(AP) – Workers are cleaning up after two Union Pacific trains collided near Topeka and several cars derailed.

KMBC-TV reports that the collision occurred early Tuesday just northeast of Topeka between the Kansas River and Kansas 24 highway. No injuries have been reported.

KMBC video shows several coal cars off the tracks, with crews already beginning to clear the tracks.

Further details are not immediately available.

(AP) – A former Lawrence youth ministry coordinator has pleaded no contest to indecent liberties with a child and is expected to spend 30 days in jail.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports 41-year-old Christopher Cormack entered his plea Monday. He initially had been charged with aggravated indecent liberties accusing him of having sexual relations with a 15-year-old starting in 1999, when he was 28.

Cormack was convicted by a jury in 2008, but a Kansas Court of Appeals panel awarded him a new trial in March because jury instructions weren’t specific enough.

A plea agreement calls for Cormack to get probation if he has no past criminal history, to be served after a 30-day jail term.

Cormack also will be required to register as a sex offender for 25 years.

~ by Fred Gough

One person was taken to the hospital after a two vehicle accident in Barton County Monday.

According to the Kansas Highway Patrol, Denise Renee Schmidt of Claflin struck another vehicle from behind at the intersection of Northeast 130 th Road and K-156.

They say in their report that 49-year-old Karen Agnew of Claflin was traveling on 130 th Road and had stopped at the intersection with K-156, when she was struck by Schmidt. Agnew was transported to Clara Barton Hospital for treatment of her injuries. Neither her passenger nor Schmidt were injured.

The accident occurring just after 7:30 a-m Monday morning a mile north of Claflin in Barton County.

(AP) – A 21-year-old Overland Park man has been sentenced in federal court to three years of probation for his role in a staged bank robbery and kidnapping.

The Kansas City Star reports David Batson also was ordered Monday to continue participating in mental health counseling.

Batson previously pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting embezzlement by a bank employee in the November 2010 heist. Three others also have pleaded guilty and were sentenced to probation.

Michael Grace admitted masterminding the plan in which he claimed to have been abducted and forced to take money from an ATM at a U.S. Bank branch where he worked. He claimed masked men abducted him and took him to the bank, where they beat him up and stole more than $62,000 from the cash machine.

~ By Steve Webster

A 1st Degree Murder investigation is underway after the body of a 25-year-old Great Bend man was found on Saturday.

Just before 9am on Saturday morning, Barton County Communications received a phone call regarding a body that was found on Southwest 60 Road between 20 and 30 Avenue, where Barton County Sheriff’s Officers later arrived at the scene. The body was identified as that of 25-year-old Damon Galyardt.

Barton County Sheriff Greg Armstrong reports that the death was suspicious in nature, and is under investigation at this time. Great Bend Police Department and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation are assisting with the investigation. According the initial offense report, the case is being investigated as a first-degree murder. The report also states that Galyardt died as a result of a firearm.

Armstrong said the investigation is underway, and they are looking into all aspects.

(AP) – Libraries across the state will be tracking their patrons on Tuesday in an effort to show how valuable libraries are to Kansans.

The project is conducted by the Kansas Library Association, the Kansas Association of School Libraries and the State Library of Kansas. Patrons will be asked what library services they use and what makes the library important to them.

Hutchinson Library Director Gregg Wamsley says the data compiled will help the State Library lobby lawmakers to assure funding for libraries.

Data collected in last year’s snapshot found that in one day, Kansas libraries welcomed 39,037 people and loaned 75,827 items. They also offered answered 4,411 reference questions, connected 10,859 users to the Internet and supported 1,945 Kansans in their job searches.

(AP) – A group of music educators is encouraging grassroots advocacy to protect music programs in Kansas schools.

Members of the Kansas Music Educators Association say they are fighting against a steep drop in funding for their programs.

KMEA president Craig Manteuffel of Hays recently told the state board of education that budget cuts have hurt school districts across the state, although some suffered more than others.

He says a 2010 survey conducted by the association found that since 2007, 185 music education positions have been dropped, including 124 positions eliminated in the 2009-2010 academic year.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports many of the 190 school districts that responded to the survey also reported reduced travel budgets, increased fees and teachers being asked to teach in subjects outside of their expertise.

(AP) – Investigators say a fire that destroyed a Manhattan apartment complex under construction was intentionally set.

Officials investigating the Nov. 6 blaze at the 96-unit Strasser Village Apartments said the fire appears to have been started in the northern section of the complex, which was scheduled to open next fall. The luxury complex had been valued at $7 million.

Investigators for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Riley County Police Department said in a release that damage estimates from the fire could exceed $2 million. The complex is located near a retail development, where the roofs of several stores were damaged by flaming debris.

Manhattan Fire Chief Jerry Snyder said the fire caused the largest dollar loss in Manhattan history.

(AP) – Three Kansas doctors are practicing some form of “concierge medicine” at Wichita medical offices.

Concierge medical practices typically don’t accept insurance and charge patients a membership fee. In return patients get 24-hour access to the doctor or his partner, same-day appointments, basic lab work and other service. The fee doesn’t cover specialists or hospitalizations.

The Wichita Eagle reports that Drs. Aly Gadalla, Doug Nunamaker and Josh Umbehr are in the minority among their physician peers in practicing concierge medicine.

Experts say doctors and patients alike have been drawn to the idea nationwide by a shortage of physicians, especially in primary care, as well as a desire by more physicians to take care of fewer patients.

American Academy of Private Physicians estimates there are about 3,500 concierge practices in the nation.

(AP) – Some abortion opponents have misgivings about a Kansas district attorney who’d handle any prosecution arising from an investigation into state officials’ shredding of documents that became key evidence in a criminal case against a Planned Parenthood clinic.

The clinic in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park faces charges in Johnson County that it violated state abortion laws, something it denies. The case against also originally included allegations that the clinic falsified copies of reports on individual patients’ abortions, but a judge dismissed those charges at prosecutors’ request following disclosures that two state agencies had destroyed their copies of the same reports.

Shawnee County Sheriff Richard Barta plans to investigate the shredding at Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s request. One set of records was destroyed by the attorney general’s office under Schmidt’s predecessor, and Schmidt said he wants to avoid a conflict of interest. Also, the state capital is in Shawnee County.

But Barta’s findings would go to District Attorney Chad Taylor, a Democrat, who won his office in 2008 by defeating a top deputy to former prosecutor Phill Kline, a Republican abortion opponent who filed the Planned Parenthood case in 2007. Taylor made his opponent’s ties to Kline a major issue in the campaign.

“It’s definitely going to be a concern at some point,” said Mary Kay Culp, executive director of the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life.

Kline said Taylor should remove himself from any potential prosecution because statements by Taylor during the 2008 campaign represented criticism of Kline’s prosecution of Planned Parenthood.

But Taylor spokesman Dakota Loomis said such comments are premature, along with speculation about how Taylor would handle the sheriff’s findings.

“We don’t even have reports to view,” he said. “We’ll wait to see what gets sent to our office.”

Kline began investigating abortion providers in 2003, while Kansas attorney general. He continued his investigation after losing his race for re-election in 2006 and becoming Johnson County district attorney. He held the county job from 2007 to 2009, losing the 2008 Republican primary to current District Attorney Steve Howe.

Kline filed 107 criminal charges in October 2007 against the Planned Parenthood clinic. Forty-nine counts, now dismissed, were tied to allegations of falsifying abortion reports.

The reports were filed by the clinic in 2003 with the state health department, and Kline, as attorney general, obtained copies from the agency in 2004. The clinic produced yet another set to a Shawnee County judge in 2006, as Kline’s investigation continued.

The clinic acknowledged that handwriting in the copies it produced in 2006 was different but said the information in them was exactly the same and clinic employees had made copies by hand. Kline concluded the clinic failed to maintain its copies as required by law and later created false ones.

According to a court filing, the health department shredded its copies in 2005, while the clinic was under investigation. Its secretary was appointed by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, an abortion rights Democrat who left office in 2009 to become U.S. secretary of health and human services.

Howe and Schmidt have said the attorney general’s office shredded its copies in 2009, about 18 months after charges were filed. The attorney general then was Steve Six, an abortion rights Democrat appointed by Sebelius to fill a vacancy. Schmidt, a Republican, defeated Six last year.

Six has declined comment. An HHS spokesman in Washington has said Sebelius has no knowledge of matters surrounding the Planned Parenthood case.

In his 2008 general-election race, Taylor faced Republican Eric Rucker, who’d been Kline’s chief deputy in the attorney general’s office and joined Kline’s staff in Johnson County.

Taylor described Kline and Rucker as a “1-2 combination,” though Rucker said he wouldn’t hire or have contracts with Kline.

Also, records show, in September 2008, Taylor received a $100 campaign contribution from Pedro Irigonegaray, an attorney for the Planned Parenthood clinic, and $500 from the Bluestem Fund, a political action committee with Sebelius as its chairwoman.

Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, said his anti-abortion group has enough misgivings about Taylor that it’s researching pursuing an investigation of the shredding with a private attorney.

“We’re looking into a couple of options,” he said. “The only question is: Does the government have the willpower to investigate this to the end?”

(AP) – A suburban Kansas City woman has been charged with fatally beating a 93-year-old man who she claimed tried to renege on a deal to pay her for sex.

Jackson County prosecutors announced Friday that 41-year-old Lisa R. Wilson of Independence has been charged with second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of Lloyd Houston.

Prosecutors say Wilson told detectives the sex deal fell apart in August after Houston pulled out a handgun, demanded his $60 back and ordered her to undress.

Police said Wilson told them she hit the naked man on the head with a lamp and ran from his Kansas City home. She left with cash and two handguns.

Houston died about three weeks later.

Court records did not list a lawyer for Wilson.

(AP) – The body of a 25-year-old man has been found southwest of Great Bend.

Barton County Sheriff Greg Armstrong says hunters found the body of Great Bend resident Damon Galyardt on Saturday.

Armstrong did not release the cause of death but said it’s under investigation.