SHAWNEE COUNTY —The Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigation Division has been developing several suspects over the past couple of weeks in connection to the aggravated burglary that occurred in the 7600 block of SW Urish Road on August 26.

On September 10, officers from the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division and Fugitive Warrants Unit arrested Matthew J. Kolbek Jr, 24, Topeka, in the 1200 Block of SW Belle Terrace after Kolbek jumped from a 2nd floor window and attempted to elude officers through a nearby park, according to Sgt. Todd Stallbaumer.

Authorities seized a firearm, ammunition, 8.3 lbs of Marijuana, over 60 THC vape cartridges, and approximately $3000 cash from the residence.

Additionally, Emily M. Kratochvil, 21, Sahayvian J. Griggs, 18, and Joshua M. Long, 23, all from Topeka, were located and arrested over the past couple of days in connection to the incident. The four suspects were booked into the Shawnee County Department of Corrections with the following requested charges includin gAggravated Battery – Use of a Deadly Weapon, Aggravated Assault – Use of a Deadly Weapon, Aggravated Burglary, Criminal Threat, Criminal Damage to Property and Criminal Use of a Firearm.

Kolbek has previous conviction for criminal threat, aggravated battery and stalking, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

DODGE CITY, Kan. (AP) — Fire officials say one person suffered smoke inhalation in a fire at a meatpacking plant in southwestern Kansas.

The fire broke out Friday afternoon at the Cargill plant in Dodge City.

The station says Dodge City Fire Chief Robert Heinz reported the fire was on the roof of the rendering side of the plant, and crews found a fire in the area’s ventilation system. The blaze was extinguished in minutes.

Heinz says a spark from welding work being done at the plant ignited grease. He says one person had to be taken to a hospital for smoke inhalation, but is expected to recover.

DETROIT (AP) — Leaders of the United Auto Workers union have extended contracts with Ford and Fiat Chrysler indefinitely, but the pact with General Motors is still set to expire Saturday night.

The move, plus a widening corruption investigation of union leadership, puts added pressure on bargainers for both sides as they approach the contract deadline and the union starts to make preparations for a strike.

The union has picked GM as the target company, meaning it is the focus of bargaining and would be the first company to face a walkout. GM’s contract with the union is scheduled to expire at 11:59 p.m. Saturday.

It’s possible that the four-year GM contract also could be extended or a deal could be reached, but it’s more likely that 49,200 UAW members could walk out of GM plants as early as Sunday because union and company demands are so far apart.

Picket line schedules already have been posted near the entrance to one local UAW office in Detroit.

Art Wheaton, an auto industry expert at the Worker Institute at Cornell University, expects the GM contract to be extended for a time, but he says the gulf between both sides is wide.

“GM is looking through the windshield ahead, and it looks like nothing but land mines,” he said, citing a possible recession, trade disputes and the expense of developing electric and autonomous vehicles. “I think there’s really going to be a big problem down the road in matching the expectations of the union and the willingness of General Motors to be able to give the membership what it wants.”

Plant-level union leaders from all over the country will be in Detroit on Sunday to talk about the next steps, and after that, the union likely will make an announcement.

But leaders are likely to face questions about an expanding federal corruption probe that snared a top official on Thursday. Vance Pearson, head of a regional office based near St. Louis, was charged with corruption in an alleged scheme to embezzle union money and spend cash on premium booze, golf clubs, cigars and swanky stays in California. It’s the same region that UAW President Gary Jones led before taking the union’s top office last year.

Jones and other union executives met privately at a hotel at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Friday. After the meeting broke up, Jones’ driver and others physically blocked an Associated Press reporter from trying to approach him to ask questions. Jones has not been charged in the case.

Union spokesman Brian Rothenberg said Friday night that Jones remains in office, as does Pearson. “They didn’t make any changes,” he said.

In a 40-page criminal complaint, the government alleged that over $600,000 in UAW money was spent by union officials at businesses in the Palm Beach, California, area, including at restaurants, a golf resort, cigar shop and rental properties, between 2014 and 2017.

The union said the government has misconstrued facts and said the allegations are not proof of wrongdoing. “Regardless, we will not let this distract us from the critical negotiations under way with GM to gain better wages and benefits,” Rothenberg said.

At UAW Local 22 in Detroit, picket line schedules for three days were posted on the lobby windows. The local represents workers at a plant that straddles the border between Detroit and the hamlet of Hamtramck.

The 24-hour schedules don’t list any date to start but a separate schedule has a group reporting to the union hall at 6 a.m. on Sunday. The factory, which makes the Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac CT6, is one of four that GM plans to close.

Here are the main areas of disagreement:

— GM is making big money, $8 billion last year alone, and workers want a bigger slice. The union wants annual pay raises to guard against an economic downturn, but the company wants to pay lump sums tied to earnings. Automakers don’t want higher fixed costs.

— The union also wants new products for four factories GM wants to close. The factory plans have irked some workers, although most those who were laid off will get jobs at other GM factories. GM currently has too much U.S. factory capacity.

— The companies want to close the labor cost gap with workers at plants run by foreign automakers. GM’s gap is the largest at $13 per hour, followed by Ford at $11 and Fiat Chrysler at $5, according to figures from the Center for Automotive Research, an industry think tank. GM pays $63 per hour in wages and benefits compared with $50 at the foreign-owned factories.

— Union members have great health insurance plans but workers pay about 4% of the cost. Employees of large firms nationwide pay about 34%, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The companies would like to cut costs.

If there is a strike, it would be the union’s first since a short one against GM in 2007.

The union may have to strike at least for a while to show workers that it got as much from the company as it could, Wheaton said. Some workers, he said, mistrust union leaders due to the corruption scandal.

Negotiators are usually tight-lipped about the talks, but a week ago, UAW Vice President Terry Dittes wrote in a letter to local union leaders that GM has been slow to respond to union proposals. GM answered in a letter sent to factories that said it is moving as quickly as it can.

“We are working hard to understand and respond to UAW proposals and we have offered to meet as often as needed,” the letter said.

SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating three suspects after a chase and shots were fired at police on Thursday night.

Just before 11:30 p.m., police attempted to stop a 2013 white Chevrolet Silverado for a traffic infraction, according to office Charley Davidson.

The vehicle was occupied by  29-year-old T.J. McMahan, 52-year-old Robert Boots, 24-year-old Skyler Bazil-Lounsbury all of Wichita and a known 25-year-old suspect.

McMahan, who was the driver, refused to stop, accelerated and fled from officers.  A vehicle pursuit ensued and  McMahan fired two shots at the officers while driving.  The first shot  fired was in the area of East 1^st Street and North Spruce Street and the second was in the area of East 1^st Street and North Estelle.  The officers were not injured.

The pursuit continued south on Hillside and ended at Range Street after the truck’s tires were flattened by a tire-deflation device during the pursuit.  All four suspects ran from the vehicle and into the neighborhood.

Officers set up a perimeter and utilized multiple police K-9s, drones, and a KHP helicopter to search for the suspects.  McMahan, Boots, and Bazil-Lounsbury were located in the area and arrested without incident.  Officers are working to locate the fourth known suspect.

McMahan is being held on a $250,000 bond on requested charges that include two counts of aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer, felony evade and elude, criminal possession of a firearm, as well as other drug and traffic-related charges.  Boots of Wichita and Bazil-Lounsbury were both jailed for outstanding warrants, according to Davidson. Boots was no longer in custody Friday. Bazil-Lounsbury has a bond of $150,000 bond for probation violations, according to online jail records.

Officers also located methamphetamine, marijuana, a gun magazine and live ammunition in the vehicle.  A handgun was also recovered during the investigation.

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YUMA, Ariz. (AP) — On a dirt road past rows of date trees, just feet from a dry section of Colorado River, a small construction crew is putting up a towering border wall that the government hopes will reduce — for good — the flow of immigrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

Cicadas buzz and heavy equipment rumbles and beeps before it lowers 30-foot-tall sections of fence into the dirt. “Ahí está!” — “There it is!” — a Spanish-speaking member of the crew says as the men straighten the sections into the ground. Nearby, workers pull dates from palm trees, not far from the cotton fields that cars pass on the drive to the border.

South of Yuma, Arizona, the tall brown bollards rising against a cloudless desert sky will replace much shorter barriers that are meant to keep out cars, but not people.

This 5-mile (8-kilometer) section of fencing is where President Donald Trump’s most salient campaign promise — to build a wall along the entire southern border — is taking shape.

The president and his administration said this week that they plan on building between 450 and 500 miles (724 and 806 kilometers) of fencing along the nearly 2,000-mile (3,218-kilometer) border by the end of 2020, an ambitious undertaking funded by billions of defense dollars that had been earmarked for things like military base schools, target ranges and maintenance facilities.

Two other Pentagon-funded construction projects in New Mexico and Arizona are underway, but some are skeptical that so many miles of wall can be built in such a short amount of time. The government is up against last-minute construction hiccups, funding issues and legal challenges from environmentalists and property owners whose land sits on the border.

The Trump administration says the wall — along with more surveillance technology, agents and lighting — is key to keeping out people who cross illegally.

Critics say a wall is useless when most of those apprehended turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents in the hope they can be eventually released while their cases play out in immigration court.

In Yuma, the defense-funded section of tall fencing is replacing shorter barriers that U.S. officials say are less efficient.

It comes amid a steep increase since last year in the number of migrant families who cross the border illegally in the Yuma area, often turning themselves in to Border Patrol agents. Many are fleeing extreme poverty and violence, and some are seeking asylum.

So far this year, Border Patrol agents in the Yuma sector have apprehended over 51,000 family units. That’s compared with just over 14,500 the year before — about a 250% increase.

The Yuma sector is the third busiest along the southern border, with officials building a temporary, 500-person tent facility in the parking lot of the Border Patrol’s Yuma headquarters in June.

It spent just under $15 million for the setup and services for four months, including meals, laundry and security, but officials are evaluating whether to keep it running past next month as the number of arrivals in Yuma and across the southern border have fallen sharply in recent months.

The drop is largely due to the Mexican government’s efforts to stop migrants from heading north after Trump threatened tariffs earlier this year to force Mexico to act.

The number of people apprehended along the southern border fell by 61 percent between this year’s high point in May and the end of August. In Yuma, it fell by 86 percent, according to government figures. Most people apprehended are either traveling as families or are unaccompanied children.

“Historically this has been a huge crossing point for both vehicles as well as family units and unaccompanied alien children during the crisis that we’ve seen in the past couple of months,” Border Patrol spokesman Jose Garibay said. “They’ve just been pouring over the border due to the fact that we’ve only ever had vehicle bollards and barriers that by design only stop vehicles.”

Victor Manjarrez Jr., a former Border Patrol chief who’s now a professor at the University of Texas, El Paso, was an agent when the government put up the first stretch of barriers along the southern border — in San Diego.

He’s seen barriers evolve from easily collapsible landing mats installed by agents and the National Guard to the sophisticated, multibillion-dollar projects now being done by private contractors.

Manjarrez says tall border fencing is crucial in some areas and less helpful in others, like remote stretches of desert where shorter barriers and more technology like ground sensors would suffice.

“One form doesn’t fit in all areas, and so the fence itself is not the one solution. It’s a combination of many things,” Manjarrez said.

The ease of construction varies by place and depends on things like water, Manjarrez said, adding that just because a plot of land is flat “doesn’t mean it’s not complex.”

He said building 450 to 500 miles (724 and 806 kilometers) of fence by the end of next year would be tough if that figure doesn’t include sections of the wall that have been built recently.

“As it stands now, contractors are building pretty fast,” Manjarrez said. The real question is whether the government needs to build that much fencing, he said.

The Trump administration may face those issues along with lawsuits from landowners who aren’t giving up their property so easily and environmentalists who say the barriers stop animals from migrating and can cut off water resources.

The Tohono O’odham tribe in Arizona also has expressed opposition to more border fencing on its land, which stretches for nearly 75 miles (120 kilometers) along the border with Mexico.

Near Yuma, the Cocopah Indian Tribe’s reservation is near the latest fencing project, and leaders are concerned it will block the view to its sacred sites, spokesman Jonathan Athens said.