FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — The daughter of an 84-year-old woman with dementia alleges in a lawsuit that her mother was repeatedly raped at a suburban St. Louis nursing home.

Vivian Colette Green says in the lawsuit filed Thursday in St. Louis County Circuit Court that she found injuries as she bathed her mother last month indicating she had been raped.

Police Assistant Chief Frank McCall says a possible suspect who also lives at the Christian Care Home in Ferguson has been identified. No charges have been filed because lab results are pending.

The lawsuit says the facility failed to properly supervise residents. It names the owner, along with its management company and the property owner.

The home’s administrator hasn’t responded to an email from The Associated Press.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri prosecutor on Thursday announced he won’t press charges related to allegations of conflicts of interest between state agencies and a trucking technology company.

Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson said he found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing related to allegations that officials at the State Highway Patrol and Missouri Department of Transportation had served on the board of a company that for years received the only state contract to provide technology allowing truckers to bypass Missouri weigh stations.

An investigation by Democratic Auditor Nicole Galloway this year alleged that state officials gave preferential treatment to the nonprofit HELP Inc. over its competitor, Drivewyze. She said the office found potential violations of state conflict-of-interest and financial-reporting laws and turned over documents to the FBI and Republican Attorney General Josh Hawley, who in turn recommended Richardson press charges.

But in a letter explaining his decision, Richardson described both Galloway and Hawley’s investigations as incomplete and criticized them for not reaching out to the employees in question.

“Our office has found no evidence that any of the four either got a personal gain or cost the state any money by virtue of their work for the state or, after retirement, for Help Inc.,” Richardson wrote. “There has been no evidence found that any acts done by any of the four constitute public corruption.”

Missouri contracted with HELP Inc. starting in 2002, when it was the only company that could provide the weigh-station technology.

Friction started when Drivewyze contracted with the state in 2014 for a pilot program to provide similar services. Emails included in Galloway’s audit show HELP Inc. and top state officials at both the Highway Patrol and Transportation Department coordinated to promote HELP Inc. as Drivewyze tried to compete for state work.

The Highway Patrol canceled the pilot program with Drivewyze in August 2016, primarily citing concerns that the company did not provide weighing data. But the initial agreement between the state and Drivewyze did not allow it to install the equipment needed to gather that data.

The agency backtracked shortly after that, reopening the contract process and later awarding contracts to both companies in April 2017.

According to the audit, there was a revolving door of state officials who later went to work for HELP Inc. and then continued to work with former co-workers in Missouri government.

TOPEKA — A former Kansas elementary music teacher has been arrested in a child sex case.

Gerald Frank Boster, 65, was booked into the Shawnee County Jail on suspicion of sexual exploitation of a child. No charges have been filed.

A spokesman for the Topeka school district says the Boster worked in the district from 1986 to 2014. He worked in several elementary schools.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

HOLTON, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a Kansas man has been charged with fatally shooting his father while he was in bed and then barricading himself in the home for hours.

49-year-old Derrick Bohnenkemper, of Holton, is charged with first-degree murder and six other felonies in the death of 73-year-old Gaylen Bohnenkemper. Police responded Tuesday after a 911 caller said her son had shot his father in the head.

Jackson County Sheriff Tim Morse says deputies were able to extricate the woman from a bedroom window while the man tried to break down the door.

After speaking to the man on the phone for hours, tear gas was used. Morse says he fired a shotgun at deputies, striking a vehicle they were using for cover, before he eventually surrendered.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Board of Regents has approved an $85 million funding increase for state universities during the next two years.

The request approved Thursday would restore funding cut by the Kansas Legislature in 2009. Lawmakers will have to approve the funding increase.

The request includes $50 million for fiscal year 2020, which begins in July, and an additional $35 million for the fiscal year 2021.

The board’s official budget document will be submitted to the governor and Legislature by Oct. 1.

The state’s current funding of state universities is about $588 million out of a total state general fund budget of $7 billion.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Planned Parenthood says abortions will stop at its Columbia clinic after Oct. 1 unless a federal judge blocks some Missouri abortion restrictions.

The organization is asking for a court order to stop Missouri from requiring doctors at the Columbia location to get admitting privileges at nearby hospitals in order to perform abortions.

The request comes after the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this month lifted a preliminary injunction that put that regulation on hold.

Missouri Attorney General spokeswoman Mary Compton says the office will continue to “vigorously defend Missouri’s commonsense regulations that protect women’s health and safety.”

By MADELINE FOX

The alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl while she was waiting for a foster care placement in May has many asking about consequences for the contractor, responsible that day for both the girl and the 18-year-old accused of assaulting her.

On a Facebook Live session Wednesday, Department for Children and Families secretary Gina Meier-Hummel fielded a question about why the contractor hasn’t been dropped.

A day before, lawmakers promised tough questioning of KVC Kansas officials at this month’s meeting of a task force investigating the Kansas child welfare system.

Kansas privatized its foster care system in the mid-1990s. KVC Kansas handles foster care for the Kansas City area and the eastern part of the state. St. Francis Community Services covers Wichita and western Kansas.

Since privatization, DCF has only penalized a contractor financially once, when Meier-Hummel worked in DCF’s Office of Prevention and Protection Services.

Meier-Hummel said financial repercussions were discussed after the incident at KVC Kansas’ Olathe office, and could still be on the table for a provider failing to meet expectations in child safety. But she said KVC Kansas hasn’t been financially sanctioned for the alleged assault.

That doesn’t mean the contractor couldn’t still stand to lose a lot more money.

The current child welfare contracts run out at the end of June. New four-year grants to manage foster care and family preservation will be awarded in December.

Meier-Hummel said past performance comes into play when the agency is weighing who can be trusted with the state’s kids.

She said that when kids get hurt because of “a lapse in judgment,” as KVC described the social worker leaving youth in the office unattended, that’s one factor that could swing a contract over to a different provider.

Because they’re carrying out the state’s responsibilities to foster kids, contractors are bound by no-eject, no-reject policies — meaning they have to serve every child DCF refers to them.

Taking every child has become complicated as larger numbers of kids have flooded into the foster care system over the past several years. More than 7,000 children are currently in state custody, up from 5,500 in 2013. That’s overloaded capacity and contributed to hundreds of kids sleeping in contractor offices over the past year.

May, the month of the alleged rape, was a peak month for KVC Kansas. It kept 49 kids overnight that month. The contractor then drove that number down to zero, not keeping any kids overnight again until the end of August, when three kids spent the night.

KVC Kansas spokeswoman Jenny Kutz said in an email that keeping children out of offices “is a daily challenge because of a lack of placements in communities.”

DCF and its providers have been working to add beds to the system that can help children with a range of ages and needs. Many of the children who stay in an office overnight are hard to place, often because they’re older, have acute mental health needs or have a history of violent or delinquent behavior.

Meier-Hummel said the agency is also working to divert kids away from the foster care system when it’s safely possible by working with families to connect them with resources and build parenting skills that will allow kids to remain with their parents.

The number of kids in care has been decreasing each month for the past five months, which could point to progress. However, the number of children coming into care will often slow in the summertime as teachers, who are legally required to report abuse, don’t have access to kids.

Madeline Fox is a reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can reach her on Twitter @maddycfox.

MOUNTAIN GROVE, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man has been arrested on suspicion of driving drunk while dragging a horse behind his pickup truck in southern Missouri.

Sasha Martinez says the horse was trotting behind the truck Saturday when she saw it the first time outside her Wright County home. She says it seemed “odd” but thought the driver would stop soon. But when the truck returned about two hours later, her 12-year-old daughter screamed that the horse had dropped. Martinez then got in front of the truck, saying the driver “wouldn’t stop.”