JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Immigrant students who live in Missouri are suing several colleges for charging them a higher tuition rate than some in-state residents.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri on Tuesday sued the University of Missouri curators, Metropolitan Community College of Kansas City and St. Louis Community College on the students’ behalf.

The lawsuit claims the students lived in Missouri for years but recently were charged higher tuition, such as the international student rate.

The students were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents as children but are considered lawfully present.

St. Louis Community College spokesman Dan Kimack declined to comment on the lawsuit, but says the college follows state law.

Lawmakers this year passed legislation to block students without lawful immigration status from getting cheaper tuition than international students.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A group that wants to legalize casino gambling at Nebraska race tracks is ready to start gathering signatures to place the issue on the 2016 ballot.

Keep the Money in Nebraska announced Tuesday that it will ask voters to sign three petitions.

One is a proposed constitutional amendment to allow games of chance. Another would identify where casinos could be located and how they would be regulated. A third would impose a 20 percent tax on gross gambling revenues, with 75 percent going to the state and 25 percent going to local governments where the casinos are located.

Former state Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh, a spokesman for the group, says the state has lost billions of dollars in recent years to neighboring Iowa and South Dakota, where gambling is legal.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Secretary of State Kris Kobach says his office has filed three criminal election fraud cases in two counties alleging people voted in Kansas while doing so in another state.

Kobach confirmed Tuesday that his office filed two cases in Johnson County in the Kansas City area and one case in Sherman County in northwest Kansas.

The cases were filed Friday. Copies of the complaints were not available immediately.

Kobach told The Associated Press that each complaint deals with alleged double-voting incidents in 2010.

Kobach said the Johnson County cases were filed against a married couple and alleges each also voted in Arkansas. The Sherman County case alleges a man who voted there also voted in Colorado.

They’re the first cases filed under a new law giving Kobach’s office prosecutorial powers.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A southeast Missouri couple and a St. Louis-area man will split a $1 million lottery win.

The Missouri Lottery said Tuesday that Farah and Justin Shaddix of Cape Girardeau and Erik Kneebone of St. Peters correctly matched the five white-ball numbers in the Sept. 26 Powerball drawing. They purchased the winning ticket together at Jackson Mart in Jackson. Each of the three will get one-third of the money — $333,333 before taxes.

STE. GENEVIEVE, Mo. (AP) — A southeast Missouri woman is charged with three counts of attempted kidnapping and assault after allegedly trying to abduct three girls.

Police say 53-year-old Cynthia Wofford of Perryville drove a pickup onto grass Sunday afternoon in Ste. Genevieve, nearly hitting three girls, ages 12 and 13. Wofford allegedly made bizarre comments to the girls, telling them among other things that she was looking for a girl who went missing in Fredericktown in 1989, a reference to Gina Dawn Brooks, who was never found.

A bystander intervened and the girls ran to one of their homes. The father of two of the girls tried to stop the pickup, but it got away. Wofford was arrested eight miles away. Police say she had knife, plastic tarps and two shovels in the truck.

NEW YORK (AP) — A new report says Playboy will no longer publish photos of nude women as part of a redesign effort.

Executives for the magazine company tell The New York Times that the change will take place in March 2016.

The print edition of Playboy will still feature women in provocative poses, but they will no longer be fully nude.

Playboy editor Cory Jones contacted founder and current editor in chief Hugh Hefner recently about dropping nude photos from the print edition and he agreed.

The Times reported that playboy’s print circulation, once measured in millions, is now about 800,000, according to Alliance for Audited Media.

The move represents a major shift for the magazine, which broke new ground when Hefner created it and featured Marilyn Monroe on its debut cover in 1953.

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California lawmakers have taken the first step toward accomplishing something Major League Baseball could never do: Stop players from stuffing those big wads of chewing tobacco into their mouths during games.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill earlier this week banning the use of smokeless tobacco in all California ballparks.

The practice now seems headed toward the sport’s endangered species list.

California has five of Major League teams and owners themselves have been pressing for a ban for years. Last May they got one in San Francisco. In August they got another in Boston. And when Brown signed Assembly Bill 768 on Sunday one was already in the works for Los Angeles.

Major League Baseball still needs buy-in from the players, however, because the statewide ban that takes effect before next season has no provision for enforcement.

VAUXHALL, N.J. (AP) — Representatives from a Whole Foods store in New Jersey say they have fired the security company responsible for detaining a 70-year-old woman and banning her from any of the supermarket chain’s stores in three states after she accidentally left without paying for some cheese.

Margaret Dooley bought about $60 worth of items at the Millburn-Union location on Oct. 4, but she forgot to ring up the cheese hiding underneath her bag in the cart.

Officials say loss prevention agents brought Dooley to the back of the store where she was questioned, photographed and eventually banned.

Spokesman Michael Sinatra says the firm previously contracted at the location has been “removed and replaced.”

It’s unclear what security company was the prior contract holder.

Sinatra says attempts to reach Dooley haven’t been returned.

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — A 20-year-old man has died after crashing a stolen Cox Communications truck into a bridge guard rail in southern Kansas.  The unidentified driver lost control of the vehicle early Monday and hit the guard rail before flipping over and going into Sand Creek.  The Harvey County Sheriff’s Office says the driver died at the scene.

A Cox spokesman says video shows that the truck was stolen shortly before 4 a.m. Monday from a company parking lot in Hutchinson.

Authorities weren’t naming the driver until his family could be notified.

The sheriff’s office says the guard rail and part of the bridge will have to be repaired.