TOPEKA — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect after an altercation with a store employee.

Just after 11a.m. Sunday, police were dispatched to Target, 2120 SW Wanamaker, Topeka where a loss prevention employee attempted to stop a suspected shoplifter, according to Lt. Kelvin Johnson.

During the incident, the alleged shoplifter attempted to punch the loss prevention employee and then pulled a knife and ran north with the items he had taken from the store.

A witness kept an eye on the suspect until police arrived. Following a brief foot pursuit, police captured the suspect identified as 29-year-old Casey J. St. John. He was booked into the Shawnee County Department of Corrections for Aggravated Robbery and Felony Obstruction, according to Johnson.

The loss prevention employee was not injured during the incident.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY — Two people died in an accident just after 3a.m. Sunday in Montgomery County.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2005 Jeep Liberty driven by Tyler J. Killian, 25, Jonesburg, was westbound on Interstate 70 north service road just east of Route NN.

The vehicle traveled off the right side of the road and the driver overcorrected. The vehicle returned to the road and the driver overcorrected again. The vehicle skid off the right side of the road, hit a ditch and overturned several times. The driver and passenger were ejected.

Killian and the passenger Abigail E. Kreysyman, 24, Jonesburg, were pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Schlanker Funeral Home in Montgomery City.

They were not wearing seat belts, according to the MSHP.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — R. Lee Ermey, a former Marine who made a career in Hollywood playing hard-nosed military men like Gunnery Sgt. Hartman in Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket,” has died.

Ermey’s longtime manager Bill Rogin says he died Sunday morning from pneumonia-related complications. He was 74.

The Kanas native was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his memorable performance in “Full Metal Jacket,” in which he immortalized lines such as: “What is your major malfunction?”

His co-stars Matthew Modine and Vincent D’Onofrio tweeted their condolences Sunday evening.

“#SemperFidelis Always faithful. Always loyal. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” Modine wrote, quoting the Dylan Thomas poem. “RIP amigo. PVT. Joker.”

Vincent D’Onofrio added: “Ermey was the real deal. The knowledge of him passing brings back wonderful memories of our time together.”

Born Ronald Lee Ermey in 1944, Ermey served 11 years in the Marine Corps and spent 14 months in Vietnam and then in Okinawa, Japan, where he became staff sergeant. His first film credit was as a helicopter pilot in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” which was quickly followed by a part in “The Boys in Company C” as a drill instructor.

He raked in more than 60 credits in film and television across his long career in the industry, often playing authority figures in everything from “Se7en” to “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remake.

The part he would become most well-known for, in “Full Metal Jacket,” wasn’t even originally his. Ermey had been brought on as a technical consultant for the 1987 film, but he had his eyes on the role of the brutal gunnery sergeant and filmed his own audition tape of him yelling out insults while tennis balls flew at him. An impressed Kubrick gave him the role.

Kubrick told Rolling Stone that 50 percent of Ermey’s dialogue in the film was his own.

“In the course of hiring the marine recruits, we interviewed hundreds of guys. We lined them all up and did an improvisation of the first meeting with the drill instructor. They didn’t know what he was going to say, and we could see how they reacted. Lee came up with, I don’t know, 150 pages of insults,” Kubrick said.

According to Kubrick, Ermey also had a terrible car accident one night in the middle of production and was out for four and half months with broken ribs.

Ermey would also go on to voice the little green army man Sarge in the “Toy Story” films. He also played track and field coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman in “Prefontaine,” General Kramer in “Toy Soldiers” and Mayor Tilman in “Mississippi Burning.”

Ermey also hosted the History Channel series “Mail Call” and “Lock N’ Load with R. Lee Ermey” and was a board member for the National Rifle Association, as well as a spokesman for Glock.

“He will be greatly missed by all of us,” Rogin said. “It is a terrible loss that nobody was prepared for.”

Rogin says that while his characters were often hard and principled, the real Ermey was a family man and a kind and gentle soul who supported the men and women who serve.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas woman pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in the death of her fiancé’s 2-year-old daughter last year.

Lindsey Thomasson, 25, entered the plea Friday in the child abuse death of Presley Porting.

The girl died in February 2017 in Gardner. Thomasson also pleaded no contest to a charge of aggravated kidnapping.

Assistant District Attorney Jason Covington said Friday that Presley died from blunt force trauma to the head, injuries she suffered while Thomasson was babysitting her.

He said the girl had severe bruising on her face and head and one of her eyes was swollen shut when emergency responders arrived.

Thomasson had told investigators that the girl was injured when a crutch fell and struck her on the head.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) —Videos posted online show officers handcuffing two men in a downtown Philadelphia Starbucks on Thursday. A white man in the video is heard saying he was meeting with the men and calls the arrest “ridiculous.”

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said Starbucks employees called 911 to say the men were trespassing. He said officers were told that the men had come in and asked to use the restroom but were denied because they hadn’t bought anything, as he said is company policy. He said they then refused to leave.

On Sunday the Starbucks CEO apologized for the arrests.

@Starbucks The police were called because these men hadn’t ordered anything. They were waiting for a friend to show up, who did as they were taken out in handcuffs for doing nothing. All the other white ppl are wondering why it’s never happened to us when we do the same thing. pic.twitter.com/0U4Pzs55Ci

— Melissa DePino (@missydepino) April 12, 2018

Starbucks is only the latest U.S. food chain to come under scrutiny because of the way black people were treated at one of its locations.

Some companies have been accused of systemic racism; others have faced complaints about isolated occurrences. Allegations of discrimination against minorities go back decades and include:

DENNY’S

Denny’s, with more than 1,700 restaurants, agreed to pay more than $54 million in a landmark settlement of racial discrimination claims with the Justice Department in 1994.

Thousands of black customers alleged they were refused service, forced to wait longer than white customers or overcharged at Denny’s restaurants nationwide.

The agreement was called the largest settlement ever under federal public accommodation laws. Denny’s promised to treat all customers equally in the future under the settlement, but incidents have continued.

Just last year, the company apologized and workers at a franchise restaurant in Washington state were fired after a group of black young men were forced to wait and then were asked to prepay for food.

CRACKER BARREL

Cracker Barrel agreed to pay almost $9 million in 2004 to settle allegations the restaurant chain mistreated black customers and discriminated against black workers.

More than 40 plaintiffs in 16 states alleged black people were denied service, assigned to segregated seating, subjected to racial slurs and served food from the trash. Also, about a dozen employees complained that black workers were segregated from white workers and generally received “back of the house” assignments such as cook and dishwasher.

Also in 2004, the company settled a Justice Department lawsuit in an agreement which included a finding that black customers at many of the country-themed restaurants were treated poorly.

Cracker Barrel has about 650 restaurants in 45 states, according to its website.

IHOP

IHOP, run by International House of Pancakes LLC, apologized last month after a waitress asked black teenagers to pay upfront for a meal at a restaurant in Auburn, Maine.

The chain, with more than 1,750 locations worldwide, said it had “zero tolerance” for discrimination. IHOP President Darren Rebelez called the episode an “isolated incident” and said the restaurant was reaching out to the teenagers to apologize.

Rebelez said “appropriate disciplinary actions” would be taken.

The restaurant manager said there had been problems with teenagers walking out without paying for meals, but that the waitress’ actions were wrong.

APPLEBEE’S

Applebee’s apologized, fired workers and closed a restaurant in Independence, Missouri, where two black women said they were falsely accused of not paying for meals in February.

Two women posted a video online showing a restaurant employee, a police officer and a mall security guard confronting them for “dining and dashing” during a previous visit, which the women denied.

The video showed the police officer laughing at one point and waving at the person with the camera. The city said it had reviewed the officer’s conduct but would not comment on the findings.

The Kansas City Star reported it was unclear whether the restaurant closure was directly related to the racial profiling incident because the mall where the Applebee’s was located was scheduled for a foreclosure sale.

Applebee’s has almost 1,970 franchise restaurants.

ST. LOUIS (AP) – The identity of a black man painted in famed artist Thomas Hart Benton’s mural inside the Missouri State Capitol has been uncovered after decades of mystery and speculation.

The Kansas City Star reports the experts on Benton and his 1936 mural, “Social History of the State of Missouri,” hadn’t been able to identify the only black man depicted in a crowd of white people during a political speech. The mural covers the walls of the House lounge in the state Capitol.

Retired Missouri University professor James Bogan published his findings Monday identifying the man as St. Louis black politico Jordan W. Chambers, a powerful leader in the city and national politics.

Bogan says he determined it was Chambers through Benton’s story about the mural, which was noted in his memoir.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A 38-year-old man who sent hundreds of emails to someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl has been convicted of soliciting sex.

The person he was communicating with was a sheriff’s deputy. Prosecutors say when Michael Henderson of Lawrence showed up with condoms to meet the “child” he was arrested.

Henderson was convicted Wednesday of electronic solicitation of child. He will be sentenced May 17 and could face up to 20 years in prison.

The investigation started after a resident told police she believed Henderson was trying to meet young girls for sex.

The email conversation, which involved 660 messages, began when the deputy responded to a Craigslist ad.

Henderson’s attorney argued Henderson was entrapped by law enforcement.

By CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN

Kansas lawmakers voted last weekend to increase public school funding over the next half decade — the latest chapter in a long and winding court battle.

            Five things about Kansas’ school finance fight

The story is far from over. Here’s what’s ahead in the coming weeks and months, and where it could all spin out of control.

Gov. Jeff Colyer plans to sign the school finance bill early next week.

After that, the funding boost is scheduled to start on July 1 — the new fiscal year — and ratchet upward in the four years after that one.

There’s just one problem …

… As it turns out, that bill had a pretty big error in it.

Lawmakers thought they were voting to ratchet up K-12 spending year by year so that schools would, by Year Five, get more than half a billion dollars above what they get today.

Instead, schools will get $80 million less per year than planned.

Colyer wants that fixed. So when lawmakers get back from spring break on April 26, expect some legislative deja vu: Conservatives arguing Kansas can’t afford another $80 million, moderates arguing it can, and Democrats arguing $80 million isn’t enough.

They won’t have much time to fight about it before the state and the school districts suing it have to turn in their homework.

April 30 is when the Kansas Supreme Court wants to see legal arguments — in writing — about that five-year plan.

If Kansas wants to end seven years of legal headaches, it needs to convince the justices the plan is enough to give kids an appropriate education.

Because one thing is clear — the plaintiffs will be arguing the opposite.

In the middle of brief-filing season, watch for a vote on changes meant to stop lawsuits like the current one.

Business groups and conservative Republicans are chomping at the bit to amend the state constitution.

But can they? It takes a two-thirds majority in each chamber to get to a public referendum. With 40 Democrats in the House, Republicans spearheading the charge there can only afford to lose a single vote from their side of the aisle.

A few moderate Republicans are already telling them to take a hike. So proponents either need to change some Republicans’ minds or win over some Democrats.

Lawyers for both sides will face off — yet again — for oral arguments.

The plaintiffs will say the five-year plan isn’t enough money to help the tens of thousands of students who aren’t even on grade level in math and reading. Why? They say schools will spend most of it just on keeping up with the inflation for all their regular expenses. So … not much will be left over for after-school tutoring, smaller class sizes or other changes needed for such large-scale academic progress.

The burden is on the state to prove them wrong. It will likely argue lawmakers took a look at school finance research, checked in with educators, and worked hard to target money where it’s needed.

In October, the justices said they would rule by the last day of June — just in time for the new fiscal year.

That would be pretty fast. The last time they ruled on the adequacy of state aid, it took them about three months after receiving each side’s briefs. The time before that, it took more than half a year.

And what will the court decide?

Well … any number of things.

• The justices could say Kansas needs to spend more. If that happens, they could give lawmakers time — say, another year — to fix it, or make them rush straight back to Topeka to get it done in a special session. And, yes, they could even shut down summer school or delay the coming school year by blocking the state from sending money to districts until it complies.

                Read about the year Kansas came closer than ever to constitutional crisis

• Or the state could win its case. Though even if that happens, the court could retain jurisdiction to make sure Kansas follows through on that five-year plan. (In the 2000s Kansas ditched a multiyear court-approved school finance plan part-way through.)
• Or the state could partly win and partly lose. For example, the justices could decide the state’s plan is pretty much okay, but unfair to poorer school districts and in need of some tweaks.
• Or neither party might win. The justices could decide a lower court or a specially appointed third party needs to take another look at some of the underlying facts. That would potentially mean many more months of legal wrangling before coming back to the Supreme Court for even more.

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