A federal magistrate has found a Wichita restaurant in contempt for failing to pay workers more than $223,000 in back pay and damages.

U.S. District Judge Karen Humphreys had given the China Star and its owners until Monday to pay the money awarded in a 2008 consent judgment or submit a payment plan. Defense attorney Joseph Cassell told the judge this week his clients were unable to pay the judgment or start a payment plan that would be acceptable to the court.

The U.S. Labor Department announced the contempt order Wednesday. The agency says its investigation found that China Star’s workers were paid a flat rate in cash, often less than the minimum wage and without regard to overtime

A northeastern Kansas community college has issued a campus alert after an employee found a man with a camera inside a women’s restroom.

Johnson County Community College in Overland Park issued the alert Wednesday and released a surveillance photo of a man considered a person of interest.

The Kansas City Star reports the man was described as white, in his mid-20s, about 6 feet tall and 150 to 165 pounds. He has short black hair and was wearing glasses and a white shirt.

A Missouri man who twice dressed as a woman to hold up a northeastern Kansas bank is going to prison for 37 months.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says 20-year-old Joshua Parker, of Kansas City, Mo., was sentenced Wednesday. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to two counts of bank robbery.

Parker’s disguise included a woman’s wig and dark sunglasses when he entered a U.S. Bank branch in Prairie Village last Oct. 21, jumped on the counter and said, “I’m back.” A teller recognized him as the same wig-wearing person who robbed the bank two months earlier.

Police chased a getaway car for a few blocks before Parker got out. He ran through a residential neighborhood wearing only shorts and socks before being arrested in a creek bed.

A bill giving more legal protection to Kansas health care providers who refuse to participate in abortions is on its way to Gov. Sam Brownback.

The Senate approved the so-called “conscience” measure on a 23-16 vote Wednesday. The House passed the measure last month and is expected to be signed by Brownback, who strongly opposes abortion.

Kansas law already says doctors and hospitals can’t be penalized for refusing to participate in abortions or sterilizations.

This year’s bill extends the protection to other health care providers. It also covers refusal to prescribe abortion-inducing drugs or to refer patients to providers to terminate pregnancies.

Critics worry the legislation is broad enough to restrict access to birth control.

Some Greensburg residents will mark the fifth anniversary of a tornado that nearly wiped out their town with a play based on the experience.

The play, called “Rooted: The Greensburg Odyssey,” is the creation of author Marcia Cebulska of Topeka. It is sponsored by The Cornerstone Theater Company and the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence.

A cast of 22 will present the play at 7 p.m. Saturday in the fellowship hall of First United Methodist Church in Greensburg.

Producer Lois Lessman told The Dodge City Daily Globe the group wanted to perform the play when Greensburg’s Twilight Theater was completed. But the group decided to go ahead with a dramatic reading of the play to mark the anniversary, even though the theater is not ready.

A Senate panel has endorsed a new congressional redistricting map that adjusts the lines of the four Kansas U.S. House seats.

The map was advanced Wednesday and could get a full Senate vote later this week. The proposal shifts the boundaries of the districts to reflect changes in the 2010 census.

Among the issues resolved in the map is where to put Riley County and the shape of the 4th District, which centers on Wichita and Sedgwick County.

Riley County would remain in the 2nd District. The county is home to Manhattan and Kansas State University.

The 4th District shifts east, picking up additional counties in southeastern Kansas but shedding south-central counties that would become part of the 1st District.

Fire heavily damaged a building that houses some of Scott Community High School’s educational programs.The fire was reported late Monday at the high school.

No one was hurt and school was in session Tuesday.

Superintendent Bill Wilson says the building is sealed while the district waits for its insurance company to assess the damage. He says the building is damaged but he doesn’t know about the contents of the building. Industrial arts, traditional arts, vocational agriculture and aerobics classes are held in the building.

Those classes will be held elsewhere for the rest of the school year.

The Kansas House has ducked a debate on loosening the state’s restrictions on smoking in public places.

The House voted 62-49 on Friday to send the smoking measure to its Health and Human Services Committee rather than debate it. The bill would create an exception to a statewide ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and other public places for businesses catering only to adults 21 or older.

Rep. Bill Otto, a LeRoy Republican, said he returned the bill to committee even though he supports it partly because the Senate isn’t likely to approve it this year.

Public health advocates pushed for the 2010 law, but critics contend it has hurt businesses and that restrictions should be left to cities and counties.

U.S. authorities have filed criminal charges against a divorced Palestinian father who took his three children from Kansas to live in his native Gaza in an alleged violation of his custody decree.

Bethany Gonzales wants her children back in America. The divorced Muslim parents lived in suburban Kansas City until Ahmed Abuhamda took their children to Gaza in February.

He was charged in a federal criminal complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court in Kansas with intent to avoid prosecution on three state felony counts charging him with aggravated interference with parental custody.

The mother says she signed off on passports so the children could attend a wedding and that the father indicated he would bring them back. The father says she knew he was moving them to Gaza.

Three teenagers have been charged as juveniles in last week’s break-in at a northeast Kansas sporting goods store where guns were stolen.

The Wyandotte County prosecutor announced the charges Tuesday. The three males – ages 14, 15 and 17 – were ordered held pending their next court dates later this month.

KCTV reports 11 handguns were taken during the April 26 overnight burglary at Cabela’s in Kansas City, Kan. Officials say some of the guns have been recovered.

Cabela’s is located in a retail complex near Kansas Speedway in western Wyandotte County.

A Kansas judge has granted a state board temporary custody of a former abortion provider’s patient files after hundreds of his records turned up in a recycling bin.

The State Board of Healing Arts went to court last week for custody of the discarded documents plus others still in the possession of Krishna Rajanna. Shawnee County District Judge Franklin Theis granted the board’s request Monday.

The board revoked Rajanna’s medical license in 2005. A woman later found hundreds of his files dumped in a recycling bin near his home in Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City.

The state board expects to keep the records until it finds a permanent custodian or until they’re more than 10 years old and can be destroyed.

A 65-year-old Army and Marine veteran from southeastern Kansas who was preparing for the end of the world will go to prison for possessing incendiary bombs.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says Alfred Dutton, of Eureka, was sentenced Monday to 21 months. He pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of unregistered destructive devices.

Investigators reported finding five incendiary bombs last August in Dutton’s rented storage unit.

Dutton’s lawyer gave U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten an excerpt of the National Geographic documentary “Doomsday Preppers” to show his client’s state of mind at the time of his arrest.

Dutton was making preparations for the collapse of the economy. Investigators said his apartment was filled with such supplies as nonperishable foods, clothing, medical supplies and other survival items.