TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — State authorities have opened more than 70 investigations into alleged sexual abuse by Catholic clergy after receiving over 100 abuse reports in less than six months, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday.

The agency's brief statement was its first update since announcing in February that it had appointed a task force to investigate reports of clergy abuse. Attorney General Derek Schmidt had asked the KBI to investigate following a Pennsylvania grand jury's report last year that hundreds of priests there had molested more than 1,000 children since the 1940s.

The K...