 101-count indictment alleges that defendants Los Rovell Dahda, 30, Lawrence, Kan., and Chad Eugene Bauman, 33, Lawrence, made millions as the leaders of a drug trafficking organization that operated from 2005 to 2012. Prosecutors are asking a federal judge to order more than $16.9 million in cash and real estate that were proceeds of the crimes to be forfeited to the government.

The indictment includes allegations that the defendants laundered the proceeds of their drug operations through unlawful financial transactions involving businesses, real estate and personal property in Lawrence, Topeka, Iola, Kan., Gladstone, Mo., and elsewhere. The indictment also identifies residences and commercial properties in Lawrence, Topeka, Kansas City, Kan., and other locations where the traffickers stored or distributed drugs.

The indictment also seeks additional penalties against traffickers who are accused of distributing drugs within the 1,000-ft. protected areas around playgrounds and schools including Lawrence High School, West Middle School, Haskell Indian Nations University, Holcomb Sports Complex, Olathe North High School and New York Elementary.

The indictment grows out of a federal criminal complaint filed last month in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan. The indictment adds 10 defendants and 100 counts. In the initial complaint, prosecutors alleged the organization’s primary method for getting drugs to Kansas from California was by commercial carrier.

Defendants named in the indictment are:

Los Rovell Dahda, 30, Lawrence, Kan.
Roosevelt Rico Dahda, 30, Lawrence, Kan.
Sadie Jolynn Brown, 25, Lawrence, Kan.
Justin Cherif Pickel, 32, San Lorenzo, Calif.
David James Essman, 35, Lawrence, Kan.
Amos Moses Hurst, 31, Eureka, Calif.
Phillip Villereal Alarcon, 43, Hayward, Calif.
Jeffery David Paviva, 39, Union City, Calif.
Mark Lee Romero, 31, Lawrence, Kan.
Samuel Villeareal, II, 32, Overland Park, Kan.
Peter Park, 41, Olathe, Kan.
Wayne Suhan Swift, 39, Hayward, Calif.
Charles Thomas Kreisler, 38, Kansas City, Mo.
James Michael Soderling, 42, Fort Bragg, Calif.
Simon Andrew Tyson, 27, Kansas City, Mo.
Trent Jordan Percival, 32, Overland Park, Kan.
Chad William Pollard, 34, Lenexa, Kan.
Jason Marcus Hansen, 38, Lenexa, Kan.
Daniel Mark Sieber, 31, Lawrence, Kan.
Justin Jerome Mercer, 35, Olathe, Kan.
Jacob Paul Forbes, 30, Lawrence, Kan.
Chad Eugene Bauman, 33, Lawrence, Kan.
Carey Lynn Willming, 36, Lawrence, Kan.
Michael Shane Witt, 37, Olathe, Kan.
Stephen Mallison Rector, 50, Kansas City, Kan.
Michael J. Berry, 27, Kansas City, Kan.
Adam Christiansen, 31, Lawrence, Kan.
Aaron G. Gunderson, 36, Topeka, Kan.
Nathan Wallace, 28, Topeka, Kan.
Ryan Kearns, 24, Lawrence, Kan.
Karl Havener, 25, Overland Park, Kan.
Damien J. Mick, 33, Shawnee, Kan.
Joshua Simpson, 28, Lenexa, Kan.
Sarah Soderling, 35, Ft. Bragg, Calif.
Elizabeth Dominique Watson, 44, Kansas City, Mo.

• Criminal counts and potential penalties upon conviction include:
• Conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than 5 kilograms of cocaine and more 1,000 kilograms of marijuana: Not less than 10 years and not more than life and a fine up to $10 million.
• Conspiracy to commit money laundering: A maximum penalty of 20 years and a fine up to $250,000.
• Engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise: Not less than 20 years and not more than life and a fine up to $2 million.
• Money laundering: A maximum penalty of 10 years and a fine up to $250,000 on each count.
• Possession with intent to distribute 100 kilograms or more of marijuana: Not less than 5 years and not more than 40 years and a fine up to $5 million.
• Distributing marijuana within 1,000 feet of a school or playground: 10 years and a fine up to $500,000.
• Possession with intent to distribute marijuana: A maximum penalty of five years and a fine up to $250,000.
• Unlawful possession of a firearm after a felony conviction: A maximum penalty of 10 years and a fine up to $250,000.
• Maintaining a residence in furtherance of drug trafficking: Not less than a year and not more than 20 years and a fine up to $500,000.
• Using a telephone in furtherance of drug trafficking: A maximum penalty of four years and a fine up to $250,000.
• Unlawful possession of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking: Not less than five years and not more than life, consecutive to other sentences.
• Unlawful possession of a firearm by a user of controlled substances: Not less than a year and not more than 20 years and a fine up to $250,000.

Kansas has reached a $1 million settlement with a tobacco company.

The settlement calls for Grand River Enterprises to put $672,000 into escrow funds and pay the state $336,000 in penalties and reimbursement for attorney fees and expenses.

Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office says the settlement stems from a lawsuit Kansas filed against GRE in 2008, saying the company wasn’t participating in a settlement agreement between states and tobacco companies.

Schmidt says the $336,000 in penalties will go to the state’s general fund, and the $672,000 are to help Kansans who make health-related claims as part of a 1998 settlement with tobacco companies.

Kansas is facing claims that it should cover more than $669,000 in legal bills from parties in a federal lawsuit over the Legislature’s failure to redraw political boundaries.

That’s despite an attempt by the judges handling the case to limit the potential tab.

The three judges imposed new lines last month for congressional, legislative and State Board of Education districts to account for population changes over the past decade. Twenty-seven individuals were allowed to sue over redistricting.

Last month, the judges received requests from 19 of the individuals to have nearly $700,000 in legal bills covered by the state. Last week, the judges issued an order imposing narrower rules for such claims.

But the total from the new filings, due by midnight Wednesday, was only 4 percent smaller than before.

Former Kansas Gov. Bill Graves is heading back to Kansas to help his fellow moderate Republicans keep their seats in the state Senate.

The Kansas City Star reports that Graves, who now lives in Virginia, will make stops in Johnson County, Wichita and Salina next week.

The visits come as current Gov. Sam Brownback has started endorsing more conservative Republicans as the two sides wage a battle for control of the Senate.

Brownback’s agenda has largely won over the House, but skeptics in the Senate have blocked him on such issues as labor law, picking judges and education finance reform.

The state director for the conservative group Americans for Prosperity says Graves represents the old guard that doesn’t believe in limited government.

Prosecutors have filed drug charges against two teens involved in last week’s Amber Alert in Kansas.

The 16-year-old girl, Jenna Hord, that was thought to have been kidnapped by an ex-boyfriend has been charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia along with obstruction of justice.

While 17-year-old Logan Burris faces possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, child endangerment and driving with a suspended or revoked license.

An Amber Alert was issued Thursday, July 5th, after witnesses reported that Burris had forced Hord into a vehicle and that he was possibly carrying a weapon.

The Amber Alert was cancelled around 8pm, Thursday after a deputy pulled over the pair in Hiawatha, KS.

Burris is expected to face further charges in connection to the incident in Leavenworth County.