TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators are moving back toward distributing state dollars to public schools through a complicated per-student formula like one they junked two years ago.

A special House committee outlined an education funding plan Tuesday that uses basic concepts from the state’s previous funding formula.

The panel plans to have hearings Thursday and Friday. The Kansas Supreme Court ordered lawmakers to enact a school funding law by June 30 after ruling that the state isn’t spending enough on its public schools.

Republican legislators in 2015 junked the old formula in favor of “block grants” for districts.

The committee’s proposal would set an aid amount for each student, then add extra funding for students with special needs. School districts would be required to impose local property taxes to help finance their operations

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Authorities have arrested a naked man seen running from where two people were fatally shot and a third person was wounded in southern Kansas City.

The Kansas City Star reports that officers found a man and a woman dead Monday night in a vehicle that was in a ditch. The surviving gunshot victim walked into a hotel a couple blocks away and collapsed on the floor. Officer Darin Snapp says he is hospitalized in serious but stable condition.

The naked man was taken into custody after he was seen running several blocks from the crash. Investigators said the man appeared to be high on drugs and is a person of interest in the shootings.

A second female who also was in the vehicle sustained minor injuries.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Firefighters are investigating the cause of a fire that spread from a suburban Kansas City apartment complex that was under construction to nearly two dozen homes.

Overland Park Fire Department spokesman Jason Rhodes said investigators were interviewing witnesses Tuesday as crews monitored hot spots Tuesday at the multimillion-dollar CityPlace development. Rhodes says foul play is not suspected.

More than 100 firefighters battled the blaze before it was brought under control late Monday. The fire leveled one apartment building and heavily damaged a second. Debris from the blaze rained down on a nearby neighborhood.

Rhodes says at least 22 homes were damaged, with about a third of them sustaining significant damage.

Three firefighters were treated for minor injuries. He said it was a “blessing” that none of the injuries were serious.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Unemployment in Missouri has dropped again.

Data released Tuesday by the Missouri Department of Economic Development show the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate edged down to 4.1 percent in February compared to 4.2 percent in January.

The unemployment rate has fallen slightly in Missouri each of the past six months.

The state also gained more than 6,700 jobs from January to February. Some of the largest gains were in the leisure and hospitality field and the accommodation and food services industry.

Seasonally adjusted nonfarm employment is up by about 15,600 jobs compared to February 2016.

Last February, the jobless rate was 4.5 percent.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A new report shows that withheld funding and lack of follow-through effectively killed a program aimed at allowing Missouri residents receiving child support to accept wage hikes without losing state assistance.

The Springfield News-Leader reports the Hand-up Program was approved in 2012 to help lessen the so-called cliff effect of when the state cuts child-care assistance funding when a person’s income exceeds a certain threshold.

The program was supposed to help people receiving child-care benefits transition off the state allocations through a pilot program run by two organizations.

But a report compiled by the Missouri Department of Social Services says no one enrolled, due in part to former Gov. Jay Nixon’s budget restrictions that delayed the program from starting until January 2014 and cut it off midway through 2016.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A renewable energy company is again facing opposition as it seeks one of the final pieces of regulatory approval needed to carry wind power from the nation’s heartland to the east.

Missouri utility regulators began hearing testimony Monday on a request from Clean Line Energy to build a high-voltage transmission line from western Kansas across Missouri and Illinois to an Indiana power grid that connects with eastern states.

The Houston-based company already has won approval from other states, but the Missouri Public Service Commission rejected it in 2015.

Clean Line Energy is trying again — this time by showing it has Missouri municipal power companies lined up as customers.

Several landowner and farmer groups are questioning the true need for the project and the discounted rates provided to those cities.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska man has lost his challenge to a state law barring felons from having knives.

The Lincoln Journal Star reports that U.S. District Judge John Gerrard dismissed Wa’il Muhannad’s complaint last week, saying among other things that Muhannad failed to present facts backing up his assertion that the law was too vague.

Muhannad filed the complaint last July. He had a meatpacking business in Dodge County for about five years until he discovered he couldn’t legally have a knife with a blade longer than 3.5 inches because he’s a felon.

Muhannad said in his complaint that the law was too broad, and his attorney argued that the law doesn’t take into account legitimate uses for knives other than as weapons.

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say a fire erupted after a fleeing driver crashed a stolen pickup truck into an Independence house.

The Kansas City Star reports that the driver wasn’t injured and was taken into custody after getting out of the burning Ford F-250. The house also caught on fire, and officers helped a man inside escape from the flames. He was taken to a hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries.

Police say the driver took off Sunday night when he realized that Independence officers were following the stolen truck. The chase lasted about a minute before the crash.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The two remaining finalists for the Omaha superintendent job have withdrawn, forcing the school board to reopen the search it began last fall. The Omaha World-Herald reports the school board was expected to pick either Sioux City, Iowa, Superintendent Paul Gausman or Reading, Pennsylvania, Superintendent Khalid Mumin at its meeting Monday night.

Instead the board will have to come up with a new plan to replace retiring Mark Evans at the end of the school year.

Gausman and Mumin issued a joint statement Saturday saying they decided to withdraw because they believe neither had broad support from the board.

School board member Ben Perlman says the board felt that neither Gausman nor Mumin were a perfect fit for the district. So the board will have to keep looking.