ST. ANN, Mo. (AP) — A St. Louis County man is charged with two counts of second-degree assault after police say he overdosed on heroin and drove into a couple pushing a toddler in a stroller.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 23-year-old Jeremy Jamison of Florissant was charged Wednesday.

Police say Jamison fell asleep at the wheel about 3:45 p.m. Tuesday in St. Ann. His car accelerated and struck the family crossing the street. The toddler was thrown about 10 feet and the mother landed on her head, while the father suffered a leg injury. All three survived.

Paramedics had to use the heroin antidote Narcan to revive Jamison.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say that gunfire has struck a Jefferson City school bus loaded with 21 students.

The Jefferson City News-Tribune reports that no students were hurt Wednesday. But police say a person who wasn’t aboard the bus was taken to a hospital with a gunshot wound.

After the gunfire, the bus driver continued to drive another six blocks before stopping. Fifteen parents came to the scene to pick up their children while another bus drove the other six children home.

Mother Pearletha Gray says police gathered parents to assure them the children were unharmed. Gray’s 7-year-old daughter was sitting near where a bullet struck and took out a window. Gray says her daughter was “crying hysterically.”

Public schools Superintendent Larry Linthacum says he’s “grateful none of our students were hurt.”

ST. LOUIS (AP) — An eastern Missouri auction business owner is accused of a scheme that defrauded clients of at least $2.5 million.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in St. Louis announced an indictment Thursday against 76-year-old Stuart Millner of Union. The indictment accuses Millner of three counts of bank fraud, one count of mail fraud affecting a financial institution, four counts of wire fraud and two counts of mail fraud.

A message seeking comment from Millner’s attorney was not immediately returned.

Federal prosecutors say Millner’s business used proceeds from sales that should have gone to clients to pay company expenses and debts owed to previous clients. The indictment alleges that Millner’s company told customers that auctioned items sold for less than they actually sold for as part of the effort to conceal the fraud.

BELGRADE, Mo. (AP) — A man suspected of trying to break into a rural southeast Missouri home is dead after being shot by a resident.

The Daily Journal newspaper in Park Hills, Missouri, reports that the shooting happened Wednesday afternoon in the small town of Belgrade.

Capt. Zach Jacobsen of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department says an elderly resident saw a truck pull up very close to the home, then heard suspects kicking or hitting the door.

Jacobsen says the elderly man retrieved a pistol. As the door began to open he fired a single shot that struck the suspect in the head, killing him. Police are searching for two other suspects.

Jacobsen says officers found a baseball bat near the suspect’s body, and he was wearing gloves.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A 36-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of child abuse after Wichita police say doctors found a small octopus stuck in the throat of his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son.

Wichita police Lieutenant James Espinoza said that a 21-year-old woman returned home from work Tuesday night and found her boyfriend performing CPR on her son.

Espinoza said the couple took the boy to the hospital, where doctors found and removed the dead octopus, which had a head about 2 inches in diameter, from the boy’s throat. Police said the octopus was likely to be used for sushi.

Authorities also said that doctors also noticed injuries on the boy’s face.

According to Espinoza, the boy was not breathing when he arrived at the hospital and he is in serious condition.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — More than a dozen companies want shields for businesses removed from a Missouri proposal creating religious protections for those objecting to gay marriage.

Company executives this week sent a letter to a House committee chairman asking to nix that provision.

The proposal would prohibit government penalties against those who cite religious beliefs while declining to provide wedding-related services to same-sex couples. The religious protections would apply to clergy, religious organizations and some businesses such as florists and photographers.

Leaders of utility company Ameren, AT and T Missouri, BJC HealthCare and Express Scripts signed the letter. They joined Monsanto, MasterCard and the St. Louis Regional Chamber, which have previously criticized the measure.

Businesses argue enacting the measure could hurt the economy and harm Missouri’s image.

The proposal is awaiting House committee review.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A nonprofit public advocacy group is calling for an investigation into the conduct of a top federal elections official.

Allied Progress says it will send a letter Thursday to the Inspector General of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission asking for an investigation of communications between that agency’s executive director, Brian Newby, and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Newby and Kobach did not immediately respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.

The request follows a story by The Associated Press based on emails obtained through an open records request showing that Newby used ties to Kobach to help secure the job at an agency entrusted with making voting accessible, then used the position to implement rules requiring residents of three states to provide citizenship documentation to register to vote.

ALMA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas residents are cleaning up from another round of rural wildfires that have burned at least 18 square miles.

Alma City Councilman Dan Deiter spent Wednesday sorting through debris at the Catholic school where he taught. Deiter tells KSNT-TV there’s “no hope” for saving the building.

In Riley County, authorities say workers from a Kansas State University agriculture program started a fire that burned about 300 acres and destroyed a mobile home.

Kansas authorities say wildfires in several Kansas counties have been largely contained.  The Kansas Adjutant General’s office said in an emailed statement Wednesday that the fires in the northeast Kansas counties of Wabaunsee, Geary, Riley and Pottawatomie are for the most part under control. The office says crews continue to monitor small smoldering patches in the region.

The office also says a grass fire in Morton County in southwest Kansas has been contained with the exception of hot spots.

The grassfire in northern Oklahoma is also no longer threatening Comanche County, Kansas.

The adjutant general’s office also says the State Emergency Operations Center in Topeka has returned to normal operations but is maintaining contact with local officials in the affected counties

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A central Missouri sheriff is free on bond after being arrested on charges that he misused a firearm during an incident last month at a tavern.

Osage County Sheriff Michael Dixon was arrested Wednesday by Boone County deputies on a felony count of unlawful use of a weapon.

Authorities allege that 29-year-old Dixon of Belle negligently possessed and handled a firearm while intoxicated about 11 p.m. March 5 at the Hitching Post bar in Hartsburg.

Online court records do not show whether Dixon has an attorney. A message seeking comment was left for him Wednesday at his department.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The man convicted of killing abortion provider George Tiller is in a Kansas court for arguments over resentencing issues.

Scott Roeder’s life sentence with no chance of parole for 50 years was among many vacated after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that juries, not judges, must decide whether aggravating circumstances existed to warrant increasing the punishment above mandatory minimum sentences.

Wednesday’s hearing is expected to take up a number of routine issues, such as jury questionnaires, aggravating factors and other motions.

Roeder was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Tiller, who was shot in a church on May 31, 2009. He testified he shot Tiller because other attempts to stop him from performing abortions had failed. Roeder also was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault.