KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing the former operator of a Kansas pizza restaurant that offered a higher wage to a 17-year-old boy than to a female applicant of the same age.

The Kansas City Star reports that the commission filed suit Tuesday against PS Holding LLC, the former owner of a Pizza Studio restaurant in Kansas City.

Jensen Walcott raised questions after learning in 2016 that her friend, Jake Reed, was told he would be paid 25 cents an hour more. The Pizza Studio manager then withdrew both job offers, telling the friends it was against company policy to discuss wages.

The pizza chain later said the manager was wrong and had been dismissed.

The teens told their story of pay inequality at the Democratic National Convention.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Lt. Gov. Mike Parson is urging lawmakers to call a special session to restore funding cuts to services for the elderly and veterans.

A Wednesday release from the Republican’s office says he’ll ask lawmakers to reconvene to undo those cuts. He’s also asking senators to consider action against a Democratic colleague who posted and then deleted a Facebook comment expressing hope that President Donald Trump is assassinated.

He’s holding a press conference Thursday to push for a special session.

Republican Gov. Eric Greitens in June vetoed a bill that would have restored funding for in-home and nursing care services for the elderly and people with disabilities.

Spokesman Parker Briden said Greitens hasn’t seen a proposal on the issue but said he’s willing to review any suggested policy changes.

LADUE, Mo. (AP) — A prestigious Missouri college preparatory school says it will discipline a group of students who exchanged a private series of racist, profane and sexual Snapchat messages that were leaked online to a wider audience.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in Ladue began investigating after a student posted screenshots of the messages on Twitter on Sunday. The private school includes students in pre-kindergarten through high school.

In the messages, at least three different people used an offensive racial slur against African-Americans. Another user asked if anyone knew how to submit an application to the Ku Klux Klan.

The head of the school, Lisa Lyle, wrote in a letter Monday that she was “heart-broken” and “deeply offended” by the messages.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — An Ameren subsidiary plans to try again to get state approval for a high-voltage power line after changing its route and getting consent from several northeastern Missouri counties.

Ameren said Wednesday it will apply later this month to the Missouri Public Service Commission to build the 100-mile line.

The utility regulatory panel granted Ameren conditional approval in April 2016, so long as it later got local approval to string the power line across roads. But a state appeals court struck that down, ruling that county approvals must come before state approval.

The case served as precedent for Missouri regulators to also reject a wind-energy project by Clean Line Energy Partners.

Ameren secured its last necessary local approvals Tuesday. Its new route follows the right-of-way for existing power lines.

SPOKANE, Mo. (AP) — Officials in a southwest Missouri school district are accused in a lawsuit of failing to protect a student after three baseball players allegedly pinned the teen in a dugout, touched him in a “sexually overt manner” and shoved a dirty condom in his mouth.

The Springfield News-Leader reports that the defendants in the suit filed last month include Spokane High School principal Chris Kohl, who was placed on paid administrative leave a week ago.

New superintendent Terry Jamieson says the district cannot comment on pending litigation.

The suit says a freshman who witnessed what happened in the dugout in the spring of 2016 was later sexually assaulted by some of the same people. The suit says Kohl failed to contact authorities, even though he was a mandated reporter.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Consultants are recommending a new jail in Kansas City to replace the outdated facility.

The Kansas City Star reports that consultants told Jackson County officials Tuesday that a new facility might cost as much as $180 million. Kansas City design firm HOK Inc. said that is a better option than spending $150 million to renovate the existing facility.

The consultants said a new jail would be cheaper to operate and safer. HOK says the four buildings that comprise the jail complex range in age from 20 to more than 80 years old. HOK says all of them are in various stages of disrepair.

The jail also is the focus of an FBI investigation. And the jail was raided earlier this year, with two guards arrested in a contraband smuggling operation.

CLEVER, Mo. (AP) — A former elementary school teacher in southwest Missouri has been charged with three counts of sexually exploiting a minor.

The Springfield News-Leader reports that the Christian County grand jury indictment alleges 38-year-old Adam Phillips created obscene material between January and June of 2010 by videotaping a minor engaging in sexual activity. The minor was under the age of 14.

Phillips taught at Clever Elementary for more than a decade. Superintendent Steve Carvajal says the district put Phillips on leave in 2015 when the allegations surfaced. Phillips later resigned from his position as a second grade teacher.

He was arrested following the indictment but was later released on a $25,000 bond.

Phillips’ attorney, Erica Mynarich, didn’t immediately return a phone message left by The Associated Press requesting comment.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City residents who don’t want to expand streetcar services are suing over a mail-in election on the issue that they say was unconstitutional.

The Kansas City Star reported Tuesday that four elderly residents filed a lawsuit in Cole County Circuit Court claiming it was challenging for them to vote this summer on a transportation development district expansion.

The vote could lead to an expansion of the downtown streetcar route from Union Station to the University of Missouri in Kansas City.

Residents had to get ballot applications online or at the Jackson County Circuit Court, then mail completed ballots. But the elderly plaintiffs say they don’t have computers or transportation. They want the vote nullified and asked to block future votes.

An attorney for the streetcar petitioners didn’t comment Tuesday.

TONGANOXIE, Kan. (AP) — Tyson Foods plans to invest $320 million in a new chicken-processing plant in northeastern Kansas that will employ 1,600 people.

The company announced its plans Tuesday during a news conference with Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and other state and local officials in Tonganoxie. Tyson plans to build the plant outside the town of 5,300 people about 30 miles west of Kansas City.

Tyson President and CEO Tom Hayes said the new plant will help the company meet a growing demand for fresh chicken. The plant will be able to process up to 1.25 million birds a week and is expected to open in mid-2019.

The company and state officials expect the plant’s payroll, its payments to farmers and its purchases of grain and utilities to total $150 million a year.

BERGER, Mo. (AP) — Federal and state documents say 13 million pounds of hazardous waste has been illegally stored in a building in an eastern Missouri floodplain for nearly four years.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that a federal indictment was filed this year in St. Louis against companies from Missouri and Ohio, and their officers. It alleges that nine million pounds of the waste was first dumped in Mississippi before being dug up and illegally transported to Missouri.

A lawyer for Penny Duncan, the owner of the Missouri company, Missouri Green Materials, said Duncan was unaware the material was hazardous. A lawyer for the Ohio company, U.S. Technology Corp. of Canton, declined to comment to the Post-Dispatch.

At issue is heavy metal-containing waste created when paint is removed from equipment on military bases.