Three Topeka News Today

A police chase ends when authorities shoot and wound a suspected car thief near Pratt... a former state lawmaker with a troubled past runs for a school board seat in Wyandotte County... and a district in southeast Kansas moves to a four-day school week to combat an ongoing water crisis. Those headlines and more, inside.

Here's a summary of area headlines, as compiled by KPR news staffers.

Topeka police announced that Topekans Michael Tolan Jr., 16, and Eric Gonzales-Del Real, 18, were the two people killed in a traffic crash Sunday.

A loved one is being held in connection with first-degree murder in Saturdays killing in Topeka of 68-year-old DIanna Bloom.

Three Topeka police officers who shot and killed a man this summer were justified because the man charged at them with a knife, Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay said.

The officers shot Christopher Kelley, a 38-year-old Black man, on June 24 after responding to a report that a man was threatening a BNSF employee with a knife.

Three Shawnee County teachers, Elissa Jones, Jennifer Womack and Kaitlin Gile, have been awarded their certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Jones, Womack and Gile, who all earned the certification on their first try — a difficult task to complete — are three of 10 Kansas teachers who earned their certification.  Gile, who teaches in the Seaman School District, is a fourth-grade teacher at Northern Hills Elementary School. She earned her certification...