TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The suspect in the shooting of a father and son is now facing a murder charge after one of the victims died.

John Wesley Towner Jr. was charged Thursday with second-degree murder in the death of 34-year-old John Austin Jr. in January.

Towner originally was charged with two counts of attempted murder and other crimes.

Austin and his 57-year-old father, John Austin Sr., were shot on January 22 outside a central Topeka home.

Towner is being held on $100,000 bond. His jury trial is scheduled to begin June 11.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Latest on the debate in Kansas over increasing funding for public schools (all times local):

4p.m.

A new report from two out-of-state consultants says improving student performance in Kansas public schools could cost the state as much as $2 billion more a year.

The report released Friday stunned some legislators. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled in October that the state’s more than $4 billion in spending a year on aid to public schools isn’t sufficient under the state constitution.

The report outlined multiple spending scenarios, and all assumed that the state would boost its high school graduation rate from 86 percent to 95 percent within four years. That would be the nation’s highest rate.

The consultants’ lowest projected increase in annual spending would be $451 million, or almost 10 percent. The largest figure tops $2 billion. The consultants suggested phasing in any increase over five years.

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11:45 p.m. Thursday

Kansas legislators are receiving an education funding report that could determine how lawmakers respond to a state Supreme Court mandate to boost spending on public schools.

Legislative attorneys are slated to present the report Friday during a joint meeting of House and Senate committees on school funding. The study comes from two out-of-state consultants hired by Republican leaders.

The GOP-controlled Legislature’s work on a school finance law aimed at satisfying the court has been on hold for several months while lawmakers waited for the study.

The court ruled in October that the state’s aid to its school districts of more than $4 billion a year isn’t sufficient under the Kansas Constitution. The court hinted that funding might have to rise by $650 million a year but allowed for new cost studies.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Missouri is defending a prison sentence for a man who committed robbery and other crimes as a 16-year-old and now isn’t eligible for parole until he’s 112.

Republican state Attorney General Josh Hawley says in a U.S. Supreme Court filing that defendant Bobby Bostic’s 241-year sentence for 18 crimes doesn’t violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Hawley says in the brief filed Thursday that a Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that outlawed life sentences for people under 18 who didn’t kill anyone applies only to a sentence for one crime.

The St. Louis judge who sentenced Bostic disagrees. She now believes the term is unjust. She’s backing Bostic’s high-court appeal.

Now 39, Bostic has been in prison more than 20 years.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ newly-confirmed secretary for children and families improperly reversed an adoption decision for three children in foster care, a judge said.

DCF Secretary Gina Meier-Hummel recently said the children should go to their grandfather instead of being adopted by their foster family like originally decided.

Meier-Hummel’s decision “potentially placed all three children in serious harm,” according to Sedgwick County Judge Kevin Smith. He said he considered all necessary factors in selecting the foster parents to adopt and that the children should remain with them while continuing visits with their grandfather.

“Our intent was to ask for a 30-day continuance to do our due diligence, given the serious concerns raised by the grandfather about his grandchildren’s future,” Meier-Hummel said. “The court has the authority to make decisions in the children’s best interest, and we respect that authority.”

Smith’s rebuke came during a review hearing about David Rose Sr.’s grandchildren. Rose has sought for two years to adopt the children, and believes he wasn’t chosen because he’s a single black man living in a fourplex while the foster family is a married white couple in the suburbs.

“There’s one person whose bond has never been disrupted, and that’s my client,” said Jennifer Goheen, who stood in for Rose’s attorney who was unavailable.

Smith said the biggest reason for not choosing Rose was the possible involvement of the children’s biological parents, who he said had previously engaged in instances of physical neglect and abandonment.

Smith said he expects Meier-Hummel to attend a hearing about the adoption next month.

By JIM MCLEAN

A Kansas House committee on Thursday recommended the legalization of medicinal supplements containing cannabidiol, CBD, a marijuana extract used by some to control seizures and pain.

It also moved to keep an herbal stimulant, kratom, legal in Kansas.

Both decisions came in a regular update of what drugs are legal or illegal in the state. The rules are contained in legislation that still needs approval of the full House, and the Senate, before the governor could sign any changes into law.

The bill cleared the House Health and Human Services Committee that would make CBD legal, but only if the cannabis derivative contained no THC — the compound in marijuana that gets people high.

That substance, often referred to as hemp oil, has been promoted as a way to treat seizures and other medical issues.

“This gives us the ability to help people a lot,” said committee chairman Dan Hawkins, recalling the time a mother was forced to tend to her convulsing child during a legislative hearing on a CBD bill.

Several members disagreed, arguing that CBD is a “gateway drug” that should remain illegal.

“This is a bad idea,” said Republican Rep. John Barker, a retired judge from Abilene. He said legalizing CBD will make it “faddish to be taking hemp oil.”

“I’m here to protect the young people who are naïve in many ways,” he said.

But others, including Republican Rep. John Eplee, a family doctor from Atchison, said CBD should not be considered a dangerous drug.

“There’s nothing about it that could cause you to get high,” Eplee said. “It is simply a supplemental therapy that is, frankly, pervasively available in many other states.”

Law enforcement opposes CBD legalization, Eplee said, because it smells like marijuana.

“It’s really hard to tell when someone’s smoking a doobie,” he said, “or whether they just rubbed CBD oil on themselves.”

Several members of the committee said business owners in their districts had contacted them wanting to know whether they could legally sell THC-free CBD supplements.

It isn’t legal under current law, Hawkins said, citing a recent opinion from Attorney General Derrick Schmidt. That opinion has been contested, creating confusion in the state about the legality of CBD.

The committee also voted to remove kratom, an herbal supplement widely used for pain control by people attempting to wean themselves off opioids, from the state’s updated list of illegal drugs.

In 2016, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration attempted to add kratom to its list of most dangerous and addictive drugs. But an outcry from patients forced the agency to delay a decision pending more research and a public comment period.

That research, said Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, shows that kratom shouldn’t be considered “safe or effective for any medical use.”

Citing those concerns and emails she received from kratom users, Rep. Susan Concannon argued for including it on the list of controlled substances.

“They sounded so desperate and pleading,” she said, “that it smacks of addiction.”

But other lawmakers said that, lacking conclusive evidence of harm, they didn’t want to take something away that could be helping some Kansans. Besides, they said, state officials have the authority to ban the supplement in an emergency.

After reviewing medical literature and the autopsies of several drug overdose victims, Eplee, the Atchison physician, said he saw no compelling reason to ban something that appears to help some people.

“Once you get to a stable dose, you just take that and you’re off of a lot of other meds,” He said. “Life is better for you.”

Among the questions needing answers, Eplee said, is whether large pharmaceutical companies are behind the effort to make kratom illegal.

“Big Pharma is trying to get rid of kratom on the national scene,” he said. “They know it could replicate or replace … a lot of very expensive opioids.”

Jim McLean is managing director of the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks. 

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The organization governing fraternities at the University of Kansas is canceling a policy announced earlier this week that temporarily froze social activities for the 24 fraternities.

The University of Kansas Interfraternity Council voted Thursday to rescind the freeze, which was instituted Monday. The council said the proposed social activities freeze was unconstitutional and was imposed without following proper procedures.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports the council said the freeze was not voted on by the General Assembly and was supported by only two of the four executive board members.

The university said Monday the council had self-imposed the freeze because of systemic problems at the fraternities, although school officials have declined to be specific about the problems.

The four members were relieved of their IFC duties on Tuesday, pending an investigation.