LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The University of Louisville has hired the University of Kansas’ provost as its new president.

U of L trustees voted during a special meeting Tuesday to hire Neeli Bendapudi, completing a nationwide search for the next leader of the scandal-plagued university. The university has been searching for a full-time president since James Ramsey was forced out as campus president in 2016.

Ramsey was forced to resign after coming under attack for his lucrative compensation and a series of other scandals.

Greg Postel has been serving as U of L’s interim president since early 2017.

HOUSTON, Mo. (AP) – Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for one of the suspects in the slaying of a transgender teenager in southwest Missouri.

Court records show a notice requesting the sentence for Andrew Vrba was filed Monday. Vrba is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Ally Steinfeld. Vrba’s attorney declined comment ahead of a hearing Tuesday.

Investigators say Steinfeld was stabbed several times, including in the genitals. Her eyes were gouged out and her body was set on fire. Officials say the slaying wasn’t a hate crime. Steinfeld’s remains were found in September near Cabool.

One female suspect has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for second-degree murder, while another awaits a first-degree murder trial. A fourth suspect has pleaded not guilty to abandonment of a corpse.

TOPEKA, KAN. – A Colorado man pleaded guilty Monday to robbing a bank in Manhattan, Kan., according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister.

Kenneth Wayne Fisher, Jr., 42, formerly of Colorado Springs, Colo., pleaded guilty to one count of bank robbery. Fisher admitted that on Aug. 26, 2015, he robbed Sunflower State Bank at 2710 Anderson Ave. in Manhattan. He gave a teller a note saying, “Give me the money and no tricks.”

A few months after the Manhattan robbery, Fisher was arrested in California. He was extradited to Arkansas to face charges of robbing a bank in Bentonville, Ark., on Aug. 28, 2015. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than eight years for the Arkansas robbery.

  Sentencing in this case is set for July 9. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison. McAllister commended the Riley County Police Department, the FBI and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Maag for their work on the case.

DALLAS (AP) — One of the designers of a massive Kansas water park slide that decapitated a 10-year-old boy has been arrested in Texas, federal authorities said Tuesday.

Trent Touchstone, chief deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service in Dallas, said 72-year-old John Timothy Schooley was met by agents at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as he arrived on a flight late Monday.

Schooley was being held without bond at the Dallas County jail pending his arraignment and extradition to Kansas on charges that include second-degree murder. If convicted on that charge, he could face as much as 41 years in prison. Online jail records don’t indicate whether Schooley has an attorney to speak on his behalf.

A Kansas grand jury last week indicted Schooley and Jeffrey Henry , a co-owner of Texas-based Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts. The indictment accuses Henry of making a “spur of the moment” decision to build the Verruckt ride — touted as the world’s tallest water slide — and that he and Schooley lacked technical or engineering expertise in amusement park rides. A former operations director for Schlitterbahn also has been charged.

Caleb Schwab was killed on the 17-story Verruckt in 2016 when the raft he was riding went airborne and hit an overhead loop.

Schooley and Henry also were charged with 17 other felonies, including aggravated battery and aggravated endangerment of a child counts tied to injuries that other riders sustained on the giant slide.

Schlitterbahn spokeswoman Winter Prosapio said in a statement last week that the indictment “is filled with information that we fully dispute.” She didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking fresh comment early Tuesday.

The indictment alleges the ride violated “nearly all aspects” of longstanding standards established by the American Society for Testing and Materials.

“In fact, the design and operation of the Verruckt complied with few, if any, of the industry safety standard,” the indictment said.

By CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN

Republicans in the Kansas House couldn’t win enough votes Monday to increase school funding by hundreds of millions of dollars. Conservatives in their own party thought it was too much money, Democrats said it was too little.

House Majority Leader Don Hineman said legislative leaders would keep working toward a compromise and could come back with a fresh proposal on Tuesday.

“Hopefully we have a different outcome tomorrow,” he said late Monday, but added that the bill as written is “all we can afford at this point in time.”

Republican and Democratic legislators on both sides of the aisle have signaled they want to avoid a tax hike after passing a politically painful a $1.2 billion increase last year.

The bill that failed Monday by a 65-55 vote sought to end a school finance lawsuit by ratcheting up spending over the next five years. By the end of that period, annual school funding would be half a billion dollars higher than what was already budgeted for next school year.

Rep. Ed Trimmer tried but failed to tack on an extra $295 million to the ultimate annual increase to help schools deal with the effects of inflation. The Democrat said the bill, as it was designed, shortchanged schools on that front.

“I was trying to make it a true cost of living,” he said. “At least it was an improvement, getting us more on the right road.”

Democratic Minority Leader Jim Ward voted against the bill and said if Republicans want to bring in votes from his side of the aisle, they should consult with school districts suing the state about what would resolve the lawsuit.

The proposal to include more money to cover inflation appeared to take its cue from the districts pressing legal challenges on state funding. Their lawyers were listed on an informational sheet Democrats distributed during a caucus meeting earlier in the day.

An amendment from Republican Rep. Brenda Landwehr might have attracted more conservative votes, but at the cost of moderate ones.

Landwehr proposed allowing publicly funded vouchers for parents to send their children to private schools if the Kansas Supreme Court cuts off funding to public schools.

Rep. Chuck Weber, another Republican, said a policy like that could have won him over.

“We want to keep our kids going to school some place,” he said. “(Landwehr’s proposal) would have put pressure on the court to see how ludicrous it is to shut down our schools.”

The Kansas Supreme Court could block distribution of money to schools in the course of finding a funding law unconstitutional. The closest Kansas has come to that situation was in 2005.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans may pass their own plan out of committee on Tuesday. That bill is dwarfed by the House proposal that failed. It would add $50 to $60 million in funding for schools.

Sen. Molly Baumgardner, chair of the Senate school finance committee, said the idea is to address the court’s concerns by targeting extra money at early childhood education and other programs known to help students achieve.

Both the failed House bill and the Senate bill that could advance Tuesday propose funding increases that come on top of the $300 million approved by the Legislature last year. Most of that boost took effect this school year, and the final third will be phased in next school year.

The chairman of the House tax committee had said the House’s $500 million plan could be done without a tax hike. Yet a few months ago lawmakers balked at, and were even angered by, a similar proposal from then-Gov. Sam Brownback on his way out of office.

Meanwhile, a proposal to amend the state constitution to prevent schools from battling out funding levels in court will have a hearing Tuesday.

Attorney General Derek Schmidt urged the House Judiciary Committee to let Kansans weigh in by putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot.

After decades of sparing with the court over whether they’re providing “suitable” funding for public schools, Schmidt said, lawmakers appear as deeply divided as ever.

“I don’t think we’re closer to having a clear answer after a thousand plus pages (of studies and litigation) then we were when we started,” he told the committee.

The brand-new lobbying coalition behind the push announced their membersMonday. They include the Kansas Chamber, Kansas Farm Bureau, the Kansas Contractors Association and others.

Jim McLean of the Kansas News Service contributed to this story.

Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can reach her on Twitter @Celia_LJ. 
———–

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Latest on Kansas legislators’ debate over increasing spending on public schools (all times local):

5 p.m.

The Kansas House has rejected a proposal to phase in a $522 million increase in aid to the state’s public schools over five years.

The vote Monday was 65-55 against giving first-round approval to a bill that Republican leaders believed would meet a Kansas Supreme Court mandate to boost education funding. The court ruled in October that the state’s current spending of more than $4 billion a year is not sufficient under the state constitution.

Leaders of the House’s GOP majority immediately scheduled another debate on school funding for Tuesday.

Many Democrats did not think the spending increase was big enough, while some conservative Republicans wouldn’t support the increase in the bill.

GOP leaders said the measure was about as much as the state could afford without increasing taxes.

___

3:35 p.m.

Republican lawmakers in Kansas have blocked an attempt by Democrats to add more spending to a five-year education funding plan designed to satisfy a court mandate to boost state aid to public schools.

The House debated a bill Monday to phase in a $522 million increase in funding over five years. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled in October that the state’s current aid of more than $4 billion a year is not adequate under the state constitution.

Democratic Rep. Ed Trimmer of Winfield proposed making the increase in aid $295 million higher so the state would phase in an increase of $817 million over five years.

The vote was 76-46 against his amendment. Republican leaders said the bill is as much as the state can afford without raising taxes.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – The state of Missouri has paid out nearly $600,000 to a female corrections officer to settle another sexual harassment lawsuit.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch cites a report issued by the Missouri attorney general’s office showing that Michelle Findley received a check for $294,500 in February, and her attorney was paid $291,443.

Findley’s 2016 lawsuit accused male co-workers of using sexually derogatory terms toward her and showing photos of a penis.

After filing suit, she was stabbed by a person in a mask in the parking lot of the Kansas City facility where she worked. She transferred to another prison.

Lawsuits against the state cost at least $23 million last year. Sixteen of the 45 biggest payouts related to employment discrimination, and six of those involved Missouri Department of Corrections workers.