KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas City, Missouri, man has been ordered to spend 24 years in prison in the shooting death of a suburban father who had been trying to sell a gun on a grocery store’s parking lot.

Nineteen-year-old Fazon Swinton was sentenced Friday in Jackson County, where he was convicted in June of second-degree murder, attempted robbery, armed criminal action and leaving the scene of a shooting.

Authorities say 39-year-old Jacob Branter of Lee’s Summit was shot and killed in April 2016 outside a Price Chopper store. Prosecutors allege Swinton made arrangements to buy a handgun from Brantner but stole it instead, running off before exchanging gunfire with Brantner.

Swinton later was treated at a hospital for a bullet wound.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A federal appeals court has agreed with a lower court’s ruling upholding Nebraska’s law requiring picketers to stay at least 500 feet from funerals.

The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday said that all speakers, including members of Westboro Baptist Church, have a constitutionally-protected right to express their beliefs at funerals. But the appeals court also said that those rights “are not absolute and some time, place, and/or manner restrictions are allowed.”

Shirley Phelps-Roper, a prominent member of the Topeka-Kansas based church, sued in 2009, arguing, among other things, that the Nebraska law is selectively enforced.

The church protests at funerals throughout the country using anti-gay chants and signs because it believes God is punishing U.S. military members and others for defending a nation that tolerates homosexuality.

CAMDENTON, Mo. (AP) — A central Missouri man is charged with a felony weapons count after a deputy reportedly found a pipe bomb in his vehicle after a chase stemming from a traffic stop.

Thirty-one-year-old Joshua Crook of Camdenton is charged with felony counts of possession of controlled substance, resisting arrest, and possession and transport of a weapon. He also faces misdemeanor counts of unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia.

Camden County authorities allege that after Crook sped away from a deputy who tried to pull him over, his vehicle hit a mailbox. While later searching the vehicle, the deputy reportedly found what turned out to be a pipe bomb.

A state bomb squad rendered the explosive harmless.

Online court records don’t show whether Crook has an attorney.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A Columbia man was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison after admitting that he killed two family members in 2016.

EDWARDSVILLE, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Highway Patrol says three people died and two children were hurt in a collision in eastern Kansas.

CLINTON, Mo. (AP) — Authorities have arrested another man in connection with last weekend’s shooting death of a western Missouri police officer.

Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Bill Lowe says William Noble of Clinton was taken into custody Thursday and charged with felony tampering with evidence. Lowe says that during the course of an interview, investigators determined that the 35-year-old Noble had disposed of the rifle believed to have been used in the officer’s killing.

Lowe earlier said that a gun had been found in a creek about two miles north of Clinton.

Thirty-nine-year-old Ian McCarthy is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Clinton police Officer Gary Michael.

Lowe says the relationship between McCarthy and Noble is unclear.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — The telecommunications firm TeleTech plans to move into the former ITT Technical Institute campus in Springfield and add 200 jobs to its current workforce.

The Colorado-based company, which serves mostly health care clients, announced Wednesday the former campus will be a new satellite campus. The company will continue to operate a facility already used in Springfield. The new office will be opened in the next few months.

The Springfield News-Leader report s TeleTech employs more than 1,000 people in the Springfield metropolitan area.

Indiana-based ITT Tech closed all its campuses in 2016.

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — Newton County authorities say a man whose body was found near Joplin this week had walked away from a halfway house in Oklahoma.

Sheriff Chris Jennings says the body found Tuesday south of Joplin was 57-year-old Lanny Leon Holman, of Rocky, Oklahoma.

Jennings says a warrant was issued for Holman’s arrest in January after he left the halfway house.

The Joplin Globe reports authorities have not said how Holman died. But authorities say he had several bruises and appeared to have been beaten.

Investigators believe Holman was killed elsewhere and his body dumped along the road.

JUNCTION CITY, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Bureau of Investigation has identified the man who was fatally shot by law enforcement officers in Junction City.

The agency said Wednesday that 23-year-old Peter James Robbins was killed outside a Walmart Neighborhood Market in Junction City.

KBI spokeswoman Melissa Underwood says Junction City and Geary County officers responded early Tuesday to a report of an armed disturbance at the Walmart.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the officers located a man who was armed with two handguns on the sidewalk near the store’s parking lot.

Underwood says the man was told to drop his weapons and when the confrontation escalated, four officers from the two agencies fired at the man, killing him.

No officers were injured.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A former worker for the marketplace under President Barack Obama’s health care law says she’ll challenge Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday that Democrat Angelica Earl plans to create a campaign committee for the race soon.

McCaskill first took office in 2007 and is up for re-election in 2018.

Earl is a 31-year-old who lives near Overland in St. Louis County. She was recently laid off from her job as a verification specialist for insurance applicants under the Affordable Care Act. She’s never run for office before.

Earl told the Post-Dispatch that she opposes McCaskill’s call for bipartisan fixes to the health care law. Earl says that doesn’t go far enough and said she wants a single-payer health care plan.