WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas military academy wants to split up a federal lawsuit by 11 former cadets alleging the school fostered a culture of abuse.

Lawyers for St. John’s Military School in Salina argue in a recent filing the defense would be harmed by failure to hold 11 separate trials. The motion contends each ex-cadet’s claims are unique, and that a jury weighing all the claims in a single trial could get confused.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs say the school’s attempt to pursue 11 trials would result in protracted litigation, with similar witnesses and documents throughout. They argue a jury must hear about all of the alleged abuse to decide on punitive damages.

The lawsuit alleges the school encouraged higher-ranking students to discipline younger ones, leading to abuse.

Trial is set for March.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Former Kansas Labor Secretary Karin Brownlee has been named by a group of business and civic leaders as the spokeswoman for its efforts to promote wind energy.

Kansans for Wind Energy says Brownlee will travel across the state to meet with grassroots supporters.

The group’s director, Richard Martin, praised Brownlee as a conservative with a reputation for bridge-building.

Brownlee served in Gov. Sam Brownback’s Cabinet in 2011 and 2012, and the administration touted her efforts to streamline the Department of Labor.

But she left shortly after that, saying she was forced out in a disagreement over how to measure the agency’s performance.

Brownlee, an Olathe Republican, served in the state Senate from 1997 through 2010. She was chairing the Senate Commerce Committee when she joined Brownback’s administration.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — An adoptive father has died from injuries suffered in a double shooting that killed his wife and led to criminal charges against the couple’s son.

Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter has confirmed that 48-year-old Roger Bluml died Saturday morning. Bluml had been hospitalized since he and his wife, Melissa Bluml, each sustained a gunshot wound to the head at their Valley Center-area home on Nov. 15. Fifty-three-year-old Melissa Bluml died the next day.

Easter says investigators will be meeting with Sedgwick County prosecutors Monday to discuss amending charges against Blumls’ 18-year-old adopted son, Anthony Bluml, his 35-year-old biological mother, Kisha Schaberg of San Diego, and two of Anthony’s former classmates. Each of the co-defendants face charges that include first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Sandy Praeger is approaching her final year as Kansas insurance commissioner with a national reputation for expertise on health care issues and a lengthy, unbroken string of election victories as a Republican in a GOP-leaning state.

But Praeger acknowledges that she’d have trouble emerging from next year’s GOP primary.

The reason is the unusual niche she’s carved for herself within the GOP on health care issues. She argues that the federal health care overhaul championed by President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats was a positive step that could help millions of uninsured Americans and that, even with the problems with its administration, it’s an improvement.

Praeger is not seeking re-election next year and will have to step down in January 2015, after 12 years as the state’s insurance regulator.

 (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that Creighton University’s medical school must provide a deaf student with special equipment and interpreters to allow him to finish his last two years of medical school.

But the judge deemed that the university does not have to reimburse Michael Argenyi for more than $100,000 of his own money he spent in his first two years for those aids.

Argenyi was accepted to Creighton’s medical school in 2008 after disclosing that he was hearing-impaired and requesting accommodations for his disability to allow him to follow lectures and communicate with patients.

He sued in 2009, after leaving the school when the university refused his requests for interpreters — even though he offered to pay for them himself.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas authorities are reporting numerous slide-offs and one fatal wreck as a winter storm brings a mixture of freezing rain and snow.

The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings for a large section of central and eastern Kansas, and winter weather advisories extend into the southwest portion of Kansas. Forecasters say freezing rain started Friday night in southern Kansas. Throughout Saturday, a combination of sleet, freezing rain and snow was intensifying across most of the area under a winter storm warning. Up to 4- to 7-inches of snow is expected in a band across northeast Kansas.

The Kansas Turnpike Authority says one person died Saturday morning when the driver of a pickup truck attempted to pass other vehicles and lost control on some ice near the Haysville/Derby interchange.

LANSING, Kan. (AP) — An inmate has been sentenced to 10 years and two months in prison for escaping from a Kansas prison with two other men in May.

Fifty-eight-year-old Randy Ridens was sentenced Friday in Leavenworth County for aggravated escape from custody.  He could have been released as early as this month on his previous burglary and theft cases.

The other two men Ridens escaped with from the Lansing Correctional Facility face charge in Kansas and Missouri. Those two men, Allen Hurst and Scott Gilbert, surrendered in Edgerton, Mo., after several hours of negotiations with law enforcement. They were accused of trying to ambush officers who pursued them and of attempting to kidnap the Edgerton mayor.

Ridens was caught later that evening as he entered Topeka.

EL DORADO, Kan.(AP) — An anonymous donor has put up a $50,000 cash reward toward solving the 1999 disappearance of a southeast Kansas boy.

Adam Joseph Herrman was 11 when he vanished from his adoptive family’s mobile home in the Butler County town of Towanda. The parents never reported him missing, and the case only came to light when an adoptive sister contacted law enforcement in 2008.

Butler County Sheriff Kelly Herzet announced the reward Friday. Herzet says the donor is someone who wants to see closure for the family.

The sheriff regards the case as an open homicide investigation. No one has been charged in the disappearance, but the adoptive parents pleaded guilty in 2011 to collecting more than $15,000 in state adoption subsidies after the boy vanished.