LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — An autopsy report of a man found along Kansas 10 in Douglas County shows he died from an overdose of a prescription antipsychotic medication.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports 37-year-old Nathan Thurman was prescribed the antipsychotic drug at a state hospital before his death in July. Lawrence police found an empty bottle of the Quetiapine tablets inside his bag. They say he filled the prescription five days before his death and that the drugs should have lasted one month.

Douglas County Coroner Erik Mitchell says Thurman had a toxic concentration of the drug in his blood. The report didn’t state if the overdose was intentional.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The fall harvest of crops in Kansas is mostly in the bin now. Winter wheat planting is done. And calving is still months away.

Kansas farmers and ranchers are taking advantage of the seasonal lull this week to gather together to socialize, hash out farm policy aims and gather information at three major agricultural conventions.

On Monday, more 1,000 farmers head to Manhattan to layout the roadmap for public policy issues the Kansas Farm Bureau members consider of importance to agriculture.

Kansas Livestock Association kicks off its three-day convention beginning Wednesday in Wichita amid all-time high cattle prices.

Beginning on Thursday, the Kansas Farmers Union is meeting in Manhattan for three days. The director of the U.S. Agriculture Department agency that oversees fair and competitive trading is headlining their event.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — An effort is underway to ban smoking and other forms of tobacco from the University of Kansas campus.

The Lawrence Journal-World  reports that the Tobacco Free KU initiative has the backing of the student group Breathe Easy at KU and several university departments.

Tobacco Free KU says in report that the efforts started in spring 2013, when student and faculty surveys gauged opinions about the possibility of a tobacco-free campus. The University Senate passed a resolution encouraging Student Senate to develop a more restrictive smoking policy.

The university already bans smoking and e-cigarettes inside or near campus building. The goal is to expand the ban campus wide by fall 2015. KU got a $25,000 grant from the Kansas Health Foundation to help research the viability of going tobacco free.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The need to replace aging touch-screen and optical-scan election machines is looming in Kansas and Missouri.

But The Kansas City Star reports that the enormous cost of buying new election equipment has left legislators and budget officers with little appetite for the job.

Replacing all the voting machines in just Jackson and Johnson counties would cost an estimated $10 million to $20 million. That’s far more than lawmakers have set aside.

Election officials say the result is that voters in the 2016 presidential election may confront old, unreliable machines. The Presidential Commission on Election Administration warned of a voting machine crisis in a report it issued nearly a year ago.

Johnson County officials have started talking about a funding mechanism, including potentially issuing bonds for equipment replacement.

LIBERAL, Kan. (AP) — An amateur historian has solved the old mystery of what happened to the founder of the southwest Kansas town of Liberal.

The High Plains Daily Leader reports that Lidia Hook-Gray was researching on an online genealogy website when she discovered that Seymour S. Rogers, and his wife, Addie, were buried in a cemetery in Carthage, Missouri.

Rogers made his way to southwest Kansas after a failed first marriage and a stint in the Union Army in the Civil War.

He established a homestead with a sod house that doubled as a general store. He allowed travelers free use of his hand-dug well, earning the title of “that liberal fella.” Word got out, and the well became a popular stop.

The town picked the name Liberal because of Rogers’ generosity.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — More than 20 dogs have been rescued from a pet care business that caught on fire in Lawrence.

Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical says the fire was reported early Saturday at a strip mall. Topeka Capital-Journal reports that no flames or smoke was visible from the outside when the first company arrived.

But the release said that as crews investigated, they encountered dense smoke and fire inside Christal K-9, which provides dog grooming and boarding services.

The release says 22 dogs were rescued from the building, but one died. Fire-medical crews, veterinarians, bystanders and others revived the dogs using canine resuscitation masks donated to the department in October by the Chinese Shar-Pei Club of America.

The department says the dogs were later taken to area veterinary clinics.

SAM HANANEL, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is examining the limits of free speech over the Internet in a case involving the use of violent or threatening language on Facebook.

The justices will hear arguments Monday.

At issue is the case of a Pennsylvania man who was convicted of violating a federal law that makes it a crime to threaten another person.

He says he never intended to harm anyone when he posted a series of graphically violent rap lyrics on Facebook about killing his estranged wife, shooting up a kindergarten class and attacking an FBI agent.

The government says the true test of a threat is whether his words made reasonable people feel threatened.

A federal appeals court rejected the man’s claim that the comments were protected speech under the First Amendment.

By KHI NEWS SERVICE

TOPEKA — Several senior officials in the Kansas Insurance Department will be leaving their posts as Commissioner Sandy Praeger concludes her third and final term.

Four division directors have announced plans to retire, effective Dec. 5. Among them, they have more than 125 years of experience at the department.

Praeger, who was first elected in 2002, didn’t seek a fourth term.

Ken Selzer, an insurance industry executive from Leawood, will succeed her in January.

Selzer defeated four rivals for the GOP nomination and then defeated Democrat Dennis Anderson in the general election.

Praeger, a moderate Republican, bucked the party line in Kansas by generally supporting the Affordable Care Act. Selzer, a member of the GOP’s conservative wing, is opposed to the ACA. Selzer supports Kansas’ membership in a multi-state health care compact, which Praeger opposes.

If approved by Congress, the compact would exempt states from federal health regulations and possibly allow them to administer federal health care programs, including Medicare, within their borders.

Given Selzer’s differences with Praeger on key issues and her long tenure, it was anticipated that he would want to make significant changes in the department’s senior staff.

The four directors who are retiring as Praeger leaves office are Marlyn Burch, Ted Clark, Steve O’Neil and Neil Woerman.

Praeger, in a prepared statement, said Kansans owe the departing officials a “tremendous thanks” for their years of “outstanding service to insurance consumers and to state government.”

Burch, director of the department’s life insurance division, is retiring after 53 years at the regulatory agency. He served under five elected commissioners since starting at the department in 1961.

Clark, a former member of the Topeka Police Department and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, was director of the insurance department’s anti-fraud division. While at the agency, he headed the National Association of Insurance Commissioners Anti-Fraud Task Force.

O’Neil headed the consumer assistance office.

Woerman, who served as chief of staff to former Attorney General Bob Stephan, arrived at the insurance department with Praeger. He oversaw a modernization of the department’s information technology and helped spearhead similar improvements in other states as chair of the Information Systems Task Force in the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.