KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The University of Missouri-Kansas City is dropping plans to house its music and dance programs downtown and instead wants to build a larger conservatory within 2.5 miles of its current one.

Chancellor Mauli Agrawal said in a statement Tuesday that the school decided it was “essential” to be close to the main Volker campus after talking to faculty, potential development partners, donors and members of the artistic community.

The downtown arts campus was promoted as a way to boost cultural and economic development in Kansas City.

Supporters had raised $48 million in pledges toward a $96 million conservatory and were waiting for a state match when former Gov. Eric Greitens vetoed the plan. That sparked new conservations about how to proceed.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A 52-year-old Kansas City woman who used money belonging to an elderly veteran to gamble and pay her expenses has been ordered to serve probation and pay restitution.

The Missouri Attorney General’s office said in a news release Tuesday that Cheryl Kelly claimed to be providing in-home personal care to the veteran. She deposited his income into a joint account and used the money to gamble and pay her mortgage and car insurance. She also told people she was the man’s relative.

Prosecutors say because of her actions, the man was evicted from his home.

Kelly was also convicted of falsifying medical records of the victim and another Medicaid recipient.

She was sentenced Tuesday to five years of probation and ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution and $10,000 in civil penalties.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Commission on Human Rights is being sued for closing a discrimination complaint filed by a transgender man.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri sued Tuesday on behalf of Chris Lawson.

Lawson worked at a Fulton, Missouri Dollar General distribution center in 2015. He alleges human resources said he would be reprimanded if he used men’s restrooms at work.

He complained to the human rights commission in 2015.

But commission Executive Director Alisa Warren closed the case last month. She argued the commission doesn’t have jurisdiction because Missouri’s human-rights law doesn’t cover discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The ACLU wants the case reopened. They say the complaint is based on sex discrimination and did not mention sexual orientation.

A spokesman says the commission doesn’t comment on litigation.

FRANKLIN COUNTY – An Ottawa Police sergeant was arrested by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI).

According to a media release from the KBI, an incident was reported to the Ottawa Police Department involving a sergeant of the department.

The Ottawa Police Department requested the KBI investigate the allegation, which reportedly occurred at the sergeant’s home on Monday, Sept. 3.

Just before 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, the KBI arrested Steven E. Burkhart, 38, of Ottawa, in the vicinity of 8^th St. and Ash St. in Ottawa.

Burkhart was transported to the Franklin County Jail where he was booked for battery and criminal threat.

The investigation is ongoing. No further information will be release at this time.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A man testified Tuesday that he spent about eight hours cutting up his wife’s body after she died at a Missouri hotel because he was afraid authorities would take away his children.

Justin Rey, 36, said protecting his family was the reason he didn’t call for medical help after his wife delivered a baby at the hotel in October and afterward when she killed herself, The Kansas City Star reported . Investigators later found Rey with his newborn and 2-year-old daughter, along with bags of body parts, at a storage shed in Lenexa, Kansas.

Rey is not charged in his wife’s death, but faces child endangerment charges in Kansas and Missouri and is charged with abandonment of a corpse in Missouri. He took the unusual step of testifying at his preliminary hearing in Kansas, with defense attorney Zane Todd saying Rey wanted to correct some witness testimony. After Tuesday’s hearing, a not guilty plea was entered for Rey to Johnson County, Kansas, charges of two counts of aggravated child endangerment and two counts of contributing to a child’s misconduct.

“It’s something I had to do,” Rey testified. “My family is very dear to me. It’s something I had to do to protect my family.”

One officer who met Rey at the storage unit said the 2-year-old appeared unhealthy and “almost looked like she had cancer.” The baby had a serious eye infection, according to several witnesses. The children were put in protective custody.

Rey has said in the past that his wife died in childbirth, but Lenexa police detective Shannon Murphy testified that Rey told her his wife had killed herself. After having his children pose for photographs with her body, Rey said he “skinned her like a fish,” Murphy testified. Murphy said Rey flushed body parts that would not fit in containers down the toilet.

Deputy Johnson County Coroner Charles Glenn testified that “a number” of stab were wounds found on some parts of Jessica Rey’s body but that it wasn’t possible to tell whether the injuries were inflicted before or after she died.

Rey told the court that he and the children had not been living at the storage locker, as witnesses said, but had been there for only about 11 hours while preparing to travel to Arizona, where he said he intended to give his wife a proper burial. He also said his children were well cared for.

“I didn’t endanger my children,” he testified. “My children were perfectly healthy.”

Rey also denied flushing anything but a placenta down the toilet.

His trial on the Kansas charges was scheduled for Nov. 5.

Rey also was charged in November in California in the death of Sean Ty Ferel, a Palm Springs resident who disappeared after vacationing with Rey in 2016. Ferel’s body hasn’t been found, but his blood was detected in the trunk of his vehicle after Rey was involved in an accident with it months after Ferel disappeared.