Authorities say there were increased reports of a possible meteorite or meteor shower today, one of which briefly grounded firefighting aircraft battling a central Colorado wildfire.

One of the unconfirmed meteorite sightings came in from Salina around 6:31 PM, Wednesday.

Meteorologist Scott Entrekin of the National Weather Service says emergency officials in Chaffee County, Colorado reported a possible meteor in the skies near the Springer Fire. They briefly grounded four single-engine aircraft fighting the 1,100-acre blaze west of Colorado Springs.

Entrekin said Wednesday that the crews of 2 commercial aircraft flying over Liberal, Kan., reported what appeared to be a meteorite at 1:47 p.m. Central Daylight Time, or 12:47 p.m. Mountain time. He said the Colorado sighting occurred at about the same time.

The Federal Aviation Administration has yet to confirm reports of a meteorite. It says there were no reported disruptions to commercial airlines.

A former Wichita high school teacher pleaded guilty to having sex with a 15-year-old student.

Former East High School English teacher Kurt M. Brundage entered the plea Wednesday to two counts of indecent liberties with a child. Two other charges against the 32-year-old Brundage were dismissed.

Prosecutors say Brundage committed the crimes with a 15-year-old East High student in January 2010. He taught English at the school from 2006 to 2011.

No sentencing date has been set for Brundage, currently of Lawrence.

A two month investigation by the I-135/I-70 Drug Task Force leads to the arrest of 3 people and more arrests are possible.

Drug Task Force Commander Lt. Jim Norton says authorities stopped a red phosphorus meth lab cook in a former automotive repair shop at 2771 Centennial Monday evening.

Norton says 5 bags of methamphetamine from a previous cook were recovered. DTF members and an agent from the KBI dismantled the lab on Tuesday.

Arrested in connection to the meth lab were 44-year-old James K. Nixon and 49-year-old Donald R. Petty, both of Salina.

A 51-year-old Minneapolis man, Harold Wood III, was arrested after he arrived at the building and was in possession of a pipe with methamphetamine residue in it along with driving with a suspended license. A woman at the building who had a small amount of meth on her person has not yet been formally charged.

Lt. Norton says further arrest are likely of persons who were supplying the pseudo-ephedrine for the meth.

Due to the dangerous nature of the red phosphorus used in the meth making process. The building has been locked down by the city of Salina until it can be cleaned.

A preliminary report on a plane crash that killed a Kansas family in Florida says the plane quickly began losing altitude after changing its flight path to avoid bad weather.

The National Transportation Safety Board issued its preliminary report Tuesday on the June 7 crash that killed Junction City businessman Ronald Bramlage, his wife, Becky, and their four children.

The report does not discuss a cause of the accident. Instead, it details what three witnesses saw or heard shortly before the crash.

The Kansas City Star reports that one of the witnesses videotaped the plane as it dropped straight down into a swampy area 50 miles southwest of Orlando, Fla.

A final report with a cause of the accident is not expected to be released for several months.

The Kansas Department of Transportation is warning candidates and their supporters that the state doesn’t allow political signs to be posted alongside highways.

The agency says the rule applies not only to Kansas routes and U.S. highways but to interstates in the state’s 9,500-mile system.

KDOT is warning that if its crews find political signs in the right of way for a highway or interstate, they’ll confiscate them immediately, without notice. Crews will then take the signs to the nearest KDOT regional office and keep them until they are claimed.

If signs are claimed, the owner will have to agree not to post them alongside highways again. KDOT says it will dispose of signs that aren’t claimed after the November elections.

A Sedgwick County jailer is under arrest following allegations that the man raped two male inmates in their cells.

Sheriff’s detectives arrested the 21-year-old detention deputy Tuesday on suspicion of several offenses, including aggravated criminal sodomy and mistreatment of confined persons. The case was being presented to the district attorney’s office for possible charges.

The sheriff’s office in Wichita says it became aware of an initial allegation on June 3 and a second allegation Monday. In both instances, male inmates in their 20s said the deputy entered their cells in the middle of the night and sexually assaulted them.

Sheriff Robert Hinshaw said after the first inmate came forward that the deputy had been reassigned to duties involving no contact with prisoners.

With Kansans driving less and using more fuel-efficient vehicles, the state is studying the possible impact of a drop in fuel tax revenue.

The Kansas Department of Transportation says the decline in revenue from motor fuel taxes is a concern because that money is the primary way the state funds its highway projects.

The Wichita Eagle reports Kansans drove 82.2 million miles each day last year. That’s an increase from 81.9 million miles in 2010, but a drop from 83 million in 2006.

Leif Holliday, a traffic engineer for the transportation department, said traffic had grown 1 to 3 percent annually until 2007, when it dropped to levels seen five to eight years before.

KDOT spokeswoman Sally Lunsford says most states are collecting declining motor fuel tax revenue.

A 33-year-old Kansas City man has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for taking pornographic pictures of a young boy he sponsored through a local mentoring program.

Cory Stahl was sentenced Monday in in Kansas City to the maximum sentence for producing child pornography as part of a January plea bargain.

Prosecutors say Stahl began mentoring the boy in 2006, when the child was 9 years old, and sent erotic photographs of the youth to a man in Baltimore a year later.

The Baltimore man was arrested in September 2010 for distributing child pornography and told federal agents about Stahl, who was charged in January 2011 after apparently trying to kill himself by crashing his car into an oncoming truck on a northwest Missouri highway.