A Kansas doctor and a researcher accused of falsifying data in a clinical drug trial are expected to appear in federal court this week after reaching an apparent plea agreement.

Court records show Wayne Spencer, a Topeka physician, and Lisa Sharp, a clinical research coordinator from Olathe, are scheduled Wednesday for change-of-plea hearings.

Sharp and Spencer were indicted in June on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and falsifying information required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Both initially pleaded not guilty.

Spencer and Sharp worked for Lee Research Institute, which was paid $30,000 by pharmaceutical company Schering-Plough to conduct clinical trials of an allergy pill on human subjects.

The indictment alleges the defendants concealed the fact that two test subjects were unqualified to participate in the trial.

(AP) – More than a dozen sex offenders are living in Kansas nursing homes, and there is no mechanism to alert the facilities of their presence.

The Wichita Eagle reported that some state officials are wondering if it’s time to regulate who is allowed to live in those homes or at least provide some protections.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation registry shows that 19 of the 5,868 people on the registry last week listed a nursing home as their residence. They have been convicted of crimes ranging from indecent exposure to rape.

Wes Bledsoe of Oklahoma City runs a long-term care advocacy group. He says said he thinks nursing home residents and their families have the right to know if an offender is living in their building.

(AP) – Authorities say a northeast Kansas man has driven into a home after he was fatally wounded.

The Riley County Police Department identified the victim as 28-year-old Ronald E. Taylor of Ogden.

Police say a 911 call came in around 10:30 p.m. Friday about an injury accident in Ogden. Upon arriving, officers found someone performing CPR. Taylor was rushed to the Irwin Army Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Neighbors reported hearing shots in the area before the 911 call. But police said officers were unable to pinpoint the location of the shots.

(AP) – Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon is sending members of the National Guard to Kansas City to help search for a missing baby.

Nixon said Saturday that 25 members of a guard police company will help look for Lisa Irwin, who was 10 months old when she was reported missing Oct. 4. Her parents say she disappeared from her crib sometime overnight.

Also Saturday, police searched an abandoned home after receiving a call about diapers and a backpack inside. But investigators say the items appear to have been in the house far longer than two weeks and likely wouldn’t offer any evidence.

Police also say a homeless man seen in the neighborhood has been arrested on an outstanding warrant but isn’t a suspect. Police want to question him as they had neighbors.

(AP) – A federal judge is to hear arguments Tuesday on whether to order the state of Kansas to resume paying a Dodge City clinic that lost its federal family planning money because of a state law aimed at defunding Planned Parenthood.

A notice posted Friday says the matter is set for a hearing before U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten.

The Dodge City Family Planning Clinic says it will close unless the court forces Kansas to resume payments. The new law requires the state to allocate federal family planning dollars first to public health departments and hospitals.

Kansas argues it has a sovereign right to distribute those federal funds as prioritized by its lawmakers.

An injunction ordering Kansas to resume payments to Planned Parenthood is under appeal.

(AP) – Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt knows how tight budgets can affect law enforcement and prosecutions. It’s a thin line, he says between balancing the demands of public safety with other government programs.

Budget cuts were at the heart of a dispute in recent days in Topeka and Shawnee County over the prosecution of domestic battery cases. While that issue appeared to be resolved, Schmidt said others are playing out statewide, including his own agency.

The attorney general oversees the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, which Schmidt says has been hampered by a series of small budget cuts in recent years. He says the KBI struggles to keep up with the demands of investigations.

Schmidt says the challenges forces all levels of law enforcement to get creative in their solutions.

An illegal immigrant sentenced to more than a decade in prison for repeatedly returning to the United States following deportation has exhausted his appeals.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused this week to hear a Kansas case that sets the standard in 10th Circuit federal district courts for what jurors must consider in deliberating criminal immigration verdicts.

An appeals court panel decided in June that the judge failed to make clear to jurors in the case of Eusebio Sierra-Ledesma that the government had to prove that he re-entered the United States with the “intent” to do so. But it did not overturn his conviction.

Jurors in re-entry cases must now be told that they must find the defendant knew he was coming illegally into the country in order to convict him.

(AP) – An indictment charging Kansas City’s Catholic bishop with not telling police about child pornography on a priest’s computer makes him the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official indicted on a charge of failing to protect children.

Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn on Friday became the first U.S. bishop criminally charged on allegations of sheltering an abusive clergyman. He acknowledged earlier this year that he and other diocese officials knew for five months about hundreds of “disturbing” photos of children found on a priest’s computer but didn’t take the matter to police.

Finn and the Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese are each charged with one count of failing to report suspected child abuse. They have pleaded not guilty and Finn says the diocese is working to review its reporting practices.

(AP) – The death of a 2-year-old girl in Topeka is being investigated as a homicide.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Gabrielle E. Thompson was killed the afternoon of Aug. 2 at a home in the city.

Police Capt. Jerry Stanley said this week that the case involved child abuse and that investigators consider it a homicide. Few details are being released while police await confirmation of the cause of death from the county coroner’s office. The coroner’s office is waiting the results of additional tests.

(AP) – It will cost adults more to attend next year’s Kansas State Fair but tickets for children and the elderly will stay the same.

Fair officials said Thursday that adult ticket prices will increase from $8 to $10 at the gate and from $5 to $6 for advance tickets.

Tickets for children aged 5 to 12 will remain at $3 in advance and $4 at the gate. Those 60 and older will pay $4 and $6, respectively.

Fair general manager Denny Stoecklein says the fair resisted raising ticket prices in recent years because of the struggling economy. But he says the increased revenue is needed.

The Kansas State Fair is one of the few in the country that is mostly self-funded.

A man shot to death by a Johnson County sheriff’s deputy was paroled last year from a Kansas prison after serving time for assaulting a corrections officer.

Johnson County authorities say 46-year-old Matthew L. White died after being shot Thursday.

The sheriff’s office says a deputy investigated when he saw a vehicle facing the wrong direction on an Olathe street. After the man fled, another deputy caught up with him. White was shot and died at the scene.

The department did not release any other details.

Neither deputy was injured.

The Kansas City Star reports that White served time for assaulting a corrections officer with a knife in Johnson County in November 2004. He also had a 2001 conviction for aggravated battery involving great bodily harm.

Salina Police Officers were dispatched to the 600 block of Steahlin Avenue Thursday evening in response to a call of two rottweilers attacking a dog owner and two smaller dogs.

Police officials say 56-year-old Dana Gustafson was walking his two miniature dachsunds when two rottweilers attacked, grabbing and biting one of the dachsunds. Gustafson reportedly kicked at the rottweiler but was unable to free the dacshsund.

Gustafson, licensed to carry a concealed weapon, then pulled a .38 caliber handgun and shot the rottweiler in the hind end. The rottweiler let go of the dachsund and both rottweilers ran away.

The owner of the rottweilers, 24-year-old Christine Cerda, was cited for having a vicious dog and having a dog at large.

Gustafson was not cited, but the City Attorney’s Office is reportedly reviewing the case.

The dachsund was treated for injuries and was not believed to be seriously injured. The condition of the rottweiler was unknown.

A 31-year-old South Hutchinson man is facing a possible life sentence after pleading guilty to raping a 9-year-old girl.

Jacob Ridley on Thursday also pleaded guilty to aggravated criminal sodomy of a child. Three charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement.

Police say the crime happened April 30. Ridley was arrested May 25 while he was jailed in Newkirk, Okla.

The Wichita Eagle reports that a Reno County judge ordered that Ridley undergo a mental evaluation at Larned State Hospital before he is sentenced.