(AP) — Kansas State Board of Education members will open discussions next week about pushing for more state funding for public schools.

The agenda for Tuesday’s meeting includes a review of proposals for increased state aid and more money for professional development and school lunch programs in the fiscal year that starts in July 2014.

One proposal would raise the state’s base aid to school districts by $640 per student, or by almost 17 percent. The current figure for the next fiscal year is $3,852 per student.

The board will make budget recommendations to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback later this year and lobby legislators next year.

A lawsuit over education funding is currently pending before the Kansas Supreme Court.

AP) — A Wichita boy was spending the Fourth of July recovering from burns caused not by fireworks but a game involving matches.

Authorities say the 8-year-old boy initially told officers Wednesday night he was burned when stray fireworks hit a can containing a flammable liquid. When no fireworks could be found, police say, the boy admitted he was lying.

Relatives say the boy was lighting sticks on fire when a couple of them fell into a can of gasoline. The adults said the boy and other children were mimicking a video game that involves torches.

The boy was burned on his lower body. He was in fair condition Thursday at a hospital.

 

(AP) — A federal judge has given a former employee of the Garden City prosecutor’s office a few extra weeks of freedom before he goes to prison for theft.

U.S. District Judge Monti Belot granted an unopposed defense request this week to stay the 16-month sentence of Pedro A. Castro until July 26. His attorney made the request so Castro could sign documents at the closing for the sale of his home.

Castro had been scheduled to report Tuesday to a federal prison in Mississippi.

His sentence also includes an order to pay nearly $52,000 in restitution.

Castro worked as a diversion coordinator for the Garden City prosecutor’s office from 2009 to 2012. In his plea deal, he admitted stealing diversion funds during his employment.

A Wichita teacher facing misdemeanor charges for carrying a concealed handgun on school premises has now been fired.

Thirty one-year-old Daniel C. Nagel was arrested May 20 at White Elementary in Wichita on suspicion of carrying a concealed gun on school property.  Nagel haf been on paid administrative leave.

His first appearance in Municipal Court is July 8.

Nagel’s lawyer Nicholas Means says Nagel has a state-issued concealed-carry permit.

Current state law, however, prevents anyone other than law enforcement officers from carrying a gun into a school if a sign banning guns is conspicuously posted.

The state Legislature passed a law this year that allows school districts to designate an employee to carry a gun. But the Wichita district hasn’t addressed the issue.

Thursday 3 p.m. Update    (AP) — A 14-year-old northeast Kansas boy is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of his father during a custody exchange with the man’s ex-wife.

The teen was charged in the juvenile division of Johnson County District Court on Wednesday, one day after the shooting outside a business in Shawnee.

Police and prosecutors have not commented on a possible motive. The boy’s appointed attorney declined to comment while he continued gathering information.

Authorities have said the boy’s mother and stepfather brought him to the business Tuesday afternoon to exchange custody with the 46-year-old father. Investigators say the boy approached his father’s car and shot him with a handgun.

The Associated Press is not naming the father because of the boy’s age.

 

 

(AP) — Police in a northeast Kansas community have detained a 14-year-old boy after the fatal shooting of his father.

The shooting occurred around 3 p.m. Tuesday during a custody exchange in the Johnson County community of Shawnee.

Police said the boy’s mother and stepfather had taken him to a business in rural Shawnee to exchange custody with the mother’s ex-husband.

Investigators believe the boy walked over to a car where his father was waiting and shot him with a handgun. The mother and stepfather were inside the building at the time.

The father’s name has not been released. Police say they have no other suspects and don’t yet know a possible motive.

Police are investigating a home burglary in Salina that saw items worth thousands of dollars taken.

The incident occurred Independence Day morning in the 800 Block of West Prescott. Among the items stolen were a 2002 red and white Yamaha R6 worth $4,000 and a 2003 silver and grey Suzuki Hayabusa worth $7,000. Authorities say the home was entered through an unsecured window in the home’s the detached garage

(AP) – The White House says it can’t fulfill a request to deem a group that protests at soldiers’ funerals a hate group. But it says President Barack Obama believes such actions are reprehensible.

The Obama administration is responding to petitions through the White House website to label the Westboro Baptist Church a hate group and revoke its tax-exempt status. Almost 700,000 people signed five related petitions.

The group claims when American troops die, it’s God’s punishment for America tolerating homosexuality and abortion.

The White House says the federal government doesn’t maintain a list of hate groups. But it’s releasing a map showing where the petition-signers come from. The map shows high density in Kansas, where the Westboro group is based, and Connecticut, where church members threatened to picket Newtown victims’ funerals.

(AP) — Kansas officials are rethinking new regulations on checking the accuracy of large scales used to weigh agricultural products, recycling materials and scrap metal.

The state Agriculture Department has delayed enforcement of the new rules, which were scheduled to take effect July 1.

The biggest change would require private scale technicians have new installations reviewed by competitors and certified for accuracy. Many technicians around the state objected, saying the practice could void a manufacturer’s warranty.

The head of the Agriculture Department’s Division of Weights and Measures wrote to scale technicians last week recognizing those concerns.

 

(AP) — President Barack Obama is urging Americans on the Fourth of July to live up to the words of the Declaration of Independence by securing liberty and opportunity for their own children as well as for future generations.

In his weekly radio and online address, Obama commemorates the Fourth of July by looking back at the day in 1776 that a small band of patriots declared those in the American colonies “a people created equal” — free to think and worship and live as they please.

Obama says their declaration was “heard around the world.”

Obama says few bet that the Americans would win the revolution that followed. He calls it the first of many times the doubters of America were proven wrong.