WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A woman who admitted to driving a teenage girl to Wichita to have sex for money has been sentenced to more than four years in prison.

The Sedgwick County district attorney’s office says 21-year-old LaDeisha Brown of Wichita was sentenced Monday to four years and three months in prison. Brown pleaded guilty in January to attempted aggravated human trafficking and two counts of commercial sexual exploitation of a child.

The 15-year-old victim told authorities she rode with Brown and Jaquett Dunbar to Wichita after she ran away from a Lawrence group home in February.

Dunbar, Wichita, was sentenced in October to six years and 11 months in prison.

The man accused of paying to have sex with the victim is scheduled for trial this month.

TOPEKA -Gov. Sam Brownback signed the final State of Disaster Emergency declaration Monday for 20 Kansas counties affected by wildfires that burned more than 651,000 acres across the state, according to a media release from the State Adjutant General’s office.

The declaration covers the period beginning March 4 and continuing. The declaration amends the previous declaration he made for three counties on March 5.

Named in the declaration are Barber, Cheyenne, Clark, Comanche, Ellis, Ellsworth, Ford, Harvey, Hodgeman, Lane, Lincoln, McPherson, Meade, Ness, Pratt, Reno, Rice, Rooks, Russell, and Seward Counties.

One death was attributed to the fires due to smoke inhalation and 11 injuries were reported. According to initial damage reports, more than 40 homes were destroyed along with an unknown number of outbuildings. One bridge in Meade County and three bridges in Clark County were also destroyed in addition to miles of fencing, utility poles and other structures. An unknown number of livestock were also killed.

The declaration activates the response and recovery portions of the Kansas Response Plan. Joint Preliminary Damage Assessments are being conducted to seek a major presidential disaster declaration.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas, Tom Beall, is not among federal prosecutors who were asked to resign.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports Beall will stay in office for the time being.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week asked 46 prosecutors who were holdovers from the Obama administration to resign.

Beall took over the job in April 2016 after Barry Grissom resigned. Grissom was appointed by President Barack Obama but Beall was not a political appointee.

Beall joined the office in April 2011 and was named first assistant U.S. attorney two years later. After becoming acting U.S. attorney when Grissom resigned, the Justice Department later promoted him to his current position.

GEARY COUNTY –A Nebraska man was sentenced Friday in connection with a September shooting by a Geary County Sheriff’s Deputy.

A judge sentenced Dylan Binnick, 19, Beatrice, to 59-months in prison after he pleaded no contest and was found guilty of attempted second degree murder, according to Geary County Attorney Krista Blaisdell,

Binnick was shot and wounded by a Geary County sheriff’s deputy in September in an incident on Skiddy Road.

Sheriff’s deputies responded to a rural Geary County in response to a report of a possible vehicle accident, with three suspicious subjects walking in the area of Skiddy Road and Skiddy West, according to Sheriff Toney Wolf.

When Deputies arrived in the area about one mile north of Skiddy Cemetery they made contact with two male subjects, and one female subject. “Deputies met the subjects in the roadway, got out, started to do some investigation on the accident that occurred and tried to find out who these individuals were,” said Wolf.

“Binnick was very apprehensive about giving up any identification or anything.

He finally gave up his identification, then drew a gun out of his waistband. The Deputy drew his weapon and shot Binnick,” said Wolf.

He was transported to a hospital in Topeka but required no surgery.

By SAM ZEFF

The president of the Kansas Senate says a new school funding formula needs to focus on the quarter of students who are at-risk and not meeting state standards. And simply adding money to a funding formula won’t solve the problem, she says.

Sen. Susan Wagle, a Republican from Wichita, says the federal Head Start program is a good model on how to help at-risk children.

“That at-risk student doesn’t have the advantage of going home and having mom and dad say, ‘It’s time to do homework. Turn off the television and let me help you with it,’” Wagle said on the KCUR political podcast Statehouse Blend Kansas.

Wagle’s comments come as the Legislature is facing a June 30 deadline to write a new school funding formula that meets the state Supreme Court’s test for adequacy and equity. In its ruling last week in the Gannon case, the court said schools will be closed if lawmakers fail to pass a formula that meets constitutional muster.

However, the justices didn’t specify an amount the Legislature must spend. “We have previously held that total spending is not the touchstone of adequacy,” according to the ruling. But the justices also focused much of their ruling on making sure that the 25 percent of children in Kansas whose work is below standards get much of the attention.

Wagle suggested that additional money could be spent beefing up other programs rather than just pouring it into a school funding formula.

“It’s almost an intervention in the home that helps you be successful in dealing with at-risk (students). You have to get the kids into the classroom. Some of them don’t come on a daily basis. Some of them are hungry,” Wagle says.

Wagle also says she has directed her staff to make sure Kansas is getting all the federal money it’s due for at-risk education from the federal government.

On Wednesday Wagle formed a new Senate committee to work on a new school funding formula as a response to the Gannon case.

Sen. Molly Baumgardner, a Republican from Louisburg and chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, was one of those appointed. She says it would be “folly” for the Legislature to ignore Wagle’s worries about at-risk children as they discuss education funding.

“Our goal is that we have a formula that doesn’t put us in perpetual litigation,” Baumgardner says.

Attorney Alan Rupe, who represented the school districts in the case, says lawmakers don’t have to reinvent the wheel to help kids in poverty or those who are English language learners.

“There’s a mechanism to do it: the old formula,” he says.

Rupe also worries that Wagle might want to move money around so at-risk students get a bigger share of the pot. “The money has to come from somewhere, and if you take it from other kids you’re right back in court.”

Some estimates say an additional $800 million might be needed to solve adequacy, while other estimates are lower. But any additional money for education will be a burden as lawmakers scramble to fix a $1 billion deficit over the next two years.

Sam Zeff covers education and politics for kcur.org and the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @SamZeff.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Faith leaders are urging Kansans to support Muslims in the state during an advocacy day at the state Capitol.

About 130 people gathered Monday morning for the event held by the Kansas branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Kansas Interfaith Action, a multi-faith advocacy group.

Moussa Elbayoumy chairs the Kansas branch of the council. He says he’s heartened by people who have “stood up with” the Muslim community and Muslims who offered to help protect recently vandalized Jewish cemeteries.

He told the crowd that members of faith communities would oppose any parts of President Donald Trump’s new executive order banning travel from six majority-Muslim countries that they think are unconstitutional.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The parents of a Wichita woman who was missing since Jan. 15 say a body found in a car pulled from the Missouri River was that of their daughter.

A car belonging to 20-year-old Toni Anderson, a Missouri-Kansas City student, was pulled from the river near Parkville Friday.

Police have not confirmed the identity of a body inside the car. But Anderson’s mother and father told Kansas City-area media the body was Toni’s.

Her mother, Liz Anderson, says no foul play is suspected in her daughter’s death.

Liz Anderson says it appears Toni became got lost while driving in the dark and ended up on a boat ramp in park. She says her daughter apparently tried to back off the icy ramp and the car slid into the water.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Department store operator Gordmans is filing for bankruptcy protection and plans to liquidate inventory of its 106 discount stores.

The Omaha, Nebraska-based company announced Monday it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Gordmans had posted losses in five of its last six quarters. It’s stock price fell to 6 cents a share Monday after the announcement.

Gordmans did not give a time frame for the liquidation sale. It has 2 stores in Wichita, 1 in Topeka, six in the Kansas City area and locations in 21 other states

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas police officer who was injured when he was hit by a car will be moving to a rehabilitation center in Colorado.

Wichita police spokeswoman Sgt. Nikki Woodrow said officer Brian Arterburn is scheduled to leave Wichita Monday for Colorado.

Arterburn has been hospitalized since he was injured early February, when he was run over by a fleeing and stolen SUV.

The 25-year police veteran suffered chest, abdomen and brain injuries when the vehicle hit him as placed spike strips on a road in south Wichita.

The man suspected of running over the officer, 31-year-old Justin Terrazas, remains jailed on several charges, including aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer.

CHASE COUNTY – A Kansas man died in an accident just after 4p.m. on Sunday in Chase County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2006 Suzuki Forenza driven by Bernardo Campos, 35, Wichita, was westbound on U.S. 50 a mile northeast of Cedar Point.

The Suzuki went left of center and struck the fourth axle of an eastbound semi on the driver’s side.

Campos was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Brown-Bennett-Alexander Funeral Home in Cottonwood Falls.

A passenger in the vehicle Miranda M. Harber, 31, Eureka, was transported to Stormont Vail.

The semi driver and a passenger from Southern California were not injured.

Campos and Harber were not wearing seat belts, according to the KHP.