HIAWATHA, Kan. (AP) – A sheriff in northeastern Kansas is warning of a new telephone scam from someone claiming to be with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

WIBW-TV reports  that several residents of Brown County have received the calls.

A caller tells residents that they’re targets of an investigation into purchases of diet pills and medications from
other countries. The victims are then told they’ll be arrested immediately at work unless they wire money to the DEA at a specified address.

Victims have told Brown County authorities that they’ve ordered medications from out of the country in the past. Investigators believe the scammers have somehow got hold of records of those transactions.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) – A line of powerful storms stretching from the Oklahoma border to near the Nebraska state line has left scattered damage to trees and buildings as it raced eastward across Kansas.

The National Weather Service received reports Monday afternoon and evening of thunderstorm winds blowing roofs off a barn and an out building in the southeastern town of Caney.

The violent weather system also spawned hail in much of the state. In north-central Kansas’ Ottawa County, a 2-inch-deep covering of hail slowed traffic on Kansas 81 around 5 p.m.

Jabara Airport in Wichita reported a thunderstorm gust of 67 mph shortly after 4 p.m., and emergency management officials in nearby Butler County reported a roof torn from a building and cars moved in a parking lot around the same time.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – A Kansas House committee has endorsed legislation that backers say would protect religious freedom but opponents believe would allow discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Monday’s adoption by the House Judiciary Committee on a voice vote sends the bill to the full House.

Committee chairman Lance Kinzer, an Olathe Republican, says the bill puts into law the language of Kansas court decisions for determining when government policies place too heavy a burden on practicing religion.

It also allows people to sue state and local government agencies if they feel their religious freedoms have been abridged.

Critics, including the Kansas Equality Coalition, claim the bill’s true intent is to discriminate against individuals based on sexual orientation.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) – While train-related fatalities dropped dramatically across the country in the last 20 years, the numbers in Kansas have remained steady.

The Federal Railroad Administration says Kansas has averaged 16 train fatalities per year in the last 20 years. Last year, 19 people died in train-related fatalities. Across the country, train fatalities dropped from 1,170 in 1992 to 644 last year.

Darlene Osterhaus, director of the train-safety organization Kansas Operation Lifesaver, has helped coordinate hundreds of workshops across the state to increase awareness of the dangers of trains. She says she can’t pinpoint why Kansas train fatalities have not dropped.

She told The Lawrence Journal-World that adding lights and gates at railroad intersections might help but even those efforts won’t prevent all fatalities.