WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — An employee of aircraft parts maker Spirit AeroSystems has been critically injured in a workplace accident.

The accident happened Friday night. A Sedgwick County 911 dispatch supervisor says the agency was notified around 7 p.m. that a man had suffered a chest injury. An ambulance took the victim to a hospital.

Spirit Aerosystems described the injuries as “serious” in a statement and said that an investigation has begun. No other details were immediately released.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – An Oklahoma custom home builder and a co-defendant have pleaded guilty to charges related to an interstate theft ring.

Court documents show that 44-year-old Richardson Homes owner Dennis Lee entered the plea Friday on charges of possessing stolen property and being a felon in possession of firearms. As part of a plea agreement, additional charges of possessing stolen property were dismissed.

Prosecutors say vehicles and other items were stolen in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Some of the goods were found at Lee’s Oklahoma City business.

Court documents also show that 53-year-old Kenneth Dale Smith pleaded guilty to a charge related to his attempt to hide how he came to own the stolen property.

Four other co-defendants previously pleaded guilty to charges in the case.

RENO COUNTY — A Kansas Department of Corrections inmate claiming double jeopardy over restitution in an aggravated battery case appears to have lost his argument.

Juan Garza, 34, was convicted in a case where the victim was beaten in the recreation yard of the central unit of the Hutchinson Correctional Facility in June of 2014.

The victim, Miguel Garcia was first taken to Hutchinson Regional Medical Center then transported to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita for treatment.

Authorities began taking money for the restitution from Garza’s canteen at the prison. According to Deputy District Attorney Tom Stanton, Garza claimed double jeopardy even though the order to pay restitution was part of the plea agreement.

Reno County Judge Trish Rose asked the state to file a journal entry indicating that it was part of that agreement. She’ll then deny his motion. The restitution totals $75,564.

Garza has previous convictions for kidnapping, robbery, drugs and aggravated battery in Reno, Stevens and Seward County.

HAYSVILLE, Kan. (AP) — A Haysville city worker rescued a dog locked in its kennel from inside a burning home.

The Wichita Eagle reports Kyle Berger happened to notice smoke coming from the roof of a house Friday afternoon and stopped to investigate.

Berger has 14 years of experience as a volunteer firefighter in Clearwater. Initially, Berger was searching to determine if anyone was inside.

When Berger got to the backyard, he saw flames coming out of the windows. Then he noticed a back door was unlocked.

He opened the door, saw a dog in a kennel and grabbed it.

No one was home at the time of the fire, and the dog is doing OK. But Sedgwick County Fire Battalion Chief Ray Hensley says not all the pets were rescued.

COMANCHE COUNTY — A Kansas teen died in an accident just after 1:30a.m. Sunday in Comanche County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2001 Dodge Ram pickup driven by Joaquin Alonso Rivero-Venegas, 18, Coldwater, was northbound on County Road 5 one mile south of Protection.

The driver lost control of the vehicle. It left the road, rolled one time, came to rest on its top and the driver was partially ejected and trapped.

Rivero-Venegas was transported to Comanche County Hospital where he died. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.

GREENWOOD COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect after a Sunday morning standoff.

According to a media release, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation assisted the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office with a standoff situation Sunday morning in Eureka.

A release from Sheriff Heath Samuels says the incident started about 12:30 a.m. in the 200 block of Mulberry Street.

RILEY COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities have arrested a suspect for allegedly stealing a police vehicle.

Just after 6:30p.m. Friday officers were conducting a traffic stop near the intersection of 5th and Yuma in Manhattan, according to Riley County Police spokesperson Hali Rowland.

During the stop involving several suspect one of them drove off in a police vehicle.

Officers recovered the vehicle a short time later, according to Rowland.

Just after 2:30 a.m. Saturday, police arrested Anthony Johnson, 32, Junction City, in connection with the incident. He is being held on multiple charges and a $32,000 Bond.  He has previous convictions for Aggravated Battery and Burglary, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

By Jim McLean

The group of experts tasked with forecasting how much Kansas will collect in taxes raised their two-year estimate by $225 million after meeting Thursday to compare notes on the performance of key sectors of the state economy.

That’s better than the trend of downward revisions in recent years but not the robust increase that some lawmakers who voted to repeal Gov. Sam Brownback’s 2012 income tax cutswere hoping for.

“Obviously, this better than going the other way,” said Sen. Laura Kelly, of Topeka, the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s budget-writing committee.

But, Kelly said, it’s well short of what lawmakers will need to comply with yet another Kansas Supreme Court order to boost funding for public schools and to make a looming deferred payment to the state employee pension fund.

The message from Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, an Overland Park Republican, was much the same.

“There’s not that much wiggle room,” Denning said, saying that years of revenue and budget problems have created “infinite demands” on what are still limited resources.

“We have many, many resource needs,” he said.

Those include restoring cuts to the state highway fund, from which lawmakers will continue to borrow through the remainder of this budget year and the next.

The higher estimate anticipates increases in sales and corporate tax receipts. The forecasting group made no change in its estimate for individual income taxes, preferring to wait and see what comes in from business owners exempted by Brownback’s tax plan who must resume paying taxes on their pass-through, or non-salaried, income.

If the estimates are on target the the state would have ending balances of $380 million in the current fiscal year and about $475 million the following year.

However, ending balances of that size would likely be tempting targets for lawmakers needing additional cash to increase funding for public schools, maintain state highways and shore up the state employee pension plan.

Mixed signals

Sam Williams, secretary of the Kansas Department of Revenue, said increasing sales and corporate tax collections are indications “of an improved economic climate taking root.”

There also are some warning signs in the data.

“There are certain sectors that are showing positive signs of growth. There are others, like the agriculture and energy sectors, that continue to struggle,” said Shawn Sullivan, Brownback’s budget director.

The struggles of those two key sectors of the Kansas economy are cause for concern, said Raney Gilliland, director of the Kansas Legislative Research Department.

“The value of Kansas crop production in 2017 is likely to be at its lowest level since 2009,” Gilliland said, noting that low commodity prices were depressing land values and making it harder for farmers to access operating capital.

Cautious projections

The picture is even bleaker for the oil and gas industry. Low prices and rapidly declining natural gas production in southwest Kansas are dramatically reducing severance tax revenues. Collections that totaled $125.8 million as recently as 2014 will drop to $37.5 million next year and $30 million the year after, according to projections.

The forecast also anticipates a reduction in both personal income and the state’s gross domestic product.

The experts see a disconnect between the rising sales, income and corporate tax receipts that Williams said were signs of an improving economy and the factors depressing wages and the state’s economic output.

“I think that’s one of the reasons we are somewhat cautious in the projections,” Gilliland said.

Jim McLean is managing director of the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A grand jury has indicted a Kansas woman on first-degree murder and other charges for her alleged involvement in a triple homicide.

Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay announced the charges Saturday against 31-year-old Kora Liles, of Topeka. Her attorney didn’t immediately reply to Associated Press requests for comment.

Authorities say 19-year-old Matthew Leavitt, 38-year-old Nicole Fisher, and 20-year-old Luke Davis were strangled or smothered to death with trash bags in March and that the violence stemmed from an unproven rape allegation against Leavitt.

Four other people have been charged in the case, including a man who says he was forced to participate to save his own life. Three of them are awaiting trial, while one man has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.

GREENWOOD, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi judge has declared a mistrial in the case of a man charged with killing his wife.

Edward Broom was arrested in January 2016 in Manhattan, Kansas, where he had moved after the death of his wife, Lakeyla Broom. She was killed in the couple’s home in Greenwood, Mississippi, in September 2014.

The Greenwood Commonwealth reports the mistrial was declared Wednesday. State law says all 12 jurors must agree before they can convict someone of murder, which is punishable by life in prison.

District Attorney Tim Jones says he will retry Edward Broom early next year.

Judge Carol White-Richard said she will decide later whether Broom can be released from jail while waiting for the second trial.