A 41-year-old Lyons man has drowned at a central Kansas lake.

Ellsworth County Sheriff Tracy Ploutz says John Freeman III drowned Saturday at Kanopolis Reservoir. Ploutz said Freeman had been at a lake campground with a friend when he went for a swim. The sheriff says people at another campsite then found Freeman’s s body at a nearby beach.

The Hutchinson News reports that an autopsy has been planned.

A 52-year-old Ohio woman has been killed in a weekend crash in central Kansas.

The Salina Journal reports that Janine J. Reed of Minerva, Ohio, was killed when the car she was in rolled on Interstate 70 near Ellsworth on Saturday afternoon.

The Kansas Highway Patrol said Reed was not wearing a seatbelt.

The Kansas attorney general’s office paid outside lawyers more than $644,000 to defend anti-abortion laws enacted last year.

The office says it paid more than $328,000 as of Friday to Foulston Siefken, a Wichita firm helping defend a budget provision denying federal dollars for non-abortion services to Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood has filed a federal lawsuit against the measure.

The attorney general’s office paid more than $200,000 to Thompson, Ramsdell & Qualseth, of Lawrence, to help defend health and safety regulations for abortion providers. Kansas City-area physicians challenged the rules in federal court and then in state court.

The same law firm also received more than $116,000 for work on a federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against a law restricting private insurance coverage for elective abortions.

Kansas health officials have suspended the license of a daycare center after staff members left a 3-year-old at a Johnson County movie theater.

The Kansas City Star reports the state Department of Health and Environment issued the emergency suspension Friday against Back 2 Basics Learning Center in Kansas City, Kan.

The KDHE order says two 16-year-old staff members took 14 younger children and two 13-year-olds to a Merriam movie theater Tuesday.

After the group left, a theater employee found the 3-year-old unattended in a restroom. The order says it was two hours before the daycare center called looking for the girl.

The state cited a number of alleged violations of employee training rules and failure to maintain required documents.

The voicemail box at the daycare center was full Friday.

By Dewey Terrill ~ Junction City Post

A family member is confirming the body of a missing member of the Ron and Becky Bramlage family has been recovered. The body of Boston Bramlage had been unaccounted for after their plane crashed Thursday in Florida. Ron and Becky Bramlage and their other children Brandon, Beau, and Roxanne were also killed in the crash.

The family was returning to Junction City from the Bahamas when the crash occurred in the Tiger Creek Swamp area of rural eastern Polk County.

by Randy Picking ~ Salina Post

A Saline County deputy saw something a bit out of the ordinary early Friday morning while coming into Salina on E. Crawford.

Just after 4 am the deputy was westbound on Crawford near the Salina Municipal Golf Course, when he saw a 2000 Pontiac Sun Fire going east on Crawford with a large industrial size spool of copper wire on top of the car.

The deputy turned around and the driver of the car pulled into the golf course, and the occupants of the car got out and ran off.

Two smaller spools of copper wire were found inside the car.

The wire is valued at $4,700 had been taken from a construction project at Great Plains Manufacturing on E. North Street.

A forklift had to be used to remove the large spool of wire that was sitting on a pallet from the top of the car. The roof of the car was dented.

An investigation continues and arrests are likely.

A member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet is taking a direct interest in helping to resolve a dispute over the design of a national memorial to Dwight D. Eisenhower, likely delaying the project beyond the summer.

Interior Department spokesman Adam Fetcher said Thursday that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has expressed interest in viewing models of architect Frank Gehry’s design with the key parties involved. No meeting has been set, but Salazar could hold discussions about how the memorial project in the nation’s capital could move forward.

Eisenhower’s family has objected to the design.

Memorial commission members Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye and Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts say they will work with the Interior Department but hope to avoid excessive delays.

By Brett Regan ~ Little Apple Post

Kansas State University’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity has reported approximately $30,000 theft by a fraternity member to Riley County Police.

Police say the fraternity officer unlawfully used a financial card to purchase miscellaneous items such as gas, clothing and food for over a year. The purchases were between January 1, 2011 and April 30, 2012. The estimated loss is around $30,000.

There is a suspect, but police say no arrests have been made.

The Department of Defense has announced four units that will deploy to Afghanistan this year.

The scheduled rotation announced Thursday includes more than 11,000 soldiers from the four units who will start deploying between spring and winter.

More than 3,000 soldiers from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division based at Fort Riley, Kan., will deploy in the spring.

More than 2,950 soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team and more than 2,580 soldiers from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, both from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, will deploy in the fall.

And about 2,500 soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division Combat Aviation Brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., are scheduled to deploy in the winter.

Although the state’s new budget restores $700,000 in funding for the arts, it will be at least a year before federal and regional matching funds will return to Kansas.

Mary Kennedy, executive director of the Mid-America Arts Alliance, says Kansas won’t get any matching funds in fiscal 2013. She says the state also won’t get any federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts in the next fiscal year.

She says it will take a year to go through the process needed to return the funds to the state.

Gov. Sam Brownback last Friday signed the budget that included $700,000 for the new Creative Arts Industries Commission. The Wichita Eagle reports the new commission will eventually determine guidelines for arts groups to apply for money and matching funds.

Two Kansas House Republicans see a Democratic district attorney’s investigation as political after being subpoenaed over private dinner meetings lawmakers had with GOP Gov. Sam Brownback.

Reps. Steve Brunk of Bel Aire and Virgil Peck of Tyro were among seven GOP legislators to receive subpoenas last month from Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor.

Taylor is investigating potential open meetings violations during seven dinners in January at Cedar Crest, the governor’s official residence. Brownback invited more than 90 lawmakers.

Brunk and Peck came in for interviews last week. Sen. Bob Marshall of Fort Scott and Rep. Anthony Brown of Eudora were to appear for questioning Thursday.

Peck called the investigation a witch hunt Wednesday. Brunk said Taylor’s staff seemed to be looking for what he called a gotcha moment.

A new sentencing date has been set for a Great Bend man convicted of killing a 14-year-old cheerleader whose charred body was found at the asphalt plant where he worked.

Adam Longoria will be sentenced the morning of June 26. He was convicted in April of capital murder for the August 2010 death of Alicia DeBolt.

Barton County District Judge Hannelore Kitts had earlier delayed the scheduled June 8 sentencing, but no new date had been set until Wednesday.

Prosecutors aren’t seeking the death penalty, but a capital murder conviction carries a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Alicia disappeared the weekend before she was due to start her freshman year at high school. Her remains were found three days later.