JACKSON COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating two more suspects for alleged theft.

On Monday night, Sheriff’s Deputies arrested two more Missourians following alleged thefts at the Holton Walmart store, according to Sheriff Tim Morse.

On Friday three suspects from Missouri were arrested in a multi-state theft ring at Walmart. This new incident is not believed to be connected with Friday’s arrests.

Jason Allen Aubrey, 30, of Bethany, Missouri and Kevin Lee Parker, 31, of Bethany, Missouri were arrested east of Holton on K-116 Hwy following a traffic stop by deputies.

During the stop, deputies recovered three T.V.s were recovered. A sound bar was also found in Atchison County that were all believed to have been stolen from the store.

The Sheriff’s Office recovered an additional T.V. from a Denison residence Monday evening believed to have been stolen by the same suspects. At the time of the thefts, theft detection devices had been removed from the products as well.

Both Aubrey and Parker are currently wanted by the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Parker was on house arrest and was wearing an ankle monitoring device.

Aubrey and Parker are being held in the Jackson County Jail on the following charges: Two counts of felony removing a theft detection device, two counts of misdemeanor theft, conspiracy to commit theft and criminal damage to property. Bond on both subjects is pending at this time.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Two top Republicans issued an ultimatum Tuesday that Kansas legislators act to curb the power of judges before they will allow them to vote on increasing public school funding to satisfy a demand from the state Supreme Court.

The declaration brought action on education funding to a halt after significant progress had been made.

The House had passed a bill, 71-53, that would phase in roughly a $520 million increase in education funding over five years. Meanwhile, a Senate committee on school finance approved a bill that would phase in a $274 million increase over five years. A debate by the full Senate on at least one of the bills was scheduled to be next

But Senate President Susan Wagle, of Wichita, and Majority Leader Jim Denning, of Overland Park, both GOP conservatives, said they won’t schedule any debate until lawmakers put a proposed constitutional amendment dealing with the courts on the ballot for a statewide vote. A House committee is reviewing such a measure, to strip state courts of the power to declare the state’s total spending on public schools insufficient.

Wagle and Denning said the state cannot afford the House’s school funding plan without a tax increase within two years. They questioned whether the Supreme Court would accept the Senate committee’s plan — undercutting GOP lawmakers who pushed it — and said the legal battles forcing lawmakers to consider higher spending must end.

“We have been put in a situation where we just have to stop the train,” Wagle told reporters. “We’ve been pushed into a corner.”

Denning said: “The madness has to stop.”

The Kansas Supreme Court ruled in October that the state’s current spending on public schools of more than $4 billion a year still isn’t sufficient under the state constitution, even with increases approved last year. The court says the constitution requires legislators to finance a suitable education for every child.

Kansas has been and out of education funding lawsuits for several decades, and the last one was filed in 2010 by four local school districts. The Supreme Court has issued multiple rulings forcing lawmakers to increase their spending, and GOP conservatives have sought regularly to amend the state constitution, without success. An effort by conservatives to oust four of the seven justices in the 2016 elections also failed.

Both houses must pass a constitutional amendment by two-thirds majorities to put it on the ballot. Republicans have the necessary supermajorities in both chambers, but GOP conservatives and moderates are split over an education funding amendment. Democrats strongly opposed such measures, seeing them as an attack on both the courts and public schools.

Top Democrats said it’s irresponsible for Wagle and Denning to block school funding legislation over a constitutional amendment that’s not likely to pass. The court gave the state until April 30 to report on how lawmakers fixed the problems it has identified with school funding.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, said the two Republicans were having a “temper tantrum” and acting like “school-yard bullies.”

“That sounds child-like, you know, ‘I’m going to pick up my ball and go home,'” said House Minority Leader Jim Ward, a Wichita Democrat. “You don’t get to do that when you’re under a court order.”

The House Judiciary Committee had a hearing Tuesday on a proposed constitutional amendment and was expected to vote on it Wednesday.

A coalition of business groups is backing the measure. Supporters argued that checking the courts’ power over school funding will protect spending elsewhere in state government and lessen the pressure for tax increases.

And at least a few Republicans voted for the House’s education funding plan primarily because, as conservative GOP Rep. Kyle Hoffman, of Coldwater, said, “We have a coalition willing to look at a constitutional amendment.”

In the House, Majority Leader Don Hineman, a moderate Dighton Republican, shrugged off Senate GOP leaders’ ultimatum.

“We have to work this out,” Hineman said. “We have an April 30 deadline to answer the court, and my expectation is that we will.”

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Kansas State junior guard Amaad Wainright is suspended from the Wildcats basketball team after being charged when someone allegedly fired shots from his car in January.

The U.S. Marshals Service says Wainright was arrested Tuesday in Kansas City. He is charged with obstruction, and fleeing and eluding.

The charges stem from an incident Jan. 17 in Overland Park, Kansas. Police said a passenger in Wainright’s car fired a handgun into another car in a possible road rage incident. No one was injured and no one was arrested at the time.

Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor says Wainright has been suspended indefinitely. His status will be re-evaluated after the investigation is complete.

Wainright a junior guard, didn’t respond to an email to his student account Tuesday.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – The Missouri House has passed a bill that would ban most abortions after a fetus is 20 weeks old.

The legislation passed 117-31 Tuesday includes an exception only when a woman’s life is endangered or she is at “serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.” It now goes to the Senate.

Supporters say the goal is to prohibit most abortions after an age at which they believe fetuses can feel pain. Opponents argued women should have the choice to receive an abortion if their fetuses develop extreme abnormalities.

The Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, said that as of the end of last year there were 18 states with laws banning most abortions at 20 weeks after fertilization.

SHAWNEE, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for driving drunk and injuring a bicyclist.

40-year-old Kevin Eugene Hall was sentenced Monday after a jury found him guilty of aggravated battery and fleeing the scene of an injury accident.

Prosecutors say Hall had been drinking at a bar and purchased alcohol at a store in the hours before the September 2015 crash in Shawnee.

Hall’s attorneys had argued there’s no evidence of Hall’s intoxication level at the time of the wreck or that he was the driver of the vehicle when the bicyclist was hit.

Evidence included Hall’s phone in the vicinity around the time of the crash and blood on Hall’s car linking the victim.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) – Springfield police say they are searching for a suspect in two recent homicides that appear to be connected.

Police said in a news release Tuesday they are looking for 24-year-old Willie Haughton in the shooting deaths of Lance Loveless and Robert Hewitt.

Hewitt was killed Sunday and Loveless died March 27. They were both found in cars less than 2 miles apart in north Springfield. Police say Haughton met both men shortly before their deaths.

Police have not released a possible motive for the killings and no charges have been filed.

Haughton is a black man who is 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighs about 168 pounds.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican legislators in Kansas have advanced two rival plans that increase funding for public schools in hopes of satisfying a state Supreme Court mandate.

The House approved a bill Tuesday that would phase in a roughly $520 million increase in education funding over five years. The 71-53 vote sent it to the Senate.

But a special GOP-controlled Senate committee on school finance approved its own bill Tuesday. It would phase in an increase of $274 million over five years while targeting much of the new money to early childhood education. A Senate debate is next.

Many Democrats question whether either plan would satisfy the Supreme Court.

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.