JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Senate leaders have decided to delay moving the news media off the chamber floor because of cost concerns. Senators had voted earlier this year to remove reporters from their longtime seats near the dais effective March 29. Media members were to instead work from a renovated section of a visitors’ gallery.

To complete the project by then would have added more than $44,000 in overtime costs to the price of $127,000.

A Senate panel cited those costs Monday while deciding to delay the move until after the session ends in mid-May. The postponement will require a formal rule change to be approved by the chamber.

Senators who originally supported the move had raised concerns about reporters overhearing their private conversations and posting details on social media.

OTTAWA, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors in the capital murder trial of an eastern Kansas man accused of killing a toddler and three adults have described a grisly crime scene as opening statements got underway.

Franklin County Attorney Stephen Hunting told jurors Monday that Kyle Trevor Flack was responsible for the May 1, 2013, killings of 31-year-old Kaylie Bailey and her infant daughter, Lana. He’s also charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of 30-year-old Andrew Stout and 31-year-old Steven White, who were killed days earlier.

The three adults were found at a farmhouse outside Ottawa, and the baby was found a week later inside a suitcase floating in a rural creek.

The trial in Franklin County District Court in Ottawa is expected to last several weeks.

UNION, Mo. (AP) — A sister of a Missouri woman who authorities say was strangled in Mexico says the woman’s boyfriend told her that she overdosed after an argument.

Mexican authorities say 36-year-old Tamra Turpin died about 9 a.m. Wednesday of strangulation and that 59-year-old attorney John Loveless is being held in a homicide investigation. It’s unclear if he has a lawyer.

Turpin’s sister, Jodi Mills, says Loveless told her via text message that morning that Turpin had taken “a bunch of pills.” Mills says Lovelace told her he canceled an initial call for an ambulance because Turpin was resting. Mills says Loveless told her by mid-afternoon that Turpin died.

Mills says she’s awaiting word from the U.S. consulate about sharing the text exchange with Mexican investigators. She says she’s reserving judgment about Loveless.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Omaha school district could get its own drug dog to sniff lockers and patrol hallways during random searches next school year.

Omaha Public Schools spokeswoman Monique Farmer says the district is working with the Omaha Police Department to buy and train a drug-sniffing canine that could appear in middle and high schools this fall.

The plan is still in its early stages. It follows a school security survey that asked parents, students, teachers and principals last fall whether they would support additional school security measures, including metal detectors and drug- and gun-sniffing dogs.

There were 263 expulsions and suspensions related to drugs in the 2014 to 2015 school year, a steep drop from the previous school year.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Kansas University’s Lawrence campus is getting ready to completely drop landline telephones in two years.

Information technology department spokesman David Day says the university is about a year in to a three-year process of replacing the campus’ traditional phone service with the Internet-based Skype for Business service.

The Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World reports that with the new service, all faculty and staff will make calls through the Internet using their computers or cellphones.

The Skype for Business service cost isn’t expected to be significantly different than the traditional phone service.

Day says that in the past several years, the number of calls to and from university landlines has decreased 55 percent, from 6.9 million calls in 2008 to 3.1 million calls in 2015.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas House is expected to debate a bill later this month that would require parents’ consent before students attend sex education class.

The so-called “opt-in” bill that was approved by the House Education Committee last month also would allow parents to review the curriculum before enrolling their children in classes. Most of the 286 school districts have “opt-out” policies in which students are enrolled in sex education courses unless parents sign a form to exempt them.

Critics say the bill tampers with the proven success of sexual education. Teen births in Kansas are down 50 percent since peaking in the early 1990s.

Education Committee Chairman Rep. Ron Highland, a Republican from Wamego, said the bill will likely pass when it comes to a floor vote.

CHESTERFIELD, Mo. (AP) — All lanes of traffic will be closed in both directions on Interstate 64 at the Daniel Boone Bridge in suburban St. Louis Monday, while crews demolish the old westbound span.

The Missouri Department of Transportation says eastbound and westbound lanes will close between Boone’s Crossing in St. Louis County and Highway K in St. Charles County starting at 9:45 a.m. MoDOT is blasting the remainder of the 1930s-era bridge. An explosion on Feb. 18 demolished part of the bridge.

MoDOT built a new eastbound bridge that opened in June. The former eastbound bridge was rehabbed for westbound traffic. The new bridge made the old, narrow one obsolete.

The bridges carry traffic across the Missouri River.

REPUBLIC, Mo. (AP) — A southwest Missouri city has plans to round up people with outstanding municipal warrants amid a jail dispute.

The Springfield News-Leader reports that the Republic Police Department says it’s freed up some jail space at its headquarters for some of the close to 1,000 people with outstanding municipal warrants in the city.

Issues have arisen since the Greene County Jail stopped accepting people charged with municipal offenses in April 2015.

Republic police said in a news release that they will be conducting a “Municipal Warrant Sweep” at the end of the month. The release says Republic had 872 outstanding municipal warrants in January 2015. But that number climbed to 1,018 as of Feb. 26 in part because of the Greene County Jail’s policy change.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A former eastern Missouri deputy already facing state sex crime charges is now accused in a federal indictment of sexually abusing four women and enticing a minor into prostitution.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in St. Louis on Friday announced the indictment against 52-year-old Marty Rainey of Sullivan. He could face up to life in prison if convicted. Rainey’s phone number is unlisted and records indicate he does not yet have an attorney.

Rainey was charged last year in state court with several sex crimes related to the same investigation, and was sued by one of the alleged victims in October.

MERIDEN, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man accused of shaving his head and taking weight loss pills to convince people he had stage 3 brain cancer and collect thousands in donations has pleaded not guilty.

Tyler Tomer of Wallingford entered the plea Thursday to charges of first-degree larceny and first-degree larceny by defrauding a public community.

Police say an investigation started in May after they received complaints that a man claiming to have cancer was collecting donations at benefits in his honor.

Police say there have been multiple benefits for the 29-year-old Tomer in Connecticut and Kansas. They say medical records determined he was never diagnosed with cancer.

Tomer allegedly accepted at least $22,000.

His attorney didn’t comment on the charges.