WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A western Kansas woman is suing the state and some of the agencies involved in questioning and removing her 11-year-old son from her home after he spoke up at school about her marijuana use.

The Wichita Eagle  reports that Shona Banda’s federal lawsuit alleges the state and the agencies are depriving her of her civil rights to treat a debilitating condition.

The Garden City woman also claims officials have infringed on her parenting, and that local police and school employees improperly questioned her son without her permission in March of last year.

Spokespeople for Garden City public schools and Gov. Sam Brownback’s office are declining comment, citing the pending litigation.

Banda is acting as her own counsel in the lawsuit.

JOHN HANNA, AP Political Writer

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Before starting their annual spring break, Kansas lawmakers approved an education funding plan designed to satisfy a state Supreme Court mandate to help poor school districts.

The also approved an overhaul of the juvenile justice system and new protections for religious groups on college campuses.

But the Republican-dominated Legislature is likely to face difficult budget issues when it reconvenes April 27 to wrap up its business for the year.

Legislators approved a bill last month to balance the state’s $16 billion budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. But state tax collections have fallen short of expectations 11 of the past 12 months.

Lawmakers also have a host of other issues to consider. They include grounds for impeaching state Supreme Court justices and marijuana laws.

MEDICINE LODGE, Kan. (AP) — The Latest on efforts to contain prairie wildfires that have scorched Oklahoma and Kansas (all times local):

4 p.m.

An 87-year-old man who lost his 19th-century home to a prairie fire that has scorched a large swath of southern Kansas is recounting how he narrowly escaped the flames with his wife.

Korean War veteran Don Gerstner says the blaze that spread into Kansas from Oklahoma advanced quickly Wednesday on the Barber County home near Medicine Lodge he has shared for 54 years with his wife, Carol.

Gerstner says that when he looked out the kitchen window, he saw what he described as a wall of fire coming. He yelled for his wife to get her pocketbook, and the couple fled with their dogs, at times driving through flames to escape.

Gerstner says the couple watched from afar as the fire consumed their home, much of it built with bricks from the county’s old courthouse.

___

2:30 p.m.

Oklahoma Forestry Services says several structures, numerous cattle and more than 1,000 bales of hay have burned in a wildfire that has scorched about 620 square miles in Oklahoma and Kansas.

Forestry services spokeswoman Michelle Finch-Walker said Saturday the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management is still assessing the damage. She said officials estimate that 36 percent of the fire is now contained.

Livestock producers should contact their county Farm Service Agency, which has programs to assist producers who have lost cattle.

There is also a hay donation repository that’s been established west of Alva to accept donations of hay to producers.

ABILENE-A Kansas man successfully completed his first parachute jump on Friday.

Calvin Canniff, 93, Junction City, completed his tandem jump with the help of the K-State Parachute Club of Abilene.

The senior minister at the First Christian Church in Junction City Ronnie Roberts helped arrange the tandem jump.

A tandem jump is a skydive attached to a partner.

Roberts traveled to Abilene where the skydive occurred. He noted Canniff brought several layers of clothing due to the cool weather conditions at the higher elevations.

He was given a little instruction and they loaded up in the airplane and took off.

Roberts was watching when Canniff landed after his jump.

“As we were watching the plane someone yelled and we looked off to the west of us, and there were all kinds of chutes and jumpers coming down,” said Roberts.

The last jumper was Calvin and his partner.

“They came down and just floated down, an easy drop. Several of the guys who arrived earlier received him. So it was a nice easy comedown, said Roberts.

Canniff was smiling and seemed to be glad to be back on earth, and that his biggest concern had been the cold during the jump.

ALAN FRAM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Kansas senator’s comments expressing support for Senate consideration of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court pick have angered conservatives and underscored the passion the issue stirs in both parties’ activists.

Remind @JerryMoran that he represents the people of KS, not @BarackObama and the Democratic Party @JCNSeverino https://t.co/iNO9VJsz0x

— Judicial Network (@judicialnetwork) March 25, 2016

Republican Sen. Jerry Moran made the remarks at events in Kansas this week, days after Obama nominated Merrick Garland for the vacancy. They were reported by local newspapers and came to national attention days later.

According to reports in The Garden City Telegram and Dodge City Daily Globe, Moran said he favored Senate Judiciary Committee hearings and indicated an openness to a full Senate vote. He said it was extremely unlikely he’d back the nominee.

One conservative group, the Judicial Crisis Network, said “caving into” Obama was not serving Kansans.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Two men were charged in federal court Thursday for the armed robbery of a Walgreens in Blue Springs, Mo., which resulted in a third suspect being fatally shot by law enforcement officers, according to Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Shannon R. Thomas, 25, of Shawnee, Kan., and Deonte J. Collins-Abbott, 21, of Grandview, Mo., were charged in a federal criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo.

Today’s criminal complaint charges both Thomas and Collins-Abbott with the armed robbery of a Walgreens located at 9th and Duncan in Blue Springs. Thomas and Collins-Abbott are also charged with aiding and abetting each other to possess a firearm during a crime of violence.

According to an affidavit filed in support of today’s criminal complaint, law enforcement officers were conducting surveillance on Thomas and Collins-Abbott as part of an investigation into a series of 21 armed robberies of businesses in Independence, Mo., Raytown, Mo., North Kansas City, Mo., Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan., since Jan. 2, 2016. In all of these robberies, the affidavit says, the suspects have consistently displayed handguns in a threatening manner and behaved in a violent and aggressive fashion physically toward their victims, including shooting one victim at the Conoco located at 4656 Prospect Ave., Kansas City, Mo., on March 15, 2016. The robberies appear to have been committed consistently by at least four suspects who appear in surveillance video in most of the incidents.

Law enforcement officers saw Collins-Abbott leave his apartment and travel to the apartment of Jermon Seals in Shawnee early this morning. When Collins-Abbott and Seals left the apartment, the affidavit says, they both appeared to be holding handguns and were dressed in all black clothing. They left in Seals’s 2001 BMW X5 SUV and eventually stopped to pick up Thomas.

At approximately 3:09 a.m., the affidavit says, they stopped at the Phillips 66 at 1005 N.W. Coronodo Dr., Blue Springs. They entered the business and quickly left. According to the affidavit, they had attempted to rob the business.

They then drove to the area of 9th and Duncan in Blue Springs. The affidavit says they left the vehicle and walked up to the Walgreens, where they confronted an employee outside the business and forced the employee inside at gunpoint. Once inside, one of the robbers placed a firearm to the back of the employee’s head and took money from the front register. The other two robbers went over the pharmacy counter and took prescription grade cough syrup at gunpoint from the pharmacist. They then exited the business.

Law enforcement officers confronted them as they were walking back to the vehicle, the affidavit says. They failed to comply with the officers’ commands, according to the affidavit, and turned towards the officers, pointing a gun in their direction. Officers returned fire and Seals was struck in the exchange. Collins-Abbott and Thomas were apprehended by officers after a short foot pursuit.

Dickinson cautioned that the charges contained in this complaint are simply accusations, and not evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charges must be presented to a federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.