TROY, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say an eastern Missouri man was intoxicated and angry about a Snapchat post when he beat a woman with a hammer.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the 21-year-old man was arrested on charges that include kidnapping. He’s jailed in Lincoln County on $200,000 bond.

Police say the 24-year-old woman sustained injuries to her head, as well as a cut on her hand and bruises. She told police the suspect was angry over a social media post and began striking her Sunday while driving away from a family event. Police say that at one point, he stopped, retrieved a hammer from the trunk, and hit the woman with the hammer as he drove.

The woman says she fled to a neighbor when the attack continued at his residence.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Investigators are trying to determine what led a gunman to open fire on two utility workers in a residential neighborhood in St. Louis, killing both of them before fatally shooting himself.

Police say the gunman walked up to the two men who worked for Laclede Gas on Thursday morning and started shooting, then turned the gun on himself. Police Capt. Mary Warnecke said, “It does not appear words were exchanged.”

Both Laclede Gas and the electric company Ameren Missouri pulled workers from the streets for the rest of the day as a precaution.

Police described the St. Louis shooter as black, and both victims as white, but there was no indication the shooting was racially motivated.

The names of the shooter and the men he killed have not been released.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas has seen its budget picture improve slightly after officials and university economists issued a new fiscal forecast that was a little more optimistic than the previous one.

The state’s forecasting group on Thursday increased projections for tax collections by a total of $156 million through June 2019.

The new forecast is the first positive one in three years and some good news for Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and the GOP-controlled Legislature.

The new forecast replaces a pessimistic one from November assuming that economic slumps in agriculture and energy production would continue through 2018. The state had been left with budget shortfalls totaling about $1 billion through June 2019.

But tax collections since then have been better than expected.

With the new forecast, the budget gaps now total $889 million.

FESTUS, Mo. (AP) — The owner of a suburban St. Louis nursing home where 60 residents had to be rescued after food ran out and trash piled up has admitted to stealing about $665,000 from Medicaid and spending some of it on strippers.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 52-year-old Johnnie Mac Sells pleaded guilty on Wednesday in federal court to two counts of health care fraud. Prosecutors say he also spent some of the stolen money on gambling and country club fees. The accusations were first made public at the hearing.

Problems at Benchmark Healthcare became so bad in September that the state shut down the Festus nursing home and moved the residents. At that point, employees were spending their own money to feed residents.

Sentencing is set for July 25.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A former small-town police chief in eastern Missouri is facing federal indictment alleging that he stole thousands of dollars from suspects.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in St. Louis on Thursday announced the indictment of 47-year-old Michael Thomas Smith, the former chief of police in Byrnes Mill, Missouri.

The indictment accuses Smith of taking thousands of dollars from three suspects in 2013 and 2014. Federal prosecutors say the police department had no records of the seized funds, which were never entered into evidence.

Smith is free on bond. A phone number for his home was not working and he could not immediately be reached for comment.

Byrnes Mill, with about 2,800 residents, is 30 miles southwest of St. Louis.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Relatives of a Springfield couple who died of carbon monoxide poison allege in a lawsuit that an improperly installed water heater is to blame.

The Springfield News-Leader reports that the sons of Dwaine and Judith Crigger filed a wrongful death lawsuit last week against DeLong Plumbing Heating and Air Conditioning. The Criggers were both 70 when they were found dead in July in their home.

The lawsuit says DeLong was “negligent and/or reckless” when it installed the hot water heater in 2000 and then serviced the appliance over the next 16 years. The suit says flue gas from the appliance was the source of the carbon monoxide that killed the couple.

The attorney for the plumbing company didn’t immediately return phone calls from the News-Leader seeking comment.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Representatives from University of Missouri student government organizations are calling on the university system to discontinue allowing its endowments to fund fossil fuels.

The Columbia Missourian reports the Missouri Students Association passed a resolution Tuesday requesting the university system stop fossil fuel support by 2022 and instead provide financial support to the green energy sector.

University spokesman John Fougere said in an email Wednesday that the fund is managed by nearly 50 external managers and the university is not involved in investment decisions nor does it track individual investment categories such as fossil fuels.

While the resolution isn’t scheduled for discussion at the next university system board of curators meeting, university system President Mun Choi plans to meet with students in May to discuss the topic.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The state’s three largest universities will be allowed to ban guns at large sporting events beginning in July.

The Kansas Board of Regents’ governance committee on Wednesday approved a request by The University of Kansas, Kansas State and Wichita State to install security measures such as metal detectors and guards — either temporary or permanently — at games.

Kansas universities are required to allow concealed handguns on campuses beginning July 1 but the universities can ask for exceptions.

Kansas and Wichita State will ban guns from any event expected to draw more than 5,000 people. Kansas State will provide temporary security at its football and basketball stadiums for all ticketed athletic events.

Emporia State, Pittsburg State and Fort Hays State did not seek approval to ban guns at any events.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged a Kansas teenager who used bitcoin to buy a grenade on the dark web.

A criminal information filed Wednesday charges Carlos Francisco Martin of Coffeyville with receiving an explosive meant to destroy property.

Defense attorney Steven Gradert says his client is just “kind of a dumb 18-year-old kid” who wanted to blow up a truck as revenge because someone had damaged his mom’s car.

He says his client plans to plead guilty.

Gradert says the purchase initially drew the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s terrorism task force because of the method of purchase.

Bitcoins is a digital currency for use in peer-to-peer online transactions. The dark web is a collection of websites on an encrypted network that cannot be found using traditional search engines.

LIBERTY, Mo. (AP) — A man has been sentenced to a century in prison for shooting a suburban Kansas City, Missouri, police officer in the face in 2014.

Thirty-three-year-old Omar Maria was sentenced Wednesday in Clay County, where he was convicted in March of assault on a law enforcement officer and armed criminal action.

Jurors concluded that Maria shot Pleasant Valley Police Officer Jacob Baldwin during a December 2014 traffic stop on Interstate 35 near Interstate 435.

Prosecutors said Baldwin pulled over a car driven by Maria for a vehicle registration violation, and that Maria jumped out of the vehicle and repeatedly fired at Baldwin’s windshield. Maria then sped away.